Lost Generation?

January 30, 2009 4:57 PM

I am part of a Lost Generation, and I refuse to believe I can change the world. Very clever AARP-sponsored positive propaganda piece for the Millenial Generation. (SLYT, 1min44sec).
posted by Roach (80 comments total)

meh.

I found the actress unconvincing.
posted by oddman at 5:01 PM on January 30, 2009

oddman: I think that the same audio clips are used twice, as well as the same lines. The affect has to be a little flat for this to work. It was much more clever than I expected.
posted by idiopath at 5:05 PM on January 30, 2009

Watch it for that magic moment when the scroll of dismal fate reverses itself...

It was better than the endings of Titanic and Superman combined.
posted by Joe Beese at 5:05 PM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

Why is this inspirational thing obsessed with me not getting divorced? I'd rather have a good divorce than a bad marriage.
posted by Phalene at 5:07 PM on January 30, 2009 [15 favorites]

trite.
posted by boo_radley at 5:07 PM on January 30, 2009 [2 favorites]

This is very bad

I beg to differ

This is great
posted by Dumsnill at 5:09 PM on January 30, 2009 [22 favorites]

I'd rather have a good marriage than a good divorce. Of course, that desire will probably just lead to me never getting married. C'est la vie.
posted by Caduceus at 5:11 PM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

Also, you guys are cynical fucks. I thought it was pretty clever. Not super inspiring, but the writing was pretty good.
posted by Caduceus at 5:12 PM on January 30, 2009 [2 favorites]

Clever and while I have no idea who the AARP are, doubtless their heart's in the right place. However, to add my cynical fuckery two penn'orth, I'm not sure how promoting the notion that happiness comes from within or that immediate family takes primacy will be much help in inspiring a generation to change the conditions of the society they live in. As much a recipe to cop out and drop out.
posted by Abiezer at 5:14 PM on January 30, 2009

Wow, MeFi playing catchup on stuff my uncle forwards me, never thought I'd see the day. I will admit though that I didn't see the punchline coming until they switched directions.
posted by furtive at 5:22 PM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

furtive, funnily enough my uncle forward it to me as well! :p
posted by Roach at 5:25 PM on January 30, 2009

Reading between the lines my skewed vision sees: Work hard and be a good little generation now, because we need you to support us now that we are done taking as many resources as we can for ourselves. But allow us to blame that all on you, that's our senior privilege.
posted by jellywerker at 5:28 PM on January 30, 2009 [28 favorites]

This is way too easy.
I realize this may be a shock, but
This "change" sentiment is a day late and a dollar short
I think we're all aware that
53% of those wrinkled jerks voted for McCain and
Even though they claim to have had the best of intentions
They're still the ones who got us into this mess.
posted by The White Hat at 5:29 PM on January 30, 2009 [24 favorites]

Sooner or later, one generation is going to be the one who gets told, regarding their Social Security entitlements: "Give me that rye, you old bag!"

For all I can see, it may well be mine.
posted by Joe Beese at 5:30 PM on January 30, 2009 [4 favorites]

Propaganda from a position of increasing impotence. Sorry, guys, you're on your own - we'll be too busy trying to survive. I'm not smiling vindictively or righteously smug: this is the world we inherited, we're just trying to deal with it the best we can, and growing forgiveness from this flinty ground is going to be difficult.
posted by eclectist at 5:36 PM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

I've seen this technique somewhere else, but I can't place it. I'm real sure it borrowed lines from both this and the Argentinian videos (or vice versa, I suppose).

I also find these a little creepy. The point of the first half is obviously meant to shock you, but lines like "I'd be lying to you if I said that" and "I tell you this" give them a weird vibe. Maybe that's the point. *shrug*
posted by niles at 5:37 PM on January 30, 2009

¿Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to a new era?
posted by william_boot at 5:38 PM on January 30, 2009 [6 favorites]

Millennial here, I just want to say I was with them until Soulja Boy.

