Speaking of which, I’d like to address the seeming stereotype (at least in my high school) of girl gamers being generally ugly and unsociable.  I’ve heard so many gamers/nerds/geeks complain about it and it just isn’t true.  A quick search turned up HotGamerGirls.com, which seems like a social hub for girl gamers that I’ll have to check out.  There are galleries of girl gamers on the site, too, which seem to be proving my point for me.

The major premise of the game and an analysis is pretty much summed up here in an amusing format, so I’ll save the dribble.  Basically, it’s really good and I might not leave the house for a few days.  We have enough food, at least.  So farewell world, and back to zombie apocalypse.

Are you a gamer?  Wanna play with the Vageniuses?  Leave me a comment or drop me an email!

I’m going to be twenty, for all those who wish to know.  I still don’t have any idea how to celebrate.  I was thinking of going to New York City – not to Times Square, just to the city to stumble around drunk and forget the fact that I no longer get to be a teenager… Ah well.

If anyone has any awesome ideas for somewhere for a newly-20 year old girlie can go for her birthday on New Year’s Eve, let me know by comment or email!

Millenials Rule, Gen Xers Drool

I won’t be as childish as it sounds, I promise.  The article cited above makes some pretty damaging points about the culture of us Millenials.  However, many of the points simply sidestep what Millenials have offered to society.  Just as adults used to plug their ears when they heard heavy metal, the culture of Millenials has been marginalized.

Music

While Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance are not liked by all, they have certainly made a defining impact on music and created a genre.  But where Millenials really shine isn’t even in the rock arena.  The world of rap and hip-hop has evolved immensely over the last several years, and while I personally hope that Kanye West’s egotistical ass gets forgotten yesterday, there is no arguing the influence rap has had on the music industry in recent years.  You lay down Soulja Boy, and I’ll just raise you Debbie Boone’s “You Light Up My Life”.  Every generation makes mistakes.

Listen to some Immortal Technique, Atmosphere, or Aesop Rock and see if you can’t find the same poetry that you love in Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, or Kurt Cobain.  There are plenty of rappers that aren’t doing the gangsta rap thing, though even that can be inspiring if you give it a chance.

Movies

Yeah, okay, so Generation X movies are all about defining a generation of slakers and potheads (as if we don’t have any of our own, haha).  Millenial movies often have similar themes to those of Generation X, but they weren’t necessarily “stolen”.  The differences in the movies really do show the differences between the generations.  X has Sixteen Candles, Y has Mean Girls.  While the human experiences are the same, the real difference in Millenial movies is the technology, the language, and the fashion.  Of course, there are many other variables that go into good and bad movies.  But we don’t like all the crappy parody movies, either.

Reality Television

Wait… does it really matter?  Y’all can have this one if you want.  Though I have to say, if you are basing it on the sheer quantity of crazy shit that goes down, I think we win.  Seriously, have you seen Bad Girls Club?

What Do We Have?

So now to answer the question: “Does Generation Y have anything of value?”  Well Don Tapscott seems to think so.  He wrote a book in 1997 about Millenials called “Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation”.  Some ideas from that book are here.  One of his main points is that the Net Generation, which is generally defined as those born between 1978 and 2000, represents the first generation to be demographically dominant to the baby boomers.  Millenials also tend to shy away from hierarchial media like television and choose to watch or read from a more shared delivery system, aka the internet.  This first book was written in 1998, and he just came out with his second, “Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World”.  His book is almost meant to be read like a manual for Millenials.

Poised to transform every social institution, the Net Generation is reshaping the form and functions of school, work, and even democracy.  Simply put, the wave of youth, aged 12-30, the first truly global generation, is impacting all institutions. Particularly, employers, instructors, parents, marketers and political leaders are finding it necessary to adapt to the changing social fabric due to this generation’s unique characteristics. 

So watch out, Xers, because we’re here, we’re big, and we are changing things around here.

Feel free to comment with your own opinion or facts, or email me at katlaufenberg@gmail.com with feedback.  I might even post some of it on the blog with answers.

So, go ahead and digest that and have a wonderful Christmas season!

Kat

It’s hard to say what this is going to be definitively.  Sylvia Plath said, “And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”  Her book the Bell Jar is amazing, by the way.  But at the same time, Harold Acton said in his works “So often is the virgin sheet of paper more real than what one has to say, and so often one regrets having marred it.”  Now I swear I’m going to close the stupid quotes page I have opened in another tab.  The point is, this is about what I decide it is about, and I’ll try not to turn it into one of those boring and irritating pieces of egotistical e-trash that seem to pop up all over the internet.  Deal?

If you don’t care who the hell I am you can just skip this next part.

So I’m a 19 year old college student starting my freshman year in a degree in computer science next semester, but that really leaves out a lot of me.  In the past year I’ve been a soldier in the US Army, a veterinary technician at an emergency hospital, and a freelancer on Park Avenue in New York City.  While I’m sure that I haven’t had the greatest range of experiences in the last year, I’d like to think that I’m ahead of the bell curve so to speak.

This may become a lot of things, and if you have any ideas feel free to leave them for me!  I’ll get started on this right now and see what happens.

So hello and goodbye world,

Kat