Teenagers and generational Identity.

(Mr Lane's Note - This is a long post; please don't forget to click 'read more' to see all the detail (and clips) for the different youth generations. )

Jon Savage's book (and documentary) establishes that although the idea of adolescence being a separate state from childhood and adulthood begins to exist in the 18th Century, with children working in the industrial revolution, the term 'Teenager' as a concept, as a collective identity, doesn't exist until 1945 and the end of the second world war. Savage defines a teenager as between 13-24 years old. 

Click below for more details

The Baby Boomers

After two world wars, a generation of young men returned home from overseas, or from conflict, tired of war and demanding a new life and new start. This leads to a massive 'boom' in the birthrate from 1945 onwards, both in the US and the UK.

The resultant 'generation' of children, who were born in the late 1940's and 50's, but grew up in the 1960's and 1970's are often referred to as the Baby Boomers.

Crucially these children are the first to grow up experiencing television and 'pop' music (as we know it today) and popular youth culture. Both of which arrive during the 1950's and especially the more sexually liberated 1960's when the 'boomers' were teenagers.

Baby Boomers are often associated with Counter-culture, Rock and Roll, Rebellion and civil rights. The Boomer generation helped create popular feminist movements, and civil rights movements in America. Music was a crucial factor in creating this identity.



This is the period where women sexual liberation, the cold war, the vietnam war, the space race, the assassination of JFK, the civil rights movement in the US, Woodstock, Glastonbury,

Some of the popular youth subcultures during this period include;
- Hippies
- Mods
- Rockers
- 'Rude Boys'
- Skinheads
- Punks (Late 70's)

Film - a time of change and movement. 
Useful links:BFI 60's British Cinema, a decade of change in british cinema (screen online)
- The british 'new wave' (Saturday Night, Sunday Morning) 
- Swinging 60's Cinema and London
- The end of the Studio system in the USA 

Some good examples, Easy Rider (1969 Dennis Hopper)

A Hard Day's Night (1964 Richard Lester)

2001 A Space Odyssey (1968 Stanley Kubrick) 

Bonnie & Clyde (1967 Arthur Penn) 

Some other notable films:

Kes

Jaws

Star Wars

Taxi Driver

The Godfather

Apocalypse Now

Annie Hall

TV:

The Avengers

The Prisoner

M*A*S*H

Star Trek

Happy Days

Dr Who

The Sweeney

Music

The Beatles

The Rolling Stones

Jimi Hendrix

Generation X

Generation X were the generation born after the Baby Boomers, born in the late 60's and 1970's, they grew up in the 1980's and 1990's. 

They were the first generation to grow up with the potential of living standards and economic prospects being worse than the generation before. 

This is the first generation to grow up with Music Videos, MTV, Video Games, Electronic Music, Grunge, and Glam Rock. 

They are often contrasted with the teenagers of the sixties as being more materialistic, apathetic and narcissistic, less likely to be involved in political or social change. They are sometimes called 'the slacker generation'. In the UK, the 1980's brought a bigger disparity in income and wealth, with the creation of the so called 'yuppies'. They grew up in a cold war world, but saw it come to a close with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. 

The term Generation X was popularised by Douglas Coupland whose (excellent by the way) novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture tried to encapsulate the transient lifestyle and anxieties of young people growing up in this period. This is the generation who grew up with the end of the cold war with the fall of the Berlin wall 1989, they saw the Iraq war in 1991 and the discovery of greenhouse gasses, the hole in the ozone layer. Britain saw mass privatisation of previously nationalised industries like coal, gas, and electricity, this led to the famous miner's strikes and closing of the coal pits that brought Britain to an economic crisis in the 1980s. They were the first generation to discover AIDs, bringing about an end to the sexual revolution of the 1960s. They grew up on the cusp of the Internet, and the communications revolution (seriously check out 1980's mobile phones) but were not as intrinsically part of it as the Millennials. 

Some of the popular youth subcultures of this period include;

- The New Romantics
- Goths
- Northern Soul 
- Hip-Hop
- Grunge
- Slacker
- Lad Culture
- Britpop

Film: 

Most of the Films of John Hughes (especially Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) and The Breakfast Club (1985)

Boyz 'N' the Hood (1991 John Singleton)

Clerks (1994 Kevin Smith)

Kids (1995 Larry Clark)

\

Trainspotting (1996 Danny Boyle)

Fight Club (1999 David Fincher)



Music:

New Order 


The Pixies



Nirvana


TV

MTV


Edge of Darkness


Threads


Beavis & Butthead

MILLENIALS

(Sometimes called Generation Y) 

This is (maybe) you. Born in the 1990's or 2000's. (There is a big Generational crossover, as with all generations, this is not an exact science. Here's a quiz to check if you're not sure.)

Like every generation, you get a bad rap. 

Some people think that the youth subcultures previous generations had, have all gone 

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/mar/20/youth-subcultures-where-have-they-gone

But some say they have gone online or underground

Or that older generations don't understand. 

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/24193/1/millenials-british-youth-dazed-generation

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/millenials-libertarianism-ed-milliband-welfare-state

How would you define your generation? Can you even do so? 

And what about generation z? Those after you? Those born in the mid 2000s, growing up in the 2010's and 2020's? Are you really part of this generation, or part of the millenials?

---

Today's theorist:

Thomas De Zengotita:

'Mediated: The Hidden Effects of the Media on You and Your World' (2005)

De Zengotita asserts that almost everything (info, values, news, role models) comes to us through some media (TV, print, web, magazines, films) so will undoubtedly colour/influence our view of life and therefore our own self-definition.

He states that our identity in a way is 'mediated' this means influenced by, but also constructed with and through the media. It is this sense of shared 'construction' of identity that is important to remember.