My Generation

Its seem that in casual conversation in my painting class, the notion of the different generations has been coming up.

Within the class, there is a wide mix of ages, including Baby Boomer, Generation X (the teacher), MTV Generation, and Generation Y. Generally speaking, most people I’m friends with feel that the generational gap has gotten wider, or at least is more noticeable.

I consider myself a part of the MTV Generation.

The definition points according to Wikipedia;

Popular culture

• The last generation to appreciate its significance in a changing culture, specifically the shift from the hardwired, analogue technologies to the wireless, Digital Revolution; the last generation to grow up with such semi-obsolete items of the pre-digital era as VHS tapes, audio cassettes and vinyl records.
• The first generation to grow up with personal computers in the home.
• The introduction of the Nintendo and Atari gaming systems.
• The introduction of first-person shooters (e.g. DOOM) and online games (e.g. EverQuest)
• Early computer Educational software released by MECC such as the Oregon Trail and Number Munchers computer games.
• Early computer games like Prince of Persia, Test Drive and California Games.
• Creation of Carmen Sandiego character and games, TV shows.
• The worldwide popularity of FOX Shows “Beverly Hills, 90210″, “The Simpsons”, and “Melrose Place”.
• The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, with its vague associations with Bushido, white rap, and surf slang. Interest in some of the
• Asian martial arts (including, of course, ninjutsu) temporarily spiked among teenagers in some areas due to the franchise’s influence.
• The launch of Nickelodeon in 1979, one of the first channels geared to entertaining children.
• The launch of MTV in its early period before its mid-1990s makeover for predominantly pop music, rhythm and blues, hip hop culture and reality television. The popular tagline: “I want my MTV”–uttered by Veejays and performers on the network’s advertisements and later included in the Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing track–reflected the era’s fascination with the new medium.
• Music influences stem mainly from MTV standards such as Madonna and Michael Jackson – mostly from The Like a Prayer & Dangerous years in the 1980s – but also include the rise of the Grunge music scene of the early 1990s, and the rising popularity of Hip hop and techno music through the 1980s and 1990s.
• The second generation to mostly be influenced through Television (especially Music Television) as the primary medium for information and entertainment (the first being the baby boom generation crossing over to the early Generation X – when TV came into becoming an item in every household during the 1950s) especially from children growing up in the 1980s to their teens in the 1990s.
• Films such as The Goonies, The Neverending Story and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial which featured children in opposition to adults and oppressive or impersonal systems of law.
• Transformers, Thunder Cats, M.A.S.K., Masters of the Universe and other toyline (franchises) centered around the primary theme of alien/high tech/supernatural combat occurring at large in a disguised form, but also containing strong modernist/morally absolutist themes which have been more recently removed in revised versions of these fictional scenarios.

Political

• The fall of the Berlin Wall November 9, 1989 and German reunification on October 3, 1990
• The end of the Cold War (1990-91)
• The First Gulf War (1991)
• Space Shuttle Challenger explosion
• Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster (April 1986)
• The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
• The Waco Siege
• The 1992 Los Angeles riots
• The premierships of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and the presidency of Ronald Reagan succeeded later by George H. W. Bush
• June 18, 1981, the official date for the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and the 1985 World Health Organization AIDS surveillance case definition
• The Satanic ritual abuse panic throughout the 1980s and up to the mid 1990s, bringing Satanism back into the mass media’s eye
• The Iran-Contra Affair, a 1987 political scandal in the United States involving President Ronald Reagan’s administration who sold arms to Iran, an avowed enemy. At the time, Americans were being held hostage in Lebanon by Hezbollah, a militant Shi’a organization loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini
• The release of Nelson Mandela and end of Apartheid in South Africa.
• The launch of the Hubble Space Telescope

 

The ‘current’ generation that’s school-age now is Generation Z.

The defining points of this current generation is that they are highly connected, having had lifelong use of communications and media technologies such as DVDs, the World Wide Web, instant messaging, text messaging, MP3 players, cellular phones and YouTube, earning them the nickname “digital natives”.

Generation Y, the predecessor of Generation Z was a generation of tensions, where the children embraced technology in a way their parents’ generation (Baby Boomer) never could. Generation Z contrasts with Generation Y in that it is the first generation to see parents and children embrace technology together. While Generation X were introduced to technology such as the internet in their adolescent and early adulthood, Generation Y were either born into a culture where it was wide spread or the growth of such technologies took place when they were very young and as such, members often do not remember a life without the common place use of technologies such as the internet, mobile phones etc.