{"id":343,"date":"2007-09-16T11:10:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-16T11:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2007\/09\/16\/343\/"},"modified":"2015-11-05T21:17:44","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T02:17:44","slug":"343","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=343","title":{"rendered":"Talkin’ Bout My Hypocritical Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let me admit it; I\u2019m a \u201cBaby Boomer\u201d<\/span>. That\u2019s something to be rather sheepish about these days. My generation (remember that song by the Who, \u201cTalking ‘Bout My Generation\u201d?) was supposed to \u201cchange the world, rearrange the world\u201d. And it didn\u2019t. It turned out that we were an extremely self-centered generation. We liked being young and sexy and wild and crazy, but now we\u2019re not. But we\u2019re trying to still pretend that we are, and that we\u2019re just as \u201chip\u201d as the young folk. <\/p>\n

The young trendsetters are now called Generation ZQYBX or something like that. They have the right to quote one of our mottos back at us: \u201cWHY DON\u2019T YOU ALL FADE AWAY, DON\u2019T TRY TO DIG WHAT WE ALL SAY\u201d (yes, indeed, that line is from The Who). We didn\u2019t in the end offer them any lasting wisdom about life to latch on to. We got all upset in the late 60s about how terrible the world was being run. But that was mostly because Uncle Sam was sending too many of us to Vietnam, a war-gone-bad like today\u2019s Iraq war (but about 10 times the magnitude); and was arresting us for smoking pot. Once we got past all that, we wanted tax cuts and SUVs and McMansions and welfare reform (elimination). That’s how we rearranged the world. <\/p>\n

I took a look recently at some of the \u201cnetworking\u201d web sites that attempt to cater to Baby Boomers. These include Eons.com, Rezoom.com, Multiply.com, Boomj.com, and Boomertown.com. I\u2019m not including links to any of them here because I don\u2019t think that they \u2013 or the Baby Boom generation in general \u2013 are worth it. Not that the young digital generation has any wonderful alternatives – MySpace and Facebook get me dizzy and make me nauseous. And all that stuff on them about accumulating \u201cfriends\u201d and being popular \u2013 how phony is that?<\/p>\n

But when I see all those pix of graying people with big smiles and great bodies and interesting lives on the Boomer sites, it doesn\u2019t do my stomach any good either. I look at the services offered and topics discussed \u2013 health, lifestyle, dating, travel, vacations, investments, real estate, mortgages, careers, celebrities, spiritual living \u2013 and it all seems so self-centered. It’s so Bill Clinton. Why aren\u2019t there pages for FAILURE. SELF-DISAPPOINTMENT. REGRET FOR NOT DOING MORE FOR THE FUTURE. LACK OF COMMITMENT. STUPIDITY (INCLUDING OUR ONE-TIME ATTITUDES ABOUT SEX AND DRUGS). NEW-FOUND RESPECT FOR OUR ANCESTORS. LONG-DELAYED REALISM. MEA CULPA WORLD, WE WEREN\u2019T SO SMART AFTER ALL. And finally, WHAT CAN WE YET DO TO LEAVE SOMETHING POSITIVE BEHIND.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the Baby Boomer web site that I\u2019ll sign up for. It would have to be certified Bill Clinton Free (I’m still hoping that Hilary will redeem the family name). I\u2019ll take it seriously if you don\u2019t have to give away a bunch of personal information to register, as you do with the typical Baby Boomer web sites. Obviously, the folk who run those sites know that Boomers have $$$, and info about them can be sold for marketing purposes. Yea, the Boomer sites are just so Boomer-ish. Yep, that\u2019s \u201cMy [hypocritical] Generation, Baby\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me admit it; I\u2019m a \u201cBaby Boomer\u201d. That\u2019s something to be rather sheepish about these days. My generation (remember that song by the Who, \u201cTalking ‘Bout My Generation\u201d?) was supposed to \u201cchange the world, rearrange the world\u201d. And it didn\u2019t. It turned out that we were an extremely self-centered generation. We liked being young […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5738,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/5738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}