Hmm, what is a Millennial?

I found this amusing:
"...members of Gen Y actually coined the term Millennials themselves and have expressed a wish not to be associated closely with Gen X.

look at my fuckin' user name.
posted by hellojed at 5:39 PM on January 30, 2009

Gen Y thinks it's hot shit, eh?

I can't wait until Gen Z never calls them any more.
posted by Joe Beese at 5:46 PM on January 30, 2009 [3 favorites]

I'm far too hip to find this cool.

Am I the only one who found it annoying that "true" (happiness) was inserted on the way back, thereby ruining the pattern?
posted by lucidium at 5:50 PM on January 30, 2009 [4 favorites]

What a buncha treacley, glurgey bullshit. Fuck that noise. I wish I were part of Generation X so I could be stereotyped as a cynical, affectless stoner rather than the two options I have now: mindless high-school-graduation-speech Polyanna Obamaniac or self-involved, entitled text message junkie.
posted by nasreddin at 5:51 PM on January 30, 2009 [3 favorites]

"while I have no idea who the AARP are..."

You are Dorian Gray, and I claim my five pounds.

But seriously, it's kind of the US version of the National Pensioners Convention. It had a lot of political clout when Social Security was the 3rd rail of American politics. Terrorism and the wars have sort of pushed Social Security out of the limelight, though. As the baby boomers come up in age, it may yet become a force to be reckoned with again. This is one reason that the organization is reaching out to young people.
posted by jedicus at 5:56 PM on January 30, 2009

So cold,
So sweet, and...
They were delicious.
(Forgive me.)

Saving for breakfast?
You were, probably.
And, which...

...in the icebox
that... were...
The plums.
I have eaten.

...

This is just to say.

Not so elegant now, are you, Williams?
posted by Rhaomi at 5:59 PM on January 30, 2009 [5 favorites]

Is this going to be one of those "Fuck that Gen Y/ Millennial/ Echo boomer bullshit" thread? If so then awesome.
posted by hellojed at 6:07 PM on January 30, 2009

Nice one, The White Hat!

I read your comment on youtube and was going to link to it here, but you beat me to it. Very sneaky!
posted by orme at 6:09 PM on January 30, 2009

So are the millenials the the new hippies? hmm.
posted by - at 6:18 PM on January 30, 2009

I first read it as the Blank Generation, so I said to myself, "Meh, I can take it or leave it each time."
posted by schyler523 at 6:21 PM on January 30, 2009

I'll betcha that was written by a Gen X'er. There's no way those clueless fucking boomers manage post-modernism so well.

And while we're inciting generational warfare, Obama is Gen X, suck it boomers, you had Clinton and Bush the Younger.
posted by Keith Talent at 6:23 PM on January 30, 2009 [8 favorites]

Fuck you, Boomers.
posted by signalnine at 6:24 PM on January 30, 2009 [2 favorites]

We aren't energetic/optimistic enough to be the new hippies. We're more like "the new guys who think everything is fucked."
posted by sonic meat machine at 6:28 PM on January 30, 2009

"As the baby boomers come up in age, it may yet become a force to be reckoned with again."

It's already one of the most powerful lobbying groups. It never stopped being such.
posted by krinklyfig at 6:37 PM on January 30, 2009

Even in their dotage, I see, the boomers remain inexplicably obsessed with playing things backwards for no good reason.
posted by enn at 6:40 PM on January 30, 2009 [3 favorites]

Conventional wisdom is that old people vote in record numbers, young people don't. It's why politicians ignore the young and go to every old folks home they can find. This election may have been a little different, I didn't look at the breakdown of voting demographics. Still, as clever as I found this, I don't see the point. I could write a rant here, but there's no reason to, it would server no purpose. I have tweets to read and text messages to send before I sleep.
posted by Hactar at 7:03 PM on January 30, 2009

it's been a long week, for me, don't take anything I say seriously
posted by hellojed at 7:20 PM on January 30, 2009

I too am part of a Lost Generation, but I am far too busy trying to work out where the John Locke / Richard Alpert compass originated from to worry about changing the world.
posted by mannequito at 7:23 PM on January 30, 2009 [5 favorites]

Keith Talent: "Obama is Gen X"

Technically speaking, I suppose. But speaking as a Gen member: I don't feel him.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:29 PM on January 30, 2009

I thought they were called "Willennials".

