Essay: Gen Y

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I wrote this essay about two nights ago. It's very raw and meandering, but I think it's still pretty good. I'm just not sure where to put the paragraph breaks. Anyone have any suggestions for improvement?

In defense of Gen Y

People under 30 (i.e. people young enough to still be considered sexually attractive) get a lot of heat and hate from the Baby Boomer Generation, our parent’s generation. Well how can you blame them? My generation is extremely lazy. We don’t do anything besides rebel against our parents in order to sneak out of the house to smoke weed and go to rock concerts and partake in questionable fashion and yap about change and the environment and…wait a minute, which generation am I talking about here? My generation has created more than any other generation that has come before us. If you don’t believe me, go on the Internet and type in www.dotcom and see what you get. On Youtube, there are (or at least there were, before it became VevoTube) entire Web shows that are more creative than most of the mindless crap we call TV today, and people can watch it anytime. Not to be outdone, companies are putting their entire shows on their websites, so now anyone can watch Desperate Housewives or Brothers and Sisters anytime…provided they sit through all the sh***y advertisements. Speaking of advertisements, my generation doesn’t watch the Super Bowl for the commercials; we watch it for the freaking game! You must forgive my generation for being less than enthusiastic about the prospect of paying for our parent’s selfish decisions in the form of higher taxes, shittier jobs with even shittier pay, coupled with higher costs of living and a lower standard of living, all for a world on the brink of war and economic collapse that never made room for us in the first place. You must forgive us for feeling trapped by the expectations we have been raised with in a world where they no longer fit. Today’s America is changing beyond our rate to keep up with it, and unlike the Boomers, we grew up with computers, and are able to accommodate that change, but whenever we speak up (something the Boomers proudly point out that we don’t do) we get told we don’t have enough wisdom/age/experience/pubic hair, or we get chastised for being young kids who think we know it all, because what do kids know? Not a damn thing. The only thing we should know how to do is A) do our work and B) shut our mouths. However, we aren’t allowed to have fun, because that would cut into our work time, and we certainly aren’t allowed to have sex, because we aren’t going to do it safely. Never mind the fact that Gen Y is well-informed about condoms and birth control despite the lack of quality sex education offered in schools. Never mind the fact that teens today are twice as likely to use these precautions as are adults. No, kids today aren’t allowed to take risks, because what if the girl gets pregnant? What if one or both partners gets an STD? We wouldn’t want that, would we? No, there is no such thing as safe sex. We hear that all the time, as if there is anything in this world that is safe. Sex is about as safe as riding in a car, or walking down the street, and in some areas, sex is safer than walking down the street. No, no risks allowed, and anyone that deviates from this is a social criminal, guilty by court of public opinion, and anyone that does commit an actual crime will be locked up and have the key thrown away on their first offense (well, if the Boomers had their way, that is)

