September 4, 2009
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X and Y!
First… this isn’t The Australia Summer Holiday Update that should be the first thing I blogged about at summer’s end. I’m still trying to figure out my new camera and how to get all the pictures stored on it off it. I seem to be a piece of gadgetry down so I’m gonna hold off on the holiday update till I have all the appropriate photos. For now I’ve uploaded a bunch I stole from Sarv, Calex and Cass so hit up my photoblog for those. Full update on the way later.
Second… Green Day: 21st Century Breakdown. I’m very happy with it! But I warn you, this will not appease the anti-American Idiot Crowd. It doesn’t sound like American Idiot. It’s still another concept album and the punk-opera approach of AI returns in force but it’s less anthemic, deals far more with personal trials and the sociopolitical climate of the past 30 years than actually being about politics itself. The sound is more rock than punk and it’s done very well, changing tempo and emotion as much between verses as between songs. I like it.
OK. I have a poser for you. What does the term “generation” mean to you. I’m not talking about familial generations. I’m talking cultural generations. I’ve pondered this idea a fair bit but it came up at dinner, at Sarv’s place, whilst we watched a celebrity quiz show called “Talkin’ Bout Your Generation.” The premise of the show took members of the 3 dominant generations; The Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y (also known as Generation Next) and quizzed them on various aspects of popular culture from the past 40 years or so. It lead to me mentioning my confusion over how one could truly define a cultural generation. Research had led me to believe that Generation X, the much maligned cynical, apathetic, highly-educated but motivationless children of the Capitalist Age were those born between 1965 and 1981. By this definition Jeremy, Calex, Rob and myself are all members of Generation X whilst the rest of you guys (unless someone older than me happens to be reading this) are Generation Y, the internet-dependent, tech-savvy somewhat directionless kids of the Baby Boomers ranging 1982-2000.
Problem I have with this is… it’s too sweeping. Generation X is typically typified by a period of discontentment and depression. The dog-eat-dog, look-after-No.1 policies of the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher in the UK, the Cold War-Wall Street Reagan years of the US. In my opinion, though, for these issues to shape a generation the people in question must be teenagers, at the least. How can someone like myself, born in 1980, possibly have any clue what was going on during this period? I was an infant for most of that period. By the time I was 10/11, and just old enough to really have a clue what was going on the Cold War was over, Bush Sr. was in the White House, John Major was in 10 Downing Street and we had just gone to war with Iraq (legally too. How ’bout that?) I wasn’t 13 until 1993 and ended up spending most of my teens with Clinton and Blair. Grunge was on the way out, people had stopped worrying (too much) about war. I personally don’t remember Electro, Punk and New Wave. I do remember He-Man, Transformers, Thundercats and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I knew the Star Wars Original Trilogy but was too young to have ever seen them on their release. What’s more the rest of you seem to be able to say much the same. Balex was born in 1985 and, by certain definitions, this puts us in different generations. Yet if we talk about pop culture we both had similar Star Wars experiences, we both remember (and loved) Visionaries (short lived but awesome cartoon!) We grew up with much the same music, in the same political atmosphere. We remember the same stuff and don’t remember the same stuff. It’s rare I ever remember something he doesn’t. What’s more this would stick Balex (and many of you) in a generation with my little brother, Richard (born 1996) a kid who saw the Prequel Trilogy before the Original Trilogy and thought Jar Jar was funny!! How can these definitions of generations really work?
Here’s my take; your generation is defined by the political climate and the pop-culture of your teenage years, usually the most formative time in your lives from a socialised-identity perspective. Therefore I would say a cultural generation is usually limited to about 10-12 years and stretches from the latter years of one decade to the next. I’d consider “my generation,” (whatever you wish to call it) as being those born between 1976/7 to 1987/8 with a certain ambiguity at the extremes. Thoughts anyone?
