GoodPersonEffed
Brevity is my middle name, but my name was TL
- Jan 11, 2020
- 6,727
There's always tension between generations. The younger generation rejects the rules and mores of the older generation, which tend toward obsolescence yet hold on with stubborn tenacity, but they don't yet have the power to make cultural changes that reflect their ethics, such as job longevity, growing into leadership positions, etc. So the generations just glare at each other, point fingers, and judge each other lacking and irrelevant.
An example that comes to mind are the free-love hippy generation of the Sixties, who eventually had to join the same slow drudge they'd rejected, because they had kids, needed to make money, needed to survive in a world that didn't change for them. They were not only high on drugs, but on ideals, and ideals didn't change the world like they'd hoped.
A fault of older generations is often to reject the younger, treat them as stupid, inexperienced and inept, and shut their ears to their ideals, but what they themselves lack is understanding of an experience vastly different from the one of their own younger years. Non-participation does not equal irrelevance.
Although I don't feel old, I am finally at an age where I sense a strong gap between my lived experience and that of Milennials, and how we live in the same world but experience it differently (edit: it seems I actually mostly mean Generation Z as well as the youngest Milennials, I'm so old I missed the new terminology. Post has been edited to reflect the change). Our foundational experiences were so utterly different, I think perhaps even more so than between other generations due to the rapid advances in technology. In my generation, it was an anomaly for someone to have a computer in their home, there was no Internet, we had VCRs instead of instant downloads, the coolest kids had Atari and then Nintendo, and we played the games alone or sitting next to one another. We had mean people in school, and there were bullies, but bullying was not a wide-spread cultural phenomenon, even tabloids were less mean. But with the introduction and increasing popularity of social media, even the Gen Xers and older generations jumped on the bullying bandwagon because ganging up on people, judging, and shaming can feel damn good, especially when no one knows for sure who you are and they can't see you being shitty. I think there's less self-restraint in society in general, because before, folks didn't do shitty things when someone was looking, but now everyone does shitty things, so why hold back? And of course with the increase of information availabiliity, along with the pendulum swing against bullying, piled on top of the anti-establishment sentiments of the sixties, it seems to me that, as a collective culture, we bully even more, now with a seemingly increased sentiment of being morally superior.
There's a tension on SS that I'm trying to understand between older members like me, generally Generation Xers, a few older than that, and those in the Gen Z/late Milennial generation. I catch myself sometimes getting that negating, old-fogey attitude of, "If you have a question, why don't you look it up?" But I know I feel that way because there's something I don't understand. It's easy to sit in a place of falsely entitled judgment and say, "You folks grew up with the Internet. Any question you had, you could look it up, and there was plenty your parents didn't want you to know, so you all were good at finding information, both hidden and readily available. So why do you ask the simplest questions when the information is often already out there or right here on the forum?" What is it that I'm not seeing about the Gen Z/ late Milennial experience that an old fogey doesn't understand? I don't want to be a judgmental dick, I don't want to be someone's info gopher, and maybe it would be better to just let younger folks answer younger folks, but then they are marginalized and I am marginalized, and that's not a community; someone loses out on support, and someone loses out on feeling supportive.
So here's my thesis, but I could be way off. Because of forums and chats and discords, is there a tendency to just ask each other everything since you're all connected anyway, and someone may already know the answer? Was looking up information that adults didn't want you to know a skill that was developed only for when rebellion was needed, and not used when among your own generation because someone had probably already looked up the forbidden and it was safe to ask since you generally shared the same values and goals?
What do you think, Gen Zers and late Milennials? Am I getting it all wrong? And do you find value from interacting with a wide variety of folks regardless of generation, or do you roll your eyes and wish we'd just let you talk amongst yourselves?
______________________
Before commenting, please note that the purpose of this thread is to open dialogue that encourages understanding, mutual respect, and acceptance. No one is wrong here, regardless of generation, so please be civil, refrain from saying something that diminishes another such as telling them about themselves rather than asking, and be aware when you're wanting to come out swinging. This caveat is as much for me as for anyone else. I hope for the best and we'll see what happens.
