This is the first in my series of attempts to give the current generation of university students their 'title', such as with 'generationX' or the 'MTVgeneration' before them.
Each of the twelve or so columns takes a defining cultural characteristic and argues why it is what we shall be remembered for above all else.
The columns first appeared in my university student paper, so please bear the demographic in mind when judging the tone and content here!
Hey relax - we’ve all been there. By ‘there’ of course I mean hunched over a computer screen in a spasm of social anxiety, feverently scanning for evidence that we’re loved, liked, or even just invited. If checking your facebook and myspace accounts were like eating a piece of fruit, I’d nail my 5-a-day by lunchtime.
Since we’re the first generation to take for granted the presence of mass global communications in our lives, some would have it that we are the internetgeneration. Fuck that. Every cardiac-courting company exec to every thick-rimmed twitching caretaker in adult-land can email bad jokes to their friends and source decent beastiality with just as much efficiency as us. No, it’s the social networking phenomenon that defines us. We are the facebookgeneration.
Ever had a ‘grand-slam’? That’s when you log in to myspace and find you have one of each – a ‘friend added’, ‘new message’ and ‘new comment’ all at once. It’s like hoping for a decent haircut and realising when you stand up they’ve given you a new set of threads, some cool designer stubble and three inches on your dick as well. Of course it could turn out that the new friend is some awful band, the new message from an automated cam-whore and the comment an advert for some night you can’t afford to go to. In other words, the threads could be too small, the stubble could be ginger and your cock could still be way below the male average (5.6 inches).
Still, one major achievement of the facebookgeneration is to have consolidated all those unique school-yard methods of letting someone know you fancy them - hair-pulling, name-calling, dead-arms – into a simple ‘poke button’. Hours otherwise wasted on posturing and goading reduced to a single mouse click, so we can all get on with the simple sex sum much quicker (proximity + alcohol).
Social networking websites also allow us to indulge our private fetish for post-break-up self-torture. The online equivalent to slashing your arm with a compass, checking your ex’s profile page for any shred of evidence that they have dared move on is surely a staple of modern young heart-break.
One positive thought is that it might just be the thing that keeps us all together. That in a vague, shopping-catalogue type of way at least, we will all be in touch forever, poking one another with our cyber-walking sticks and listing our health complaints under ‘interests’…
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Written by Bottleblondesurfer (3136 comments posted) 17th December 2007 |
I like the idea of Facebook generation at least it's better than the one I heard rececntly- The Asbo generation [as it's the only qualification those kids will probably get]
As I know nothing about social networking I found this fascinating. I now feel I know a little more about it, I probably don't but at least you have allowed me the luxury of self delusion and some vocabulary to go with it
cheers
Jane |
Written by Fledermaus (3159 comments posted) 18th December 2007 |
More something for non-fiction than not-news I think. depends on what age you start categorizing people. I always thought we were the Nintento-generation because that was what they called us when we were kids (in a grey past when Nintento launched the first ever game console and all 10-year-olds wanted one).
The funny thing is that indeed I did notice differences in online communication over the few years I was at the uni: When I first came there most of us had never seen the internet and e-mail was hot. The next generation (say 4 years later) was all about instant messaging and according to your piece the 3d (or 4th if I was the 2nd) generation of students in the internet-age is busy with facebooks. Never had one... Interesting to read. |
Written by fellpony (1507 comments posted) 19th December 2007 |
I've also read arguments that "the Internet generation" is a lonely one - does use of the Internet imply social isolation or cause it? Discuss, with references to the early work of Tim Berners-Lee.
Early paragraphs need a proof read (we've all be there/we've all BEEN there, our life's/our LIVES). The rest read well and sounded right for the intended audience.
(I shall be sharpening my cyber walking stick this evening, having already listed my health probs as prescribed!) |
Written by blogbrush (33 comments posted) 19th December 2007 |
Thanks for pointing out the typos.
Yes the problem with these columns is that I sometimes have a dig at the generations of people either side if my age group... it sort of goes with terrority of the concept. Please remember it's just to make students laugh, not to reflect any true feelings! |
Written by Phil (6387 comments posted) 21st December 2007 |
Easy read - and bearing in mind the audience - amusing.
Phil. |
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