The 'Me' Generation

GAP

I had been lurking around the internet for articles and I am kind of shocked to see myself in those categories My parents always told me that the "Real" world was tough and challenging place, I am beginning to realize that they might be right. While not everyone in our generation behaves this way, it seems as though I do often feel a sense of entitlement concerning my jobs,I can be lazy and I have no idea how hard work actually is. It seems as though that I am among those Generation Me people but it seems as though that most of the complains come from the last generation. they are not entirely wrong but is our generation really the Me generation?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/08/24/millenials-time-magazine-generation-y/2678441/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tyler-kingkade/the-real-me-generation-time-millennials_b_3247210.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials

http://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/generation-gaps/generation-me1.htm

 

Kraken

[user deleted]

glennmagusharvey

I think that, in some countries, we're finally getting into a generation or two in first-world countries that has grown up on the fruits of modern technological development, and there's a bit of "instinct confusion" in a post-scarcity information-age world where our instincts are just to get ourselves ahead and try to get as much as we can for ourselves and for our children and friends before we kick the bucket.

Maybe.  Alternatively, maybe I'm just speaking out of my rear.

fourteenwings

in a post-scarcity information-age world where our instincts are just to get ourselves ahead

Like all humans given the opportunity ever?

I really like this:

There are no precise dates when the generation starts and ends.

Because it makes it super-obvious that it's just people complaining about everybody born after 1980.

glennmagusharvey

Technically, generations are cohorts of people, but people are born continuously, so defining cohorts is difficult.

GAP

Kraken wrote:

There is no 'Me' generation.

What there is, is a generation of individuals who have inherited old problems, faced new and emerging issues, and are working to adapt to it. Just like our parents. And theirs. And theirs.

The only inhabitant of the 'Me' generation is you. Because you say you are.

 

I guess hmmm is right at this point.

RedEyedAbyss

"Me generation" summed up in one post:

http://howtobejobless.wordpress.com/2014/04/27/the-evolution-of-the-job-snob/

GAP

You could also mention the perception of society towards those working in retail and fastfood jobs. I’m sure we’ve all heard a bunch of times someone say something like “he can’t be too bright because he’s working at McDonalds” and seen fictional stories in the media where screw-ups and failures are punished by getting stuck in such jobs. I was watching the movie Unstoppable the other day, and the dim character who causes the disaster is fired for being incompetent at the end of the movie and it smugly adds “[his name] now works in the fast food industry” as if that is his punishment. Obviously it’s only fiction but you can see in society that attitude being held by many. So it’s little wonder people who have busted their backsides off in education want to be seen as the losers that many in society consider people in that industry to be.

 

That is fair point I was always told that the fast food industry is place where people who failed at life or school worked. I know that is not the case but the stigma is still there,

 

1996 – “Better do your homework or you’ll end up working a dead-end fastfood job!”
2002 – “You better ace these exams if you don’t want to be flipping burgers for the rest of your life.”
2008 – “Get a good degree or you’ll get stuck in a job that comes with a nametag and a novelty hat!”

…

2014 – “What, you think you’re too good to work in McDonalds or something?”

Huh. Wonder where on earth I got that idea.

 

Uhhh what? I was told that working in fast food is the low point of your life if you don't get a degree in anything but now it is reversed?!

Naas_Human

If it was "reversed" working at a fast food place would be actively celebrated, instead of just looked down less.

Kraken

[user deleted]

RedEyedAbyss

The way I see it, you can't win either way. People will always try to pin blame on the generation after them (and before them, for that matter), and any claim of "entitlement" is either self-contradictory, hypocritical, or both. It's best to ignore such labels as "Me Generation" and do what's right for yourself.

Also, working fast-food or retail teaches humility and an appreciation for those who work there. Truth be told, I worked harder then compared to any engineering job (albeit white-collar, and in the fast-food case, for lower job satisfaction).

GAP

^ I worked in a warehouse but I am not sure if that counts. There was a qupte about what you had just said but I cannot find it.

GAP

Bump.

I read a book called 'Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever' by Jean M. Twenge and it is very interesting read at first. After reading it I feel as though that while it may have good points, it sometimes feel as though that I should feel guilt about being born into this generation and it seems no different than blaming the new generation for having so 'easy'. I looked around for reviews for this book and as reviewers pointed out, the author seems to possess the same narcissism as the very people she is observing and it seems to be a little biased towards Middle Class Americans anyway. It does have some good points but as most people on this thread have said, it just another case of the new generation inheriting the old problems of the last one and the older generation berating the newer one for having so 'easy' compared to them.

Blueeyedrat

Bee

The "Me Generation" is what happens when a bunch of people don't want to think about how they tanked the economy so badly that jobs are outnumbered four to one by job seekers and jacked up tuition and health costs by entire orders of magnitude, so they call their children selfish for not wanting to be homeless.

GAP

^^ & ^ True.