Why can't I stand my own generation?

A short time ago I was on a train in my home town of Wellington. As I sat minding my own business I noticed a sign that depicted the sound symbol you see on computers and below was the caption ‘keep it to yourself’. The fact that stuff like that has to be said just appals me, I mean I always thought of those things as common courtesy.

Also why does every single person my age dress identically to each other? Past generations fought hard against a system that was too strict and constricted creativity but when the spoils of that war are bequeathed unto the next generation their response to the plethora of freedom they’ve been given is to conform and look the same.

Why? How can you enjoy an existence completely defined by others? I may not be the best guy out there. Hell at times I can be a total dumbass. But I can tell you one thing nearly every mistake I have made, victory I’ve won and hard moment I’ve faced has been on my own. Sure my friends and family influenced my decisions but at the end of the day I still made them. I didn’t just read a magazine and brainlessly choose who I am.

The worst thing is when I try to openly discuss the reasoning behind these
decisions with the people who make them. There is nothing wrong with liking popular music and dressing fashionably as long as you can justify it. For instance if a popular song also happens to be one you like it should be because it fits your taste not because its popular. It should just happen to be running parallel to your tastes not predefining them. I had a heated debate with a girl in my class saying she had no taste, not as an insult as an actuality. And in the end I was right because it wasn’t her taste it was what she was told to like.

I’m honestly sorry for these people I don’t think myself better I just think myself lucky I mean does it feel hollow to have to live like that? how do you answer the simple question who am I? Maybe this is just the generic teenage condition or it could be something linked to my generation. Whatever it is it really saddens me to see the clones march every time I stroll main street.

Yes.

I was a bit of a prick when I was 17 - 18, but I didn’t really know any better, coming from a shy, insular environment. So when I faced the big, bad world, I just believed in and went forth on silly extrovert personas and all that bullshit.

Growing up is a tricky thing, and I’m still making mistakes.

If you fought for the right to wear whatever you want, and people choose to wear the same thing, why is that a problem? Freedom includes the ability to willingly choose not to exercise said freedom. To complain is like a pro-choicer complaining that someone chose not to have an abortion.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel ya on the “keep it to yourselves” thing. And I’ve noticed that a lot of courtesy has fallen out the window. I actually noticed it happening–the transition seemed to be right between my graduating class (2003) and the next one.

Here’s the thing, though – she does have taste; it’s just not yours.

It’s not your place to tell her what she should or shouldn’t enjoy, nor is it any of your business. If she gets pleasure out of listening to X music, or watching X film, etc., what’s it to you? Everyone thinks they themselves have great taste and everyone else is an idiot. If you listed the music you enjoy here, I’m sure there would be people who would find fault with your list, but at the same time…it’s none of their business, either, what you like.

Another thing to think about is that people often feel put on the spot and too self-conscious to articulate their reasons for enjoying music (movies, etc.), especially when someone has already decided they’re an idiot. They might not want to share private or sensitive thoughts out of fear of being laughed at, and clearly, your classmate would be justified in having those fears. The fact that you see your debate with her as something you can win and be “right” about says a lot about you, too.

That’s been happening since Mog started wearing his pelt over the right shoulder instead of the left one and the rest of the tribe’s youth followed suit, having seen how it infuriated their elders. It’s more radical in some places than others (the cultures which are more individualistic for looks are not necessarily the ones which claim to value individualism the most), but still, not something about your generation in particular.

Spectergeist may have been a jerk about it with the girl, but it does seem to be the case that some people don’t have tastes of their own in various areas. That’s not to say that they have bad taste, which would be a different and of course much more subjective judgment. But some people really don’t have any aesthetic opinions in some areas.

Consider yourself lucky that you were born after the day of the boombox. :cool:

Otherwise, I refer you to the XKCD link above.

It says something about the validity of this complaint that I cannot tell how old you are from this comment (though later in your post you hint you’re a teenager.)

Every generation dresses similarly.

And if you think it’s because they’re all brainless sheep, you might want to do some thinking of your own. In twenty seconds of thinking I came up with three perfectly valid reasons why people of roughly the same age tend to dress the same way, none of which appeal to my won vanity or assume the stupidity of others:

  1. Because it’s easy. Speaking as an adult, I simply do not have the time to spend coming up with innovative outfits. I have a job, a daughter, a home to take care of, and other stuff going on. I haven’t had a lot of free time since before I was in high school. Quite frankly, the most time efficient way for me to choose clothing is to pick out whatever fits, that more or less matches, and that I see looks good on people like me. I express myself in ways other than my clothing.

  2. Because that’s what’s available. 99.9% of us don’t have time to make our own clothes, so we shop in department stores. If we’re all shopping in the same stores, is it surprising we’re wearing similar clothing?

  3. Because in putting together a presentable outfit, one needs a certain degree of experience and information regarding what clothing goes well with what. This means you know the most about the clothing you’re familiar with, and the clothing you’re familiar with will, for the most part, be what your peer group is wearing. I COULD put together an outfit of attractive, well-fit traditional Indian clothes, but the simple fact is that I don’t know how to.

You were, in fact, insulting her, and deliberately so. She was quite justified in feeling insulted.