::Wikipedia, that source of eternal knowledge, has since updated its articles and has now placed me squarely in Generation Y with a description that sounds a lot more accurate!::
“My generation is zero. I never made it as a working-class hero…”
Comments (7)
This is so excellent! It’s a pleasure to read the product of a fine mind with *snap* to it. I think your right about the length of the later gens.In the past, before the industrial revolution, the gens. were slower, 40-44 yrs. Communication/information was localized to a community or county, ergo, slower/longer generations. Not so much outward stimuli to impact those gens. The Roman Empire being the lone exception with the rapid increase of knowledge, ie, trade unions, juris prudence, steam power, architecture, universities or academies, plumbing etc. They probably experienced the rapid transitions of generations, J,K,L,M,N, and so on. This is awesome moss! I saw what a friend of yours wrote about you on your site. Loyalty, honor and veracity are extremely important qualities. I don’t bother with anyone who lacks these. My friends are gen.x and love these discussions.
Got your message and will get back to you soon. Thanks
i’ve never quite bought into these, but especially when it comes to drawing definite lines between them. it tries to put too large a gap between people who may be born quite near each other, like us, for example, who grew up knowing the same things, a couple years apart, and here they’re going to call us different generations? i think it would be proper to view these more like literary eras where you have a ten year period where one ended and another began.
your title worried me at first.
anyway, let’s talk soon.
I agree with a lot of what’s been said above (the similarities between the two of us are self-evident), but I want to add another factor to the discussion.
One of the more important differences between X and Y is the generation of their parents. We were brought up in a post-Thatcher (or soon-to-be post-Thatcher) country where purse-strings were tight, and there was a greater emphasis on C of E as the right way to be, if you like. I’m sure you remember singing hymns in Primary school Dave; that doesn’t happen anymore. My point is that between thrifty (stingy?) parents and the added dimension of discipline provided by an atmosphere of religion we learned responsibility and a realistic outlook early on (some would call that outlook cynicism… well, I guess I would too).
Many Generation X kids (I am a prime example of this) have come out of an era of necessary thrift with an urge to spend, and their kids seem to get a lot more of what they want – and the age at which kids get cellphones is going down all the time. False responsibility, breeding self-importance, that’s backed up by a billion and one adverts telling the world that everyone is number one.
Um, yeah.
The parental influence deal is more evident here in Japan, I think. The generation of people who became parents soon after the war brought up their kids in a new, America-imposed education system that many now say was inappropriate and improperly thought-out. These kids eventually became fazed parents who didn’t know how to bring up their own kids… and so those kids also have no clue (particularly no sense of discipline, as I’m sure most of us are aware). Now we have TV ads urging parents to start telling their kids off. Um.
Anyway, I just woke up, and this spiel does I’m sure sound like it slopped out of my brain to splash haphazardly against the keyboard. But hopefully you get my point.
@errolmartins - I thank you, sir. Yeah, I have often heard it said that Gen X and beyond have so much choice, so many variables, that they/we actually have a much harder time finding our way than previous generations, whose choices were limited, making life so much simpler.
@mercurialmusic - Worried you? I thought you liked Coldplay?
@invisiblebalex - Indeed I do remember the singing of the hymns, all the way until I entered Secondary School. I think our generation (by which I use my own late 70s to late 80s definition) was the last generation to be raised with any sense of discipline or responsibility. This subsequent generation, whatever you wanna call it, is indeed a spoiled bunch, getting what they want younger and younger, being raised by the media and advertising and being praised and rewarded for mediocrity by a nanny-like system terrified of actually admitting that people are, *gasp*, “different!” But there was still a fair dose of that in our generation too. I think, as you say, much of it alludes to the parents and the values they instilled in them.
Totally agree about Japan. See it everyday.
I think given something like generations, which cover such a large span of time, there’s going to be a blur at the edges. More like a gradient than a solid line between each one? What bugs me most is the “Generation Y” title. I’m not a huge fan of “Millennials,” but… come on. You know it was some narcissistic Gen X-er who said, “I guess the ones after us are ‘Y,’ huh?” as if we’re defined solely in relation to them. For some reason that’s gotten me steamed up for years (I mean, when it comes up. I don’t think about it regularly.).
@hlcampbell - Ah yeah, “Millenials.” I think that term was coined exactly for the reasons you state, Holly; to distinguish that generation from Gen X.
Yep, there needs to be blur. Having clear-cut generations ending one year and beginning the next makes no sense as people born 1 year apart will likely have the same cultural and political experience growing up. Hell, we’ve already established that 2 people born 5 years apart can have more or less the same experience.
I was born in 1978, making me technically a part of Gen X. But I get along easily with people aged 22 or 23 and older. You’re probably right about cultural generations.