LOVE:
Flash Mobs!! On Saturday I went to a flash mob pillow fight in Pershing Square (pictured). The only reason this event exists and is successful is the internet. It gets virally marketed and people tell friends and next thing you know you are meeting some random people and
hitting them with pillows. I cannot describe how awesome I think this is. My friend Heather (pictured) and I hung out with people we met there all evening. Last semester there was a human rainbow flash mob in front of Tommy Trojan. The rules were simple, based on when you were born you wore a certain color and got in the ROYGBIV line at exactly noon (I think) and then just stood there for a couple minutes and then went on your day. Random fun! It was awesome and was brilliantly captured on TommyCam.For those that don't know here are some cool videos of flash mobs:
BANG!
like what I did.
HATE:
"The Look-At-Me" Generation. I recently read an article in Newsweek about how my generation apparently loves to put their life on blast and have everyone look at them etc etc. YouTube generation kind of discourse pisses me off. It is easier to share all of your details with everyone, yes, but just because it came out when I was coming of age doesn't mean that it defines me. I am sure this is true for every generation that gets a label. I am sure there are plenty of GenX-ers that hate what that title implies. Baby Boomers are probably a little upset that their definition is derivative of when their parents were all baby making at the same social moment. That a few define the whole is nothing new and frankly, it sucks. I guess what bugs me the most about this definition is that they imply that the practices that my generation partakes in will socially retard us and prevent us from developing close personal relationships. The perceived self-centeredness of blogging etc. is going to leave us with a generation of selfish bastards that don't have any sense of community. We will all be alone, vlogging about how lonely we are (or something). Shenanigans! I struggle with how to interpret the cultural moment that is developing. On one hand there is a ton of evidence for the "look-at-me" generation being alive and well (and getting progressively worse), but at the same time there is a great movement of people that are using the internet to mobilize community everywhere. How do we balance the unprecedented reach of the internet and all the community building that is going on there with the mantra that "on the internet you are famous to 15 people"? Personally, I think it is too soon to call and maybe that is why I hate that my generation has been given this label. Yea, I blog but my reasons for doing it are much more nuanced than wanting people to look at me.
2 comments:
The Flash Mob pillow fight looks like it was a blast and an event that was both spontaneous and fun -- and it was downright pure College History.
Your comments about the 'Look@me' generation, aka Net Gen, Google Gen, etc. are very interesting. As someone who straddles the line between Generation X and Boomers, but who's cultural orientation is 98% Gen X, I can empathize with your concerns. When I set out with a team in the early 1990s to create a short film/short video network for 'Generation X' it was based on the observable phenomenon of the times - and largely magazines, esp. the seminal article by Neil Howe and Bill Strauss in the Dec 1992 Atlantic Monthly on this topic.
At that time, people were completely confused about what this generation was -- and with 'Boomers' fully in control of companies, the basic response was 'whiners.' Then around the time of the dot com explosion, Generation X became everyone's darling and suddenly anyone who was hip and used a skateboard was 'Generation X,' never mind that they were really outside of this demographic. And today, we are back to Generation X as the dour generation.
Enter your generation -- the 'Millennials' amongst other names.
I think that whenever a generation is new to America - starting with the largest ever, the Boomer Generation in the 1960s, then we become obsessed with their 'newness.' To be sure, from this middle aged perspective, there is something quite wonderful about youth and to see the beautiful students of USC or other college campus is a reminder of how special youth is. But we seem to have taken this special time a degree too far, starting perhaps with Boomers, and have become obsessed with youth.
In the 1960s and through the 70s and even part of the 80s, television would periodically feature a collage of 60s images tracked with a Doors song (usually Light My Fire) or Byrds song (usually, 'Turn Turn Turn) to show how absolutely unique this time and these people were -- from Vietnam, to Woodstock, to blah, blah, blah. ... and thus, after all of this media saturation, it seems that Kurt Cobain and those who were of that moment coughed up the whole media thing, only to be sucked back into the media vortex.
I suppose that's what might be unique to this time -- television is not what it was, and it will and maybe already is difficult to present such a monolithic image of an entire generation.
I think that you are doing a great job of being who you are by engaging in spontaneous pillow fights -- because that's the stuff of legend -- not a bombastic collage of images to sate your ego.
Newsweek is the magazine equivalant of an old dude yelling at you to "Get off my lawn, you kids!"
I look at the generation labels from a PR perspective, which is where I first really learned about them.
from my old xanga, like a year and a half ago:
"For starters there is a gap between 40-41, because Floto said that it is an anomaly and hard to categorize.
