The "Awareness Generation"

In class on Monday, Dr. Hill complained about those facebook friends who change their profile picture to reflect campaigns for different causes like poverty or recently, atrocities committed by Joseph Kony. Do they raise awareness? Maybe. Does this translate into any meaningful activism? Rarely.

How many times have you seen statuses like "Post the color of the bra you're wearing right now in your status to help raise awareness for breast cancer research!" or "Post a picture of your favorite childhood cartoon character to raise awareness for Child Abuse Month."

I'm not sure that finding out my Aunt Mildred's bra is "lavender" is going to move anyone to do something more about breast cancer.

Jason Rickner, a Stetson Alum, did his senior research on the Russian Facebook's capacity to translate into qualitative discourse or activism and found that very little meaningful dialogue was taking place. Obviously, Facebook has played a big role in the recent protests in Russia, but the evidence that the social networking site has been able to encourage any other forms of social activism has been limited.

Perhaps there are positive ways "new media" outlets like Facebook can lead to substantive dialogue and activism. Facebook users can link to blogs (which we need to remember are powerful -- journalists are reading them) or take advantage of forum spaces to get an informed and specific conversation going. Instead of changing your profile picture to Bob the Builder, make a status that high lights the work being done by an organization that combats child abuse. Encourage people to make a contribution or link to the organization's website so that your friends can learn more.

We have to first get over the idea that we can solve problems just by raising awareness. It's a good place to start, and we have a lot of tools at our disposal to do it, but it hurts us if we're lulled into thinking we've done our part when really, we've only "passed the buck" onto someone else.

Portrayal of Generation Y in the Media

Today we talked about what it means to be a member of the Millennials or "Generation Y". Dr. Hill pointed out that often, when there is a decline in a behavior among younger generations like newspaper-reading, journalists or lazy scholars will point to some intellectual or moral degradation among young people. In fact, this has probably been said about every generation before us "since people wrote things down" (to quote Mr. Wildridge) and instead usually just means that the young generation has changed in some unforseen way -- like turning to the internet or Jon Stewart for their news instead of Broadcast or print media.

This got me thinking about what other things people might get wrong about our generation. How is "Generation Y" portrayed in the media? Often, it's not positive. Here in an article called "The Entrepreneurial Generation", William Deresiewicz describes us as post-emotional and enterprising. In a tough economic climate, we've adapted to be able to sell ourselves -- and that means being nice, polite, and charmingly self-deprecating.

"...If they think you’re criticizing them, they won’t want to buy what you’re selling.That kind of thinking is precisely what I’m talking about, what lies behind the bland, inoffensive, smile-and-a-shoeshine personality — the stay-positive, other-directed, I’ll-be-whoever-you-want-me-to-be personality — that everybody has today.... They say that people in Hollywood are always nice to everyone they meet, in that famously fake Hollywood way, because they’re never certain whom they might be dealing with — it could be somebody who’s more important than they realize, or at least, somebody who might become important down the road. Well, we’re all in showbiz now, walking on eggshells, relentlessly tending our customer base..."

Does our generation feel like that to you?

Todd and Victoria Buccholz describe people our age as "sedentary and risk-averse" in their article, "The Go-NoWhere Generation". "Perhaps young people are too happy at home checking Facebook," instead of getting drivers incenses or jobs the authors offer. Because of the difficult times we've faced in our more formative years, we've become a "why bother" generation. Unfortunately, the authors offer an old school solution: they prescribe a road trip and some Springsteen tunes. While this would definitely rejuvenate me to get back on track and remind me to take more risks in life,, this doesn't seem like a solution for many people.

Some favorites of mine include Zadie Smith's " Generation Why" and Mark Greif's "What Was the Hipster?"

They are longer, but certainly worth the read. Though I don't agree with everything these authors are saying, at least they spend a longer time attempting to map out this complex generation. To borrow words from Edward Said, surely a great deal of "demagogy and downright ignorance" is involved in presuming to speak for a whole generation of peoples.

Do you know of recent examples of someone trying to characterize our generation in the broadcast media? What do you think of journalists negative portrayal of us? Are we all the things they say we are?