Old and Older

To feel perfectly ancient, check out Beloit College's Mindset List for the incoming class of 2007, born in 1985.

Among the nuggets, "Iraq has always been a problem" and "They have always had a pin number."

Comments

[Jim]

I was born in 1970. Didn't get some of those anyway - I must not have been paying attention. Thanks to the poster above for refreshing my memory of the 'giant sucking sound".

Here's my additions for the current generation:

1) won't be able to drive a manual transmission vehicle

2) Won't be able to make change without a calculator

3) Will someday be perplexed by the notion (coming from their parents, of course) that when we were in school, cell phones and pagers were banned, not because they caused a disturbance, but because they were associated with drug dealers.

4) Never rode in the back of a car without being belted down into some type of apparatus.

4.5) Never rode a bicycle without a helmet.

5) Never realize that smoking used to be allowed in workplaces and most 'public' places.

6) Have a hard time comprehending how anyone found information about things without the internet. Hell, I can hardly believe that we used to live without it myself.

7) Never not know of the pervasiveness and usefulness of the internet. I remember in college it was just getting started in a very crude form, and I wasn't really a regular user until about 1996.

8) Will look at people who don't have a personal computer the way our generation looked at people who didn't have a TV, and, later, didn't have cable.

9) Will never have had to get film developed to view pictures they had taken.

10) Will wonder what the hell people did if their car broke down before cell phones.

10.5) Never had to use a pay phone.

11) Won't understand the meaning of 'Sunday Best', and won't feel underdressed wearing shorts in church.

12) Won't realize why Coke is called 'Classic Coke', other than it must have always been named that. (Remember New Coke, anyone?)

13) Never solved a 'Rubik's Cube' or one of the many derivatives popular for a while.

14) Many will probably not know how to read an analog clock.

While I feel a certain smug superiority in knowing how to do certain things 'the hard way', like make change or drive a stick shift, and feel that the younger generation has in some sense missed out on something, I don't feel that I've missed much because I don't know how to curn my own butter or drive a horse drawn carriage. The recent power outage many of us lived through is a reminder of knowledge lost of an era when everybody lived without electricity all of the time. Yet it underscores a fact that there is a shelf life on knowledge, and a point is reached for every bit of skill or trivia where it is no longer beneficial for the average person to keep it in memory.

[dhex]

i can't imagine people smoking in the workplace (b. 1977)

i do remember those tiny tin lids mcdonalds put out for smokers when i was but a wee one.

[Tommy_Grand]

"[I] feel that the younger generation has in some sense missed out on something..."

Don't worry about it. The class of 2002 already understands lots of things about which you have no clue whatsoever. People are not becoming less intelligent + information is growing more easily accessible. By the time your kids reach your (current) age, they will know at least as many useful things as you know & maybe lots more.

[JB]

I?m confused. Is the list intended to be used by the professors as an insight to mindset of their students or to be used by students in understanding the mindset of their professors? The list seems to reveal more the mindset of the authors than of the class of 2007.

[Kevin Carson]

It disturbs me that there's an entire generation of twenty-somethings who can just barely remember the days before every shithead in America had a cell-phone. "You mean you used to have to take the sidewalk from your car to the library, or push a shopping cart, without the bliss of engaging in a non-stop exchange of electronic chit-chat?"

This new technology has sprung up, relatively speaking, almost overnight; and there has not been time for a new set of social mores to develop concerning when it's appropriate or inappropriate to use them. I know, you hear a lot of old Luddites like me complaining about inappropriate use of them, and probably most of the users would pay lip service--but the mores haven't been internalized.

So everywhere you go, you are regaled with a constant "Ring! Ring! Hello? Oh, nothing much--I'm just at the library/church/theater/Bill's funeral...." And with IM, you get the kind of genetic drift that WrItEs LiKe ThIs, and says things like "why dont u ppl give me a holla"

If anything, we're suffering culture lag from the mid-90s, when cell phones were still relatively expensive and carrying them was still a sort of yuppie status symbol. Plus the twenty-somethings have a cultural hangover from high school, when cell-phone ownership had an aura of "Look at me, I've got my VERY OWN phone, just like a sure-enough grownup!"

Well, guess what, cell phones are no longer a status symbol! If you want one, you can easily get it, even if you rent a trailer by the week and live on Ramen noodles and day-old Wonder bread. I don't carry one of the damned things because I'm a cell phone snob. Even if I broke down and got one for roadside emergencies, I'd avoid using it where anyone could see me because I don't want to be identified as one of those cell phone shitheads.

