"X has been passed down for generations."
But what is a generation? What and who makes up a generation? Do they even exist? Why is the term emerging into prevalence? And how does it affect our relationships with others?
Generally speaking, a generation is a group of individuals who possess certain characteristics based on when they were born. The term is mostly utilized when referring to a demographic but can also be used as a marketing strategy. Take, for example, Coca Cola's "Share a Coke" campaign last summer where the company placed a name on every bottle. The commercials that helped make it an extremely successful campaign featured young adults on a beach sipping cokes or buying bottles in a gas station. Those guys are part of a generational group called millennials.
I am certain you have heard the word "millennial" at least once, while watching the daily news or reading an online article or hearing it in conversation. Millennials (or Generation Y) consist of that group of people born between the early 1980s to the late 1990s, or around ages 18 to 35 and have become the subject of a number of studies and conversations. Perhaps one of the more prominent images of millennials you might have seen comes from this TIME magazine cover:
Don't let the label scare, intimidate or belittle you. Generations are a social construct, a construct created by older people to classify and be condescending toward younger people which in turn leads these younger people to hold judgment toward those older than them.
As stated before, a generation is defined as a group of people with certain characteristics based on when they grew up. In that sense, generations exist, but that is the textbook definition. When I say generations are a social construct, I mean that these images of millennials, as well as other generations, do not exist.
Images such as the one presented above are portrayed in a variety of mediums and helped create the image of millennials. The image. The brand. Buy a Coke like those seemingly hip and free spirited teens, the same ones stereotyped as needy and entitled. Featured below is TIME magazine's 2013 cover while the right shows the cover of New York Magazine from 1976 that addresses the 1970s as a year where young people had high egos known as the "Me" Decade. Both images show that millennials are not the only narcissistic group of people to exist. Young people can certainly be narcissistic, and those tendencies decrease as they become older.
Even after reading this, you may still be wondering,
“This is silly. Of course generations exist. I grew up developing a different mindset than others." While that last statement may be true, stepping away from the constructs formed around the word “generation” allow us to form stronger and more authentic relationships with those both older and younger than us. We can communicate with each other without having a stereotype hold us back from judgement.
We have so much to teach each other about technology, work ethic, politics, pop culture and everyday living that it makes no sense to judge baby boomers (aka the parents of millennials) as strict, conservative and overly competitive, constantly pushing their children to find and land a job out of college. As their title states, the United States population boomed after World War II which resulted in overcrowded schools and a competitive workforce. It also does not make sense to peg millennials as lazy, entitled and narcissistic individuals. They grew up during a time when the advancement of technology ran at speeds faster than their adaption to them. From home phone to cell phone to smartphone, millennials awe at the amazing ways they can connect with each other, and what seems like awe and wonderment to them is self-absorption to others.
No one is defined by generational characteristics. We may all own different social and cultural perceptions of our world, but the term "generation" should not separate us. At the end of the day, we are just a large group of people who grow and develop constantly, together.
