THOUGHTS

Confessions of a Gen Y Kid: College Life

The civics lessons of our era intermingled with our emerging adulthood — and we boarded that final Crazy Train toward a thankless contemporary roasting

In the first three installments of this four-part series entitled “Confessions of a Gen Y Kid,” I’ve explored Millennial life experiences across three different categories: K-12 Education, Pop Culture, and Electronic Media.

Now, for this final edition, I’ll focus on how our college days and political circumstances fused together to shape our embittered and jaded mindsets.

The Lewinsky/Columbine Days

As the 1990s began to wind down (and gave way to the aughts), media commentators endlessly speculated on what the turn-of-the-century would bring.

Depending on your birthyear…the youngest Millennials were in preschool and Kindergarten when Bill Clinton was impeached, and the oldest were graduating high school or positioned a couple of years away from graduation amidst this flurry of Monicagate.

For me, it was my sophomore year of high school when the story broke. I remember reading an article in my high school economics class where Matt Drudge was threatened with a lawsuit by Clinton’s lawyers for potential libel. Sidney Blumenthal was amongst the lead counsel.

Mere weeks later, The Drudge Report broke the story of Clinton’s extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. What followed would be a year of finger-pointing, excuse-making, pearl-clutching, partisan posturing, and cognitive dissonance.

1998 came and went…and so did America’s appetite for tabloid-esque headlines. Only four months into 1999, tragedy struck Columbine High School in Colorado, where dozens of students and faculty were either killed or injured by active shooters.

Whether consciously or subconsciously, Americans decided to associate the rampage of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold with the perceived “recklessness” and “entitlement” of Generation Y as a whole.

Never mind that, one year earlier, people shed crocodile tears over the murder of Matthew Shepard — while making a mockery of Ellen DeGeneres coming out as gay in public and (in character) on her popular ABC sitcom.

Gen Y was following the lead of Gen X — and building upon it — by welcoming LGBT+ people into our communities and social circles. Yet, society’s elders clung to the equivalence of heterosexuality with morality.

“Kids these days”…

Screen & Sound Inch Toward A “Golden Age”

While the pundits focused on guns and blow jobs, we were witnessing an incredible transformation of music, television, and film.

Everything from pop to R&B to alt-rock to ska to post-punk was ubiquitous in my rural West-Central Wisconsin town of 3,600 during my high school years, as well as in my college town of 63,000 throughout the early-aughts. Green Day, Robyn, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, R.E.M., Usher, Phish, Destiny’s Child, O.A.R., Baha Men, Dispatch, and Smash Mouth were amongst the most popular. Not to mention the boy bands — N’Sync, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, LFO, Dream Street, O-Town, and LMNT.

The late-90s and early-aughts also proved to be a transitional time in television. Friends (the mid-to-later years), Spin City, Just Shoot Me!, Frasier, Scrubs, The George Lopez Show, Reba, Suddenly Susan, The Drew Carey Show, Two and a Half Men, Dharma & Greg, Becker, 3rd Rock from the Sun, That 70s Show, Smart Guy, Will & Grace, Moesha, The New Adventures of Old Christine, My Wife and Kids, 8 Simple Rules, Veronica’s Closet, The King of Queens, For Your Love, Malcolm in the Middle, and The Steve Harvey Show (yes, he had a six-season sitcom before he hosted Family Feud and his daytime talk show) were emblematic of sitcoms around the turn-of-the-century.

On the dramatic TV front: Melrose Place (the later years), Charmed, Gilmore Girls, Lost, 24, Medium, NCIS, Desperate Housewives, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson’s Creek, Smallville, Felicity, Earth: Final Conflict, Sliders, Profiler, Joan of Arcadia, Ally McBeal, Ugly Betty, The O.C., Farscape, John Doe, One Tree Hill, Seven Days, Pacific Palisades, First Wave, Touched by an Angel, Prison Break, Brothers & Sisters, and Judging Amy were all a part of my “VCR rolodex” — some with greater frequency and holding more of my enthusiasm than others.

There were still plenty of carryovers from the early-to-mid 1990s: ER, The X-Files, NYPD Blue, Walker Texas Ranger, Law & Order, and JAG all continued to thrive. They were joined by — alongside of the aforementioned dramas that I loved — a flurry of new dramatic series that became widely-viewed even when I myself rarely watched them: Grey’s Anatomy, CSI, Providence, The West Wing, House, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Andromeda, Family Law, The Practice, Crossing Jordan, Monk, Las Vegas, Criminal Minds, Boston Legal, Without a Trace, CSI: Miami, Cold Case, and The Unit. Adult animation saw The Simpsons joined by King of the Hill, Futurama, and South Park.