[James]

The Mindset List missed one important aspect, Microbrews and imported beers. No longer is our taste buds relegated to bud and coors or some of the lower tier options of Miller, Hamms, etc or the premium selection of Michelob, as well as their associated party balls. No, these kids skipped class to hit keggers of Sierra Nevada, Pete's Wicked, Samuel Adams, Anchor Steam, Pikes, Red Hook, New Belgium, Spaaten, Fullers, Guiness and the thousand more I can't list or even know myself.

However, these kids will still know something we all do, pot has never killed anyone and is now a medicine.

[twenty something]

bite me. I like my cell phone and do think it's pretty dope. Proper etiquette is developing. Think about the automobile when it started off. From the way you talk, you would've been still trying to ride a horse in the twenties. And sure, it would've been madness for a while, but everything will simmer down. Read Kafka's Amerika. There's a great description of early motoring practices. And yes, I know it is fiction.

51. They will see the end of social security... (we hope)

[Brian]

I don't think cell phones have made people ruder (more rude?) They've just made rude people more conspicuously rude.

Personally, I'm glad to be able to recognize an asshole from a greater distance.

[thoreau]

I don't know about everyone else, but I've noticed that a lot of pay phones have been broken for at least 6 years. A few months ago I finally got a cell phone, after realizing that I couldn't use rely on pay phones anymore and that the cost of a decent monthly plan was the same as I was paying in combined local and long distance charges for my land line.

[Gene Berkman]

For people born in 1985, we have always been at peace with Vietnam. It did not make the list though - out of sight, out of mind.

[David]

Argh...these lists always tick me off. They seem designed solely to somehow "humiliate" (for lack of a better term) people for not knowing every little detail about life before (or after) their precious adolescence.

And I love cell phones. Can't imagine my life without them, now. And before you get all pissy with me -- I am *extremely* courteous when using it...always turn the ringer off in movies, excuse myself from a crowd if I must take a call, etc.

[J. Goard]

A year or so ago, I was at a laundromat near my friend's place playing Ms Pac Man, a game I consider just about the greatest of all time, although do I feel slightly young for it. (b. 1976) This kid of about 7 or 8 was there with his mom, and had never heard of it. There was something surreal about having to explain the Pac Man ontology...

Hey, I have another one:

They have never had to press more than one button to cook something in a microwave.

[Mickey Deez]

Nor do they know the answer to the age old question: where's the beef?

[Mo]

How about Germany was always just a single country.

I didn't like the SUVs one. Back in the day, SUVs weren't called SUVs (I'm not much of one to talk, b. 1978). And what's with the Virgin Atlantic comment? Why not pick any other company that started up or failed since then. Back when PCs were almost all IBMs. Remember things being OS2 compatible? And why mention Imus when this generation is definitely more of a Stern generation. Now a Mindset List made for people born in 1925 would be far more amusing.

Though I will admit this, I walked into a convienence store and saw that the you must be born before this date in 1985 signs for cigarettes and commented to my friend, "1985?!?!Shit they might as well hand out the smokes to elementary school kids!"

Duck Tales, woo-oooo!!!

[Brian]

Thought of these, and then checked them with a coworker that's off to her freshman year next week:

--The Simpsons have always been on, and they have no idea who Tracy Ulman is.

--They don't remember when MTV actually showed music videos on a regular basis and in their entirety

--Guns 'n Roses is "classic rock"

[erf]

And get annoyed at "PIN number" being the accepted mistake it is.

[amr]

I was born in 1997 and most of those things are true for me. Especially if you replace "always" with "since I paid attention to the world outside my home."

Although I do remember what Perot's sucking sound was. And when Pete Rose was the Reds' manager who we all hoped would put himself in to pinch hit, but never did again.

[amr]

I mean 1977!

[Kevin Carson]

Well, David, you are one of God's own. As I said, I'd consider having a cell myself for emergencies, although I'd just take extreme measures to avoid being seen with it.

But there are actually commercials APPEALING to the "boredom relieving" function of a cell phone in inappropriate places. I'm just waiting to see a T-Mobile commercial where a teeny-bopper is squirming through Gramps' funeral, and the obnoxious bitch yells "Stop!" and hands him a phone.

[Franklin Harris]

I've discovered that I have an inability to relate to anyone not old enough to have seen "Return of the Jedi" in a theater during its original release.

[joe]

I'd forgotten that the Statue's torch uses to be grimed out. Man, that's great.

Remember the Elvis impersonators? What the hell was THAT?

[Mark A.]

