Self-awareness? Now??! (CS)
Brendan gave us a possible explantion of the next generation's indentifcation. But i'm not so sure about this "Millenials" business. Actually makes us sound a bit like some lame group of all-powerful beings from across time and space in a Marvel comicbook or something.
Another term that i've heard used to refer to "our generation" is "twixters." The word itself is retarded, but there is a certain credence to the idea of it. The indication is that we are all betwixt and between and we just can't seem to figure out what in the hell to do with ourselves and when I think of the majority of my friends or people i knew from high school who are finishing up their first run at higher education, they often fit that profile. Another way to think of it as that with the ever growing amount of people getting college degrees and that in itself not being enough anymore to stand out from the crowd, we can't FIND anything to do with ourselves. How many people with English degrees am I going to see in the food service industry? What ever happened to fulfilling dreams? I dunno about you, but when i was in 2nd grade my "wanna grow up to be" dreams consisted of garbageman, superhero, and space adventurer......so, that explains it for me.
Meanwhile, as far as making a stamp in some way, the preceeding generations seem to have us beat. "The Greatest Generation" had a series of events to define them, they came into their own with (what was at the time) sharp contrasts, solid lines. The following generation largely rebelled against their fathers (as next-generations often do). The baby boomers, who were hippies and hells angels and then yuppies and yikes, high ideals.... and then what? Even they'll admit it was a let down. And Generation-X who were deemed "slackers" (then what were the hippies?) were said to be defined by movies like Reality Bites and Singles and, well, Slacker, and all these flicks show me a a bit of lack of direction but at least some hope and at least they seemed to have some sort of business plan and hey, who remembers Lolapalooza when it was a thing? Ok, so When you examine all this stuff, you see that there's no real cohesion. But on a macroscopic scale, you could at least generally lump people together.
So what in the hell is going on with "us"? No one can seem to pinpoint a movement or voice, a general ethos, an artistic style, or anything that our generation has largely latched onto. There are many different "styles" and trends that are out there, but really it just comes across as many cliques magnified and it still looks too fractured. Meanwhile, anything artistic is lumped under the recursive head-ache that is "post-modernism."
The one thing that probably is entirely common across the board is technology and especially the internet. We are probably more connected to intuitively understanding technology than our forefathers. I never read the instruction manual, i just jump right in and use intution to figure the system out. And yeh, the internet is where we figure we'll find the "next big thing" or "something great and universally captivating" as Brenden put it.... But i feel like we've already been waiting for some time now for that to happen and I think we'll be left twiddling our thumbs some time longer if we continue to wait for it. Of coruse, i'd be happy to be proved wrong and that and even happier if it turns out to be Ted Turner just to watch Brendan kill a man.
In the end, I don't mind not having a label for the generation i belong to. In fact, I rather prefer it. It seems to me that once they (whoever "they" may be) have got a fix on you, you're pigeonholed into that definition and things are all downhill from there. Screw it. The most powerful things in the world are undefinable. If we're going to tear down the walls and find new solutions, let's be entirely free and open to doing so. It's one thing to learn our lessons from the past, it's another to mechanically imitate the footsteps of those who came before us. Every generation is concerned with being masters of their own destiny. But typically, it's desire for control that's gonna kill your freedom.... So let's keep it chaotic.
Another term that i've heard used to refer to "our generation" is "twixters." The word itself is retarded, but there is a certain credence to the idea of it. The indication is that we are all betwixt and between and we just can't seem to figure out what in the hell to do with ourselves and when I think of the majority of my friends or people i knew from high school who are finishing up their first run at higher education, they often fit that profile. Another way to think of it as that with the ever growing amount of people getting college degrees and that in itself not being enough anymore to stand out from the crowd, we can't FIND anything to do with ourselves. How many people with English degrees am I going to see in the food service industry? What ever happened to fulfilling dreams? I dunno about you, but when i was in 2nd grade my "wanna grow up to be" dreams consisted of garbageman, superhero, and space adventurer......so, that explains it for me.
Meanwhile, as far as making a stamp in some way, the preceeding generations seem to have us beat. "The Greatest Generation" had a series of events to define them, they came into their own with (what was at the time) sharp contrasts, solid lines. The following generation largely rebelled against their fathers (as next-generations often do). The baby boomers, who were hippies and hells angels and then yuppies and yikes, high ideals.... and then what? Even they'll admit it was a let down. And Generation-X who were deemed "slackers" (then what were the hippies?) were said to be defined by movies like Reality Bites and Singles and, well, Slacker, and all these flicks show me a a bit of lack of direction but at least some hope and at least they seemed to have some sort of business plan and hey, who remembers Lolapalooza when it was a thing? Ok, so When you examine all this stuff, you see that there's no real cohesion. But on a macroscopic scale, you could at least generally lump people together.
So what in the hell is going on with "us"? No one can seem to pinpoint a movement or voice, a general ethos, an artistic style, or anything that our generation has largely latched onto. There are many different "styles" and trends that are out there, but really it just comes across as many cliques magnified and it still looks too fractured. Meanwhile, anything artistic is lumped under the recursive head-ache that is "post-modernism."
The one thing that probably is entirely common across the board is technology and especially the internet. We are probably more connected to intuitively understanding technology than our forefathers. I never read the instruction manual, i just jump right in and use intution to figure the system out. And yeh, the internet is where we figure we'll find the "next big thing" or "something great and universally captivating" as Brenden put it.... But i feel like we've already been waiting for some time now for that to happen and I think we'll be left twiddling our thumbs some time longer if we continue to wait for it. Of coruse, i'd be happy to be proved wrong and that and even happier if it turns out to be Ted Turner just to watch Brendan kill a man.
In the end, I don't mind not having a label for the generation i belong to. In fact, I rather prefer it. It seems to me that once they (whoever "they" may be) have got a fix on you, you're pigeonholed into that definition and things are all downhill from there. Screw it. The most powerful things in the world are undefinable. If we're going to tear down the walls and find new solutions, let's be entirely free and open to doing so. It's one thing to learn our lessons from the past, it's another to mechanically imitate the footsteps of those who came before us. Every generation is concerned with being masters of their own destiny. But typically, it's desire for control that's gonna kill your freedom.... So let's keep it chaotic.
posted by Craig at 2:18 AM
1 Comments:
You know, I once heard someone say that every generation thinks they've discovered sex. And in the same vein, I think each generation thinks themselves newly troubled by just where their lives should take them, but the truth is, no one ever really knows what the hell they're doing with their lives. My father admitted as much to me a couple weeks ago and he's 55!
I had something else I wanted to say, but now I forget. Excellent application of Toothpaste for Dinner tho!!!
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