To begin, this is what I understand to be the breakdown of generations by date of birth. There is some disagreement about this. I have yet to see a correct "definition" of any of the generations because they are usually biased depending upon who is writing it. I have noticed Baby Boomers and Generation Yers are very fond of disparaging Generation X and often confuse us with the other group (Generation Y and Baby Boomers respectively). Very few seem to want to give us any credit whatsoever.
2000 approximately-present Generation Z
1980- approximately 2000 Millennials or Generation Y
1965-1979 Generation X
1946-1964 Baby Boomers
1900-1945 The Greatest Generation or GI Generation
We are a culture in flux. If you've ever read Alvin Toffler's The Third Wave, you already know what I'm saying. Toffler talks about technology coming in waves. We're on the third one now,where everything is becoming digital (said the blogger). The pace of this change is enormous and disorienting. "Kids" (those under about 23) don't really see it. They were born after the wave hit. I think the Baby Boomers mostly just write it off anymore as that they are getting old and expect to not understand a lot of technology (I THINK, mind you. I know a lot of Baby Boomers who embrace the new technology, too.) But they are the generation who used to laugh about the fact that my generation (the tiny little Generation X) could program their VCR better than they could. But that's telling in itself. What a lot of this new lot of "kids" don't get is that we remember what the Baby Boomers taught us, lived a lot of it ourselves, but also embraced technology. Also still do embrace it. But we have a healthy dose of the Baby Boomer distrust for machines in us. We still keep inside of us the belief in the phrase "technology is great...when it works."
We see in the millennials a sense of entitlement that we are sure we never had. Now, that may be right or that may be wrong, but I can say this. We had to pay dues that the millennials have never had to pay. We learned everything the hard way, the offline way, first. My generation learned to type on electric typewriters before computers. We used land-lines before cell phones were invented. We began in an age when you were not connected to everyone 24-7. We had to learn to amuse ourselves because entertainment was not available to us at all times. We wrote papers for classes by hand. We were schooled in penmanship and actually wrote letters. We had to learn to wait for things. And, the biggest thing of all - we were expected to pay our dues in the world before we jumped directly to earning the rewards for them.
This last I find the most disturbing because it is directly affecting what is happening now. (And let me say again, I understand that this is all generalizing and that's a lot of people to generalize.) But what has happened is that, when Generation X entered the workforce (beginning in the early 1980s), we were expected to work our way up. The Baby Boomers were in charge. They had the mid-level management to upper-level management jobs. It was expected that we would put in our time in the lower levels and then, if we worked hard, we would move up. (Because that's the way companies worked then.)
But that's not the way it worked out.
Baby Boomers didn't retire like their parents did. They kept working.
Which meant there were no vacancies.
And companies began to change how they did business. Company loyalty gradually became a thing of the past. Jobs began to go overseas. Whole industries were outsourced to other countries.
In short, the world changed.
And the Generation X kids, who were labelled "slackers" (As in "why don't you go get a job and make something of yourself like I did") and "cynical" (Gee, wonder why), who had already been forgotten in the social changes of the 1960s and 1970s, were written off because they couldn't find jobs. Because they were not there the way that they had been for the Baby Boomers.
And then, we disappeared from the media. Seriously. They lost interest. Why? Because the next generation of kids were more interesting. Were a larger group. And we all know that the media wants to market to the largest audience they can.
I could go into more detail about the social changes this engendered, but it's not my point right now. My point is this - there came a time when the Generation Y kids started entering the workforce. And started competing for the same jobs as the Generation Xers. And guess what? The rules changed. In truth, they had been changing all along. But now they REALLY started changing. No longer did the kids have to conform to the original rules. Now the Baby Boomers were conforming to the way Millennials did things. More technology. More flexibility. Everything that Generation Xers had been prepared to expect was done. We had to re-learn just like the Baby Boomers. But most of all, because the rules had changed, Millennials didn't have to "wait their turn" like we did. They were allowed to compete for the same jobs, which were now open. It made a lot of Gen Xers feel ignored and, quite frankly, pissed off.
And, of course, in the middle of this, the economy tanked. So, even more of a glut on the labor market occurred. Newly minted college grads, Generation Xers who SHOULD have been in their prime earning years, and Baby Boomers who suddenly found the could not retire after all (or worse, had to come out of retirement).
