Mikhail Goldenberg
Some people say we are the most selfish, narcissistic generation that ever existed. Some say we are truly a consumer generation, meaning we live by the concept “We are what we consume.”
Many people claim we lack both loyalty and altruism. Some define us by the year we were born, like some sort of neo-fascists placing virtually-marked people in a virtual concentration camp of stereotypes.
I am automatically branded with a “Y.” For me, this article is like looking for escape routes from this camp of misleading oversimplification.
My personal involvement in this topic, however, does not make me an advocate for my generation.
On the contrary, I am only seeking the truth, just like a hospital patient seeking the correct diagnosis; my understanding of the subject is that if we made any mistakes we have to fix it instead of repeating them over and over again.
CONSUMER NATION
I started with detailed internet research and a conversation with Anna Bruzzese, assistant professor of sociology at Pierce College.
Western culture has always been very individualistic compared to other societies, so people have always had to be somewhat self-centered, maybe even increasingly so.
Essentially, it’s because the current times basically require it. We have got to be self-centered to survive in this society. It is set up in such a way that it’s all about our individual success and there isn’t anybody we can rely on other than ourselves.
Also, the commercial machine itself has become way more sophisticated. The methods and the frequency in which we are being bombarded with advertising is changing. It is now constant, it’s twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Max Weber, the German sociologist, talked about the idea of rationalization way back, which is that society is becoming more and more obsessed with the pursuit of rational goals and that’s the characteristic of modern times. If you are not doing that, if you are not pursuing rational goals, like your career and material success, then you are seen as being somehow deficient and inadequate.
Weber warned that if this trend continues, we are all going to end up in an iron cage of rationality where our life is defined by productivity.
Plus, there are other mechanisms in society, such as consumerism, that contort who we are.
The idea is that we define ourselves by what we consume. Of course, if we define ourselves by what we consume, we have to work even harder to support a specific lifestyle and it becomes a vicious circle.
At the same time, these needs are being created in us by commercial machinery, because again, the contemporary business world has become more sophisticated in how it reaches out to us.
Creative ideas started by young rebellious individuals are becoming co-opted by businesses and sold back to masses of young people at marked-up prices.
Again, we are being bombarded with advertising on a very intense basis, and with Blackberries and iPhones, you really can’t get away. Even when you send an e-mail through Blackberry it generally comes with an advertisement.
MySpace, now owned by News Corp., which also owns FOX News, uses your personal information to zero in on what you like and target advertisements in a very specific and personal way.
Nowadays, ads can be tailored much more to an individual’s likes and dislikes, than 20 years ago, which directly causes a tremendous increase of its manipulative power.
“It is like Big Brother gone wild,” said Bruzzese.
As pessimistic as all this sounds, individuals are not simply passive pawns. They are not just victims who are completely manipulated. We still have the capacity to engage in our reality critically. There is always a chance that people can come up with some creative way of coping, however hard it may be. There is a tension between societal pressure and individuals engaging with it.
So it is not completely hopeless, but it is increasingly difficult. It seems that although a lot of people are aware of what is happening, the demands of life are such that it is just easier to go along with it.
It seems like a point of no return, like a complete social mutation, but there will always be some pockets of the population that will rebel. Essentially, most of these people can only rebel on a domestic level, but if one of these individuals has enough charisma and understanding of the conflict, this person would have the ability to change the course of history single-handedly.
There are also plenty of people who share a much more optimistic view.
Mia Wood, assistant professor of philosophy at Pierce College, presented an entirely different picture of what is happening to Generation Y.
Mia doesn’t think our generation is self-absorbed, meaning we are not thinking about ourselves to the exclusion of others. We are willing to collaborate with each other, which is a direct and positive effect of internet communities like MySpace and Facebook, because people are being taught how to reach out and connect with each other at a very early age.
Contemporary mass-culture seems to advocate material success, but people in Wood’s classroom are really open to changing their opinions about that. They quickly become interested in aspects of life other than personal gain. In an academic setting people tend to be genuinely open to new ideas and look beyond what’s placed before them. People walk into a classroom not knowing what to look for. If all they’ve been given is what various media outlets have been feeding them, then they can’t possibly choose from a wide range to build a system of values. They still walk into class with an open mind.
Although this current generation is bombarded with advertising, it is saturated with enough diversity that they can see that they don’t have to fit into anyone’s mold. Today’s advertisements are so diverse that there’s no unique way to be, so marketing is geared toward a myriad of niches to fit in.
Also, current-generation youth is much more savvy. They seem to understand what the game is and they are not fooled.
They know they are being marketed, they know that they are trying to be manipulated and this awareness is giving them an edge that previous generations didn’t have, said Wood.
Now the common misconception that Generation Y is overall lacking loyalty to employers, which could be explained by the fact that people of this generation perceive that there are simply more options out there. They realize that their skill sets are broad enough that they can go on and try myriad jobs and careers, that they are not stuck on one particular job, said Wood.
It appears to me that the actual situation is a few tones darker than that. Diversity of contemporary advertising might be giving people an illusion of choice, but in reality you are still being heavily manipulated into supporting certain lifestyles.
It is just another marketing trick created by experts to involve new layers of contemporary society into consuming material goods. Awareness of being constantly marketed to doesn’t seem to be able to resolve the problem either. You might be aware of being manipulated, but are still letting them manipulate you. You are still going to consume the product being offered for the reason that if you not playing by these rules, you most likely will end up as a social outcast.
It is a great personal risk and not many people are willing to take it.
Another great problem we are facing is an actual after-effect of the great technological revolution that our society is currently going through. Computer technology is getting more and more affordable, and since we increasingly rely on digital devices in our professional and everyday life, any sane parent is trying to get their kids familiar with computers at the earliest possible age.
Unfortunately, aside from developing a tremendous set of new skills, children are being heavily exposed to an uncontrollable volume of advertising at an in early stage of their brain’s development.
Ann Hennessey, Ph.D. and psychology instructor in Pierce College, stated that it is highly possible that a human brain could be “rewired” for the rest of their life as a result of constant exposure to advertising in this particular age.
Also, there’s a chance that these kind of changes could stay on a genetic level, and it could happen even within a frame of one generation.
Scary, isn’t it?
ZERO RESEARCH
Well, the scariest part is that I did not find any evidence of scientific research being conducted in this direction. Not only that, but 99 percent of any information available through the popular internet search engines about Generation Y has been published by experts in a fields like human resources, advertising and marketing.
Which means that the only people who are sincerely interested in problems and conflicts of my generation are either people whose job is to manage us at our workplace with maximum efficiency and make sure we keep our career options limited by the same company. Or, people who are directly responsible for keeping the levels of consumerism in society at maximum level.
There is a great tension between the generation of people who are fully aware of being manipulated and the monolith of the social structure that does not allow them to do anything about it.
So, the only real hope for our generation to release this tension are the people who are trying to lead their own way regardless of what society is feeding them, taking a great personal risk of being alone.
Maybe one of these individuals is going to be able to make a change on a larger scale of the whole contemporary society. And considering the fact that things could be possibly affected on a genetic level, it seems like there’s also a time factor involved.
There’s a lot of research that has to be done to fill up the informational vacuum around this topic as well.
I hope that this article will at least help the reader to understand the importance of this topic, let alone the fact that it is absolutely imperative to act. Now.
The anatomy of a generation. ()
