Monday, September 28, 2009

Generation A

I’ve always felt pretty confident about being in touch with new trends, ideas and generational differences until last week. I had a rude awakening when I co-facilitated a retreat. I was standing in the middle of the circle discussing community development and for some reason said “I’m going to take off my thongs” and proceeded to take off my footwear. I was greeted with a resounding roar of laughter from the group.

With a look of confusion on my face, one in the group said “You obviously don’t have teenagers.” With a shake of my head, a stab to my heart and humble smile I realized what I had just said, flip flops are what you wear on your feet not thongs.

Mac’s are no longer apples that you eat, text is no longer a schoolbook, an icecap isn’t what you find on the north pole, the bomb, not an explosive device, depression not something that took place in the 1930’s and yogi is no longer paired with BooBoo. Intriguing how we move forward in relation to the past. ‘Learn from your mistakes’, ‘history repeats itself’, so do bell bottoms, vegetable gardens and bicycles! What have we learned?

We’ve created a marketing technique to label and target different groups based on demographics. Heard of Generation “A”? It was first coined back in 1994 by Kurt Vonnegut at the Syracuse University commencement address and recently a published book by Douglas Coupland, we do still have books. Those might go by the wayside as well but I’m going to continue to read books about the Great Depression and our melting ice caps, protest nuclear bombs and high school texts that are outdated, reminisce about cartoons while eating Macs from a picnic basket in the park as I flip off my thongs to feel the grass between my toes.

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