Undercurrent of our Generation

[burntpunk]

Every decade of the 20th century could be defined by a certain generation, a certain thought, a certain social or political issue, explored in one or two of the most influential novels of that cannon. A contrived perception, yes? But after all, if you create the imaginary number in mathematics, you can explore many more avenues.

The 50s were the Beatniks right? And Jack Kerouac nailed it all with a sense of migration and breathlessness, right? I am stereotyping, boxing and overlooking major aspects of our culture, right? But please, this is all hypothetical, what we are here to do is discuss the undercurrent of our current generation.

What icons? What images? What events? What social and political issues have defined the Noughties? Do you think this has been reflected in our contemporary literature or is it trivial as many believe? Does the zeitgeist that runs parallel in literature continue, or has somebody smashed the mirror?

And what of the 10s? A fresh decade awaits us in 157 days, what do you predict to define this generation?

Let's speculate; let's be appalling.

[Manchegan]

I've hardly read anything written in the last 20 years, but I think the classics that come from now will have to deal extensively with our integration with the internet, gay issues, probably something on race after a black president. I think the biggest issue will be trying to build and maintain a new morality after the death of god.

[Buh4Bee]

I think health care reform is pertinent to the generation? I know many uninsured young people who struggle, because of the current economic climate. I'm not sure where this theme is present in literature.

[King Mob]

What i've seen during this decade in general and popular culture is a kind of revamp of previous generations. I can't talk about literature though, i've not read much of this decade.

But think about cinema and music. Old bands coming back from out of nowhere, movies based on series of the 60s and 70s, sequels to old classics (Indiana Jones, Rambo, Die Hard, etc.), adaptations of comic books.

And also this:

"Blogging makes everyone a writer or a critic. MySpace makes everyone famous until there are so many famous people that no-one’s really famous for anything at all. Twitter turns every twitch, fart and half-baked thought into a global press statement. ‘American Idol’ makes everyone a potential celebrity. The Renaissance/Romantic idea of the special person, the genius, the ‘superhero’, is dying before our very eyes. Everybody wants to be a rockstar and nobody wants to clean the streets. At the same time as all this desperate self-aggrandizement, we’re watching endless reruns of the same shows, the way kids repetitively watch the same DVD cartoons over and over again. Our most successful movies are about children’s cartoon characters as we try to cocoon ourselves with nostalgia and repetition against the howling, incoherent darkness of ecological disaster, paranoid surveillance culture, Terror and financial collapse.”
-Grant Morrison

I couldn't say it better.