10 WORDS TO DEFINE THE 21ST CENTURY
First, I must apologize because this is my longest post ever on That’s So Fetch. This post is a microcosm of why I created this blog in the first place. This post is my best attempt to define a generation; Generation Y, if you will. Those born between the early 1980s and the 21st century. Those born into a life with computers.
Every generation seems to be strikingly dissimilar to the generations preceding it due to not only cultural changes, but advances in technology. In the 21st century, we are upon a generation driven by the advent of computers, and more precisely, the internet. Being born in the early 1980s makes people my age one of the last to understand a world without texting, Google, or listening to music on anything other than a tape or disc. In the mid-1990s, chat rooms and instant messaging changed the face of social interaction, but texting, social networking sites, and video conferencing is shaping a generation.
Eight-year-olds with cell phones. Twelve-year-old girls taking pictures of themselves in front of mirrors for their MySpace profiles. Sixteen-year-olds who have never purchased a CD because all music is “free”. Adults who spell “your” as “ur” and update their Facebook status every 30 minutes because they think people care.
I know these aren’t all just one word. Just pretend they are…
10 WORDS TO DEFINE
THE 21ST CENTURY
NARCISSISM
If you have ever taken a picture of yourself and you’re the only person in the picture, this applies to you. Facebook and MySpace have spawned a strange sense of self-importance among American youth. Hundreds of pictures, most taken in some stupid pose in front of a mirror or what I like to call “The MySpace Picture”, where one holds the camera with one arm and snaps a photo of themselves in a “glamorous” pose. Usually perpetrated by underage girls baring their midriffs or depressed emo boys with stupid-ass haircuts. Otherwise extremely boring people thinking their lives are important enough to update us with their every move, whether they’re at the grocery or “out 2 lunch with tha gurlz!”, they seem to think we care.
BAD GRAMMAR
Before the internet, people actually had to write - GASP - on paper to each other. Spelling “your” as “ur” and “to” as “2″ wasn’t acceptable. But give a 21st century child an email address and AOL screen name and you will struggle to find at least an attempt at writing like an educated human being. Awful spelling and absent punctuation are commonplace in the 21st century. The shift key has become an afterthought.
TEXT
We all have that friend whom you will call and they won’t answer, immediately followed by a “hey, what’s up?” or a “you called?” text. Texting, instant messaging, and Facebook/MySpace messaging has made communication too easy and is ruining interpersonal skills. Keeping a conversation on the phone in the 21st century is like pulling teeth. Not to mention, hitting on chicks has become way too easy. Impersonal flirting via text and Facebook wall posts has made getting laid much easier for boring (or lazy) dudes.
MP3
In 1998, a computer program called Napster bent the music business over and made it it’s bitch. From that point on, music has become degraded and to this day, there are people who don’t pay for the music they listen to. The iPod and listening to music through the shitty speakers on your laptop or your cellular phone has become the standard for most American consumers. Apple’s iTunes is both the worst and best thing to ever happen to the music business. While artists are getting paid for their songs (as opposed to not paid at all), people are getting their music a la carte. Instead of paying $15 for an entire album, the average person will pick their 3 or 4 favorite songs and move on. That’s a loss of $11-12 an album. The “mix tape” has taken a whole new meaning in the 21st century and it’s slowly killing an industry that was on top of the world 10+ years ago.
CHILD MEGA-STARS
The late 90s ushered in a new kind of star: the child mega-star. Currently, three brothers (two under the age of 18) and Disney channel stars (all under 18) are the biggest celebrities in America. Fame is being achieved, and cashed in on, at younger and younger ages. Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers are walking dollar signs for deep pocketed corporate executives and are products, not human beings. I’m not saying that there wasn’t a fair share of child stars before the year 2000. We must not forget the Jonathan Taylor Thomases and Olsen Twins of years past. This century has bred insane parents living vicariously through their children and frankly, getting rich from turning their offspring into a product.
GOOGLE IT
Encyclopedias. Libraries. Books. Three things that the 21st-century person does not need because of one company: Google. We are obsessed with instant satisfaction and Google is the poster company for this necessity. Anything you want to know can be solved from a search engine. It’s like taking every book in every library in the world and condensing it into pages of text refined to your specific query. As someone born in the 1980s, I can say that I do not remember the last time I opened an encyclopedia or used a book for reference.
METROSEXUAL
Women’s jeans. Skin-tight clothing. Leather pants. Facials. Botox. Spray-on tans. Chest/Leg/Arm waxing. Somewhere around 5 or so years ago, all the aforementioned items suddenly transformed from taboo to accepted. A man without chest hair was suddenly “hot” and dudes wearing their sister’s jeans were picking up chicks. Straight guys in women’s jeans, a fake tan, walking out of a salon after a pedicure? No problem.
HEALTH OBSESSED
“OH MY GOD, high fructose corn syrup? WTF … I’m not eating that.” Eating a cheeseburger in the 2nd millennium A.D. is now equatable to killing one’s first born child. In a country where 20% of its population smokes, indulging one’s self in a milkshake or a basket of french fries has become a no-no. We live in a world where if a female celebrity gains 5 or more pounds, the media thinks she pregnant. A guy with some meat on the bones is overweight and love handles are frowned upon.
ADD
“Oh, my kid has two Fs, but don’t worry, he’s ADD.”
“Dude, don’t laugh at my G.P.A., I have ADD.”
At some point in the 90s, the amount of children “diagnosed” with Attention Deficit Disorder, or “ADD” as it is more commonly known, began to skyrocket. Parents began blaming the shortcomings of their children on a medical disorder, subsequently medicating them with prescription speed. I am just going to give it to you straight: children with ADD are one of the following: 1) bored with their coursework, 2) lazy, 3) stupid, or a combination of all three. I am not saying that every child claiming to be ADD is stupid, because being bored with school or laziness doesn’t necessarily make someone dumb. It’s an overused excuse for the below average test scores of incompetent children.
REALITY TELEVISION
A lot of things have been created that directly make the general population dumber. Reality television is at the top of that list. Telling you that I don’t enjoy a good dose of reality television every now and then would be a lie. The Real World and Survivor were some of the first, but the 21st century has brought upon the worst of the worst. Everything from Hulk Hogan’s family getting their own TV show to most recently, True Beauty on ABC, a show that searches for the “hottest” person in America. Reality is equally the same as turning on your TV and watching train wrecks. Scripted nonsense and unlikable characters make it one of the most embarrassing aspects of the 21st century.
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Jackson Five?
I’d really, really like to shake your hand. Thank you for that.
What about YouTube. Seems like more and more people are finding fame through it.
its like i have always said, if you have to take your own picture for your myspace photo you must not have any friends to do it for you
Great photo btw.