He’s right, our country is in cultural decline. And while many find it easy to point the finger of blame at contemporary youth, with the texting, and the facebooking, and the childhood obesity, don’t forget that the path downhill was paved by our forefathers (Sorry, Dad).

Many people today bemoan the lack of loyalty among contemporary youth when it comes to employment. Back in the day, your career was more than a means to an end, it meant you were part of an organization. You gave your labor, and they gave you a living wage. Why is it kids these days jump so quickly from job to job?

Maybe because “back in the day” was before Enron, and Madoff, and Goldman Sachs, and the culture of greed and robbery that contradicts everything we were taught about America growing up: that success comes to those that work hard. Or maybe it was because we saw our parents’ jobs shipped overseas. Maybe the culture thought, “If my company isn’t looking out for #1, someone has to.” Or maybe more and more people are starting to find out life wasn’t what they bargained for (raise your hand if you graduated from college and are still unemployed).

Critics bemoan youth’s obsession with the lifestyles of the rich and famous. The Paris Hiltons, Spencer Pratts, and Kardashians of the world are no longer the examples of ignorant, spoiled spawn of the privileged that were meant to be greeted with scorn, but rather idols that are worshiped at the temple of excess. Instead of holding onto time-tested family values, our generation hails materialism and shallow superficiality. See if your grandparents can stomach one episode of The Hills or The Jersey Shore.

But look closer and you’ll find that America’s obsession with wealth and glamour has always been there. Yeah, rappers have songs about fancy cars, but so did Janis Joplin. Contemporary culture may worship Brad Pitt, Miley Cyrus, and the other empty vessels of Planet Hollywood, but how is that any different from America’s obsession with Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, or the Rat Pack? This country has always held up wealth and fame as the most important of values.  The only difference is that thanks to louder broadcast media, today it’s more obvious.

Another consistent complaint is the lack of interest the youth of America have in politics. People in the 18-29 demographic consistently come out in low numbers in elections while the older crowd consistently shows them up. It’s gotten to the point where we have Puff Daddy on TV telling America’s future leaders that it comes down to vote or die. The generation of our parents had the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, heroes of activism that changed the world for the better. How come kids these days just don’t care?

Maybe because our generation grew up with the candidates who answered to lobbyists, the cable TV mudslingers, a media that seizes on sex scandals instead of tackling issues, and a litany of toxins that has bred cynicism among an entire mass of Americans when it comes to politics. It’s not just young people who say they hate politics and politicians these days, it’s everyone.

No matter what era it is, society will constantly bemoan the decline of youth. Whether it be Elvis, or the hippies, or video games, or MTV, or just general anxiety about the future, someone will always be asking, “What’s up with kids these days?” But youth is a reflection of society, and as our culture free-falls into a downward spiral, so do we.

Photo by peopleofwalmart.com (top) and Brian Auer (bottom)

Interracial Couples: Is anything wrong with this picture?

It is 2010, and eyes dare not spare my girlfriend and me whenever we are seen in public holding hands. This happens for an unfortunate, yet obvious reason— she is white and I am black.

Although I have come to disregard the on-lookers and sometimes subtle (and not-so-subtle) mockers, my psyche never fails to ponder interracial dating in society—the qualms, progress made, and changes in attitudes yet to be made.

Recent reports released by the Pew Research center show that almost all Millennials accept interracial dating and marriage.  In fact, 85% of Millennials say they would be fine with a member of their family getting married to someone of a different race.

According to the report, “the gap between Millennials and other age groups is evident,” with the gap for certain racial groups more apparent.

No doubt, this statistic has an eye-catching nature to it. One can look at such data, breathe out with a sigh of relief, and exclaim: “We live in a post-racial America, where love is color blind.”  If only the reality were as simple as the statistic.

When it comes to statistical analysis of sensitive topics like racial relations, I am a skeptic because these are issues that have an overarching societal response attached to them, which make deviating from the accepted answers frowned upon or unlikely.