The other day, I read a blog that supported Generation X's right to be angry (thanks for the permission), but did it in a way that was rather offensive and uninformed. Once again it called us "slackers" and "cynical". And blamed it on the fact that we never learned how to deal with disappointment. Really? The author (obviously a Millennial) forgot a lot of important facts, beginning with everything I outlined above. But there's more.
We lived through the Cold War. We saw the Berlin Wall fall, but we lived in the time before that happened. We lived the tail end of it, when it seemed it had gone on forever and was going to have to end soon, one way or another. We grew up expecting to live through a Nuclear Holocaust. If you doubt this, watch the original Red Dawn. To us, that movie was frightening because it totally could have happened.
We were the first generation produced during the rampant divorce rate. We were cynical because we were being told to believe in fairy tales - Cinderella and Snow White, yes, but also happy little family sitcoms where everything was worked out in half an hour. Then we looked at the realities around us and saw that there didn't appear to be any neat little happy endings. We were a generation of women who grew up being told we could have it all and do it all, then coming to realize that was a lie. These days, people talk about having a good work/life balance. That wasn't an option in the 1970s - 1990s. It was accepted that a woman could be an executive, but she still had to know how to cook or she wasn't "really" a woman. And she still had to contend with a glass ceiling.
A working mother was still usually expected to go to work, then come home and cook and clean. A man was supposed to be inept at taking care of children (see Mr. Mom if you want an example of this) and told that a woman could do everything, so why did she need a man? It stripped away a lot of what men were being told was masculine - breadwinner, protector, dominant. It made a lot of men feel pissed off and ignored as well. I'm talking about cultural stereotypes and expectations here. There were people breaking down these barriers, but the censure was always still there. This is the world in which American Generation Xers tried to find their identity as men and women. We grew up in a world of contradictions and tension. The Baby Boomers had defined, stable roles (even if they needed changing), and the Millennials had an openness of societal roles that we didn't yet have. If we weren't at least a little cynical, we would be incredibly simple and naive.
That we aren't simple and naive (as a generation) partly comes from the fact that we also grew up with technology (imagine that!) and increasingly more mass communication. We are a well-informed lot. We learned to embrace changing technology from an early age (hence the "My 8 year old can program my VCR better than I can" kind of comments). Kiddos, we invented (or helped to invent) half that technology you are using! And by "invented," I mean we thought it up. That stuff came from our imaginations, our brains, our hearts, our dreams. We played video games with rudimentary graphics and black (and green) screens, using our imagination, and thought "That would make a great movie" or "wouldn't it be cool if you could actually tell that those stupid little pixels were a princess with an actual face". And then we went on and made it happen. We traveled to other countries and learned what they had to say about things and brought that back to America. We started with giant computers
Not know how to deal with disappointment? Us? We grew up being able to lose at team sports and not have to be consoled by the "there are no losers" mantra. Instead, we got the "you'll get 'em next time" speech. And we needed it, too, given that life changed on us midstream.
I'm hearing Millennials now saying that they are the first generation that can't be lumped together and generalized as a single generation. I say that's bollocks. You can't do that with any generation anymore. The Baby Boomers were path-cutters and weight-bearers, stoners and hippies, country-clubbers and night-clubbers, drop-outs and innovators. There is no solid stereotype for a Baby Boomer. And there is none for a Generation Xer, either. We are just as much innovators, philosophers, stoners, cynics, dreamers, standard-bearers, boring suburbanites, entitled asses and Mother Theresas as any other generation. We are political and apolitcal. We are creative and dull. We are smart and stupid. And so are Millennials. I strongly disagree, by the way, that we are, as a whole, self-centered, unwilling to work toward our goals, "conversationally shallow" as one blog put it (supposedly because all we like to do is watch movies), and "short on loyalty." I think we are loyal, but we don't put up with as much as our parents did, because we have suffered so much disappointment as a group.
The truth is that all you can ever really say is "This was the cultural climate right at that moment in time." I know marketers love to talk about pyschographic profiles of their "target market," but what is interesting is that the more they "personalize" things, the more it becomes evident that there is wide variation from one person to the next. There are frequently a few similarities, which is a good thing, but now you can identify with someone on the other side of the world just as easily as you can identify with someone next door. Sometimes more easily.
So, here's what I say. Be an individual and not a generation. Go on. I dare you. And, while you are at it, stop trying to categorize anyone that way.
No comments:
Post a Comment