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In: Generational Divide, Pop Culture
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In a mandatory certification class, I was assigned to explore one of the generations other than my own, and then discuss how what I learned will impact my teaching. The assignment is well designed and I intend to steal it, but given my  immersion in pop culture studies and interest in the generational divide, I didn’t learn much new about generational differences. Since the topic is relevant to the blog, I’m reposting what I wrote:   Talkin’ bout my generation, sorta (sorry, not sorry)   I am answering the assignment differently. Because Gen-X special snowflake syndrome. I’m quite familiar with generational differences, so I didn’tRead More →

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In: Generational Divide
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Generation Splat. Generation*. Millennials. Generation X. Generation Jones. Generation Splat. What’s that, you say? Well, a splat is an asterisk or a wildcard used in a computer search string to represent “whatever.” If I want to search for all the Laura(s) in a database, I would search for Laura*. Now let’s make a link to something seemingly tangential: Gaming. The gaming community expanded the meaning of splat to a metaphor and popularized it with the slang term “splat book.” A splat book refers to the specialized books that publishers release about subcategories used for creating roleplaying characters. To illustrate, the White Wolf company publishes anRead More →

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In: Technoculture
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My college journalism professor decried the birth of USA Today and its “circus spread” style of layout or design. This format, he explained in disgust, spelled the doom of modern civilization, because it showed the strength of television’s influence over newspaper. Television turned the news into a circus. I lasted only a semester as a journalism student. My professor’s point makes sense, though. Media inherit aspects of their previous forms, finding “shape” for them, as Marshall McLuhan was quick to point out. I remembered the “circus spread rant” when I bought my first copy of Generation X by Douglas Coupland. The book’s shape is decidedlyRead More →

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In: This is my life?
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1. This week is over. It’s Friday. I’m heaving a sigh of relief. Can you hear it? 2. Tonight is Dollhouse, but I’m not watching it because my niece and I are going to India’s restaurant. I realize I’m contributing to its pending cancellation. It depresses me, but not enough to miss Indian food. 3. I am thinking about giving up D&D for a while. I love playing with my group, but it is a. hyoooge (10? 11? ppl) and b. we drive to NOLA to play. I have very mixed feelings about this. I haven’t fully decided yet. 4. IT installed McAffee on myRead More →

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In: Generational Divide, Politics
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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 →