Generation Y - Here Ya R

Wow, found this on American Sports Data, interesting:

A STEREOTYPE OF GENERATION "Y"

"Generation Y" members, also known as "Millennials," "Generation Next," the "Echo Boom," or the "Digital Generation", were born (depending on the source) between 1977 - 1994, and are the latest issue of a genre that includes four other living cohorts: "Generation X" or "Baby Busters" (1965 - 1976); "Baby Boomers" (1946 - 1964); the "Silent Generation" (1933 - 1945); and the "World War II Generation", born before 1933.

Beyond the general contours of age, there is no precise definition of these generational stereotypes; they are based on ascending proportions of fact, anecdote and fancy. While some of the defining behaviors (i.e. consumer purchases, health habits, suicide rates, etc.) are retrievable from the public record, the true essence of psychographic typologies — personality, lifestyle, opinions, attitudes and social values — remains largely undocumented, simply inferred by sociologists, trend-watchers, the media and other purveyors of popular culture. In brief, generational typologies are merely demographics aspiring to be psychographics.

In many ways, "Generation Y" is a souped-up, improved version of "Generation X." Like its immediate predecessor, "Y" is laid-back, individualistic, resourceful, but also cynical; unlike "X," which was white/middle class/suburban, "Y" is socioeconomically, ethnically and sexually diverse. If sub-teens in the previous cohort were very advanced for their ages, Echo Boomers are dangerously precocious, an unsurprising characteristic of the most coddled and fawned-over children in history. Whereas "X"-ers were latchkey kids, "Y" returns from school to housekeepers; and if financial necessity forced many of the "Bust Generation" to live at home with parents, older Millennials are ensconced in their own apartments — often subsidized by parents.

If "X" was contemptuous of authority, "Y" is downright inimical — outrageously disrespectful to elders and constantly on the verge of a coup in which children will displace parents, teachers, employers and all other dinosaurs of the old hierarchy. And while Millennials have mutilated the language even more horribly than did their Hippie ancestors — they are the best-educated generation since.

In the 1960's, television sounded the death-knell for the American language, ensuring the demise of both spoken and written word. In the 1970's, open admissions erased all elocutionary differences between the educated and uneducated. The mortal blow was struck in the early 1980's, when spell-check foreclosed any possibility that young writers would ever again read — let alone re-write — anything that came out of a computer printer.

Generation Y has delivered the final coup-de-grace via email. Misspelling is not only tolerated, but celebrated! Grammar, punctuation and syntax have suffered even worse fates, and woe to employers who seek applicants with even the most rudimentary communication skills.

The single greatest cultural achievement of "Generation Y" has been to expunge from our language the cherished pleasantry, "you're welcome" — a time-honored utterance that once was the courteous, civilized response to "thank you." They have administered a multiple coup de grâce to propriety, civility and the mother tongue with a single linguistic bombshell: NO PROBLEM!!! And this verbal monstrosity is no longer a subtle defiance of politeness and conformity; it pervades every corner of their lexicon, an all-purpose rejoinder to any statement imaginable!

Their great-grandfathers were called "Sir", and grandfathers in turn were demoted to Dad by their children. Today, in rare interactions with parents, Generation Y is on a first-name basis, or any basis it chooses.

Any member of the Silent Generation has borne witness to the parallel disintegration of authority, courtesy and the English language. In 2002, many find public dining impossible. Consider the evolution of a restaurant greeting, as an 18-year-old waitress seats a couple older than her grandparents:
1960: "Good Evening, Sir"
1975: "Hello, Folks"
1990: "Hi!"
1995: "H'ya guys doin'?"
2002: Her cell phone conversation interrupted, an annoyed, distracted waitress points to a table ten feet away and grunts the ultimate Millennial concession to politeness: "NO PROBLEM!!!"

Their great-grandparents accepted corporal punishment for children as a birthright; invariably, a grandparent receiving a physical reprimand at school received a second beating when they got home. Parents of Gen Y were already immune to teacher discipline, the mere hint of it enough to trigger a flood of complaints to the P.T.A., District Superintendent and local Congressional office. Next came the lawsuits.

Generation Y has pushed educational tolerance to its logical extreme: children of the third millennium go to school, put their feet up on the desk, and say "entertain me".

While "Generation X" exhibited the highest rates of suicide, homicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, and pregnancy in teenage history, Millennials — riding the coattails of a falling crime rate (easily the greatest unsolved mystery of 20th century social science) — have apparently reversed this trend. Quite inexplicably, this welcome reduction in teen misbehavior coexists with the Columbine stigma and a Millennial reputation for inwardly-focused aggression, substance abuse and generally antisocial behavior.

Culturally and economically, Millennials are the most egalitarian generation in American history. In 2004, the most affluent love Hip-Hop, while the most impoverished own a cell phone, Play Station, DVD player, and at least a dozen expensive video games. Children of all social classes have been sighted paying for ice-cream cones with credit cards. Most of Gen Y — rich or poor — plays on a travel Soccer team, and eventually goes to Acapulco on spring break.

Not roundly criticized as slackers, "Y" kids are nonetheless characterized as apathetic, lazy and spoiled. But unlike "X" — which was decidedly aimless, underemployed and pessimistic about its economic future — "Generation Y" is pragmatic, worldly, materialistic, driven by technology and optimistic about its prospects. Indeed, if "X" was alienated and numbed, "Y" is very much alive, even passionate. There are signs of a paradoxical return to traditional values, most notably a renewed confidence in government leaders; and even more remarkably, a return to religion.

The technology-driven Millennial culture bears directly on its leisure preferences, especially participation in sports. "Boomers" were bred solely on network TV, while "Busters" added Cable, Atari and the PC to their repertoire. Millennials on the other hand, driven by email and the Internet, are able to detect emerging trends at virtually the speed of light — a capability with enormous implications for the life cycles of fads and trends, both of which are in danger of serious time compression. Brand loyalty and product preferences are also subject to change at hyperspeed — a portent of even shorter product shelf-lives for sporting goods (especially footwear and apparel). The life spans of emerging sports are also potential casualties of time dilation.

Torn jeans, inverted baseball caps, colored hair, nose rings, tattoos and stubble all seem to proclaim their arrested state of emotional and intellectual development; but these are clever Millennial decoys — symbols designed to conceal huge reserves of guile, determination, and a worldliness so keen as to cut to the very edge of paranoia.

"Generation Y" has an inbred mistrust of major brands, resents obvious ad campaigns targeting their psychographic, and on the whole, poses a formidable challenge to all but the most astute teen marketers. Their razor-sharp defenses tolerate only the most subtle and "truthful" marketing messages; and these must be crafted by a copywriter who is indeed the supreme arbiter of "cool". But once the defenses of this super-savvy group are finally pierced — as they have been by Tony Hawk, the 34-year-old cultural icon and one-man marketing phenomenon said to be the Michael Jordan of Skateboarding — it can be a gigantic breach that invites the marshaled hordes of ESPN, Nickelodeon, The Simpsons, Interactive Video Games, films, CD's, books and a plethora of endorsements. It's only a matter of the right siege engine.