Fresh Prince, you have led me astray!
posted by davejay at 7:34 PM on January 30, 2009

I have no idea who the AARP are

They're a tremendously powerful intergenerational-transfer lobby. The elderly are a natural political power-center, for a combination of reasons: traditionally statist views, abundance of leisure time, "old-fashioned" comfort with authority. The AARP is essentially the umbrella group that coordinates their votes.
posted by grobstein at 8:13 PM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

They AARP is annoying. I don't like the fact that they're ads always contain kids when in fact they're all about old people (perhaps at the expensive of future generations). How about a little honesty, people!

On the other hand, they support Universal Healthcare, so that's good.
posted by delmoi at 8:24 PM on January 30, 2009

Don't define us by one popular TV show you old bastards.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 8:26 PM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

Damn mannequito, you are everything that is wrong with our generation.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 8:27 PM on January 30, 2009

Obama is difficult to place demographically. His mother was born just a few years before the start of the Baby Boom, and he was born just 18 years later. Could he and his mother actually be members of the same generation?

That's the problem with having non-overlapping generations, you get people born close to the partition who don't really fit. I grew up reading about "Gen X" and now I'm reading about these "millennials". Frankly both groups sound annoying when described, but Millennials, I think, sound more annoying.
posted by delmoi at 8:28 PM on January 30, 2009

Am I the only one who thinks describing/naming generations before they've even done anything is a bit silly?
posted by Suparnova at 8:39 PM on January 30, 2009 [4 favorites]

Who the hell is the Lost Generation?

/me is lost
posted by madajb at 8:39 PM on January 30, 2009

53% of those wrinkled jerks voted for McCain and

So everyone be careful or in 30-40 years you will BE one of those wrinkled jerks voting for 2048 McCain because 2048 Obama isn't as vehement in his opposition to equal marriage rights for polyamorists (it would undermine your traditional one woman-one woman marriage!) or might enforce civil rights for those intelligence-enhanced Great Apes that are stealing jobs from good upstanding Homosap citizens.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:42 PM on January 30, 2009

Frankly both groups sound annoying when described, but Millennials, I think, sound more annoying

They are. Gen Xers like myself know we're annoying bastards which makes us slightly less annoying than Millennials, who don't seem to realize just how pathetic they are.

But, hey, they're still a couple order of magnitudes better than Boomers.
posted by Justinian at 8:46 PM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

"...members of Gen Y actually coined the term Millennials themselves and have expressed a wish not to be associated closely with Gen X."

Honestly? You know that desire not to be associated with us? Multiply it by like a jillion infinities and that's how much we don't want to be associated with you.
posted by oddman at 8:50 PM on January 30, 2009

Frankly, if I was a "Millennial", and I may be by some people's definition, I would hate that term. Makes me sound like a member of a crazed apocalyptic cult, or at least someone extreemly self centered.
posted by delmoi at 9:10 PM on January 30, 2009

So, this is basically a help-wanted ad for young rest home care workers? No AARP member would want my generation looking after them. After all, remember who will choose your nursing home.