When my wife was a psychology instructor (pre-9/11/01), she regularly had a discussion in her classes about 'flashbulb moments'. In her last two years, the flashbulb moment for her classes changed from the Challenger accident to (I'm not kidding) OJ's car chase. The changeover was fairly abrupt.

And I can remember when OJ was a runningback for the Bills.

[Eric Pobirs]

You can go back a decade earlier for a generation of kids who have no direct memory of the Viet Nam war. Somewhere in between are those who cannot remember TV with just a handful of channels and no VCR attached. Most of us can cite the locations of severals video rental stores near our homes and yet also remember when there was no such category of strip mall inhabitant. And due to mounting online delivery capability will probably live to see the video store disappear. All in probably less than a 40 year period. Kids born in 2015 are going to have trouble understanding Randal's job in 'Clerks' nearly as much as the Cold War exercises of 'War Games' mentioned above.

Likewise, how many of these 1985 babies are avid e-mailers but have never written and posted a letter on paper? Or ever received a piece of paper in the mail not generated by a machine?

[Tom from Texas]

I can remember in my first two years of college when we used actual university-assigned student ID numbers, NOT our Social Security numbers, to prove who we were. Kids today are now conditioned to using their SSN as their ID on everything, all the way down to kindergarten admittance. I didn't get mine until I was 12.

Yessirree, kiddies, back in my day we didn't have national ID numbers......

[Eric Pobirs]

I just happened to turn on the TV and saw a big one. THere are kids today whose view of the 1970's is formed primarily by 'That 70's Show' much as many of us who were kids in that very era had our primary impressions of the 30's Depression era formed by 'The Waltons.'

Scary.

Although 'That 70's Show' has been playing fast and loose with the exact timing. In the first season an episode placed the show firmly in the Ford Administration but jumped ahead when the release of 'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace' made it irresistable to show the characters reacting to the release of the original 'Star Wars.' The show has since been in a kind of late 70's limbo, avoiding specific events for fear of finding themselves in the 80's. That show has already failed.

How long will it be before a nostalgia series is set in the 90's? West Wing doesn't count. That is more of a fantasy series.

[Ray]

I don't really have true flash-bulb moments but smaller things that act as standards to represent periods of time.

Not bothering to run through them now but for example, the 70s is perfectly represented by "Good Times" and their inane socio-political statements (though I didn't realize the context at the time of course).

[Mike]

PIN number, ATM machine, RAM memory...

Urghh.

[Kevin Carson]

Eric Pobirt,

Happy Days started out as a fairly pleasant, Norman Rockwell take on '50s Milwaukee--a nostalgia show of the same type as American Dreams. Fonzie was just a minor character. But before the first season was over, it morphed into a nominally '50s show that was primarily a vehicle for The Fonz's mugging and thumb-gesturing. Before long, the whole cast had over-the-ears late '70s haircuts. The spinoffs didn't even pretend to be period shows.

[Warren]

It takes 20 years to become nostalgia. In the 70's we were all about the 50's. The 70's were too bland to make a comeback in the early 90's so the 80's got a little jump start. In a few year's we'll all be talking about how 'cool' it was in the technologicly deficient 90's and the freshman class can not remember a world without the internet.

[jim]

So, what was the problem with communism and cuba all about anyway?

[Eric Pobirs]

Heck, I can remember when 'Happy Days' was an episode of 'Love American Style' with Harold Gould in the Dad role later taken by Tom Bosley. (I think I was seven at the time.) I can also remember when Henry Winkler was an upcoming bit player with promise. I recently came across the last few minutes of a 'Bob Newhart' episode with Winkler as a patient who was handcuffed to a police detective and about to be taken to jail at the end of the session. He was great. It's a shame he got ruined by too iconic of a role in Arthur Fonzarelli.

I'm waiting for a late 80's/early 90's show that will use some of the Amiga and Atari ST games I worked on as incidental props. (Actually, one of those games turned up in the third Lethal Weapon flick: Three Stooges for the Amiga.)

In terms of continuity the 'Laverne & Shirley' series wasn't too bad. By the last few seasons they had moved things just far enough ahead for the Beatles to be a factor in pop culture.

[Bob]

I had a similar experience with my oldest (born in 1991)

Decided that I'd introduce him to a movie from my youth, Wargames. The movie starts with a test in a missile silo, doing a staged nuclear launch. He paused the movie and said...

"What are they doing."

"They're in a missile silo. They're supposed to launch their missiles."

"What kind of missiles."

"Nuclear weapons."

"At WHO?!?!?!?!"