This era also marked the tutelage of the reality television genre. Survivor and Big Brother both debuted during the Summer of 2000, followed by many new unscripted hits that caught on over the course of the next decade: American Idol, The Amazing Race, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction?, The Weakest Link, Temptation Island, The Bachelor(ette), Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, Fear Factor, The Apprentice, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and Deal or No Deal.

By this point, the oldest of the Zoomers (aka “Centennials,” members of Gen Z or iGen) were being born. Their older brothers and sisters were coming-of-age as the youngest Millennials. Meanwhile, us “Xennials” (the oldest Millennials), along with our slightly-younger mid-Millennial counterparts, were graduating high school and college across the spectrum. Some were falling in love and getting married. Others were having children of their own (who would become the youngest Zoomers or the oldest Alphas). And we were either losing our jobs…or failing to find livable new ones.

The Great Recession of 2007 through 2011 would stall the careers — and pocketbooks — of Gen Y. Even as the economy began to slowly recover throughout the 2010s, this severe downturn created an absence of vocational opportunities for Gen Z. And, when this recession’s long-term effects become coupled with ramifications from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, they’ll undoubtedly harm the livelihoods of Gen AA (“Alphas”), too.

Check Out The Tech!

This entire time, the technology has just kept advancing. Where Xers became more proficient than their own elders, Millennials kicked it up several notches. Where Millennials thrived, Zoomers excelled with even more skill and knowledge. And where Zoomers have — well, “zoomed” — into technological mastery, Alphas are mastering it practically from inside the womb!

When I was a kid, the earliest computer games and video games were thought to be exciting and revolutionary. But, by today’s standards, The Oregon Trail and Super Mario Bros. would be considered vintage.

I remember when my immediate family got our first home computer with Internet in the Spring of 1998 (around the same time Monicagate started up). We had a dial-up modem that could be as slow as molasses. It interfered with our telephone line — you couldn’t make or receive phone calls on your landline while logged onto the World Wide Web. There was wireless Internet in existence at some places (mainly in wealthy households, businesses, and on college campuses), but WiFi didn’t become the norm in middle-to-low income homes until around 2003. Instant-messenger services via the Internet (e.g., AOL, ICQ, Yahoo!Chat) on computers were the precursor to text-messaging by phone (which didn’t really take off until around 2007).

DVR technology was sporadic, as the new millennium began. TiVo was the first widely-used DVR service, premiering in 1999. But it took a good 5–10 years for a critical mass of American homes to be able to afford them. I got my first DVR in 2008, while renting my first apartment. My Traditionalist-Boomer parents got their first one in 2011.

Up through the late-1990s, we had VHS tapes (for recording TV shows on the VCR), CDs, some downloadable MP3s (for those kids lucky enough to have Internet access), computer games on floppy disks, Tamagotchis, and plug-in video games (sometimes portable ones, such as Game Boy or Sega Nomad). But for those of us households on the lower rungs of the economic ladder — it was more often board games, card games, Mad Libs, in-person arcades, video rentals (remember Blockbuster?), and movies at the local theater.

Throughout the late-1980s, the entirety of the 1990s, and the early-aughts, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle…Yo! was the catchphrase drilled into us by our teachers. That, and Just Say No! (originated by Nancy Reagan in the early-80s) via the D.A.R.E. program. Little did we realize we were being covertly groomed to prepare ourselves for climate activism and the War on Drugs.

Dipping Our Toes Into The Political World

The first presidential election of which I have vivid memories was the 1992 Bush/Clinton/Perot race. I was a Fifth-Grader.

In-between presidential election years, I recall growing more and more cynical about politics from watching my dad become entranced by the shouting-and-chuckling Talking Heads of CNN’s Crossfire (this was before he and my mom developed their addiction to Fox News).

Four years later, as a freshman in high school, I witnessed the Clinton/Dole race of 1996. At the time, us youngsters who hadn’t yet turned eighteen were encouraged to cast our ballots as part of the symbolic “Kids Vote.” In the Fifth Grade (1992), I’d only participated in it because our principal, Mr. Martyka, ambushed me in the hallway after lunch by asking me if I’d voted yet. When I arrived inside the “polling area” (behind the gymnasium’s stage), a nasty piece-of-work named Ms. McCarville gave me my ballot and instructed me that we weren’t allowed to do write-ins. Naïve and intimidated, I check-marked Ross Perot as a “protest vote” against Bush and Clinton.

In 1996, I flat-out refused to take part in “Kids Vote.” That morning before Spanish class, one of my classmates, Sarah, asked me if I’d voted yet. When I told her I thought it was a waste of time, she gaped at me incredulously. Then, another of our classmates, Louise, echoed my abstention by reminding Sarah, “Well, it’s not like it counts for anything!”