The piece works better if you imagined Daria reading the backwards half.
posted by scruss at 9:23 PM on January 30, 2009

Jesus, seriously, could Boomers just shut the fuck up for once. I am so tired of hearing about how great they had it and how shitty young people are, get off my lawn and etc etc. I heard a radio show where some blowhard was rambling on about how Gen X/Milennials are just jellis of their awesome boomer fun times and that's why the children are so disrespectful. Yes, I envy of all your pot-smoking and your big muddy orgy and the way you raped Social Security so that I'll never see a dime of what I pay into it. That must be it. Let's all invent a time machine to go back to that most awesome of years, 1968. Nothing bad happened then!
posted by sugarfish at 9:43 PM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

The funny thing is, it seems that this spot was written from the point of view of a boomer, even though a younger person is reading it... which would make it too late for them to be effective, unless they were a member of AARP.
posted by vhsiv at 9:57 PM on January 30, 2009

I'm surprised this is still here.

Perhaps, yes, perhaps I am settling into an age of interest for AARP. I have capped off a Friday night studying argumentation and trimming my nose hair. A savage evening.

Perhaps I shall apply for membership to the AARP.
posted by boo_radley at 10:17 PM on January 30, 2009

I remember that when I was a little kid, it seemed like they always talked about Baby Boomers on TV. I thought to myself At least when I'm 30 (Which felt like an eternity away) non-Baby Boomers will have more influence on the media (I thought TV was a young persons game) and I won't have to listen to talk about Baby Boomers anymore. I'm almost 40 now, and the amount Baby Boomers talk about themselves has only increased. Please stop.
posted by Quonab at 10:21 PM on January 30, 2009 [6 favorites]

Am I the only one who thinks describing/naming generations before they've even done anything is a bit silly?

No.

Course, I think the concept of generations is pretty silly. I'm a year older than Obama, and he's popularly supposed to be GenX while I'm (born 1960) either a Boomer or whatever got shoehorned in between Boomers and GenX. I too young to have been able to avoid the brown acid at Woodstock, and too old to have learned much from Sesame Street other than that Gay Muppets in committed relationships sleep in adjacent monogrammed single beds. Who do I get to revile, dammit?

Anyway, given that humans reproduce pretty much constantly unlike, say, 17-year cicadas, I tend to think that referring to "generations" as if they had any relevance outside the individual family group is, well, parlor sociology.

Also, the GenX-ers and younger folks who reject everything the Old Embarrassing Boomers stand for? Yeah, way to be totally unlike them.
posted by Coyote Crossing at 10:40 PM on January 30, 2009 [7 favorites]

I was too young. Damn bifocals anyway.
posted by Coyote Crossing at 10:41 PM on January 30, 2009

I like how Gen Y enjoys all the advantages Gen X secured for them and then acts like the typical spoiled little siblings they actually are.

...

...

...but I'm not bitter.
posted by batmonkey at 10:43 PM on January 30, 2009 [2 favorites]

I belong to the Blank Generation and I can take it or leave it each time.
posted by caddis at 10:58 PM on January 30, 2009

I like how Gen Y enjoys all the advantages Gen X secured for them and then acts like the typical spoiled little siblings they actually are.

You know what I like? Baiting!
Actually, if I'm going to be honest with myself, I do kind of like it.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 11:02 PM on January 30, 2009 [2 favorites]

Ahhhh ... you kids. Whatev.

Yeah, hopeful and all that, but, really? We're at a point at which even messages of resounding hope mean about as much as my vomiting into Songsmith. This is meaningless, albeit pretty, drivel.

Yes, I'm bitter.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 12:22 AM on January 31, 2009

I like how Gen Y enjoys all the advantages Gen X secured for them and then acts like the typical spoiled little siblings they actually are.

I like how Gen X believes they actually secured any advantages for anybody, when it was actually the boomers that secured them for *them*.

I thought to myself At least when I'm 30 (Which felt like an eternity away) non-Baby Boomers will have more influence on the media.

The media *is* a young person's game. Boomers might dominate the senior management, but the people who are writing stories and producing TV shows are Gen X'ers and younger. They can't stop producing stories about us for the same reason this thread is filled with Gen X'ers and post Gen X'ers who can't stop whining about us.

