# What's going to be the Woodstock of this generation?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [June 17, 2010, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506 "2010-06-17T03:29:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/1 "2010-06-17T03:29:46Z")
We’ll never really know what was a huge cultural event until many years after the fact, but what event of the past say 40 years is going to be the equivalent of being at Woodstock?
A couple of guesses:
1. Watching Titanic, Star Wars, The Matrix or Avatar in it’s original theatrical run.
2. Seeing 9/11 live, albeit on TV.
3. Watching the final episode of Seinfeld.
4. Watching Obama’s inauguration.
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### Author:  [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/2 "2010-06-17T03:34:30Z")
If you’re talking about a single big event that a lot of people personally attended, and will probably claim to have attended in the years to come, it’ll be Obama’s inauguration.
I’m not sure 9/11 should really be likened to Woodstock. The single most consequential event of the past decade, sure, but not really a cultural happening per se.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/3 "2010-06-17T03:36:57Z")
No one’s going to give a shit about 1 or 3 in a few decades. Remembering number two is a big deal, but not the way Woodstock is; obviously, the closer analogy would be things like Pearl Harbor or the JFK assassination. Number four is a moment to remember as well, but it’s not a Woodstock-type “I was there” moment (unless I suppose you actually were there); it’s like “Everyone in the world at the time was equally aware of it”.
So, I dunno. None of these things are really like Woodstock. Number 1 and 3 are the one’s that are actually related to popular culture, but watching a TV show or a movie that huge numbers of people across the country watched from the comfort of home or their local theatre… that’s not really got the same cachet. Number 2 and 4 are the things that are more historically memorable and politically relevant, but that’s not really the same thing as Woodstock either.
The way I see it, to be Woodstock, you have to be the sort of thing where large numbers of people have to lie after the fact about having been there because not that many people actually were…
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### Author:  [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/4 "2010-06-17T03:42:56Z")
> [@Superhal](#):
>
> 1. Watching the final episode of Seinfeld.
?!?
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### Author:  [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/5 "2010-06-17T03:54:22Z")
Woodstock wasn’t even the Woodstock of its own generation. Big ass concert? Yes. World changing event? No.
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### Author:  [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/6 "2010-06-17T04:35:44Z")
I dunno. Attending (or watching live on TV) Live Aid? One of the Live 8 concerts?
Being at the insipid, riotous Woodstock '99 (many thanks, Korn and Limp Bizkit, you fucking mook rock cretins)?
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### Author:  [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/7 "2010-06-17T07:23:25Z")
The yang to this ying question should be “What will be our Altamount”?
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### Author:  [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/8 "2010-06-17T07:51:53Z")
This generation (and future generations) will not have anything like Woodstock, because getting together in person is not something they need or want to do. Being face-to-face in the flesh at a live event isn’t something this generation values or understands.
All the events suggested by the OP were media events, not in-person events.
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/9 "2010-06-17T08:02:11Z")
I was on the internet before everyone else.
Mhmm.
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### Author:  [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/10 "2010-06-17T08:25:30Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#):
>
> The yang to this ying question should be “What will be our Altamount”?
Katrina.
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### Author:  [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/11 "2010-06-17T08:30:12Z")
If by Woodstock you mean “big-ass important event that everyone will remember being somewhere watching it at the time,” then you mean the 9/11 bombing. Everything else is cheesecake at best.
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/12 "2010-06-17T09:06:02Z")
> [@Autolycus](#):
>
> If by Woodstock you mean “big-ass important event that everyone will remember being somewhere watching it at the time,” then you mean the 9/11 bombing. Everything else is cheesecake at best.
Pearl Harbor -\> JFK -\> 9/11
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### Author:  [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/13 "2010-06-17T09:19:42Z")
> [@Autolycus](#):
>
> If by Woodstock you mean “big-ass important event that everyone will remember being somewhere watching it at the time,” then you mean the 9/11 bombing. Everything else is cheesecake at best.
Absolutely. Nothing else even comes close.
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### Author:  [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/14 "2010-06-17T10:26:58Z")
> [@Oakminster](#):
>
> Woodstock wasn’t even the Woodstock of its own generation. Big ass concert? Yes. World changing event? No.
Monterey '67, perhaps?
I’d say those two festivals were culturally significant, at the very least.
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### Author:  [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/15 "2010-06-17T10:41:06Z")
No generation will ever match the self-righteous egocentrism of the children of the 60s. Today’s young people largely know better than to think that doing a lot of hallucinogens at a concert constitutes some sort of transformative social statement, and usually lack the “the entirety of human history is either a prelude or an epilogue to the birth of my high school graduating class” gene entirely.
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/16 "2010-06-17T11:13:26Z")
The way things are going, it could be more like the people who actually were at #4 will start claiming they weren’t…
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### Author:  [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/17 "2010-06-17T11:32:32Z")
Woodstock gave rise to the term _Woodstock Generation_ as a loose term for the counter culture.
I don’t really hear any of the choices in the OP working like that, except mabe the _Star Wars Generation_ as shorthand for the modern media/collector culture.
_Obama Generation_? Possibly. Far too early to tell.
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### Author:  [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/18 "2010-06-17T11:50:59Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#):
>
> No generation will ever match the self-righteous egocentrism of the children of the 60s. Today’s young people largely know better than to think that doing a lot of hallucinogens at a concert constitutes some sort of transformative social statement, and usually lack the “the entirety of human history is either a prelude or an epilogue to the birth of my high school graduating class” gene entirely.
Y’see - the whole point was that it wasn’t ‘egocentrism’. It was loving each other and ‘We Should Be Together’. Egocentrism was _so_ '80s, dontchaknow.
Taking hallucinogens at a concert was transformative: you should have seen what society was like for us before we took them. It certainly changed our social scene.
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### Author:  [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/19 "2010-06-17T12:31:44Z")
> [@Superhal](#):
>
> We’ll never really know what was a huge cultural event until many years after the fact, but what event of the past say 40 years is going to be the equivalent of being at Woodstock?
>
> A couple of guesses:
>
> 1. Watching Titanic, Star Wars, The Matrix or Avatar in it’s original theatrical run.
> 2. Seeing 9/11 live, albeit on TV.
> 3. Watching the final episode of Seinfeld.
> 4. Watching Obama’s inauguration.
I will sidestep the whole 9/11 issue; like other posters, I think of it as a different category.
For “pop culture phenomenon that defined an era” - well, I have long said that the internet is the rock music of today - e.g., it is the source of new thinking, and what parents are more concerned about in terms of not understanding the web the way their kids do - then I would say:
- The ascendence of Google
- The emergence of Social Media - Myspace, Facebook, etc.
- The introduction of key Apple products like the iPod, iPhone and now iPad
Or I would go with the ascendence of video games as a dominant category, e.g., the blockbuster release of video games like Grand Theft Auto
My $.02
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### Author:  [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-going-to-be-the-woodstock-of-this-generation/543506/20 "2010-06-17T16:48:13Z")
9/11 is more analogous to the JFK shooting than Woodstock. EVERYBODY remembers what they were doing when they heard.
Live Aid was the Woodstock of Generation X. I don’t think Gen Y had one.
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