There is no meaningful distinction between “her taste” and “a taste she acquired from somewhere else.” All your tastes are externally acquired in some way. That this girl elected to wear clothes because they were popular styles no more suggests she lacks taste than someone’s enjoying the Beatles suggests they lack taste in music.

I’ll let you in on a secret: You’re not special just because you’re wearing a different shirt.

Beat me to it. I printed that one out and stuck it up on my bulletin board.

I think individuality is something of a bell curve - at one end is the young adult years when people are trying to find their own identity, and at the other end of the bell curve is your senior years when you just don’t care anymore what people think of you - if those pants are comfortable, you’re wearing them. Some people will always march along blissfully listening to their own drummer; they may or may not even notice that they’re out of step with the rest of the world. Most people will take their cues from other people because that makes them feel secure and like they belong.

Justify it to who?

Neither did they. They, like you, have been influenced by external factors, and those factors have helped them to make their own decisions. There aren’t armies of clone automotons out there who make their decisions based on what’s in Seventeen, or whatever the popular teen magazine is nowadays. You just have people taking in whatever they’re reading, evaluating it, and deciding what they like. It might be influenced by different things, but you’re not uninfluenced. No one is.

Now, there are some people who choose to put on a face for public consumption, and those people may in fact be actively copying magazines, or pop culture, or whatever. But that’s not conformity so much as striving for an identity. A lot of people do that by trying on different ones until they find the aspects that they like and the aspects that they don’t like.

If you pity them, then you do consider yourself better than them. But you’re not; angst and sorrow at the “sheeple” (to use a term that, while I despise it, is quite apt) is a part of the teenage condition, and is way the heck older than you are. If they’re fulfilling one mindless archetype, then you’re fulfilling another.

What makes you any better? Im positive there are millions just like you aswell. Your post is just a large narrow minded opinion.

I’m willing to bet it’s because you are generally an unhappy person. They seem to be enjoying certain things you find yourself unable to enjoy, so you trivialize their enjoyment. If enjoyment of something is unavailable to you, that’s an indictment of yourself, unless it’s unavailable to you because it’s stupid, in which case you can say you feel sorry for the people who do enjoy it and turn it into an indictment of them.

I think you have an exaggerated perception of how uniquely people dressed in the past. Quick, picture a 22 year old in 1967. Now in 1977. Now picture a high school girl from 1985. The reason you can do this is because people have always dressed similar to each other, that’s how you get decadal scale fashion stereotypes. You also exaggerate how identical they are today. I’m sure you can identify at least 3 distinct groups at your school (assuming no uniforms/restrictive dress codes): think preps, potheads/phisheads, and punks. These three groups likely dress differently. If you REALLY pay attention you’ll probably notice that even smaller cliques of friends have more subtle differences.

Dude, telling someone “they have no taste” is insulting in our culture. Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant, I’m pretty sure you can realize that. You’ll have much better discussions if you learn to refrain from making people feel stupid. Do you perceive your taste in film to be as refined as your taste in music? What about your taste in sculpture? Poetry? Theater? Wine? OH MY GOD, YOU DON’T HAVE ANY OPINIONS ON YOUR FAVORITE WINE? How can that be? Oh, you just don’t really care for wine and you’re too young to easily enjoy it, so you haven’t tried many. Maybe that girl didn’t consider music to be a huge part of her life, so the amount of pleasure she gets from the Top 40 is fine with her.

Like many have already said, you are FAR from the first teenager to feel this way. The tone of your OP makes it seem as if you think you’re a lone observer of the inanity of teenage popular culture - the xkcd comic is much closer to the truth. I strongly suggest you descend from the ivory tower you feel you’re looking from and accept that a) teenage culture in general is hardly the Italian Renaissance and b) you’re not nearly as different from everyone else as you hope.

Psh, the Italian Rennaisance. That’s just what you’ve been told is the height of human culture. Get your own opinion, one more like mine.

Gramophones, man. Those were the days.

Ok Mr. Smartyunconventionalpants, since we live in a society packed full of people constantly socialising all over one another, how can you prove that you crafted your own original identity? For all you know, your favorite flavor of icecream is determined by some layer of socialization.

Oh and some people (all people) simply don’t care enough to deduce original tastes for everything that exists. It’s much easier to just wear the damn pants than it is to spend years angstifying over which pants best express my individuality. That way I can angstify over stuff I think is important, like cultivating musical tastes. Then, because you self identify so heavily as nonconformist, you come along and see that I’m wearing the same pants as everybody else and assume I’m a clone. If you could actually see that all humans are drastically different, you’d be totally lost.

Did you ever consider that the whole “I’m SUCH a nonconformist!” bullshit is just as shallow? A lot of people only do so to be “different” – they’re so caught up in NOT being like everyone else, that they’re just as bad.
(It’s kind of the whole “I did like that band – but then they sold out and became all popular!” I HATE that crap!)

Oh, I know mine is. The lack of lemon icecream in some parts of the world drives me to distraction, it does! On the other hand, I suggest that if you like Cinnamom chewing gum and are coming to Spain, you should bring enough supplies to last you for the whole trip.