Don't like it? Then get over yourselves, stop whining and do something meaningful with your own fucking lives.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:08 AM on January 31, 2009

Hey, I'm kidding.

PeterMcDermott: Get your chip settled back down. Geez. Run out of toilet paper or something?

Boomers in my life were all takers, users, and narcissists. But they taught me many object lessons and I was happy to share in the gems their youthful flailing had produced. Even if I do get sick of some of the stories, most of the rest were fairly historic and it means a lot to me to have an almost-direct link to some interesting moments in a tumultuous era.

The Greatest Generation folks gave me my foundation, though. Most of the stability in my life came from the grandparents and the cast-offs of their generation, as we lived off of garage sales and thrift stores, and crashed in their homes constantly. Their stories, fashions, furniture, and habits became ingrained into my life forever, tying me to decades prior to my own birth, making the Golden Age more personal than it seemed to be for my peers.

The generation that snuggles between the Boomers and mine blew my mind with their wantonness and me-ism and determination. Not many of them were all three, but most were at least two. They showed me what adulthood was going to be like, and I saw that even the brightest would stumble from time to time. I'm grateful for their role modeling.

The Gen Y/Millenials, I was worried for. Things got really negative and jaded and cynical right about when they were popping into awareness, and they all seemed a bit too far ahead of themselves. But they do amazing things with the advantages they've been given, look for sweet spots in hard places, and they seem to hate BS. I like that. Not all are like that - they've got bad apples like every other generation, of course - but enough are that I'm frequently looking for ways to make sure I'm not part of the problem, that I'm not hindering all of this great energy now that these whippersnappers are ready to take a running leap at the future.

If only they could get over that belligerence thing...
posted by batmonkey at 2:29 AM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

I don't feel like any of these groups. I'm technically a boomer...but just barely. My significant other is definitely a boomer, but I am just barely in that age range. One year later and I'd be Gen X. So when I'm around a group of boomers, I'm the kid that no one takes seriously. When I'm around Gen-X'ers, I'm the old man that no one takes seriously. So, when I see a group of youngish Gen-X'ers or Gen-Y'ers, I am torn between yelling at them to get off my lawn, or asking them if they have any grass.
posted by jamstigator at 2:33 AM on January 31, 2009

Previously.

To live between a rock and a hard place
In between time --
Cruising in prime time -- soaking up the cathode rays

To live between the wars in our time --
Living in real time --
Holding the good time -- Holding on to yesterdays...

You know how that rabbit feels
Going under your speeding wheels
Bright images flashing by
Like windshields towards a fly
Frozen in the fatal climb -- but the wheels of time --
Just pass you by...

Wheels can take you around
Wheels can cut you down

We can go from boom to bust
From dreams to a bowl of dust
We can fall from rockets' red glare
Down to "Brother can you spare --"
Another war -- another waste land --
And another lost generation...

It slips between your hands like water
This living in real time
A dizzying lifetime
Reeling by on celluloid

Struck between the eyes
By the big-time world
Walking uneasy streets --
Hiding beneath the sheets --
Got to try and fill the void...
posted by Eideteker at 3:31 AM on January 31, 2009

Oh, and to reiterate, a millennial is someone born in THIS millennium, DAMMIT.
posted by Eideteker at 3:36 AM on January 31, 2009

Generations: pop prosopography.

Seriously, how does this bullshit of 'generations' differ from astrology? 'Oh, but they have common experiences'. Yeah, like your suburban college-bound upbringing was so much like that teenage mother from the inner city? Or being the child of an immigrant is just like finding yourself happily called John Winthrop VII?