If you read this post, thanks for reading. If you respond, thanks for responding.
An example that comes to mind are the free-love hippy generation of the Sixties, who eventually had to join the same slow drudge they'd rejected, because they had kids, needed to make money, needed to survive in a world that didn't change for them. They were not only high on drugs, but on ideals, and ideals didn't change the world like they'd hoped.
A fault of older generations is often to reject the younger, treat them as stupid, inexperienced and inept, and shut their ears to their ideals, but what they themselves lack is understanding of an experience vastly different from the one of their own younger years. Non-participation does not equal irrelevance.
Although I don't feel old, I am finally at an age where I sense a strong gap between my lived experience and that of Milennials, and how we live in the same world but experience it differently (edit: it seems I actually mostly mean Generation Z as well as the youngest Milennials, I'm so old I missed the new terminology. Post has been edited to reflect the change). Our foundational experiences were so utterly different, I think perhaps even more so than between other generations due to the rapid advances in technology. In my generation, it was an anomaly for someone to have a computer in their home, there was no Internet, we had VCRs instead of instant downloads, the coolest kids had Atari and then Nintendo, and we played the games alone or sitting next to one another. We had mean people in school, and there were bullies, but bullying was not a wide-spread cultural phenomenon, even tabloids were less mean. But with the introduction and increasing popularity of social media, even the Gen Xers and older generations jumped on the bullying bandwagon because ganging up on people, judging, and shaming can feel damn good, especially when no one knows for sure who you are and they can't see you being shitty. I think there's less self-restraint in society in general, because before, folks didn't do shitty things when someone was looking, but now everyone does shitty things, so why hold back? And of course with the increase of information availabiliity, along with the pendulum swing against bullying, piled on top of the anti-establishment sentiments of the sixties, it seems to me that, as a collective culture, we bully even more, now with a seemingly increased sentiment of being morally superior.
There's a tension on SS that I'm trying to understand between older members like me, generally Generation Xers, a few older than that, and those in the Gen Z/late Milennial generation. I catch myself sometimes getting that negating, old-fogey attitude of, "If you have a question, why don't you look it up?" But I know I feel that way because there's something I don't understand. It's easy to sit in a place of falsely entitled judgment and say, "You folks grew up with the Internet. Any question you had, you could look it up, and there was plenty your parents didn't want you to know, so you all were good at finding information, both hidden and readily available. So why do you ask the simplest questions when the information is often already out there or right here on the forum?" What is it that I'm not seeing about the Gen Z/ late Milennial experience that an old fogey doesn't understand? I don't want to be a judgmental dick, I don't want to be someone's info gopher, and maybe it would be better to just let younger folks answer younger folks, but then they are marginalized and I am marginalized, and that's not a community; someone loses out on support, and someone loses out on feeling supportive.
So here's my thesis, but I could be way off. Because of forums and chats and discords, is there a tendency to just ask each other everything since you're all connected anyway, and someone may already know the answer? Was looking up information that adults didn't want you to know a skill that was developed only for when rebellion was needed, and not used when among your own generation because someone had probably already looked up the forbidden and it was safe to ask since you generally shared the same values and goals?
What do you think, Gen Zers and late Milennials? Am I getting it all wrong? And do you find value from interacting with a wide variety of folks regardless of generation, or do you roll your eyes and wish we'd just let you talk amongst yourselves?
______________________
Before commenting, please note that the purpose of this thread is to open dialogue that encourages understanding, mutual respect, and acceptance. No one is wrong here, regardless of generation, so please be civil, refrain from saying something that diminishes another such as telling them about themselves rather than asking, and be aware when you're wanting to come out swinging. This caveat is as much for me as for anyone else. I hope for the best and we'll see what happens.
If you read this post, thanks for reading. If you respond, thanks for responding.
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