Since the abolition of slavery and segregation laws, attitudes seen as racist or prejudicial have been deemed taboo (rightly so). This has led to a situation whereby racial discrimination is only expressed subtly in the forms of glances, inside jokes, drunken sincerity and unspoken thoughts, not openly or on psychoanalytic questionnaires.

So for this purpose, I will tender the research findings with a pinch of salt and rely on my own personal sociological observations. And it is important to say, there is still a lot to be done in terms of perceptions and genuine acceptance of interracial dating.

On both sides of the color spectrum, the bigotry exists. I remember when my relationship became known to my friends, one of my black female acquaintances asked me the question: “why a white girl?” If only she had stopped there. She then called me “a sellout.”

Since when did fulfilling the mantra of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech become an act of betrayal?  And it wasn’t just her. These were the same sentiments I observed in the gazes of on-lookers.

The stares of white on-lookers usually possess a different sentimental content—more of a “has she lost her mind?” kind of look.  This is an notion expressed by all races and all age groups – even Millennials.

In as much as we try not to make the difference in race an issue in our relationship, society doesn’t allow that– the scrutiny, media buzz and anonymous blog comments all contribute.

That’s not to say that we don’t have cultural differences that originate from our racial backgrounds. I was born and raised in Nigeria. Rather than amplify a mere difference in skin color, we appreciate the joy of diversity and learn from each other. In fact, we see this as one of the perks we can enjoy that people from similar backgrounds cannot.

I am not skeptical of the fact that in regards to racism, major progress has been made. Once upon a time, interracial dating was illegal. But the finish line remains far off.

I envision a day when I can take a walk on the beach with my girlfriend and not get stared down;  a day when everyone would see us as just two people in love and not a white female dating a black male.

When I look at her, I don’t see my white girlfriend. No. I see a woman whom I deeply love and appreciate.

Image by Mike Licht

A couple of months ago, I wrote an article right here on TNGG about Gen Y’s place in the corporate world.  In that article, I talked about how Gen Y are the leaders of tomorrow, and that companies that want to attract great talent need to adapt their corporate cultures to make room for what’s important to Gen Y.

I recently attended a recruitment cocktail representing my employer.  The event was hosted by a Montreal university, and was open to marketing and business students from all the universities in the city.  I was excited to meet promising new talent and talk to candidates about their accomplishments and aspirations.  I couldn’t wait to discuss the direction of our industry with people around my own age.  I was waiting for a refreshing point of view.

What I got was a lot of people who led with the question, “What do you have to offer me?”

Seriously, Gen Y?  In this economy, in an industry where the competition is ferocious, that’s how you open when talking to the person who could potentially hire you?  By asking what he can do for you?  I know we weren’t born yet, but I think we’d do well to remember and re-apply a certain famous speech by John F. Kennedy.

I kept hoping I was just running through a bad string of encounters, but as time ticked by, and I talked to more people, the same conversation kept happening:  Directionless students who apparently expect companies to beg them to work for them, teach them everything they need to know about the field, and compensate them incredibly well.

I read the articles posted on this site, and in other places on the web, and I’m filled with pride at being a member of this generation. Then I go to an event like that and I have to wonder if maybe the group of people I’m so proud to be a part of isn’t really all that representative of the bigger picture.

Just as I was about to give up all hope on my generation, a guy walked up to me and shook my hand, and asked who I worked for.  I answered.  I told him a little bit about the company and the kinds of opportunities we had for students (given that this was apparently the only thing anyone really wanted to hear) and then asked him what he was interested in.  Every other time I asked that question, I was answered with either vague platitudes, uncertainty, or a look of fright.

This guy took me by surprise as he talked to me intelligently about two or three specialties that he was particularly interested in.  He talked about his experience having started up his own part time gig while in school.  He held up conversation about the industry, and gave actual opinions about where it was going instead of parroting a text book.  He knew that my company would be at this recruitment cocktail, and he had taken the time to look into what we were doing, and what direction we were taking and talked to me about that.  At the end of it all, he handed me his resume. It was a business-card sized CD-rom with a portfolio of his previous work. In short, I was impressed.

