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.

If the first show you remember watching is Barney, Bananas in Pajamas, Sesame Street, Care Bears, or My Little Pony, odds are you’re a part of this generation. But it doesn’t just stop here. As this generation progresses in age, so do the television shows we watch. After we outgrew those shows it was on to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (who didn’t have one of these action figures as a child?), Ninja Turtles, and, of course, Nicktoons. Every member of this generation instantly becomes giddy at the mention of Doug, Rugrats, Ren & Stimpy, or Rocko’s Modern Life. Had these shows not gotten cancelled, we would all probably still be watching them out of sheer dedication.

Then we all started to get a little bit more mature, which is reflected in the shows we all watched. We still kept true to our cartoon-loving roots when shows like Pokémon and Sailor Moon exploded onto the scene. But we also started dutifully tuning in to Snick, Nickelodeon’s Saturday Night television line-up. Who could forget such classics as Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Clarissa Explains it All, The Secret World of Alex Mack, All That! (our early version of Saturday Night Live), and Kenan & Kel? Sabrina the Teenage Witch would also be among those shows, but any diehard will tell you that it wasn’t on Snick.

These shows evolved into even more mature shows and even some movies. At this point, many people switched from Nick to the Disney Channel with Lizzie McGuire, Boy Meets World, and Disney Channel Original Movies (Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, Halloweentown, Johnny Tsunami, Smart House). Some of us watched shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 7th Heaven during this time, but these were, what I like to call, transitional shows. They prepared us for the more mature shows we were bound to run into later on.

After these shows, we developed different tastes, but generally, there are a few shows that we all still share a common recollection of. We began taking to shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, The O.C., and Friends (reruns). Of course, there were a few short-lived shows (Freaks & Geeks, Arrested Development) that were like our shooting stars: there one glorious minute and gone the next.

Some may argue that our generation is made up of much more than just T.V. shows. And that’s true. But that’s also true of every other generation out there and yet each one can only be given one name. For us, our closest shared experience is and always will be T.V. Never before has one generation been bonded together so intimately by television. That’s why a name like Generation Next or the Millennials just doesn’t feel right. It might sound hip, but it doesn’t really capture what makes us unique as a generation. Since our generation has always been living with our eyes wide open, what could be a more fitting name than the Wide-Eyed Generation?


Pictures courtesy of joshburcham.com and www.thevine.com.au