Now, you might say, “Why not just suck it up and go with the flow?” Well, first of all, it’s hard not to look at the future. Just watch the news on any given day. Our future probably won’t accommodate our retirement pay. Who wants to work at the age of 70 constantly worrying about making the payments? Will America still be here in 50 years? There sure isn’t a lot of incentive to work very hard. Most adults again chalk that up to laziness, as if to convince themselves, but everyone has to have something to look forward to. Most of these adults that criticize us for not making a difference don’t do jack s**t themselves, so they spend their time criticizing us instead of using that spare time to make a difference. After hearing that moral BS for all my life, I’m not too enthusiastic about working my ass off so the arrogant Boomers can sit on their asses, living off the retirement pay we have to provide them, just so they can criticize us some more. Then they wonder why we spend our time in clubs and surfing the Internet and playing video games instead of going to work in a suit and tie like a proper professional slave is supposed to. It seems like we want to be kids forever, but when you rob kids of their childhoods, they want it back, just like if you steal a guy’s TV. And people wonder why we see the rise of the grown nerdy man-child and girls that still love Disney movies. Adults complain that their kids aren’t going to grow up to be super successful Wall Street junk bond traders if they watch too much violence on TV, or if they play too many violent video games, or if they don’t get their proper education, or if they don’t eat their fruits and vegetables so they can be nice and fat just like their parents. So to counteract that, they try to take the initiative and protect their poor innocent children from the evil bullies, even after we hear them dropping pearls of wisdom such as “Fight the good fight” “s**t happens” Life’s full of risks” and my personal favorite “Patience is a virtue” usually right after they flip off the driver who is only going 5 miles over the speed limit, telling us why he is wrong as they are passing him on the wrong side of the road. Everybody contradicts themselves sometimes, but if you grow up with that type of thing, naturally the act gets really old, and it’s hard to take these people seriously when they talk about how wisdom comes with age and experience, but they can’t even explain why plastic bags are a bigger threat to the planet then our military budget. So we look for inspiration elsewhere, and we find it in the form of Duke Nukem. Our parents might be incompetent, but not a man with balls of steel who always gets the girl. But we shouldn’t be spending our time playing horrible violent video games anyway, we should spend our time doing our math homework, because getting a degree is the most important thing there is, right? Love is all you need, all you need is love…and lots of money, and good benefits, and a nice car, and a “real job” (whatever the hell that means) to go along with your freshly mowed grass and your nice garden located in a peaceful suburban village with all your other white…collar neighbors. In other words, we are supposed to live the American Dream, but for some reason, we are told not to follow our dreams of becoming a rock star or an actress because they aren’t as respectable as becoming a doctor or a businessman or any other cushy, high paying p**** office job. No, the only dream we are allowed to envision has already been laid out for us, and nobody likes to be told what they are going to be in their life. “Oh, but sometimes in life you have to do things you don’t want to do” Yeah, and sometimes you don’t have to do those things. Sometimes, there is a choice to be made, but it’s harder and harder to live your life on your own terms when you are surrounded by a bunch of risk-averse cowards who are so afraid of people that are different…right after they go out of their way to tell you how they don’t discriminate against anyone. So if you can’t beat em…join em. It’s next to impossible to be yourself and fit into society, but since pursuing your interests doesn’t cover the cost of rent (not anymore it doesn’t!) people have no choice but to conform. Then we wonder why things aren’t getting better. “But I always talk about change, why isn’t it happening!” So people blame a whole list of scapegoats for why things aren’t getting better. It’s the illegal immigrants, it’s the politicians, it’s the street criminals, it’s the people who don’t recycle or who don’t pay attention to Obama’s secular agenda, or you could blame Canada, or France, but don’t blame yourself. It’s not you, it’s the kids these days! They need better education! The education system sucks! So instead of instilling in their kids the values they think the school system doesn’t promote, they put that burden on the teachers. Teaching used to be a simple job, if you call trying to control 30 rambunctious kids a simple task. But today’s teachers need to be food allergy specialists, WWE referees, child psychologists, and EMT certified superheroes to go along with their progress reports and standardized testing and an increasingly pain-in-the-ass curriculum that is as just as hard for them as it is for the kids, all with a decrease in pay and benefits and an increase in workload, all on top of whiny, spoiled parents who are mad that Johnny got put in timeout. You don’t like it? Too bad. Johnny is going to have to learn that hitting other kids is not an appropriate way of getting his toy back, and if you don’t like the way I handle it, maybe you could set a better example for him instead of whining to me about how he should be put in timeout because he’s just a kid. Johnny told me that very same thing, and you know what? I put him in timeout anyway, not just because it’s the best way of handling the situation, but because I needed a break from Johnny’s antics! What’s that? You say it’s the fault of pro wrestling? Well, there is another kid in the class who likes John Cena, but when I put him in timeout, he doesn’t whine about it or make excuses, and you know something? Neither do his parents. So next time Johnny acts like a brat at home, try setting a better example for him, because kids learn what they live. If kids are taught that they are always wrong, then they will always be wrong, and why should you work your ass off on something just to be told it’s not good enough? There is no incentive to work hard, whether in the short term or the long term, and so kids smoke and drink, because it relieves stress. Kids would rather hang with their friends, or go to the club, or go have sex, if they can even function socially after years of being fed prescription medication along with prescription parenting. After all, the alternative is to go out and study hard in school…just to win another four years of school…just to win another four years of school…just to win a job for 30 years working for a boss who acts vaguely familiar, all so he can stiff you on retirement pay that probably won’t even exist. Which job am I talking about here? Anyone? What’s that? You don’t know which job I mean? Neither do I. So it brings up an important but elusive question. What matters? Does this job matter? Does any job matter? Do your parents matter? Do you matter? The answers to all of those questions aren’t very clear, and the answers we are given are self-serving, vague, and very often, flat out wrong. So much for wisdom.

All of a sudden, those Twinkies are looking really tasty.

I'm speechless. No, seriously. It's so true. It makes so much sense. +1*10^100 for you.

Very nice essay, Gen Y as victim of the preceding one.

Children raised by children

I write best when I'm angry

I don't know whether to be amused or depressed that my Generation X has passed the victim torch to your Generation Y. This essay is very similar in tone to the anti-Boomer essays that were written in magazines 20 years ago (by the now-middle-aged Generation Xers). The specifics have changed, of course. But it's wearying for me to see that really nothing has changed. My Generation X wrote at great length and with great conviction about how we were so much better than the lazy, crazy, hippie Boomers who Wrecked Everything and were terrible parents to boot. I guess now that torch has been passed and we are the terrible parents and the Boomers have become the terrible grandparents (although they are actually very good grandparents, aging hippies actually make wonderful grandparents).

Twenty years from now, Millenials will write the same thing about you and the torch will have been passed yet again. Or maybe they'll be different when they grow up. But probably not.

^^^

Yup.

To sum up, same s**t, different generation.

PS
Boomers are scum.

I am a Gen Xr and I can relate to what you are saying. I think the problems started during the 80's when globalisation took hold. Nationalism is over and nobody told us about it. We are deemed primitive and racist if we argue about it. We are supposed to be into ideals and not national identity. We are supposed to sit and put up with crap from TV/News/politicians/big business etc. We are all selfish now because we were told thats the way to be.

My opinion is that the world is over populated and will implode/explode any minute. And nobody seems to care. Global warming is something we only talk about but don't really think is an issue. Wars happen and we just accept it. The rich get richer and we don't see any consequence of it.

I always hate the way people paint the post war period as a golden age of full employment and solidarity. Because now we are left with individualism. And I don't know why we talk about a "post war period" because wars are happening all the time and only seem to be increasing.