Gen Y is Seen as a Joke for Good Reason
And honestly, it breaks my heart a little bit each day to read stories like the one I am posting below. I know that it really doesn’t affect me or my abilities to be successful but it still makes me sad that people cannot see why others have problems with Gen Y
Obama Supporters Take His Name As Their Own (NY Times)
Just a couple choice quotes:
Emily Nordling has never met a Muslim, at least not to her knowledge. But this spring, Ms. Nordling, a 19-year-old student from Fort Thomas, Ky., gave herself a new middle name on Facebook.com, mimicking her boyfriend and shocking her father.
“Emily Hussein Nordling,” her entry now reads.
Ooh, not Facebook!
Jeff Strabone of Brooklyn now signs credit card receipts with his newly assumed middle name, while Dan O’Maley of Washington, D.C., jiggered his e-mail account so his name would appear as “D. Hussein O’Maley.” Alex Enderle made the switch online along with several other Obama volunteers from Columbus, Ohio, and now friends greet him that way in person, too.
Credit card receipts, e-mail signatures and online profiles too? Revolutionary!
“My name is such a vanilla, white-girl American name,” said Ashley Holmes of Indianapolis, who changed her name online “to show how little meaning ‘Hussein’ really has.”
Wait, so because you have a vanilla, white-girl name, you are going to piss on the Hussein name because you think it has no meaning? Who cares if millions of people around the world embrace the name as part of their heritage, ancestry or anything else? I want to make a lame political point!
The movement is hardly a mass one, and it has taken place mostly online, the digital equivalent of wearing a button with a clever, attention-getting message. A search revealed hundreds of participants across the country, along with a YouTube video and bumper stickers promoting the idea. Legally changing names is too much hassle, participants say, so they use “Hussein” on Facebook and in blog posts and comments on sites like nytimes.com, dailykos.com and mybarackobama.com, the campaign’s networking site.
And there we get to the real issue: Gen Y’ers (at least in this case) are too lazy and care too little about it to actually follow through and make a real impact on the debate at hand. It is too much of a hassle but I can change my Facebook profile, e-mail signature and give my buddies high fives for doing something incredibly insignificant. It really makes me long for the days where boomers were, you know, getting arrested and actually standing up for causes they believed in to elicit real change.
What Gen Y truly lacks is execution. They don’t think it is important. They’d rather have clever ideas and not have to work too hard in actually making it happen. While the idea may have been solid (even if it is a little to cult of personality for me), nobody was willing to do the difficult thing and turn the idea into a real social commentary on race and religious bias. By being unwilling to step up to the plate, this phenomenon is laughed at by other generations because it confirms many of the stereotypes about Gen Y.
And you know what? They are right. Bummer.
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Your HR Guy is a Human Resources Generalist practicing in the field. But don't let that fool you, this isn't a boring blog. I seek relevance and humor in a place we will spend much of our lives. Everything from workplace issues, job seeking and terrible bosses. Read more...
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I don’t believe this is limited to Gen-Y. It seems more and more the general population is taking this attitude of ideas are good enough and action is not required.
Here in Pennsylvania, we have two hot issues. Gas prices, like the rest of the U.S., and smoking in public places. The majority population would like the federal government to fix this problem without the population having to do or sacrifice anything. I hear routine statements like “I shouldn’t have to be poisoned by cigarette smoke if I want to see a band.” Frankly, there are enough non-smokers in this age that if we band together and forgo the band for several weeks or months, that club is going to go non-smoking. They cannot afford to lose our business.
So let’s actually cut back. On gas, on entertainment, on anything not essential. Let’s sacrifice a little now, so we get better in the future. We actually have to work for a better world.
[Reply]
I can buy that premise if that’s what you think. But I do have two things to add…
Much of the changes have happened at the governmental level. Gas rationing, equal pay, equal employment opportunity…all of it was codified. And a lot of times, that’s what people were pushing for. If that’s what you want to do, then fine but it seems like even less people are doing that.
And while older people may be less likely to enact real change on some issues, that has usually been the case anyway. It is also worth noting that, as I said above, they have fought for that stuff in action themselves.
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Lance, Good posting, wrong conclusion. we part ways on this one. I think this is pretty funny. And I’ve hear that H is the middle initial for a number of famous personalities.
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I may be letting personal politics get in the way of my conclusion and I am fairly unapologetic about that. That being said, I do think this is a perfect example of the “Say something, do nothing” generation that gets stereotyped. As long as I can do it online or it isn’t difficult, no problem.
[Reply]
I think it’s a hilarious lark playing on the sensation of Obama’s name. And I’m not an Obama enthusiast so I think I say it without prejudice.
There’s a difference between just plain stupid and interesting fun.
Mind you, I don’t know those kids so I don’t know if they are really funny or self-righteously grave.
In the 1950s college students were counting
how many people you could cram into a phone booth. At least that was one of their crazy hi-jinks allegedly. So, why not this? Same thing. Only, the phone booths were slapstick and this is witty.
[Reply]
I’m laughing so hard at this.
What a movement! What a statement! What a sea change!
Personally, I prefer to add ‘O’ before my name. Instead of Laurie Ruettimann, I would be Laurie Oruettimann. I think that’s more effective.
[Reply]
I prefer to use the O to signify my support of the Irish. Plus Lance O’Haun just sounds wicked cool.
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If he’s elected there will be a million more Barack’s in the world within a year. I guarantee it.
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I think that the social networking culture has confused the Gen-Ys. If something is popular or generates links and attention online, they think they’ve actually made a change to the world. Maybe they haven’t experienced real change.
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OK, here is the simplest way to sum all this up. Generationally the Y group is only identifiably different than any other generation at this point and time because of its size (largest group since Boomers). And are projected to make the most money than any generation (I would hope so, as inflationary factors alone would point to that obviousness, but that’s a whole different issue). So your only “categorized”, “grouped”, and listened to for economic reasons. The comments I hear when this topic is approached is no different than any other generation before (and most likely after yours). In all frankness every generation (even some right now) at the point at which you are in your life cycle wanted to go out and play and not work. They want to do something fun (phone booth, an H joke, etc). We all want there to be something “more” to life. The silent generation was simply silent because it was expected and there were no real avenues to openly discuss issues. X’er, boomers (I am so bad off, I don’t even know which group I belong. It depends on who’s “segmenting” I am either a late Boomer or an early x’er.) tried to deal with this by “buying” happiness out side of work. The marketing departments pretty much caught this trend a little later than they should have so they looked for the next big population wave to exploit…. Enter Y!! I love having young people (18-35) around me they are fresh, unjaded, and often teach me much in the way of technology. Not in the introduction of technology, because anyone can learn anything if they want. But, in better usage which is “common knowledge” for them. I would say folks like me are the Y’s biggest threat as we accept and exploit the technology that’s around us, learn from the Y’s and have the mentality of a Boomer. So fight your fight, get me a 3-day workweek, a green friendly company, and a secret muslim in the white house. He wont be able to get anything more or less done as any other President has. He is only 1 man and the system needs many new players to truly change. So, come election day, write me in? Want to car pool, gas is really expensive…
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[...] one generation is stupid and one isn’t. This sniping goes on and on and I have often been a gleeful participant. I’ll admit it, I have fun making fun of Gen Y and their [...]