So, to all of you who group me in with those Millenials... you're a dunce. Many consider the 18-32 year olds around today to be in the same category. This couldn't be more wrong.
I was born in, 1986. This means I was fairly conscious growing up in the 90's. We were raised by MTV, old television, and Generation X ideology. The crashing wave of this pop culture gave us our values. We enjoyed subversive humor via, "Beavis and Butthead". We were informed of minority cultures through, "In Living Color". We learned about angst, and how to hate "the man" through all of grunge. We also happened to grow up through the boom. There was much wealth. Upper middle class kids were set to study liberal arts, and achieve many great things. We would all be great fabulous artists. We would all live as well as our folks did. We didn't see the plummet down a recession that would have no end.
We didn't see the debt that we would incur. We didn't see that the "Sex and the City" dating habits would leave us alone, and impossible to satisfy. We didn't see the reality that the world would become. The 90's were rich! From 1990-2000 there were around 23,672,000 jobs created! Hourly wages had grown by 10.1% since 1996. Nobody seemed to predict the Elseworld that would become the American dream.
So pardon me earlier when I called you a dunce for grouping me into that amazingly stupid generation known as, Millenial. I'm just miffed is all. I have very little in common with those youngsters. You can't group a guy like me in with a twenty-three year old little twerp. I am of another generation. We're smarter, more culturally informed, and tougher. I am on the fence of what to call my tribe. I think I like Generation Dial Up, or Generation Floppy Disk. This is a good moniker, because it speaks to a very important decisive difference.
My generation grew up with the advent of the internet. We knew a world before the internet. In the beginning we had AOL dialup. We had floppy disks, Oregon Trail, and Microsoft Word. We didn't have cell phones. You'd have to call up your friend's house, and ask to speak to your friend.
They'd inevitably think you were a girl, because your balls hadn't dropped yet.
Generation Dial Up is the missing link in the evolutionary chain of able bodied adulthood.
That's right. We are the current crop of adults taking the world by storm... only we're not. Mostly all of my peer group are fucked. We are in debt up to our eyeballs. We are priced out of the housing market, and can barley afford a car. I think that's why Zipcar and Uber are doing so well. This isn't a surprise to any of you. We all see the Elephant in the room. The elephant made itself comfortable, and is shitting on your linoleum floors. My generation valued its' elders. We saw the Generation X as a cool older cousin leading us to the end of the adulthood rainbow. We also were the turning point in the future. We grew with the telescoping of tech. There once was a generation who lived before Christ, and one that lived after. It delineated the two worlds that this father/son/holy ghost lived in. Generation Dial Up is, in a sense, a new version of this generation. We are the marker of the world before The World Wide Web, and after. This is a very important place to be. We are the link to connect the way the world was to what it is now. We can't forget what got us here. We had values before the interconnected age. We knew isolation, true connection, and libraries.
The Millenials are an impossible workforce. I went back to New York City for a quick visit. I went to my old stomping ground, "The Sex Hotel". I worked as a service bartender in the hotel lobby for a couple years, and still knew people working there. I swung by for a coffee, and reunion. I bumped into my old manager, Bridgette. She was a fantastic women, great boss, and a Gen Xer. I asked how the shop was running. She looked at me, and told tales of the impossible Millenials. She said that Generation Dial Up were tenacious little shits, but this new crop was like a plague. She informed me that this made her put in her resignation. I was shocked. Her wife was making money, and could pick up the slack for a bit. She would find a new gig (a gig that didn't include little shits that studied nonsense at NYU).
This isn't a piece on why Millenials are little assholes. We know they're assholes (If you're offended by that it's because you're a Millenial, and that's one of your markers: "easily offended"). This is a piece carving out the distinction of this lost generation.
Generation Dial Up is good people. We have values. We got this from looking up to Generation X, and that's because we have respect for our elders, because we have values. You see, Generation Dial Up has a sense of humor. We have a sense of humor, because we watched great TV. It's also, because we aren't easily offended. I said this wasn't an article about Millenials, so I won't go ripping on them for being too sensitive again. Generation Dial Up woke up to the follies of the lies we learned in our Institutions of education, and mainstream media. We see the real world before us, and now are fighting to imbue real values onto it. We have a prize fighter's mindset. We are like the matador that Robert Cohn beat the shit out of in "The Sun Also Rises". We know life has become tougher than it was for those sacred Xers. We know the odds are stacked against us. So, we're going for it. Keep trying to hit me, because the way I see it, "You never got me down, Ray!"
Generation Dial Up is a very important generation. We are the ones who will bring the old world into the new. We are the gate keepers. We are the ones at the wheel, and there's an iceberg ahead. We have to guide the ship. That's our lot in life. We are here to stay. We're Generation Dial Up or Generation Floppy Disk... because remember, "You never got me down, Ray!" Also, if you don't get that reference it's because you're a Millenial. Please do yourself a favor, you 23-year old, and take a break from those inane cat videos on youtube!