If you're over 35, this may hit home
Aug. 23rd, 2006 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vanillafluffyAn 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
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