HIPSTERS — members of Generation Y, or Millennials

 I love people watching!

HIPSTERS: People who aspire to being something they are not. I heard young adults mocking them the other day. I didn't know what they were!

In the 40s is you were into jazz you were hip, or cool. In this era, if you are a hipster, you sneer at anything. Each generation had its colourful individuals. From mini skirts, when I was in high school, tie dye, to hairstyles; dreadlocks, afros, mohawks...or hair colours!

Yes, thongs!

Then there was Goth.

Now we have tattoos, piercings... Don't forget thongs!

Urban Dictionary: hipster

Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20's and 30's that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and *Indie rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter.

What I find even more hilarious, are 40-somethings acting as aspiring Hipsters. Wannabe Hipsters, too old to be the real McCoy! Journalists are the worst. They can be music snobs, or otherwise knocking the tastes of anyone who is different.

 I first came across the notion reading a Times article:

Quitting Facebook Is The New 'I Quit TV' (You Hipster, You)http://www.   

Jesse one Hallowe'en!

 But "How to Live Without Irony" by Christy Wampole... "If irony is the ethos of our age — and it is — then the hipster is our archetype of ironic living," Wampole wrote: facial hair, fixed-gear bikes, and craft beer, ultimately arguing that the hipster, with all of his superficial signifiers, is "merely a symptom and the most extreme manifestation of ironic living."

Another sign of the Hipster: getting off Facebook. There were the hippies who eschewed television. Now they are off Facebook. I like it, to keep in touch with my middle-aged friends. Happy to hijack it in favour of our generation, the ones that learned to integrate technology into our jobs. New York University assistant professor Laura Portwood-Stacer, in a recent article published in the Journal of New Media and Society, said it is an elitist form of "conspicuous non-consumption."  

Punks!

I joined Facebook to keep track of my kids, to see great photos, visit far-off friends and enjoy their travel photos.

Based on interviews with 20 Facebook non-users and analysis of Facebook-quitter confessionals, Portwood-Stacer examined why people leave Facebook, how they communicate their rejection and how their abstention comes across. Hipsters!

Wampole writes:

Flower Power!

The hipster haunts every city street and university town. Manifesting a nostalgia for times he never lived himself, this contemporary urban harlequin appropriates outmoded fashions (the mustache, the tiny shorts), mechanisms (fixed-gear bicycles, portable record players) and hobbies (home brewing, playing trombone).
For many Americans born in the 1980s and 1990s — members of Generation Y, or Millennials — particularly middle-class Caucasians, irony is the primary mode with which daily life is dealt. (How to Live Without Irony)

Dreadlocks and tatts, men skirts!

*Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated the UK and US. 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include indie pop, jangle pop, C86, and lo-fi, among others. Originally used to describe record labels 'independent', the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative rock. 

The millennials: Tramp Stamps = tattoos

It is peculiar to a particular age group: Tramp Stamps.
Millennials, young women born 1994 - 1983.

Lower back tattoos rose in popularity throughout the 1990s. They are the stamp of a generation of women, the “me” generation, which consists of today’s 18- to 29-year-olds, a.k.a. the Millennials. About four in 10 of us are inked, and of those four, half have gone under the pen two to five times, according to a 2010 Pew Research study.

Tattoos
There is nothing special about you guys with tattoos. The graphic below says 4/10 millennials have one. Wait'll you're 70 and the tattoo looks like a wrinkled snake.


Computers
We use Skype with grandkids.

We old farts learned technology on the go, in the workplace. My mother learned to use a computer at age 55.

With 36% of millennials sucking money from parents,  37% unemployed, you should be ashamed.

'Reeding is for Faggots'
I rest my case! 

Too many with debts, little income, and living beyond your means.

University students demanding free freight... I don't want to pay for your education. I paid for mine. I found work that paid me an income that means I did not depend upon my parents.


1/5 of millennials have posted video of themselves online. Yes, and much of it is naked and/or censored. Too much information! Employers are wisely checking it all out, sifting through the vast numbers your age who are employable.

Over 50s on the Internet
There are many over age 50 on the internet. We are quietly occupying our own homes, volunteering, not occupying parks.
We share ideas, communicate and do not feel the need to disparage the 1% who pay our salaries, invest in this country, and give us healthcare.

