Gen Y Ephemera

Gen Y Ephemera

Reader Rudolph Harrier and author JD Cowan unearth more evidence that Generation Y is a separate cohort from the later Millennials. Consider some data points from a 2006 article published in the Oberlin Review: College admissions offices, employers and marketing companies are going into a frenzy over Generation Y, a…
March 10, 202222 Comments
Motorola StarTAC

Internet Citizens

Commenter Rudolph Harrier provides insightful context for Monday's post promoting JD Cowan's Generation Y compilation. We can take an average member of Gen Y as being born in 1984 and an average millennial as being born in 1995. Let’s look at some key trends and consider the relevant ages: Cell…
March 2, 202211 Comments
Gen Y Final Cover

Generation Why?

Announcing a special joint project by authors JD Cowan, David V. Stewart, and yours truly ... Generation Why? There is an epidemic in the modern age: a crisis of meaning. Why is it the world we were promised back in the 1980s and 1990s seems so far away now? Whatever…
February 28, 202220 Comments
Attack on Titan

Attack on Titan

Having fallen behind the anime scene some years ago, I didn't know quite what to expect when a friend lent me one of the most popular current series, Attack on Titan. Despite a title that sounds like it belongs to a forgotten A.E. van Vogt military thriller, this series based on…
February 24, 202231 Comments
breaking

The Breaking

A common denominator of Generation Y is the experience of being mugged by reality. This generation grew up during the last flowering of post-WWII economic largesse and post-Cold War optimism. In an era when every day was Christmas, Baby Boomers' promise that getting a liberal arts degree would guarantee a…
January 25, 202227 Comments
Green Lantern Black Skins

Denny Destroys DC

The illustrious Man of the Atom makes his long-awaited return to bring us more deep comics lore. Picking up from last time, the tireless chronicler turns his attention from Marvel to DC. At National Periodicals, Weisinger edited Superman- and Batman-related titles early in his career, and was the long term…
January 18, 202227 Comments
Comic Book Ages & Generations

Comic Book Ages and Lost Generations

Man of the Atom returns with the sequel to his previous enlightening post on the history of American comics. This time, MotA does a deep dive into the comic book generation gap. “There was a GENERATION GAP in the comic book industry. There were some people in their 50’s and…
December 28, 202113 Comments
Surveying Aftermath

Surveying the Aftermath

The mere act of listening to music from before the late 90s and after makes Music Ground Zero so evident that even pop cultists are starting to notice. NB: As you read the following, keep in mind that this is the bio of the account that tweeted it:   Observe…
November 16, 202114 Comments
Transactional Generation

The Transactional Generation

A frequent topic of this blog that has, rather surprisingly to me, caught a great deal of reader interest is the ongoing project to map the contours of forgotten generations. These are the cohorts who've been memory holed since Madison Avenue no longer finds them profitable to advertise to. Also…
October 21, 202126 Comments
Travis Bickle Loser

Biggest Loser

Regular readers know I'm always on the lookout for new cultural insights. To that effect, a recent Twitter thread just caught my eye. This thread resonates with a post I wrote earlier this year about the same phenomenon. The only difference is the decade. If you want to gauge how…
October 19, 202112 Comments