Generation Listen
In an effort to connect with younger audiences, NPR launched Generation Listen to South by Southwest (SXSW) in March. Since that time, they have been actively building a community of young NPR listeners who are curious about the world and have a passion for creating a more informed and engaged public.
Jenny Isenman, a popular Gen-X blogger, has written a story for Cafe Mom about “Six ’80s Childhood Characters That Have Become Naughty Instead of Nice.” Check out the slideshow comparing changes in the dolls over the last 20 to 30 years. It’s pretty stunning. Images included are Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony, Legos, and Holly Hobbie.
In an effort to connect with younger audiences, NPR launched Generation Listen to South by Southwest (SXSW) in March. Since that time, they have been actively building a community of young NPR listeners who are curious about the world and have a passion for creating a more informed and engaged public.
Holly Hobbie Looks A Little Vampy
Speaking of the evolution of girls’ toys, check out the trailer to My Little Pony Equestrian Girls. This movie has attracted so much negative attention they’ve disabled the comments on this official trailer. See Gen X Moms Fear New My Little Pony Feature Film Horses Are Too Hot To Trot.
My Little Pony Movie Too Hot To Trot
Speaking of the evolution of girls’ toys, check out the trailer to My Little Pony Equestrian Girls. This movie has attracted so much negative attention they’ve disabled the comments on this official trailer. See Gen X Moms Fear New My Little Pony Feature Film Horses Are Too Hot To Trot.
Every Generation Better Than The One Before
An article on Fox Business talks about how lazy and materialistic Gen Xers are and how much their future sucks. I know you’re dying to read it. It highlights research from Jean Twenge, who hands down has the best cover of any book about generations ever written. Click here to check the book out on Amazon.
Before Midnight
Before Midnight is a Generation X coming-of-middle-age summer movie. Starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, Dennis Lim of the New York Times call it the screen romance that defined Generation X.
Before Midnight is the third in a series starring Hawke and Delpy. First, there was Before Sunrise in 1995, and then Before Sunset in 2004. Here is a wonderful excerpt from Lim’s review:
Each of the “Before” movies is a window onto a stage of life, sharply attuned to the possibilities and disappointments of one’s 20s, 30s and 40s. But collectively, as with Michael Apted’s “Up” documentaries and François Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel films, they have become something larger: a continuing participatory experiment in embodying the passage of time. The long intervals between the films are gaps for projection — each new installment is bittersweet proof that the characters and actors on screen have changed, and we along with them.
Here is the official trailer for Before Midnight.
The Replacements Reunite
The Replacements are launching a comeback at Riot Fest later this summer. They’re “one of the best bands that never got big.” Hailing from Minneapolis, they developed a cult following and are today considered pioneers in alternative rock.
Their song, Bastards of the Young, written by Paul Westerberg (b. 1959) is the proving ground of Generation Jones and the anthem of the disaffected sons Generation X. In 2011, Jeremy Gordon of Prefix wrote this about the song:
Aside from being a supreme distillation of Reagan-era apathy, “Bastards of Young” is also the Replacements’ calling card, the song that sums up their ethos… youthful dissatisfaction: unfulfilled dreams, useless education, lack of a generational identity, the pain of filling out one’s taxes…
Bastards of the Young
God, what a mess, on the ladder of success
Where you take one step and miss the whole first rung
Dreams unfulfilled, graduate unskilled
It beats pickin’ cotton and waitin’ to be forgotten
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
The daughters and the sons
Clean your baby womb, trash that baby boom
Elvis in the ground, there ain’t no beer tonight
Income tax deduction, what a hell of a function
It beats pickin’ cotton and waitin’ to be forgotten
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
We are the sons of no one, bastards of young
The daughters and the sons
Unwillingness to claim us, ya got no word to name us
The ones who love us best are the ones we’ll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best
The ones who love us least are the ones we’ll die to please
If it’s any consolation, I don’t begin to understand them
We are the sons of no one…