Same here. The rest of the list - whatever. But they don’t remember when Clinton was president?! 
Some of these are just odd. I went back to the class of 2003 list and they at least make an effort to list things that kids born in 1981 would have a hard time remembering (though I think it’s funny that the listmakers believe every rotary phone stopped working around my generation’s birth). However, this year’s list includes gems like…
Yes, Bieber and Fanning are over 18. So?
A religious kid will know this, and a non-religious kid won’t. This is true in 2012 and it was probably true in 1912.
Those pieces of paper that airlines have you print out when you order online is called a “ticket.”
Just… no.
What? A generation of kids got their first car and instantly ripped the radio out of it because… iPods! Really?
Bound encyclopedias are still printed and sold today. So it is quite likely that the parents of this year’s freshman class have seen a new set of bound encyclopedias.
First of all, there’s a joke to be made here about the inclusion of CDs and DVDs as modern technology in the same article that states car radios are dead. Secondly, who calls them “tapes”?
Gingrich’s political career began in the 70s. This entry could have been included 20 years ago and it still would have been valid.
Billy Graham was last a fixture on television during the 90s, when today’s college freshman were under the age of four. They may have heard of him, but are unlikely to know much about him beyond “famous preacher.” Otto Graham retired from the NFL in 1955, almost two decades before most parents of today’s college freshmen were even born.
Come to think of it, this entry looks like a leftover from when I was a freshman.
Teenagers like hanging out with teenagers… Holy shit y’all! That has never happened before in the history of ever!
What the hell is a “music programmer”? Do they mean radio DJs? Didn’t they say radio was dead a few entries up?
Lost’s final episode aired in 2010, two years after the debut of Breaking Bad.
Television and film dramas have always risked being pulled because the story line was too close to the headlines from which they were ”ripped.”
This entry is clearly referencing Law and Order, but it could equally apply to Dragnet, which made its radio debut in 1949.
A “point-and-shoot camera” is a marketing term and is applied equally to older film-based cameras and a brand-new digital camera that you can buy anywhere.
Bzzt! I’m sorry, that’s incorrect. Cal Ripken set the record in 1995, a year after this year’s freshman class was born.
Why wouldn’t they?
This is the first time i’ve ever heard either of those groups described using that term.
“What’s a baud, grandpa?”
“Legally Blonde” and its sequel came out in 2001 and 2003 - and in the years since then, i’d say that Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Ke$ha haven’t exactly done much to dispel the “dumb blonde” meme.
I just don’t buy this at all. It’s not like new cars don’t have radios in them.
Is there any recent era in American history which this statement doesn’t apply to? I challenge the writers to explain why the “socialites” whose doings were documented on the society page in days of yore were any more deserving of fame than any of today’s “self-proclaimed celebrities”.
What the what?
As has every person born in America in the last 400 years or so.
And it wasn’t until just before 1994?
Do the writers of this know that Pete Townshend and Edgar Winter and Stevie Wonder were “programming” electronic music in the '70s?
Naproxen sodium has been on the market since 1980.
The main character of “The Greatest American Hero” had his name changed from “Hinkley” to “Hanley” in 1981. Even the series premiere of Doctor Who, in 1963, was postponed because of the JFK assassination.
No, just no. Do you even know the names of the things you’re trying to comment on?
“Pizza! Pizza!” was introduced in 1979, and it isn’t even used by the chain anymore. Considering how far it’s fallen from its peak in the early 90s, the most likely response you’d get from asking a youth about it is “What’s Little Caesar’s”?
Do you not point and shoot with cameras anymore?
This list is about one-third genuine observations and two-thirds “What’s with the young people these days” rambling by old people who have no idea what they’re talking about. I may now be too old to call myself a young person, but i’m not NEARLY as out of touch as these squares. Did they even CONSULT any class-of-'16-ers when they wrote this?
The most shocking thing about the college class of 2016 is that my son is in it. That’s also the best thing, in my prejudiced opinion 
Agree with others that a number of items in the list look more like “things that the kids today are talking about that *we who are doing the list *only noticed now that we looked at it”. And if these are the youth going to college I’d expect them to be aware of things beyond what was receiving commercial publicity between ages 8 and 18.
Mississippi’s *state *constitution wasn’t amended to outlaw slavery until 1995. In practical terms, the U.S. Constitution trumped any state law on the subject, but most states whose constitutions made explicit reference to slavery had long since amended their documents to outlaw it.
IOW, they’ve always been massive tools?
Other than some different historical and cultural reference points, I don’t see a lot on this list that indicates a fundamental difference in how this class thinks or views the world.
For example, growing up with Internet, cellphones, email and texting is a fundamental difference from how I grew up. We didn’t really have that stuff until I graduated college in the mid-90s. But that hasn’t been a big deal in years.
I don’t buy that either, unless they are talking about Sirius Sattelite Radio, which isn’t in every car.
It would be interesting to track things (like TCM) that are still going, but that college freshmen wouldn’t give a shit to know about. Not the Electoral College or the Tennessee Valley Authority, 'cause that’s been done. Material or cultural things that are just not part of a lot of people’s worlds if they are young or parent young people.
- What’s canning?
- Have you ever used shoe polish?
- Is there a sewing machine in your home?
