THURSDAY THOUGHTS: The Generalisation Of Whole Generations Is BS, But...
...Are Gen Z the new Gen X? We can only hope!
The curse of streaming services is that one often watches or listens to the same content over and over again, which essentially means paying around $10/month per service for content I’ve already paid for many times over. Be that as it may, this week I found myself watching one of my favourite Gen X (1965 - 1980) movies, again!
‘Office Space’ is an American comedy that came out in 1999, roughly two years before British sitcom ‘The Office’ first aired. It was written and directed by Mike Judge, the irreverent mind behind Gen X icons ‘Beavis & Butthead’ and ‘King of The Hill’ and, more recently, ‘Silicon Valley’, another satire on working life made for a different generation.
If you are familiar with any of these titles you’ll know that they all embody the nihilistic, don’t-give-a-fuck attitude of Gen Xers. They are satires of capitalist culture that mock middle-class drones like Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston), the protagonist of ‘Office Space’ who hates his soul-sapping job at faceless corporation ‘Initech’ and is only truly happy when, spoiler alert, the whole place burns to the ground.
Peter, like me and most Gen Xers, look up to disheveled slackers like Kevin Smith and Kurt Cobain for living life squarely on their own terms, sticking it to the man and refusing to conform like their Boomer parents, who worked 50 years for the same company only to receive a carriage clock and a coronary in return for their service.
Now, let’s compare that to the Millennial generation (1981 - 1996), whose idols are more likely to be CEOs than cartoon characters or rockstars; tech titans such as Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs. They actually aspire to joining faceless corporations or, even better, starting one of their own!
Millennials are the generation of #riseandgrind #mondaymotivation and #hustleculture, which involves turning any hobby or interest outside of work into work because if it ain’t making money, why do it? They don’t shun corporations, they chase them down by making free content to attract their attention with the singular goal of “selling out” as soon as possible - a cardinal sin to Gen X.
It is said that each generation is a reaction to the one before and if that’s true then Gen Z (1997 - 2012) are bang on trend. Recent articles that have caught my eye include:
Gen Z appear to be highly individualistic (like Gen X), but define themselves by their inherent traits parlayed as “identities”, as opposed to cliques or genres like “nerd”, “jock” or “stoner”. They’re less interested in working the 9-5, mainly because most modern jobs expect more than that but still don’t pay enough for them to leave home, let alone get on the property ladder before the age of 40 (Gen X also didn’t dig the 9-5 trade off). And, interestingly, Gen Z are increasingly turned off by technology. They are acutely aware of their own mental health and the damage being inflicted upon it by those faceless corporations who conspire to keep them in front of their screens 24/7. You’ve probably heard about the vinyl boom (vinyl sales beat CDs for the first time since 1987 this year), but sales of “dumb” phones or at least less-smart phones are on the rise, not to mention film cameras and even retro digital cameras that have less functionality than current cameras. Oh, and cassette tapes are back too! A lot of this retro technology can be found at thrift stores, which was another Gen X obsession. We didn’t care about brands, we cared about authenticity and self-expression and so, it seems, does Gen Z.
I often daydream about how I’d cope with just a dumbphone and a notebook but living in tech-centric Singapore it’s hard to get by without an Apple or Android constant companion, which has it’s advantages. Banking and government services are a breeze to use on mobile here with great security features but that ever-present oblong in my pocket (no sniggering at the back) weighs on me. I feel constantly tethered to…everything, all the time. I have adopted some good habits, I like to leave it in the car when out with the family or in nature and, yes, I do have both a film camera and a digital camera so I don’t miss those precious moments. And I always carry a book with me so that I have something else to turn to other than my phone but it seems like we’re past the point of no return when it comes to tech. Every service is so reliant on it now and the smartphone is our only interface - at least until Elon Musk gets his way and buries a chip directly into our brains.
I know Gen Z often receive a lot of stick for their alleged lack of resilience and work ethic but maybe they’re just refusing to accept a bad deal. As I frequently remind my parents; when they came of age it required just one person working a blue collar job to put a deposit down on a house, now it requires two people with masters degrees and there’s still no guarantee. Gen X went by another name by the way, the ‘slacker generation’, but we never were, we just didn’t like the deal that was being offered and the offer has gotten a lot worse since then:
These are all glaring symptoms of late stage capitalism but that’s a post for another day. I just wanted to say that, I think the kids are alright, it’s the system that’s the problem and they might just be the ones to change it.