"Russia"

"But Russia's our friend!"

I found I had to explain nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union, the Cold War, and mutually assured destruction just to give him a context for watching the movie.

The cold war was always so prevalant for me growing up, that I never realized the Soviet Union collapsed when he was less than a year old.

Bob

[Lefty]

My girlfriend went to Beloit in '69-'73 while I dodged the draft at a local state college. My IQ went up 20 points (I know-I could use it) just to visit the place.

In those days nobody had a car or TV, much less a computer - a few WANG's, maybe. Champagne Velvet beer was $5 a case and pot was $15 a lid. White cross speed was cheap, you only did acid with friends and nobody ever heard of crack cocaine.

[Class of 2002]

I went back and checked the class of 2002 list because that's what I was. I was a little more than incensed by some of the claims that they made about my class but I imagine everyone would feel similiarly. Maybe it was just the tone with which it was written, because the "facts are true" (I know it's a tautology) but statements like, "10. They never had a polio shot, and likely, do not know what it is." Do not know what it is? We were born younger and didn't need the shots we're not fecking morons. Or #15, '...and have never heard of "Pong."' Or "25. They cannot fathom what it was like not having a remote control." Cannot fathom? Feck off!

How about this one - "44. Will still be alive in 30 years."

[Jason Ligon]

I want to offer support and sympathy to the PIN number people. The acronym is just too confusing in spoken English.

I would like to hereby declare PIN to be of equal standing to 'laser', so it can henceforth be used as an adjective to describe one type of number without all of the nay saying.

A little bit of repetitive redundancy in the name of linguitic clarity isn't so bad ...

[Eric Pobirs]

I'd guess around age 4 or later to become aware of major current events and transitions of technology, consumer products, movies, tv shows, etc. I was born in mid 1964 and have memories starting about two to three but I can't think of anything relating to beyond my family that's can be fixed as earlier than 1968. I can remember the first moon landing just before my fifth birthday. At the time my impression from various television shows was that this was notable but not extraordinary. Little did I know.

As Jerry Pournelle once said, "I always believed I'd live to see the first man on the moon but I never thought I'd see the last."

[Eric Pobirs]

Yes, bad audio usage on TV and movies can be intensely annoying. The worst is motorcycle engines. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen something like a Honda 750-4 onscreen but matched up with the sound of a small two-stroke, or the reverse where a small engine dirt bike sounds like a big transverse multicylinder four stroke engine.

Sometimes they get it right. There was an episode of 'Roseanne' that had a subplot involving a Nintendo 64. Over the end credits Roseanne herself was playing and the sounds were definitely from the appropriate Super Mario 64. Truly a geek audio moment.

[nm156]

How about this one: As far as they are concerned there's only ever been one Pope.

[nm156]

And, lucky them, no memories of the Reagan years. The "new" Beetle is the only Beetle, and the same goes for the Mini, too. Unfortunately, some of them will still end up with their father's Oldsmobile. Love things like these lists. Reminds me that history isn't over just yet.

[Steven Crane]

I was born in 1980, and all the things it says I wouldn't know how to do (class of 2003 year) I'm pretty accustomed to. Hell, I grew up watching a steam locomotive in freight service, so that's something the class of 1970 never has really seen.

Also, speaking of references to Atari.. has anyone noticed that in television shows well into the 90's, they'd use the sounds from "Pac-Man" and "Donkey Kong" whenever any character was playing a video game?

[Steven Crane]

What year do they think that memory starts, exactly? I remember the Reagan era well..the Challenger breaking up.. I even have a vague memory of the '84 Olympics and the Edmonton Oilers' dynasty.

[Used Car]

I am so excited. I saved over $6,000 on my used car when I bought online. Sorry if I am interrupting.

[Becker Maki]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 62.213.67.122
URL: http://www.PENIS-ENLARGEMENT-SAFE.NET

DATE: 12/10/2003 05:23:52
Don't worry that other people don't know you; worry that you don't know other people.

[Cook Sioux]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 62.213.67.122
URL: http://tip-for-penis-enlargement.nonstopsex.org
DATE: 12/20/2003 09:34:24
The best solution against abortions is education, not snipers.

[Hansen Katherine]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 68.173.7.113
URL: http://discount-prescription-drugs.drugsexperts.com
DATE: 01/09/2004 02:04:00
When prosperity comes, do not use all of it.

[LaRocca Karl]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 210.18.158.254
URL: http://preteen-sex.info
DATE: 05/19/2004 02:37:16
It is never a mistake to say good-bye.