"Intelligence: Always use your head
but trust your heart."

How to scare the grandkids!

"Elaine"
her gramma

Debt
We boomers have little debt.
You have little to crow about.
You are unemployed and complaining. The tattoos seem to illustrate my point!

"perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim"
Be patient and tough; some day this pain will be useful to you.

This truly is an insult to us baby boomers. This lovely crafted US-based graphic is rife with ridiculous posits. I wonder who took the time to create it?! Oh, I know. Someone who wants free advertising as we post it on the web. No, it's someone who wants search engine optimisation (SEO), to put themselves high on the Google/search engine rating. sigh. I bought into it, too.

MILLENNIALS – THE BEST GENERATION EVER

POSTED DECEMBER 14, 2011

Click here to see the graphic!


The Millennials are the latest -and some would say, greatest – generation to emerge in America. 

• defined as those between the ages of 18 and 29
• recognizable characteristics that researchers have deemed typical of the generation: optimism, tech-savvy, liberal leanings, and a solid educational background. 
• Occupy rallies across the nation are populated largely by people who fit this description. 
• Millennials are already set to become the most well-educated generation in American history, with 40 percent attending college. 
• astounding rate at which Millennials go on to pursue graduate degrees: a whopping 50 percent of those in college say they plan on entering graduate programs afterwards. 

I think we know that communism didn't work, and millennials are not working, either! Not for money, anyway. They are out occupying, or generating wealth through on-line play. 

Retirees over age 55 - money issues

Give seniors a break!

So much talk in the recent Canadian election about we older folks. Apparently, there is much elder abuse (I've yet to see the data to support this), we're all going to be stuffed in long-term care and we will drain our younger Canadians' finances.
Any elder abuse (financial, emotional, physical) is to be disdained, but many seniors are in their homes, finding fulfillment in family, life, and activities.

Hold on there.
About one-third of retired Canadians are in some form of debt, a report from Statistics Canada said. But look at the debt.

Most of us have been foxy about our finances

Most of us have with convenience or consumer debts, e.g., we buy on a credit card. This is about 25% of us but we owe under $5,000.

Among retired people with debt:

• 25 per cent owed less than $5,000.
• 32 per cent owed between $5,000 and $24,999.
• 26 per cent owed between $25,000 and $99,999.
• 17 per cent owed $100,000 or more.

But those of us in this group tend to have a good foundation in finances.

We're not hiding in our shells
moaning about the state of the world

We own our own homes, our income and education gives us a high level of net worth.
We know that education and means makes a difference in having good health. We do not have large debt, getting an education that leaves us with large loans, and no jobs. We got an education we needed, apparently with higher standards than in this generation. I've taught in a University. It's all about marks, not about mastering material.

Q&A feeling blue in the ivory tower

May 14, 2011

Student disengagement, inflated marks and credentialism: University is not the answer to all problems, says author.

Afraid to peer over the edge

Is a university degree becoming the new high school diploma? Côté, a professor of sociology at the University of Western Ontario and co-author of...co-author of Ivory Tower Blues: A University System in Crisis. (Excellent book, by the way. But I won't read his new one, Lowering Higher Education: The Rise of Corporate Universities and the Fall of Liberal Education. It's too depressing. I fought these issues in the elementary panel.)

Making ends meet
Most of us only have short-term debt, e.g., a credit card. Only 20% of retirees age 75+ compared to 48% of those in the previous age bracket (age 55 - 64).

Most of us are managing in Canada. Most of us will not be a burden to our families, or on the system, as the media keeps fearmongering!

Mind you, it depends upon where you live.

Low income among seniors (Statcan PDF)

One in five seniors in Canada lives in a low-income situation. In 1998, almost three-quarters of a million

people aged 65 and over, 20% of all seniors, had incomes below Statistics Canada’s Low Income

Cut-offs. The proportion of seniors with low incomes has fallen sharply over the past decade and a half,

dropping from 34% in 1980 to 20% in 1998.

one summer home in Bala, Muskoka
retirees with money?
There are many in Muskoka.

