Published Sept. 14, 2003 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
Those of you who receive e-mail forwards can expect a new one in coming days. In an Associated Press story published last week, researchers outlined the cultural differences between incoming college freshmen and the professors who teach their classes. In other words, it turns out that middle-aged people are, in fact, different from young adults.
Who knew?
Among the differences pointed out in the study: Young people know of Paul Newman for his salad dressing, not his acting, and “Sesame Street’s” Bert and Ernie are now old enough to be their parents. Along the same lines, “Ctrl+Alt+Del” is as basic to today’s high school grads as their “ABC’s.”
These sorts of articles usually spread across the Internet like a bad cold. Generation gap factoids are ideal for those people – you know who you are – who love to belch out e-mail forwards as though they were being paid for each one.
(By the way, no matter what you read, you never get paid, receive good luck or help kids with cancer by sending e-mail forwards. No. Never. No. Not even then. Or then. I know it says that, but no. It’s not true. No.)
Depending on your age, you’ve might have seen the “You know you grew up in the ‘60s, ‘70s or ‘80s” e-mails that make reference to Strawberry Shortcake or the gas crisis and make you feel good that other people remember those things, too. Collectively, junk like this takes up about half the Internet and an unhealthy portion of our mental capacities. Enough brain space to cure cancer and solve the Social Security crisis is currently occupied by the lyrics to the theme song to “Shaft.”
Shut yo’ mouth … I’m only talkin’ ‘bout Shaft.
See what I mean?
People like to point out the differences between generations because it makes them feel somehow better than people older and/or younger than them. Baby boomers like to feign shock that modern 18-year-olds don’t remember slogans for Wonder Bread and 18-year-olds like to mock Baby Boomers for not knowing what “bling-bling” means. Why would they? Why should they? It’s probably better, on both counts, that they don’t know those things.
Every year, around the first day of school, a story like this emerges. Old people are aghast that young people, born after they were once young people, don’t have a vivid recollection of the things that were popular when they were young people.
Was this always the case? In 1880, were 50-year-olds as upset that 18-year-olds didn’t remember the Missouri Compromise? Did they spread “snail” mail forwards that read, “Can you believe that the youth of today weren’t alive when Henry Clay was a pillar of the United States Senate?” Correspondingly, did the youth of 1880 chide their parents for not knowing the lyrics to J.A. Bland’s “Oh, ‘Dem Golden Slippers,” one of the popular songs of the day.
Popular 1880 youth: “Dude. I totally can’t believe dad though the lyrics went ‘Oh, my golden slippers are laid astray’ when EVERYONE knows it’s ‘laid away.’ Man, I hope I never get old like that.”
In the future, will historians find one of these e-mail forwards posted to the wall of a cubicle preserved by a volcanic layer of ash? They might theorize: “these ancient people must have worshipped a band of mutant warrior turtles, because they sure like to mock those who have forgotten who they were.”
This might be a stretch. Surely volumes of future research will prove that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lacked the substance and social impact of important cultural figures like Howdy Doody.
It all boils down to a couple base facts. Young people will always think of older people and their older trends as “lameoid” and older people will always look at things young people like and say “the world’s all gone t’ tarnation!”
That’s human nature. In the future young people will have no recollection of California being a functional state in the union. They will also remember no time in history when the federal government was in sound financial shape.
Come to think of it, I don’t think any of us remember those things.
Finally, we have a bridge over this generation gap.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for The Daily Tribune.