I was not impressed by the novelty of a tiny CD-rom.  I was impressed because this guy had put a hell of a lot more effort into this than anyone else I had met that night.  He had gone above and beyond the classroom and had taught himself the skills that make someone a star in our industry.

I’ve met a few other young people like him.  Notably, the team I built and manage.  They’re a fantastic group of young individuals that are intelligent, motivated and are willing to work for the praise that they rightly deserve.  However, in building that team, I also met many more people who were like those at that recruitment cocktail:  Lazy and entitled.

To my team: Thank you for allowing me to believe that Gen Y is not a walking stereotype (even if my belief is misguided).

To that guy from the recruitment cocktail: Whether with us, or with someone else, you’ll find a job, and you’ll be a rockstar.

To the rest of Gen Y:  Please wake up.  No one is going to serve up your opportunities on a silver platter.  You are graduating in a terrible economy, and you already have to contend with negative stereotypes.  You may be doing incredible things, but so are a lot of your peers. Don’t expect that you can rest on your accomplishments and succeed so easily.

To older generations:  I still believe in Gen Y’s potential to change the world.  Give us some time.  We’re still young.  We can still whip the lazy and entitled ones into shape.

Image

Just finished typing up the notes from my internship meeting and outlined goals to be reached by the next conference. I realize I should go back over the notes for the two tests I have tomorrow, but I need to prepare my draft for my Ad Team presentation on Tuesday. Not to mention this post is long over due. After a deep breath and a drag from my Red Bull I prepare myself for another sleepless night.

Sound familiar? If you’re a fellow millennial I’m sure we could compare notes. Here is a snap shot of my responsibilities:

1. As a full-time student at Texas Tech, I have taken anywhere from fifteen to eighteen credits a semester and have participated in summer school every single summer of my college career. I spend roughly twenty-five hours a week going to school, studying for tests and working on homework.

2. I have three internships that require 45-50 hours a week.

3. I am the design editor at Daily Toreador Newspaper, which requires about twenty hours a week.

4. I serve as AE for a National Student Advertising Competition Team, which takes at least fifteen hours a week.

5. I write for The Next Great Generation for at least three hours a week.

In a seven-day week with 24-hour days there are 168 hours. I spend about 110 of those hours doing work. That leaves me about sixty hours to take care of the rest of my life.

In plain speak: I’M BUSY! Not to mention I am recently engaged and planning my wedding, actively searching for a job–feel free to forward any job opportunities if you’re in HR–and maintaining what limited social life I have (this occurs occasionally on Fridays and Saturdays). I pull all-nighters once or twice a week, and that’s just to keep up; it gets really crazy around finals time. Seriously, I should stock in Red Bull. With my purchasing habits I know this stock will not soon plummet.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining; I love absolutely everything I do. I participate in all of the activities only because I know that I am able to complete all tasks that are assigned to me to their fullest potential. Some people ask me how I have free time, it’s simple: multitasking! If I’m in class and the professor is late, I work on something else. When driving around town doing errands for my internship, I place all the phone calls I need to make during the day. During informal meetings I bring my dinner. Basically I’ll do what it takes to take care of all of my responsibilities and keep my sanity intact. There may be a few times I’ve changed for work in the car or inhaled dinner to make it to my meeting on time, but superior time management skills help me take care of business.

This situation isn’t unique, most of my friends are super humans like myself. They work several jobs, volunteer, rush for sororities and fraternities, participate in internships and various other activities. If you’re a millennial in college I’d bet that your schedule is just as crazy as mine, if not more so. I think it would be most accurate to call our generation a group of overachievers and I consider it to be a huge privilege to be apart of such an active generation.

I think @addy_dren said it best, “It seems like we fit 48h of activities into 24h.” Amen sister.

Do you have a crazy schedule? Share it in the comments. Do you have great strategies on how to accomplish everything? Share them.

