People Try To Put Us Down
The other week I was set upon by an entrepreneurial twenty-something armed with a new arts magazine and a great schpeel about how our generation was fast becoming the 'Peter Pan' generation - refusing to grow up. As I stood there, cornered good and proper and unable to move I surpressed the urge to pull her hair and run away.
Part of her argument was that today's pop music was actually supporting this twisted generation. It's an arguement I won't go into cos it stank and anyway I like B*Witched so I tend to agree.
Actually, our generation is not the Peter Pan generation, we are the generation with too many names. Regarded as one of Thatcher's Children - she nursed me through my teens - when I was about 19 I was officially part of Generation X. We didn't really have any aspirations - or at least had aspirations different to all previous generatins. We didn't want money, careers or material goods - fortunate really since the recession put all of that beyond us. As a drama student I presumed this lacklustre half-arsed half-apathetic aproach to life was just because our course was a load of rubbish and we were arty wankers. Dread to think what it was like in the econmics department.
Anyway, a few years later I was part of the Boomerang Generation. These were the Generation who'd left home to go to college - or simply to test the outside world - discovered it wasn't a terribly good place to be if you didn't have any money and so had to scuttle off back home to mum and dad to plan a different method of attack. Aside from my reservations on the name - couldn't we be more English Goddamit - the return ticket generation or something - I actually didn't return home. I stayed where I was occasionally receiving snippets of returnism.
Generation X did return briefly a few years ago. Apparently those who weren't in Generation X when they were 19 had managed to get jobs, but unfortunately later in their careers they'd suddenly wondered why the hell they were doing all of this for such scant reward. Hence the Generation Xers were producing something of a problem for companies in terms of reward, remuneration and promotion.
There must be better names for these Generations. So far we've got a novel by Barrie, a sad punk rock group from the 80s and an aboriginal hunting impliment.
The Kite Generation. At the age of 22 , I graduated from University and was told the world was my oyster. 6 months later I can feel the string pulling me back in and the string's made up of rent, food money, laundry, tax.
The Oasis Generation
The Mr Ben Generation
The Generation Generation
The Next Generation
The Peter Pan Generation has to be the most condescending of the lot so far. I'm particualrly annoyed that it was introduced to me by someone 10 years younger than me. Or maybe that's the whole point.