Otherwise, the video was kinda neat in delivery, but trite in message.
posted by Sova at 3:50 AM on January 31, 2009 [4 favorites]

It was clever and makes some good points, though it's a little broad and general . . . the point about family was interesting. Family (your spouse or your kids or whatever) is what's going to be there for you when things go really downhill. Even my dad, who was going to be independent and a free spirit for the rest of his life once he divorced my mother nearly thirty years ago, is living with his sister now at the end of his life. If my mom hadn't had me near her, she would have spent the last few years of her life alone. But it's not just about getting old, either. If you have a stroke, or a series of concussions, or an automobile accident, without family you're just another medical condition without a history.
posted by Peach at 4:22 AM on January 31, 2009

Obama is Gen X

Well, sort of. It's always hard to pin these things down, but I think Obama's pretty clearly on the cusp between Boomer and Gen X. Remember, the Baby Boom is an actual demographic event based on annual birth numbers. The U.S. Census defines it as the years between 1946 and 1964. Obama was born in 1961.

But even if you use a more fluid cultural definition, Obama is also classifiable a member of the 2nd of the two cultural "cohorts" of Boomers - the one born between 1955 and 1964, whose early memories include Watergate and the 70s gas shortages instead of JFK and Martin Luther King. I was born in 1963 and Gen X fits me much more than Boomer, but while remembering Watergate is true for very few Gen Xers I think it's kind of culturally important for defining "generations" in the United States.

If you're going to bother caring about arbitrary definitions of abstract groups of years at all, that is.

Bottom line: claiming Obama as Gen X is overly simplistic.
posted by mediareport at 5:30 AM on January 31, 2009

all the gen labels vanish when jobs and economy go south and you have to scramble to get by.

AARP here simply doing stuff to get nice image but basically it is nothing but a group selling insurance. My favorite is the current ad they run in which they sell you their insurance to cover stuff not covered in Medicare and then say it is (theirs) the onlyh programj endorsed by AARP (their program endorsed by them).

Take but oneitem: staying together as a family. How do you change the 50% divorce rate? by watching the film or making divorce illegal or just how? simple: you watch this film.

not good music or hot babes in the clip=failure.
posted by Postroad at 5:33 AM on January 31, 2009

Seriously, how does this bullshit of 'generations' differ from astrology?

astrology can't kill you, ruin your career plans, give you hope for a new world, or tear your country apart

history can

and those who don't study it are doomed to repeat it - people are shaped by their times - there are still vast differences between people, but if you think the events of our times don't shape the way people think and feel then you're not paying attention

the video was worse than trite - it was a boomer using a millenial as a sock puppet - something, unless the millenials are careful, the boomers might end up doing to all the millenials - sometimes, in the case of the great depression and ww2, that's a sadly necessary thing - sometimes, in the case of the hitler youth it's a really BAD thing

i worry about the millenial tendency to do what they're told because the people telling them to do things, my generation, (1957), are not trustworthy - in fact, they are a generation of vipers
posted by pyramid termite at 6:18 AM on January 31, 2009

I noticed you used a specific term in your post Batmonkey: "Golden Age."

That's scary. Things don't usually tend to have two golden ages...
posted by jellywerker at 6:27 AM on January 31, 2009

I like the way the older generation explains it in Marquee Moon.

"...I spoke to a man
down at the tracks.
I asked him
how he don't go mad.
He said "Look here junior, don't you be so happy.
And for Heaven's sake, don't you be so sad..."
posted by schyler523 at 8:15 AM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Coyote Crossing linked to something from "Generation Jones" which is apparently the generation between Boomer and X. The Wikipedia defines Generation Jones as people born between 1954 and 1965. I have never heard of this "Generation Jones" before, but they have a website and a wikipedia and stuff, so there are probably about as many people who take it seriously as a concept as there are who take "furries" seriously as a concept.
posted by Cookiebastard at 8:21 AM on January 31, 2009

All else aside, that scrolly effect was pretty cool.
posted by Xany at 8:34 AM on January 31, 2009