Photo Credit: hiyori13

There is a great deal written about the negative impacts of social media and the explosion of time spent online rather than doing, well, just about anything else.  These views, one of which was recently featured here on TNGG, are not unfounded. Feelings that “real life” social worlds are becoming smaller are supported by the numbers, which indicate that since 1985 we have been transforming into a more socially isolated society. As this decline in social activity has coincided with the rise of the Internet, it seems only fair to assume that our obsession with the web is driving us all apart in the real world.

However, the Pew Research Institute disagrees.

In their report, “Social Isolation and New Technology” released in November of last year, the institute addresses the issue of isolation, acknowledging that: “Compared to the relatively recent past, most Americans now have fewer people with whom they discuss important matters, and the diversity of people with whom they discuss these issues has declined… There are simply fewer people we can rely on in a time of need – whether it is a shoulder to cry on, to borrow a cup of sugar, or to help during a crisis.”

Admittedly, the report is not able to offer up explanations for the cause of this drift. However, they are able to rule out one very important source: “new information and communication technologies such as the internet and mobile phone. Our survey finds the opposite trend amongst internet and mobile phone users; they have larger and more diverse core networks.” (Full Report)

In fact, it was found that people who are very plugged in are typically more active locally and have greater knowledge of their communities, and that social media use is often associated with positive social behavior. People who are plugged are not being pulled away from public spaces, instead use of the Internet and mobile technology has become a “common component of people’s experiences within many public spaces.” And, by opening our social circles to people we know virtually exposes us to a greater variety of viewpoints and opinions that our “real life” social networks do not offer.

Much of the sentiment that social interactions on new media are somehow fake or less than real, seem to be predicated on the notion that there was some golden era of face-to-face communication. Maybe there was. But, I bet that just unplugging won’t get us back there. Something has changed in our society and it’s very possible that social media is just what we need to keep us together.

Further, our problems with social media seem to derive from the fact that we’re inappropriately treating in-person and virtual communication as entirely different things.

Usman Haque, Director of Haque Design + Research and co-founder of Pachube, recently gave a talk about his theories of connectedness for Creativity. In it he spoke about the ongoing and primarily virtual relationship he has with his 3 year old niece; a relationship that began the moment he first saw her in the delivery room via web cam. As she grew up he recounts that:

“There was this kind of concern early on by her parents that she would be very confused when we finally met in person. That she wouldn’t be able to sort of connect this 2d character with the 3d character in front of her. Nothing could be farther from the truth. She is able to flow back and forwards through these physical and virtual spaces without really making any distinctions. I think it’s the kind of thing adults make. It’s a very quaint idea. It’s a little bit like the 19th century’s divide between body and mind which we kind of think is a little ridiculous now. I think the coming generation is going to think this divide is also ridiculous.”

I think that treating virtual communication vs real communication as a zero sum game is a mistake. The real argument here isn’t over how much we use social media. It’s about whether or not we are making best use of it.

Are we using social media to,

• Widen the variety of our social connections and reach out to larger networks of those who share our interests?
• Utilize the online space as a way to augment our social relationships rather than limit them?
• Connect with people rather than disconnect?

Or are we just using social media as an entertaining way to pass time?

I think it’s probably a little of each, and so we should continue to strive to foster relationships with substance and seek out meaningful engagement, both virtual and real.

Image Credit

Author: Jason Potteiger – Associate Editor at TNGG

Branded

Generation Y has a new relationship with brands. They saturated our world from birth, from alarm clocks and OJ to ice cream and PJs brands are everywhere and everything.

In the early 1980s advertisers began think of brands as more than logos or taglines, but as a position in the minds of consumers and a conceptual framework for adding value to products and services.

Over the next twenty years, as my generation came of age, brands evolved into symbols that carry intellectual and emotional meaning. Brands like Apple, Pedigree or Diesel define themselves in terms of functionality, personality, and identity.

Further, because of new technology our relationships with media (and thus the world around us) are far different from those of previous generations; and how and when we interact with brands and there messages is new as well.

Our saturated, plugged-in lives have built extraordinarily broad and rich brand knowledge structures in our minds. As a result, Millennials’ attitude toward and engagement with brands is unique. Yet, little is understood in terms of how.

