Older Millennial in a GenZ/iGen World that is run by Boomers
Remember when we were known as Gen Y?
The boomers captured our imaginations and introduced us to a pair of plumbers and a Hylian. By the time we were going into kindergarten we didn’t just watch and read about the values of being a KISA, we experienced it!
Our teachers struggled in their early attempts to educate us in a technology even they didn’t understand in the form of a Commodore 64. A computer lesson usually involved sliding a large floppy disk out of it’s paper envelope, sliding it into the drive and playing a few rounds of Frogger. By the time someone at the school could possibly teach us how that Commodore thing worked, they were replacing them with some Macintosh box that was even more confusing? I still don’t understand how losing a coloured screen was a step forward...
At least our parents were still concerned about our physical well being and instilled the importance of playing outdoors. Unless of course you had one of those helicopter parents...sorry Johnny, your mom sucked, bro. However, it would have been nice to have the old man around to teach us the simple things like catch, but 20% mortgage rates did a good job keeping them from the home. Ironically, that didn’t keep them from expecting us to play in the big leagues.
By the time we were beginning to understand a slightly bigger picture of life, the Gen Xers were filling our radio waves with despair. I don’t remember any lyrics about the confusion of a rotary phone in our houses while being the first teens having access to cell phones, but damn those Seattle boys got us! It was almost like they figured out how to send their clouds right through the radio.
In a quickly changing time, we did still appreciate and experience traditions from our father’s childhood. A trip to the convenience store for a pack of trading cards ignited excitement, at least until the piece of gum turned into a brick, but by that time we were already distracted and kicking that son of a bitch Bison’s ass so hard that the next Bison wannabe was feeling it!
ICQ and the interwebs had us connecting with each other in a way never done before. So what did we do with this incredible technology? We asked anyone and everyone A/S/L. I wish I could say we used it to get to know one and another, but really, it was our first Tinder. For you boomers, a/s/l is age/sex/location...
Napster gave us the opportunity to send Lars into a tail spin and bring down the music labels. Yet they called us the thieves? Whatever, we still survived Y2K and Will Smith’s Get Jiggy With it.
But hey, our parents divorced at rates never seen before. Our families were torn apart yet we still valued the importance of marriage, career and country. And we became the most educated generation. Yes I realize I can’t write and spell, you fucking grammar nazi! Those of us who didn’t get educated got to work and we worked hard.
Now, maybe it’s because I’m Canadian and cultural lag, but it wasn’t until the tail end of our generation (Gen X kids) joined the workforce after 2010 that we were renamed millennials and became a meme. I mean it was bad enough that our boomer parents didn’t get us in the 90’s, but now the Gen Xers need to blame their shitty parenting on our generation too? Pfft, I’m not gonna play the blame game here, that’s such a boomer and Gen X thing to do. Just figured I’d pass this mirror on, you conceited fucks!
[This message edited by Loukas at 2:22 AM, October 24th (Thursday)]