This stuff is all from American Demographics, Floto's lecture and the class participation.
"Toddlers" (2-5)
* fun
* energetic
* cartoons
* make-believe
* eager
* MOM
* dad
* family
* books
* Dora
* Wiggles
* Barney
* Sesame St
* kid's music
* discovery
* PC
1. "Elementary" (6-11)
* PLy
* friends
* school
* sports
* scouting
* hero worship
* magazines, Highlights, Disney, Nickelodeon
* Radio Disney
* Disney Channel
* collectors
* fast food toys and kids meals
* computers
* video games
* online
* parental control
"Tweens" (11-13)
* friends/social
* school
* sports/afterschool activities
* music
* idolization
* identity
* bodies/puberty
* sex
* opposite sex
* magazines... teen, seventeen
* role models
* mtv
* movies
* CW
* Fox
* "The OC"
* brand conscious
"High School" (14-17)
* SEX
* sports
* driving
* jobs
* monoey
* future
* music-wide array, hip hop, rap, country, rock
* partying
* independence
* smoking
* drinking
* rebellion
* cosmo
* maxim
* SI
* social networks
* IM
* myspace
"Milennials" (18-22) "College"
* partying
* drugs
* alcohol
* sex
* careers
* politics
* exploring
* newspapers-online, tv
* online
* you and where you're going and what you believe
* social networks
"Milennials" (18-22) "Non-college"
* partying
* drugs
* alcohol
* sex
* jobs (in contrast to careers)
* families
* weddings
* sports
* military
"Generation Y" (21-26)
* tech
* plans
* pop culture
* culture
* talk shows
* reality tv
* NPR
* one radio station
* settled into a groove
* loyal
* sports
* cosmo
* vogue
* vanity fair
* travel
* investors
"Generation X" (27-33)
* tech
* down with brands
* families
* bitter
* wear black (suits, skirts, white shirts, etc.)
* dot coms
* entreprenurial
* alt music
* offbeat
* music
* outsiders
* local
* hate labels
* financially secure but not big savers
* trendsetters but don't want to be trendsetters
* jazz
* shock jocks
"30 Somethings" (32-39)
* came of age during Reagan administration
* STATUS
* aspire to upper echelon
* soap operas
* Martha Stewart
* DIY/home improvement "upgrading" not repairs
* women's mag-McCalls, Oprah, Marth Golf, SI, Baseball Digest
* subscribe
* dramas- CSI, Law and Order
* listen- classic rock, country
* USA Today
* enthusiasts
* savvy investors
* family
* extended family
* "friends"
* soccer moms
* extreme politics-either liberal or conservative
* lifetime network
"Baby Boomers" (42-60)
* born during/after/through ww2-1961
* DEBT-highest debt ratio
* Vietnam era
* sexual revolution
* activism
* protest
* volunteers
* patriotism/fervor
* newspapers, books, magazines
* drama, sitcoms
* tv generation
* radio-eclectic-classical, jazz, rock and roll, country
* computer okay "interested"
* 2nd/3rd careers
* evening news anywhere from 6-11
"Eisenhower Generation" (62-70)
* cold war
* distrustful
* "perfect" nuclear family-white
* african american-civil rights bubbling
* patriotic
* same political party
* straight ticket voters
* financially secure
* TECHNOPHONBES
* reader's digest
* tv guide
* local large daily
* Wal Street Journal-valid, credible
* fiercely brand loyal
* american brands
* go to church because you're supposed to
"The Greatest Generation/Senior Citizens" (73-83)
* ww2
* patriotic
* leisure-golf, tennis, biking
* travel
* health conscious
* loyal to local metropolitan daily and secondary--both LA Times and SGV Tribune, ex.
* very politically active
* medical
* don't like smut
* traditional programming
* tame TV
* evening news
* highly religious
* listen to news radio not shock jocks
* technology-email, stay in touch
* family
* worried about grandkids, debt of baby boomers
* active
"Elderly" 85+
* health or lack thereof
* dying
* came of age in depression
* frugal NOT cheap
* radio listeners
* "listen to tv"
* read a newspaper
* loyal to a magazine
* subscribed for 50 years
* ladies home journal, rearer's digest"
Read that, disagree, reread, consider some points to make sense, shiver, wonder whether or not you can be reduced to a few stupid and/or superficial characteristics.
That's like, the entire joke of the Stuff White People Like blog, right? That it's ridiculous to reduce a giant swath of people to a few superficial characteristics, but that despite how unique we may think we are, we tend to like a lot of the same shit as our peers.
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