By:
On:
In: Generational Divide, Politics
Tagged: , , , ,

I’ve never heard of Generation Jones — the generation between the Boomers and Gen X — until recently. Generation Jones is presumably named such because they (we) are a generation of Jonesers. We yearn for things. This, I identify with. We were too young to participate in the summer of love, the Vietnam War, or any of the defining events of the Baby Boom generation. I’m not sure how I feel about the very existence of a Generation Jones. I’ve identified as a Gen-Xer ever since I read the book Generation X by Douglas Coupland. Some accounts of generations have me dated as a Boomer,Read More →

By:
On:
In: All Things Feminist, Generational Divide, Pop Culture
Tagged: , , ,

I can’t believe it’s been fifteen years since Liz Phair’s “Exile in Guyville.” I’ve been listening to the CD a lot lately for some reason and then FLOW posted a brief commentary on its impact fifteen years later. I really loved this album, but I didn’t find it as much of a feminist anthem as might have. But it’s fifteenth anniversary re-release reminds me that back in ’93 I was busy listening to Indigo Girls and Melissa Etheridge. There was a brief spike in popularity for women musicians in the late 90s with the Lilith Fair crew, but today the scene for me is bleak.Read More →

By:
On:
In: All Things Feminist, Generational Divide
Tagged: , , , ,

Several people have asked me about “Shoot the Messenger”‘s interview with Jezebel.com‘s Moe and Tracie. Part of me doesn’t want to give this ‘tempest in a teapot’ any more of the blogosphere’s energy. But frankly, after enough people asked, I watched the train wreck of an interview, went to Jezebel.com, to Tracie “Slut Machine”‘s website, and even read Jezebel.com’s response post along with their reader comments to it. My first “profound” observation is I just don’t get it. I don’t get why anyone would see these two women as role models (which is what Shoot the Messenger claims), even in the most pedestrian sense. TheirRead More →

By:
On:
In: Generational Divide, Technoculture, This Internet Life!
Tagged: , , , ,

We don’t read on line, we skim. According to Michael Agger’s article in Slate, that’s how we read on the web, and he bases the claim on some interesting research. He gives guidelines about making your website appealing to audiences who don’t read, but skim. I don’t follow any of those guidelines, which explains my low readership. But then, I’m journaling, not blogging. Also, this month’s the Atlantic Monthly asks Is Google Making Us Stupid?, which takes a media ecology approach to the web, citing the Phaedrus, McLuhan, and Mumford, among others. The article was a long column, which I had to scroll over, andRead More →

By:
On:
In: Generational Divide, This is my life?
Tagged: , ,

I read about a woman who used to be a punk rocker and now is a 44 year old mother. Boy, did I identify with that article, especially when I listen to the kid playing her music, which is music I used to listen to when I was younger. Admittedly, she has some rather eclectic tastes, but my point still stands, as evidenced by her desire to copy my Sahara Soundtrack, which contains classic rock from my high school days. The comments on the article are great. One specifically says that old punk rockers are the new old hippies. …Not that I was ever aRead More →

By:
On:
In: Generational Divide, Politics
Tagged: , , ,

The more I hear about Barack Obama, the more he sounds like a Gen-Xer to me. I admit this is most probably the effect of selective perception, but he is in his mid-forties. Today in The American Prospect, Harold Meyerson writes about Obama’s pitch to the DNC, along with Hillary and Edwards. He quotes Obama as expressing concern for the “debasing of the public sphere.” That concern, of course, hit home for me as a rhetorical studies person. Interestingly, public address scholars seem most worried over fragmentation in the face of culture wars, and they worry about the intolerance of political correctness, yet now weRead More →

By:
On:
In: Generational Divide, Politics
Tagged: , , ,

Barack Obama might be running on a “move-over Boomers” campaign. He’s pitching himself as the next generation of politicians. While it’s a move that I love, being a Gen Xer myself, it’s a political mistake. Look at what happened to music when the Boomers moved over. Britney Spears! We jumped from the culture of the Boomers to the culture of the digital generation with Gen X getting the spotlight for less than a decade because we were squeezed out by the population humps on both sides of us. The digital generation isn’t old enough to vote yet, and Gen X doesn’t have a large enoughRead More →

By:
On:
In: All Things Feminist, Generational Divide, This Internet Life!
Tagged: , , ,

On another note, turning 40 made me reflect once again on grrl stuff disappearing on the web. It’s yet another example of Gen X getting choked out by Boomers on one side of the demographic hump, and Gen Y kids on the other. True, Britney Spears is no longer popular, but that’s just because the 8 year olds of the world are now 13, and buying Pink and Avril Lavigne instead. Consequently, Third Wave feminism, which is not your mother’s feminism, is commodified (like all feminism is, I suppose) into Lara Croftism. What prompted this rant is a dead-end quest for chickclick graphics. Instead, IRead More →