Generation Gap

I've become slightly nostalgic as I watch movies from my youth on Netflix.

I've never felt so old as I do when I have a pop culture conversation with the younger generation. It's so funny, when talking to someone a mere 10 years younger there's this distinct space the size of the Grand Canyon in what they're saying and what you're saying. The entire language and meaning of words changes with each passing generation. I now know what it must be like to be a parent when a kid hits middle school and starts bringing home strange new phrases, lyrics and names of artists.

While sitting in a chair with my arm hooked up to a machine sucking my plasma out I overheard a conversation between the guy next to me and one of the tech's. Apparently the man's name was Norman and she asked him if it was like from Bates Motel and he laughed that uncomfortable laugh of someone who hears the name analogy on a daily basis and then he said "yeah, like Psycho". The tech looked confused and said something about Norman Bates and the guy goes "yeah, the guy from Psycho", she seemed to be so lost and said "I meant from the TV show called Bates Motel, oh is there a movie too?" and another tech says "yeah there's like this famous movie from the 80's or something that the TV show is based on", in that moment I thought my head might explode. Psycho, my friends, was not a movie from the 80's but a classic film from the 1960's made by only the greatest director of the horror genre ever! (In my humble opinion).

I grew up watching He-Man & She-Ra, The Smurfs, Transformers, Jem, Rainbow Brite, and the Gummy Bears. Listening to the musical stylings of New Kids on the Block, Green Day, Paula Abdul, Boyz II Men, TLC, Nirvana, Sound Garden, Chumbawumba, Right Said Fred, Ace of Base and Hanson. We had classic movies like Clueless, Edward Scissorhands, The original Batman series!, The Terminator movies, Point Break, Dumb and Dumber, Dirty Dancing, Jawbreaker, Pretty Woman, Groundhog Day and Jurassic Park! Don't even get me started on all the teen movies that came out during the time! We had plastic colored phones in our room, played outside all day long, Duck Hunt was my first video game and Tetris on the Gameboy was my jam! We said things like Da Bomb, let's bounce yo, dude, dawg, and dope, mofo, awwww snap! and WhatEver.

                        

These are things that define an entire generation and they seem to be fading further into the dark recesses of the past. A few of them will withstand the test of time...mostly movies and maybe some of the music but others will be reduced to Wikipedia searches once our generation is gone. There might be that one kid that has cool parents who pass the knowledge of past pop culture down into their hands but others will leave it behind. It's just so crazy that the things of my youth have been replaced with texting, selfies, Reality TV, artists like Miley Cyrus and Justin Beiber. Kids today say things with a hashtag (formerly known as the pound sign), when I hear things like cray cray, yolo and swag... I just shake my head in shame. This must have been what my parents felt like when I said things like da bomb and whatever. Leave it to an entire generation to make me feel ancient and obsolete.

 

Will it always be this never ending trending? *sigh*