It's not like they voted on it.
Truman definitely Lost Generation
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 17:22 (twelve years ago) link
what cartoon is this?
I remember lots of ppl who had been vaguely non-conformist voting for Raygun in '84 - they had rediscovered money but they still wanted to be thought of as 'cool'.
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 17:24 (twelve years ago) link
"bitter millennial narrative" was just me full-disclosing, although to be fair the people who started punk rock hadn't actually grown up in the country the reagan revolution made
― their private gesture for bison (difficult listening hour), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 17:26 (twelve years ago) link
i guess Boomers aren't quite as bad as they've been made out to be, but they (and their culture/culture that panders to them) have been so omnipresent for so long that it's very tempting to vote for them b/c more than anything else i want that generation to just STFU already.
― Nu Metal is the best music there is, the rest is pussy shit. (Eisbaer), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 17:55 (twelve years ago) link
nah they're still bad it's just the simple narrative about them is kinda misleading
― iatee, Wednesday, 2 May 2012 17:57 (twelve years ago) link
'they were all hippies! all them! then they were all reagan republicans! all of them!'
it's easier for me to be a tad more sympathetic to Boomers when i remember that the Greatest Generation right before them were a bunch of bigoted Don Drapers and Archie Bunkers whose attitudes and activities were partly responsible for the Boomer excesses and pretensions that drive Gen-Xers and Millenials so fucking crazy.
― Nu Metal is the best music there is, the rest is pussy shit. (Eisbaer), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:01 (twelve years ago) link
The youngest boomers were still in pre-school during Woodstock and were undergrads in the mid-80s, right?
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:01 (twelve years ago) link
Don Draper was a member of the Silent Generation was he not?
― sarahell, Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:01 (twelve years ago) link
xpost to iatee xpost to self!
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:02 (twelve years ago) link
i'll just be happy to not hear any more about the fucking Beatles or Woodstock.
― Nu Metal is the best music there is, the rest is pussy shit. (Eisbaer), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:04 (twelve years ago) link
i object to the terminology "generation y" by the way
― max, Tuesday, May 1, 2012 12:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
otm
i don't really care about generational differences except when i do, i just hate how lazy "generation y" and "generation z" are as names. every other generation gets an actual name but whoever decides this shit got distracted by the letter x and suddenly all generations are just going to be listed by letter. step up your game, culture shitheads.
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:06 (twelve years ago) link
"generation why"
― mh, Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:07 (twelve years ago) link
FUCK THAT SHIT
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:08 (twelve years ago) link
i'm generation pepsi
us Gen-Xers were called Slackers, roughly coterminous with the Gen-X tag. so that's something.
― Nu Metal is the best music there is, the rest is pussy shit. (Eisbaer), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:09 (twelve years ago) link
also i remember reading on wiki that some people want the generations after "z" to just go down the greek alphabet
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:09 (twelve years ago) link
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, May 2, 2012 1:01 PM (4 minutes ago)
yes (born 1963, had just started 1st grade when Woodstock happened, undergrad 81-85)
― improvised explosive advice (WmC), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:09 (twelve years ago) link
i like "generation spongebob." it's malleable enough to fit people who watched spongebob as impressionable toddlers all the way up to stoned college-ers, as well as people who worked on the show like tom kinney and kaz. There's definitely some kind of divide between who 'get' spongebob on some level and people who don't.
― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:11 (twelve years ago) link
it would explain certain sartorial choices for the Gen-Y/Millenial set, i agree:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/spongebob.jpeg
― Nu Metal is the best music there is, the rest is pussy shit. (Eisbaer), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:12 (twelve years ago) link
is that for gen y or z philip
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:12 (twelve years ago) link
(I mean, most of the credit for progressive measures in the 60s and 70s would seem to have to go to boomers' parents.)
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:14 (twelve years ago) link
the accelerated maturation colliding with prolonged infantilism really makes birthdate cutoffs less relevant than what nickelodeon tv show shapes your worldview.
― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:15 (twelve years ago) link
It's funny that despite having the same mother, my older brother and I would be from different generations
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:18 (twelve years ago) link
the name is millennial
it is a fine name
― max, Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:19 (twelve years ago) link
xxp it's true, i still suffer from fear and anxiety when someone asks me something and I say, "I don't know."
― sarahell, Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:19 (twelve years ago) link
And someone born in 1945 who had a kid in 1965 would be part of the same generation as their child.
xpost to Michael White
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:19 (twelve years ago) link
I'm actually really unclear on what I would be (b 1979). Wikipedia seems to put me near the tail end of Generation X but, like, I was 12 when the Coupland book came out (although I did read it at 13).
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:22 (twelve years ago) link
My mom was born in '44 and had my brother in '63.
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:23 (twelve years ago) link
are there really precise year cut-offs? that seems ridiculous
then again, i ask about the spongebob thing because it's only the younger millenials and the older gen zs that have been 'influenced' by it imo. in high school (i was born 88) everyone in my grade was pretty split on either indulging in spongebob or considering ourselves too old for it.
it IS an important touchstone tho, more than most pop culture of the time
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:24 (twelve years ago) link
The baby boom was a fairly clear-cut demographic phenomenon with agreed-upon cut-offs. It seems much less clearer for subsequent 'generations', which, afaict are made up by journalists and marketers.
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:27 (twelve years ago) link
"much less clear"
Eveningstar otm. The more you look into it, the more arbitrary all this is. That's why I started by just considering them as signifiers of decades.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:29 (twelve years ago) link
spongebob is great and should not be sullied by association w human reproduction
― Choc. Clusterman (contenderizer), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:29 (twelve years ago) link
you _do_ smoke a lot of weed don't you?
