Generation Me

Each generation cherishes its illusions, baffling the succeeding generation (who cherish theirs). There's nothing new in this generational time line since America has always been introspective about its composition; dissecting and labeling its idiosyncrasies through the decades.

Their generational icons include such revealing sobriquet as "My Space," "I-pod," "I-Tunes," "My Music," and countless more. In school, they have been vectored away from highly competitive effort-and-reward, into mythical Camp Self-Esteemuwah; where everyone gets a trophy, parity is the new standard, and the suggestion that "you can be anything you want to be" is meted out like cups of Kool Aid at a soccer game. American Idol, Survivor, and other reality shows have taught them that situational ethics and agents regularly propel common people into national glitteratti.

They've spent multitudes of hours, days and years in chat rooms, or posting their pictures to My Space dot com, as opposed to competing in athletics or the arts. They are, more than any other, a generation in deep disquietude over their real future, when they're bold enough to pull back the curtain that separates themselves from their illusion.

Among the younger tier of the 18-34 subset, 50 percent of Generation Me still reside with parents, a large number of whom have no specific plan for cultivating either an education or a profession. Certainly, to be fair, this group will incubate future scholars, prominente, and leaders, though the ratio of self-directed achievers to uncertain stragglers will be more polarized than any generation before them.

Like any subset of society, Generation Me did not materialize through destiny alone. The Internet, media, movies, declining academics, fragmented homes and neighborhoods, and September 11th, have all coalesced to bake the recipe for this most enigmatic of all American generations.

As marketers and programmers, we need to understand them if we hope to reach them. As parents, we must attempt to direct them. In looking for the key-code that unlocks the origin and ethos of this group, we may need to begin with Generation Us.