There is wide variation in the proportion of seniors with low incomes in different provinces. In

1998, the share of seniors with low incomes ranged from 

• 30% in Quebec
• 25% in Manitoba
• 19% in British Columbia
• 18% in Saskatchewan
• 17% in Alberta
• 15% in New Brunswick
• 14% in Ontario.

Most of us will be able to stay in our homes and live healthy, fulfilling lives. Those who live in poverty are to be cared for, do not misunderstand, but many of us are out in the community, volunteering, living fulfilling lives.

Which generation are you? 
Lots of talk about millennials, but baby boomers are booming. I'm on the fringe of baby boomers, and we're doing just fine, thank you! We are using the skills we mastered for our jobs in our personal lives. We're volunteering these skills to many groups who need us.
We're going to be OK. How about you?!

Which generation are you?

Lots of talk about Baby Boomers...doom and and portending gloom. I'm on the fringe of this generation.

• The Lost Generation 

Those serving in WW I, coined by Gertrude Stein about American writers: Fitzgerald, Hemingway. Came of age during the war.

• The G I Generation (born 1901 or 1929 -  1924 -27, those serving in WW II, 1939 - 1945). Living during the Depression. "Sacrifice for the common good."

• The Silent Generation (children of WW I vets or those too young to serve, born 1925 - 1945). They grew up as the suffocated children of war and depression. For a great PPT, with period photos see: Silent Generation. They came of age just too late to be war heroes and too early to be hippies.

Nanny, foster mother to 200 teen girls
 -who gave me a black doll.
She was wise and good-hearted.

• Baby Boomers (post WW II; 1946 - 1955, or 1966 in Canada.) After the vets came home, there was a population boom. Read The Baby Boomers' Tab. 

• Generation Jones (1954 - 1964) Coined by Jonathon Pontell, in a book by the same name. As in 'Keeping up with the Joneses'. Those with maxed credit cards and incredible debt. The flower children of the 60s were truly in their teens and twenties. They are part of the baby Boom generation.

• Gen X'ers (born between 1965 - 1980) - to the decade following the Vietnam War, 1982 max)  Sandwiched between 80 million baby boomers and 78 million millennials, Gen X has just 46 million members. They were feeling left out and Jeff Gordonier ranted in an essay and book " being heard over the media din about boomers and their offspring, Generation Y, or "millennials" as they're now known, isn't just a challenge, it's annoying. He felt overlooked and underappreciated.

Her stitches were tiny and true

• Generation Y (Late 70s to 2000) or Echo Boomers, The Millennials. Selfless or self-absorbed?

 My grandmother was new to electricity and indoor plumbing. My mother was new to going out to work. Our dads didn't talk much about the war. They didn't provide many role models for the dads of our generation. They were there, but they were emotionally inaccessible. I would predict that PTSD is part of what hurt many families in the past. It is a complex weaving of life experiences.

My generation spear-headed the movement for midwives, giving birth with husbands present. My generation of dads changed diapers, and fed expressed breast milk to their children while we were out taking courses to upgrade, doing volunteer work, night shifts, or networking to keep current.

I was upset, as my generation has helped move us into the age of technology.

VW Beetle!
Me and my bro

My video of JB singing M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E to his granddaughter as we Skyped is a classic way we've learned to integrate it into our lives and use it to our advantage.
My generation of parents uses FB to keep in touch with adult children around the world. With extended family, in-laws and step-in-laws, my kids have learned to 'like' my videos and our photos, with settings geared so that 'friends of friends' can view this digital archive of child development. In this way, grandparents in other countries and climes can check in on grandkids!

My son-in-law got on Skype on my computer so that granddaughter could visit with the other grandmother, when they spent two weeks with us.

I'm proud of our generation. We are eating better, exercising, running marathons (well, not me...!), travelling (ditto!), and making a difference in the world helping support one another, and contributing to society.

Public opinion rarely considers the needs of the next generation or the history of the last. It is frequently hampered by myths and misinformation, by stereotypes and shibboleths, and by an inate resistance to innovation. 

   -Theodore C. Sorensen, presidential advisor, lawyer, and writer (1928-2010) 


What are you proud of in your generation?