I’ve created a list of ideas about how Millennials view and engage with the brands. The core ideas are that we feel ownership of brands that we use, we are fluent in the stories they tell, and use and shape those stories for identification and communication.

1. For Millennials brands are not a bad thing, just a thing.

2. We expect brands to offer us value (our definition of value is wide – a good product, an engaged community, two way communication, flexible meaning associated etc. more below)

3. If a community is not created for us by a brand we will create it. If one is created for us, it must be flexible and transparent. And, either way this community is considered to be owned by us (the users), not the brand.

4. We expect a say in the evolution of the identity of our community and thus “our” brand.

5. We want interaction with “our” brand.

6. From profiles to phones we demand the ability to personalize and customize. We want to make our piece of our brand, our own.

7. Like with good writing, truth is the most compelling feature of any brand – chic or punk, it must be honest.

8. Brands must know our boundaries and not attempt to push into our lives, they must be welcomed and will only be allowed so far.

9. Brands are embraced only if they follow certain unspoken rules and boundaries. Even the most brand loyal Millennial will abandon a brand if the conditions above  are broken.

10. My brand associations are important to me, but ultimately a just one of many variables in my daily life/ equation of personal meaning and value. I dislike brands that do not understand their place in this equation.

11. Brands are used to self identify and create personal meaning. We seek out brands that represent who we are, or wish to be.

12. Individuals and groups identify similar people via their similar brand associations; this commonalty creates a de facto community.

13. We are fluent in brands. We know the symbols, their messages, and the communities associated with them.

14. We speak a language of brands, we can easily construct other and larger meanings through the combination and layering of brands.

(Take someone wearing a Red Sox hat, Converse shoes, North Face jacket, and holding Starbucks coffee – add or subtract any element here, and their brand equation or association map changes, and so does my understanding of them).

15. Just as much as brands mean everything they also mean nothing. Real interactions with people (virtually and in real life) are most important, I don’t much care if I’m drinking a coke or pepsi when I’m with those friends.

Photo Credit: philliecasablanca

Author: Jason Potteiger – Associate Editor at TNGG

Updated 4/22/10

Pumpkin

Last night, my mother remarked, “you guys really take Halloween seriously.”

Yes, yes we do.

I come from Madison, WI where Halloween is basically a state holiday.  It’s the second largest party behind Mardi Gras in the US.  So dressing up and getting into it is hardly difficult.

This year, my friends and I decided we’d buck the trend of “wearing as little as possible.” We dressed as trees, and slaved over our costumes to look utterly ridiculous.  We didn’t show an inch of bare skin, and I thought we’d be the only ones. Yeah, right.

At the parties I attended, I didn’t see a single midriff.  Not one. Don’t get me wrong, wandering the streets I did notice a handful of girls in the bare-all mode, but something has changed.  It wasn’t more than two years ago that I was prancing around in a swimsuit in 40-degree weather.  This year’s attire was still short and tight, but the midriff showing outfits that our generation learned from Britney Spears was nowhere to be found. So why were all the girls considerably more buttoned up than previous years?

It could be that our generation’s collective conscious is shifting.  Your generation thinks we grew up too fast, and we probably did. But, we still have values. I shake my head at the 13 and 14-year-old girls that wear micro-skirts on a daily basis.  We value our bodies more than we’ve been given credit.  Yes, Britney influenced us to some degree, but maybe not at our core.  Maybe, just maybe, we turned out to be a lot more traditional than you think.  Now I look at girls that are scantily clad, and I wish they would put some clothes on because of the message they send about us.  The lack of clothing is a symbol of desperation and lack of self-respect. I try to remind myself that I was like that, but the voice in my head responds with, “yeah, but those weren’t your reasons.”

Regardless, there is a transformation taking place, which in part, is a result of just growing up. However, I think something else is going on, some thing bigger.  Whatever it is, I don’t have a clear answer, at least not yet.  But, you can be sure I’ll come back with one.

Photo Credit: minipixel