Oh stop it with your Obamafied Yes We Can cellphone-talk. You're--I think--unknowingly "borrowing" this term from Hemingway who conceived it after participating in that, uh, WAR where, uh, like 9,721,937 people were killed. Now that's different than whether you think your uncomfortable summer day is being caused by Global Warming. Since you sound Anglo--like me--you've been raised on a corn-fed diet of processed food you buy at giant chains selling you some sort one one-inch thick version of something you think is culture, cheap and plentiful oil, and in a Gucci society that has told you that You're No 1, This One's For You, and that you're SPECIAL, you marketed shill-chick. And you drive a car, Google stuff (you know, more carbon footprint stuff), and eat red meat and chickens and... whatever, just stop it with the Lost Generation and think up something else.
posted by wallstreet1929 at 10:09 AM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Millennials is by no means limited to people who were born this millennium. The term encompasses something like anyone born between 1985-2000. Unless by "this millennium" you actually mean within the last thousand years.

I liked the video. I thought it was clever. It was an ad spot, not a lengthy treatise on generational trends and the longstanding Gen-X/Y feud that has managed to poison this thread as well. Had I seen the complete ad spot on TV, I would've been impressed by the originality, if nothing else. It's more than I can say for most of the other ads out there.

Regardless of the actual values of the Millennials (or Gen Y, or whatever other trite name society insist on using to place people into neatly segmented demographic groups), I've never really understood the point of all the finger-pointing and blame-assigning and anger ("You kids will ruin everything I've worked for! And you're lazy!" "As if you actually gave us anything, it'll be up to us to fix your problems! You smell!")

It's such a ridiculous way of communicating, and such a waste of time. If you honestly believe that Gen Y is full of apathetic, lazy, jaded and bitter individuals with no soul, and if you're honestly worried about what they will do with their future and want to make sure they don't shoot themselves in the foot, how is bitching them out going to help? If you're right, you haven't given them a solid reason for why they shouldn't be apathetic and cynical. If you're wrong, you've alienated them. Other than making yourself feel superior, what purpose does it accomplish?
posted by Phire at 10:37 AM on January 31, 2009

But seriously, it's kind of the US version of the National Pensioners Convention. It had a lot of political clout when Social Security was the 3rd rail of American politics. Terrorism and the wars have sort of pushed Social Security out of the limelight, though.

Huh? It was the first thing Bush brought up after his re-election, claiming to have "political capital" that he was going to spend. His partial privatization plan failed miserably, for Social Security was still the Third Rail, even after 9-11. This, despite holding "town hall" meetings concerning the issue, where dissenting opinions were shut out.

Forget a career in political analysis or punditry, if you were planning on it.
posted by raysmj at 11:58 AM on January 31, 2009

"Other than making yourself feel superior, what purpose does it accomplish?"

Have you seen very much Gen-X pop-culture? Feeling superior is pretty much are raison d'etre (we've got precious little else).
posted by oddman at 12:04 PM on January 31, 2009

Well, I'm going to use this as an exercise for my 9th graders. Play it, have them try to replicate the effect. More mentally challenging than having them write a sonnet, I think.
posted by kozad at 12:24 PM on January 31, 2009

This entire thread is really depressing me for a lot of reasons, both from the post link itself and from the reaciton it's getting here.

Is ham-fisted reverse scroll screed poetry effective? No.

Is Flame On! Coal-black snark effective? No.

So, like it's been said upthread, history's a bitch. Categorizing generations is a silly exercise in both narcissism and suspicion.

I wish this thread were more about what each of us feel is our responsibility to our lives and then hopefully also to each other. Does anyone here feel up to talking about what is important to them in this way?

I don't want to watch the world turn to shit either, but I also don't want to say all I did about it was add to a thread. I'd rather see a world of mentors and selfless, focused behavior.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 5:04 PM on January 31, 2009

I'm going to use this as an exercise for my 9th graders.

And you could have them read this one too, for a different double-meaning puzzle.
posted by Peach at 8:11 PM on January 31, 2009