Lately I have seen a number of Op-Ed articles both in the news and on the web that have expressed disappointment with my generation of Americans. Having immigrated to this country with my parents when I was a young boy, I was forced to cope with the most glaring of cultural differences between my country of origin and Northern New Jersey. This gave me an increased sensitivity to the events that defined my generation. Growing up in the 90’s, the peak of economic prosperity in the United States, was like floating in a vessel of warm goo while being fed a never ending roll of Fruit By The Foot. I was raised in the booming suburban town of Wayne, where the only wars people cared about were between video game consoles. The atmosphere, though thoroughly insulated from world affairs, was very oppressive. Children were, of course, taught bigotry by their parents. Why else move to the suburbs, right? In elementary school we had to choke down all these racist and classist judgments right before homeroom like an untoasted strawberry Pop-Tart, lest we find ourselves the subject of our vice principal’s wrath or our peer’s hypocritical ostracism.
You watch Nickelodeon well into your teens, but tell all your friends your watching MTV (thankfully the profits go to the same company). The hero of the popular cartoon show “Doug” taught me that growing up would be a series of embarrassing events, with nothing to soothe the trauma but a lesson in the episodic nature of friendship. Kudos to you, Doug! Carson Daly, the illustrious host of the hit music program “Total Request Live” (TRL, for short), showed me that at any given time of day, there is a mob of people screaming and holding up signs in Time Square. Not only that, but they’re foaming at the mouth for a chance to be given a single frightened and awkward look by Mariah Carey.
If only my parents had raised me with the attentiveness that I showed my Tamagotchi, I could have evolved into a monstrosity capable of cleansing the country of the plague that my generation became. In middle school, I remember reading articles in the local newspaper that warned parents of the fact that many children my age were already having oral sex, and cursing my parents for not getting me that pair of baggy Paco Jeans which I was convinced would have gotten me laid. You see all our fashions descended from the hand-me-down styles of the neighboring ghetto’s, not by paying attention to any of the 4 black kids in my 300 student class. Dressing in loose clothing and wearing your hat backwards doesn’t necessarily make you a criminal, but in this case it does mean you want to look like one. At least it worked for the kids who were doing it right, all I got was a wardrobe full of ‘L’ and ‘XL’ t-shirts that don’t fit my ego at its presently reduced size.
Unable to grasp even the most rudimentary forms of functional discourse, my generation embraced the increasing availability of cellular phones and, more importantly the advent of text messaging. Now you no longer had to steal mom’s pager to find out that “CORY’S A FAG!!!!!!” or which stairwell he’s getting pummeled under. You could count on the assailant’s girlfriend to hold his new Tommy Hilfiger jacket, which was of course designed by a gay man, while the onlookers would cheer at the shining spectacle of the most popular kid in school letting the last drops of his humanity drip from the cracks in his knuckles. A solution is never far from the source of the problem, competitive sports have long been lauded as an alternative to teen violence. In high school I decided to join the most placid looking one, Track and Field. I didn’t have to worry about the evils of drugs and alcohol, while an indulgence in either would have probably earned me some real friends. Instead, I was welcomed onto the team by a senior class that gladly introduced our naive and arrogant countenances to the putrid smelling school toilets from whence we presumedly came.
Generation Y is the first generation in many decades of American history that decided not to ask ‘why’. We were spoon fed everything we came to believe, and we lapped it up like a Cheeto snack that’s been on the floor just shy of 5 seconds. Not a single trace of counterculture to show for itself, the baby boomers might as well have raised Cabbage Patch dolls. Now entering the world of adults, and a receding economy, it’s Generation Y to the rescue and back to Brooklyn for the new season of MTV’s “The Real World”.
