Image source: Flickr
Lots of press and media coverage on Millennials (and the Gen Xers who loathe them) has been recently crossing various news media outlets. The back and forth on Radar Online is particularly telling. The slap down by Gen X representative Robert Lanham and the rebuttal by Alex Pareene, is highlighted by their references to a 90s Gen X Time magazine article and the movie “Reality Bites,” the so-called movie about Generation X, and the following indignation by Gen Xers. Trying to boil a generation down to a few stereotypical traits is never going to satisfy a large group of people, especially those being examined. We live in a society of individualism, which is antithetical to that kind of categorization. I recall seeing “Reality Bites,” and found the idea of it speaking for “my generation” laughable. Not that it was a terrible movie, but can you really encapsulate the complexity of people born in a twenty year span in 100 minutes?
Generation X resented being deemed by “slackers” for basically being young, by their Baby Boomer predecessors. Ten years later, the Millennials are reacting against the labels of being “A.D.D. Facebook addicts.” What is so surprising?
Why aren’t people seeing that this conflict of generations as just the way human nature and history work? Each generation is always afraid and resentful of the next one, just like a king wanting to produce heirs but being afraid of them usurping his power. In today’s youth obsessed culture, parents still strive to be cool in their middle age and beyond. In the 90s, I remember reading a quote in article on Gen X, with a quote I’ve carried with me. A Boomer being interviewed said, “We weren’t supposed to get old,” which an American interpretation of the traditional generation gap. In one sense, yes, I can appreciate the underlying social forces which produced this continual sentiment (which goes far beyond this one person.) On the other hand, I just want to say, get over it.
