If you're over 35, this may hit home

[vanillafluffy]

An institution called Beloit College has compiled a profile of the mindset of incoming freshman classes for the last several years. Things like, "The expression 'You sound like a broken record' means nothing to them.", "The Tonight Show has always been with Jay Leno." or "Star Wars looks very fake to them, and the special effects are pathetic." And more---much more!

I read through the lot, which is about 8 years worth of lists, and found myself blinking often and thinking, "Well, that explains a lot!" We may think that our parents lived through history, what with The Great Depression, and World War II and all that--but there has been a lot of significant change and/or progress (the two aren't necessarily synonymous!) in our lifetimes.

Granted, I was in diapers when JFK was shot, but I grew up with the Vietnam War, saw man land on the moon, spent my adolescence hearing about Watergate and my high school years listening to disco. I regularly used a phonograph, an 8-track player and a manual typewriter and owned more than one Datsun. At the time, gasoline was 89 cents a gallon. I got up at 5 AM to watch Diana marry Prince Charles. I remember getting my first microwave, my first VCR (VHS--not Beta!), and my first CD player. I took flights without going through scanners at airports. AIDS used to be a morbid footnote on a back page of the newspaper. Portable phones came with their own suitcase. If there were Soviets in a movie, they'd be the bad guys--count on it. Residents of "the Middle East" called America names, but kept their fights in their own sandbox. Political correctness meant filling out your ballot without making any mistakes. Cartoons were only on Saturday morning; they didn't have their own network. I thought rap was a fad...like break-dancing.

And so on. It's a bit daunting. We can't see the forest for the trees, just as we can't see history while it's being made, because a lot of the time, it just looks like daily life. It isn't until the familiar changes beyond recall that it becomes noteworthy. What will be history tomorrow?

Thus endeth the rant.


Interested in those lists? They're here: http://www.beloit.edu/%7Epubaff/mindset/2002.html

Comments

[socialhermit.livejournal.com]

Mind-boggling, ain't it? I was born in 1965, and I can't believe all the incredible discoveries and/or changes that have happened just in my (relatively short) lifetime. The world is definitely moving at a faster pace than our grandparents and even our parents had to deal with!

[majolika.livejournal.com]

god I feel old! how I remember the first CDs, the four wheel rollerskates, this strange new "gay cancer" killing people in America ... What strikes me as oddest though when I talk to young people is that they don't remember divided Germany. When I mention my time in Berlin (moved there in 85) I really have to make an effort to assure them that yes, there was a wall in the middle, and yes, you were forced to change money when you just wanted to go around the block in your own city ... it's been ages.

*feels grey beard grow through desk*
*decides that it feels okay*

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Yikes, that's a major change, all right. I haven't gone through anything quite that dramatic. What's strange is, the things I thought were perfectly okay at 20-something are less so at 40-something. Like, the age when you were legally allowed to drink alcohol was 18, until I was in my mid-20s, then it was raised to 21, which I thought was terribly unfair at the time. These days, I approve wholeheartedly. I used to think that a female ought to be allowed a no-questions-asked, no-parents-informed regardless of her age. Now that I'm old enough to have offspring, I'm not so certain. When the PMRC (Parents Musical Resource Commission) first started lobbying to put content warning stickers on albums, I was outraged---but that was before 'artists' started stringing together four-letter words, turning every woman into a 'ho' or a 'bitch' and advocating full-scale murder of law enforcement. I think if some of America's Founding Fathers could see what freedom of speech has been perverted to include, they'd exercise their right to bear arms and start popping caps in some vulgar homeboy butts. And video games? Good grief! It's a looong way from "Space Invaders" to "Grand Theft Auto".

*strokes long white beard*
One more beard and we can call ourselves the Three Billy Goats Gruff!

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

That sentence should have read "I used to think that a female ought to be allowed a no-questions-asked, no-parents-informed abortion regardless of her age." That was probably a Freudian slip on my part. I'm no longer convinced that that's so, but I can all-too-easily imagine circumstances under which it should be so. Abortion is a VERY controversial question in the U.S., unfortunately, and the waters are made even murkier by people who want to impose their strictures on everyone.

[majolika.livejournal.com]

that's socomplicated. I'd always call myself pro-choice in any sense when asked, but sometimes I'm not sure how much this is really my belief or if it's mostly because I HATE the prolifers and their crap so much. The idea of a 13 year old girl getting an abortion without ever talking to anybody ... I don't know. Same with late-term abortions. It makes me shudder.
Anyway I'm just so very grateful that I don't have a teenager in my home. Just trying to understand their life! the horror!

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Exactly; I remember myself all too well at 13. All things considered, it's just as well the guy I had an insane crush on in 9th grade never noticed me *that way*.