- What’s baking powder used for?*
*“Baking, doy” is not an acceptable answer.
Just for fun, I pulled up their list for 2004, the year I graduated college (or would’ve if i’d gone). Let’s see how they did with my generation.
True, but that’s a mathematical observation, not really anything cultural or “mindset” related. I guess it’s better than noting “Hey, Biebs was born in '82, wasn’t he?”
True.
I don’t think i’ve ever heard that term used to describe Kurt Cobain’s death, and I knew the song “American Pie” from the radio (which we old fogeys still listen to, not like the young people these days) long before I knew what a Nirvana was.
True.
False and patronizing - did they think people my age didn’t know who JFK was? Hell, Oliver Stone’s JFK came out when I was 8.
True.
Those of us who were born in 1982, as you so astutely noted above, were listening to our music mostly on vinyl until we were ten or so. False.
False on the latter, though i’ll admit that the former makes me think “bathroom cleaner” more than it does “muscle car”.
True.
True.
No, we had punk rock in the '90s, too. I was 17 or 18 before I found out punk rock actually started in the '70s and wasn’t a new phenomenon.
True.
True.
DNA fingerprinting became available in 1987 and wasn’t widely known about until the OJ Simpson case, so not quite.
They wrote this in 2004, right? I remember 2004, and I seem to recall a war or two going on at the time that neither began nor ended quickly.
The first ATM went online in 1959, so this isn’t particularly relevant to my generation.
True. (Not that any of us ever listened.)
True.
They HAVEN’T always been?
Disagree - Watergate was a critical moment in the rise of modern conservatism and a major factor in how people of my generation think about government. I’m surprised they didn’t throw a Lewinsky joke in here.
Oh, wait, there it is. Incidentally, i’m pretty sure there were bigger presidential scandals than that in the '70s. Water-something? I forget. I don’t know, it’s about as relevant to me as Teapot Dome.
False.
True.
MLK Day was established in 1986, but I can’t say that I ever remember it not being a holiday. Well played, Beloit College Mindset List.
False and patronizing.
Even when I was a teenager we were cracking jokes about how “MTV never plays videos anymore”, so i’m calling BS on that.
True.
True, but i’m really getting tired of this “X has always been Y” thing. I’m half-expecting to see “We have always been at war with Eastasia” on the list.
I’m not aware of any specific article making that claim, but the video game market DID crash in a big way in '83, so i’ll give them partial credit. And yet, I can’t help but imagine the guys who write this list STILL think video games are a fad that’s about to come to an end, or else they’d have put something in like “Mario has always been a plumber, not a governor of New York”.
True?
I don’t know what a Bear Bryant is.
Not that I’ve ever wanted to.
And now you’ve lost me. Is that what those movies were about? Who the hell would run state lines for Coors?
Yes, that was a song that was recorded in 1982. It was also the year that the heat of the moment shone in your eyes, the year that the last known survivor stalked his prey in the night, and the year that you were working as a waittress in a cocktail bar when I met you. Congratulations, Beloit College, for proving that your periodicals department has a complete collection of Billboard on microfiche.
Yeah, that sure happened in a movie that year, alright!
Every single classic rock station in America would like to have a word with you, gentlemen.
False.
My phone rings. The phone at my work rings.
False, but that’s because I LIKE playing dress-up.
Hurricanes have had male names since 1979.
Lawn darts weren’t banned until 1989.
True.
Two “American Pie” quips in one list? Now you’re just getting lazy on me. As I noted above, this is wrong, and INSULTING.
True.
True.
False. When I first heard that the Osmonds were getting a talk show, I thought to myself “Those sappy pop singers from the '70s that my mom liked?”
I used enough bottles of it to know it’s called Wite-Out, not “White Out”.
True, but my parents explained it to me as it was happening.
True, but this should be true for EVERYONE, unless you’re admitting you have no idea how computo-boxes work.
No, not really.
So overall - not much difference between that list and the current list. One-third genuinely interesting observations, two-thirds “The kids these days don’t appreciate the same things that I appreciated when I was a kid back in the Stone Age” nonsense, that makes it sound like they never even ASKED any people of the appropriate age about any of these things. These must be the people who conservatives complain about when they whine about “ivory tower intellectuals” who are out of touch with the real world.
That’s too clever, you’re one of them!
I agree. I have an eighteen-year-old son this year, so I read the list even though I haven’t for years… and it’s dull. Too much pop-culture stuff and minor historical matters in between stuff that might actually mean something. It felt like they were padding out the list.
Since when is Lost considered iconic? I’m 38, and I know that Breaking Bad is clearly the better show. I’m as big a fan of it as any college freshman with taste would be.
And, if I miss The Daily Show, I go to Hulu or comedycentral.com–not youtube, which often won’t have the full episode, or will have a low-quality video.
And 18 year olds can’t imagine carrying luggage through airports? They don’t know biblical references? They think gene therapy and full genome sequencing has always existed, like fire, or the wheel? Gimme a break.
Beloit is the bottom rung of the ladder in Wisconsin. It’s where people who are trying to escape end up, thinking they have made it across the border into Illinois. That tells you something about their mental abilities right there, and why a screed for their college students is written with a fifth grade vocabulary. 