My freshman year of college was the first autumn presidential election in which I was finally eligible to vote. My presidential voting history has been, in chronological order: John Hagelin (2000), John Kerry (2004), Barack Obama (2008), Barack Obama again (2012; although I almost voted for Gary Johnson that year), Jill Stein (2016), and Joe Biden (2020). Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the Clinton/Trump race of 2016 when I finally began to realize how downticket races were equally as important — if not moreso than — as presidential contests were. Although the Tea Party wave of 2010 should have tipped me off…

However, my first taste of local activism had been my efforts, during my sophomore and junior years in high school, to broker a compromise amidst the “yay” and “nay” camps regarding whether our school would switch from an eight-period day to a four-period block schedule. I was a passionate proponent for a “hybrid schedule” that would incorporate both 45-minute class periods and 90-minute periods. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the fix was already in for pure 4x4 block scheduling — courtesy of our sociopathic new principal, Mr. Taylor. I was so distraught and humiliated by the futility of my efforts that I graduated early and finished my minimum credits at the local tech college, so as to avoid daily self-consciousness over being “defeated” by a bunch of bureaucrats and their sympathizers during what would have been my senior year.

Terrorists & Tarriers

For most Millennial kids, the 9/11 terrorist attacks were a watershed moment…sort of like JFK’s assassination would have been, for anybody alive during the early-1960s. We ranged anywhere from 5 to 21 years of age when the Twin Towers fell.

George W. Bush and local/state/federal Republicans weaponized that terrorism to leverage the issue of national security in their favor, electorally. While claiming they were keeping America safe (via The PATRIOT Act, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and airport security theatre), they also tacked on the culture wars of the aughts. Along with whether a candidate was tough enough on terrorism — the topics of same-sex marriage, the War on Christmas, and partial-birth abortion were used as wedge issues…much the same way “open borders,” CRT, and “Defund the Police” are being used, today. It wasn’t until Bush’s haphazard attempts to privatize Social Security and Medicare — along with the Great Recession — when Democrats would make a national comeback, with Monicagate far in their rearview mirror.

Most people would agree that Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency in 2016 opened unprecedented floodgates for normalizing misogyny, systemic racism, and xenophobia. A lot of this “mainstreaming” of these sins was accomplished through Trump’s brash, pompous, single-minded style of steamrolling.

But what people so often forget was that Al Gore embodied these traits long before Trump ever made the decision to jump into politics. Although Gore certainly didn’t support the policies of corporate welfare, police brutality, or a border wall — he was the first major presidential candidate to so blatantly ooze the condescension, histrionics, and constant verbal interruptions of a junkyard dog.

While Gore’s performance was far more “polite” (topped off with an obligatory smirk) than Trump’s would ever be, Al Gore’s behavior against his rivals (be they Republicans, fellow Democrats, or us “pesky” Independents) paved the way for what the GOP would eventually mold into their favor as modern-day Trumpism.

In hindsight, it sometimes feels amazing that us Millennials who are still alive made it out of those several decades in one piece.

As the aughts closed out, and the early-2010s commenced — I fell into the trap of slacking off in terms of my political activism. I became embroiled in a workaholic lifestyle, with occasional dating and socialization…although not nearly enough to offset the emotional scars from multiple toxic workplaces where I was employed.

The older half of the Zoomer generation began coming-of-age between 2008 to 2015. As the overall American political climate intensified, their K-12 vantage point of America’s politics was shaken even more wildly than what our Millennial perspectives had witnessed.

Many older people romanticize the 1980s, the 1990s, and even the aughts as a time of civility and cooperation between liberals and conservatives. But it wasn’t. We (Millennials) can now see it for what it truly was: the slow-motion deterioration of our society by those whose appetites for prestige and power were insatiable.

The veneration of Reaganomics. The sacred cow worship of Clintonian neoliberalism and triangulation. The cult-like fervor surrounding Bush’s overconfidence, Obama’s likability, and Trump’s myopia.

We (Millennials) tried to warn our elders. But we were silenced.

We were lectured that we needed to be realists who embraced incremental change.

We were told that we had our heads in the clouds with our youthful idealism…while GI-Gens, Traditionalists, Boomers, and older Xers patted us on our heads and fake-praised us for “dreaming big.”

I’m done succumbing to Hustle Culture and trying to manage domestic stress. I’m sick of sitting on the sidelines as politicians destroy our society, wondering if I’m ever going to find true romance for myself. I want more out of life…not just for myself, but on behalf of everybody else.

Hopefully, my fellow Millennials haven’t permanently lost their own hope or resolve.

Don’t settle for less, Gen Y.

Demand better.

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