GENERATION FU
Remember Christian Slater?
Most of you kids haven’t even heard of him. Did you know Charlie Sheen was a huge
Hollywood film star before Two & A Half Men? What about Rob Lowe? Molly
Ringwald? Michael J Fox?
If you were a teen in the 90’s, then these were the film
stars you wanted to be like. These were
our heroes along with the rock stars and rappers who influenced our lives. Pop culture was just that; a culture. A way
of life. An identity. Ripped jeans, wallet chains, hair gel and an anti-establishment attitude. This is what we were taught to aspire to by
the pop icons we looked up to.
Jay-z, Linkin Park and Kurt Cobain told us to fuck
authority, and Green Day told us to be the minority. Christian Slater told us it
was ok to be a burnout skater and Judd Nelson said we should quit burying our
noses in school books and go out there and grab life by the balls.
We were the celebrated underdogs; the Rocky’s, the Karate
Kids, The Breakfast Club. They sold us the dream. A dream that we could be whatever we wanted
to be. An entire generation with the
dreamer’s disease.
So what happened to that generation? I’ll tell you what happened. They’re all in their late 20’s – late 30’s
now, stuck doing jobs that they hate and are bitter and angry but too afraid to
complain.
Well I’m here to tell you that it’s ok to complain. We’re not generation X or Y or whatever other
box the marketing text books have put us in.
We’re Generation FU...because we were pretty much fucked from the
get-go. Society had a look at us, put
one of those fingers on each hand up and said FU! Is it any wonder that all our 90’s heroes
were so angry? Doesn’t matter if they
were actors, rappers, punk rockers, grunge rockers or whatever those emo’s were
going for, they were pissed off and rightfully so.
We were told by our teachers that computers were going to be
huge and we’d need a basic knowledge of it if we were to really do anything
with our lives. What they didn’t tell us
was how quickly this was going to happen.
By the time we graduated, we were applying for jobs that never even
existed when we were choosing our subjects in high school, competing against
pimply faced brats who were running their own online stores and mentioning
“digital” as one of their skills. We were
ill prepared. Worst of all is that we’re
still dreamers. Bitter, disillusioned
dreamers who, if we were to be able to find a flux capacitor and power the
Delorean, we’d be too embarrassed to go back to our teenage selves and tell
them what they have to look forward to in their 30’s. Sorry buddy, you’re not a pilot, or a
rockstar, or a rapper, or a film star, or a game designer or comic book artist
or author. Shit, you’re not even one of
the orphaned kids from Party Of Five.
You’re just working for the man.
We had heroes who told us to “Stick It To The Man”, not
heroes like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg who told us to “move faster than the
man, go up against him and then become the man”.
I know, I know.
Excuses, excuses. Don’t get me
wrong, I’m not saying that we had no choice.
I’m just saying that the only theory I could come up with for the
disappointment I see every day is this; that we were sold the idea of being a
dreamer but never prepared for what will happen while we had our eyes on those
dreams. We’re proud to be dreamers. We’re proud to be the ones who can remember
every word of the Gummi Bears theme song.
We just feel a little jilted that we were caught off guard by a wave of
change so huge and fast, the likes of which have not been seen since the
industrial revolution.
Now I’m not blaming Christian Slater, John Hughes or Dawson
& Joey. I’m not blaming Eminem,
Snoop, Green Day, Nirvana or Rage Against The Machine.
Those 90’s heroes of ours, from Superman to Robert Downey
Jr, the ones who were responsible for us becoming dreamers, the ones who were
huge back then but seemed to fade into the background later; they’ve taught us
an important lesson – “It’s never too late to make a comeback.”
And that’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to make a
comeback...and we’re coming back stronger than ever.
...oh and this is where we wanted to work
That is all...
