Trend Spotting: The So Over It Edition

I suppose I should come right out and announce the conclusion that I’ve been slowly drawing (but in pencil so I can erase it if need be) in my head for that last couple of months – this generational analysis thing is so dead. The Gen Y/Millennial media monopolization and fascination is the deadest horse that ever died. It’s old, it’s stale, it’s played out and anything that was worth saying, or dissecting or counterpointing has already been said, dissected and counterpointed.  There’s only so much rehashing, repurposing, reimagining you can do before you’d happily pay yourself and everyone else to STFU about the topic forever and ever amen.

And I’m not just saying this because I feel as if I’m 105 lately. No, I’m just tired of reading, responding to, writing about the same tired things and looking at and interpreting things through the same purgatorial young adults lens. Adult being the key word here. We’re all adults, or on our way to being them. Maybe “adult” doesn’t look the same as it did 20 or 30 years ago or will look 20 or 30 years hence, but really, who cares? Do you really, truly care about isolating the root causes of general values trends among your peers? What do you plan to do with that knowledge? Will it help you get a job? Sleep better at night? Whiten your teeth? No. It’s static. Interesting static by times, but at the micro-level of you and I as individuals getting through a day at a time, it doesn’t mean a hell of a lot of anything and should be treated accordingly. I feel the same way about the social media industry and all of its attendant statistics and self-aggrandizing. Who cares? Who needs to care? Only people who make their money from these statistics and self-aggrandizing. Did people pay this much attention to the advent and evolution of the microwave?

We unnecessarily complicate things a lot of the time, give them more complexity, more shades of gray  than they actually have or need to have. Maybe it makes us feel important as we ponder and mull or when we dither, when we tell ourselves things are much too convoluted to permit a snap judgment or rushed choice.

I think this is one of those times and the discussion of Gen Y/Millennial culture is one of those things.

It’s done, folks.  I expect someone or some outlet with clout to make the very same announcement (heavy on the blasé) in a few month, at which time I’ll obviously be ready with the appropriate I Told You So.