My Generation: Not Defined Until 2008

Our President did what? The election was decided how? I have to take my shoes off at the airport why?

For individuals born in 1990 or later, these are the first three political oriented questions posed by members of my generation.

The Transition Generation

Ah 1990…the year NATO and the Warsaw Pact signed a joint declaration of non-aggression; the year that Nelson Mandela was freed after having spent twenty-seven years in prison; the penultimate year that the San Francisco 49ers won the Super Bowl.

I find it fairly easy to situate the year I was born in a historical context. Deciphering which cultural generation I belong to, however, is more like trying to figure out when the 49ers will next win the Super Bowl.

Eventual, Emotional, and Economic Change

The ever-transforming world continues to change everyday and as a result of this we are forced to continually adjust to otherwise ordinary activities. Change in itself is inevitable. As a child, I grew up in a world filled with Barney, Barbies, and Britney Spears.

Blank Generation

The Who got lucky.

The generation of the 1960s was fairly well defined. “My Generation” didn’t have to be all that specific for its point to be made. But if the band had been born in 1990, would they have had anything to say about my generation? Is there really anything my peers and I share that unites and separates us from our neighboring generational brethren? Well, maybe, but the anthem probably would’ve turned out more like Richard Hell’s “Blank Generation” than their own 1965 classic.

Defining Our Generation

Our generation has an identity crisis. While previous generations have been assigned relatively undisputed titles and defining characteristics, it has become increasingly difficult to accurately classify us. From the Lost Generation to Generation X, group organization has been straightforward; but, with surges of technological advances and (d)evolution of our social interaction, generations are shrinking, boundaries are blurring, and people are becoming lost within the characterization process.

Ponderings on a Generation...

When I think to myself of what the best thing to call my yet unnamed generation, I realize it’s probably better to begin with figuring out who my generation is and what really defines the term “generation.” There seems to be in common agreement that a generation is a spectrum of people born in a certain age range who shared common cultural experiences. With this as a functioning definition, there still have to be some limitations. A generation had a specific end or beginning because history would sort of fall away with each generation – there was no super-effective sort of technology to preserve items of pop culture, which was lost with each new generation. Historically people within the same generation tended to share similar experiences with then current hardships or prosperities, which led the people of that generation to form like-minded mentalities or views.

Whose Generation?

Pete Townshend wrote the song “My Generation” in 1965, when the generation of the time was right in the middle of defining itself as the baby boomers who were growing up to change the world with hippie love, experimental drugs, and psychedelic colors. Though that description is a slight oversimplification, the 60’s generation became and remains one of the most well-defined generations in history. Townshend’s hit song testified to that, defining part of the generation with its raw classic rock n’ roll attitude. But Roger Daltrey’s stuttering vocal part seems more suited to a different generation – mine – one that is definitely stuttering along the path to define itself.

A Generation United by the Small Screen

Most generations are named based on when the people within them were born along with a significant historical event that transpired during their lives. We are all familiar with The Lost Generation, The Greatest Generation, and The Baby Boomers and why they are given these names. Often times, these names are given in association with the role they play in whatever war is going on at the time. Recently, however, we’ve been running out of creative names (something that has been made apparent by the fact that we have named our last three generations X, Y, and Z). On top of that, after The Baby Boomers, these generations have been running together due to uncertainty of when one should end and another begin. Someone born in 1979 and someone born in 1991 hardly have enough in common to be grouped in the same generation. So, just how do we define the generation that was born from 1990 on? By the one thing we can all remember vividly from every point in our life: what was on T.V.

Defining My Generation

My generation is a generation without a cause. We were sheltered, pampered and deceived until just recently when we were thrust into a truly global reality and overloaded with information. We don’t know how to react - what cause to fight for.

My Generation is.....

Many sociologists wonder what cultural legacies define the generation of the children of baby boomers. After all, these people have no recollection of the Cold War, yet many of them can recall a time without the internet or mobile phones. They don’t remember the rise of Reagonomics and Margaret Thatcher, but they remember the years of exponential economic growth followed by the financial crisis of 2008. The definition of their generation can stump even the greatest ethnologist. But as a child of baby boomers myself, I would define my generation as a time marked with globalization followed by xenophobic isolation and technological advances that continue to cause both pleasure and pain.

Who Belongs to the Y Generation and What do they Read?

This is a sample post. From now on, columns or posts should be one paragraph and then have a Read More at the end linking to a separate page. Let's see if we can do that.