― sarahell, Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:30 (twelve years ago) link
(I've never seen Spongebob so maybe that settles it?)
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:36 (twelve years ago) link
I smoke 0 weed and stand 100% in solidarity with contenderizer on this matter
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:36 (twelve years ago) link
tom kinney is probably gen x, and kaz is probably boomer, but i think their sponge-bobbiness cred is unimpeachable.
― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:49 (twelve years ago) link
i'm not generation spongebob btw, i'm ren & stimpy reprazent, but i have no ill will towards generation spongebob like i do towards generation 12 oz mouse.
― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:53 (twelve years ago) link
the list of cultural signifiers for millennials is probably this btw:
1. harry potter2. spongebob
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:57 (twelve years ago) link
i agree that generations are pretty bullshit tho. it all basically amounts to journalists going "well let's just see how the white middle class was acting around this time and define the entire time period thusly"
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 18:59 (twelve years ago) link
Adam Bruneau otm, but I think we do generally see big cultural shifts every 10-15-20 years or so. That we think we "see" these things doesn't necessarily mean they're actually there, the generations we're so keen on naming could be artifacts of perception, but it still makes sense to construct and organize around conceptions like this. It's a big part of how we process the complexities of history and the ways in which the world changes around us. The shifts we're talking about are neither precisely decade-based nor generational, but i don't think there's anything really wrong with framing them as "Generation [whatever]".
Fwiw, "Generation X" always made good sense to me as a designation. The fact that my roughly generational culture was different than (and in many ways a reaction to) that of the Boomers before me seemed obvious at the time, and still does in retrospect. Since the postwar baby boom was so clearly distinct both demographically and culturally, and so insistent on memorializing their own importance, it was inevitable that some kind of oppositional "lost generation" type consciousness would arise on the far shore. Plus a refusal to join, to be pinned down or named was a big part of what made Gen X distinct, a predictable response to the efficiencies of "late capitalism".
Since this is all pretty arbitrary, I quibble with the idea that there have been two distinct generational eras since Generation X. "Generation Y" is mostly a myth afaic, the product of shortchanging Gen X and of failing to recognize the early signs of what would come next. IMO, Gen X covers a larger group and longer period than is generally acknowledged, trailing off into the late 80s. From the 90s on, we get what the first wave of what Mordy called "Generation Text", the children of video games, computers, cell phones and the internet.
― Choc. Clusterman (contenderizer), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 19:01 (twelve years ago) link
― sarahell, Wednesday, May 2, 2012 11:30 AM (30 minutes ago)
lol, well i used to. the damage is done, i guess. but i'm a drawer and a painter, and i've always loved cartoons, so...
― Choc. Clusterman (contenderizer), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 19:03 (twelve years ago) link
Generations as descriptive are totally worthless, but examining generation paradigms as generative is really useful imo. Whether Lena is the voice of her generation is a totally uninteresting question, but I'm very interested in knowing how audiences in her age/economic/social groups feel about being 'represented' by her.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 2 May 2012 19:03 (twelve years ago) link
lol contenderizer you've just achieved MY GENERATION IS THE GREATEST GENERATION ALL THESE YOUNG PEOPLE AREN'T EVEN A REAL GENERATION status
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 19:04 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, i know, but it's hard to clearly identify "Generation Y" in a way that doesn't result in a half-assed mashup of traits that are commonly attributed to the much clearer Gen X and whatever we wanna call wired millennials. More than any other so called "generation", it seems the product of the need to come up with a new generational name every 15-20 years or so.
Strong and proud representatives of Generation Why may be inclined to disagree, of course...
― Choc. Clusterman (contenderizer), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 19:14 (twelve years ago) link
also, given that people are having kids later in life these days, it perhaps makes sense to consider the length of a late 20th-century generation to be 25 years or so
― Choc. Clusterman (contenderizer), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 19:16 (twelve years ago) link
thread reminds me of maybe my favorite fugazi lyric:
It's cold outside and my hands are drySkin is cracked and I realizeThat I hate the sound of guitarsA thousand grudging young millionairesForcing silence sucking soundForced into this conversationSo i say shine let their planets collideThis is the darkening down of my mindWe could be making it oiling like crimeWe could be making it staking last dimesIf you want to sieze the sound you don't need a reservationThe torch is pased it's yours to returnLay at their feet now use it to burnFor marketing the use of the word generationA false alliance of money persuadingForcing silence sound suckingForced into this conversationNow if you want to sieze the sound you don't need a reservationSo open so young so target I can smell your heart you're a target
― i don't believe in zimmerman (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 19:17 (twelve years ago) link
i don't entirely disagree with you, but if anything there's a lot more that millennials have in common with gen z than they do with x. i've never interacted with gen xers or read about them and thought that they shared really anything in common with me or my friends or anyone in my school. the whole "raised entirely on internet" thing is lot less meaningful than older ppl seem to think too.
i just did the exact same thing you did fuck
― JIM THOMETHEUS (zachlyon), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 19:22 (twelve years ago) link
ppl of my generation cannot relate to all these 'quirky jokes' about hating refrigerators and shit
I grant you that my mother spent her first decade in a house with no refrigerator, indoor toilet, or television, and here I am going "I grew up without Facebook, how about that"
what is the generational marker value of "and shit"? if I v occasionally finish a sentence "and shit" and immediately feel wildly selfconscious and await someone a year or two older making a hilarious faeces gag, what generation am I? (oh, just British I guess)
vocal fry was discussed on the sandbox girls thread, thought it was on a linguistics thread too but I can't find it in search
(all x billion xposts but I just read today's chunk o' thread)
― instant coffee happening between us (a passing spacecadet), Wednesday, 2 May 2012 19:24 (twelve years ago) link