Generation Y and the state of the thea-tah

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 10/11/04 at 2:24pm

Did anyone see the 60 Minutes bit on Generation Y about a week ago?
Generation Y, if you don't know, is the amazingly huge generation of post-boomer spawn that appear to be taking over the world. They are about ages 15-25, and they consume, consume, consume, and their tastes are changing just about every industry. According to this report, they make up about 1/3 of the world's population, the biggest since the baby boomers.

A couple of things mark a Gen Y'er: They are the first generation where video games, computers, and cable television are a given, not a luxury. Another thing: they grew up in a time where is was in the zeitgeist for parents to totally be on top of your children at all times (as opposed to the "Go out and play and leave momma to enjoy her gin 'n' juice" parenting us Gen Xers had to make-do with from our me-me-me Boomer parents). All their childhood they have been micro-managed: "Play date at 4, piano lessons at 5, judo lessons at 6..." They are generally overachievers who believe that any accomplishment will put them ahead in the game immediately. Also, they aren't terribly rebellious, preferring to be part of a group than an individualist (hence the creepy popularity of such wholesome types as the Olsen twins and Hillary Duff, not the rebels Kurt Cobain or Madonna the X'ers had).

All the technological inundation has tampered with their attention-span and imagination. If it isn't fast, don't bother with it. They don't know what to do without instruction (as one sociologist said "If you told them to 'go out and play', they'd just sit there in the yard, wondering what to do next.")

My question is this: What does this mean for the future of serious theater? O the entertainment industry in general? Will this generation even go to the theater? How can they endure Chekhov or Shakespeare? Will playwrighting be a thing of the past? Will every show on or off-Broadway have to be WICKED from now on? These are hardly new the-sky-is-falling proclamations but so far on this board I have heard from this generation "I don't know who Vanessa Redgrave is" and "Watership Down is the most boring book ever written." Makes ya think.

Discuss...

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 10/11/04 at 2:29pm

I was sat next to some young'uns in a cinema once at American Pie 2 and the screen was flashing up famous quotes, one of which was from Alfred Hitchcock. They responded with "who's that?" and I had to bite my tongue. Hard. Stuff like that really guts me, and so this possibly very accurate forecast on the future of entertainment is quite depressing.

Posted: 10/11/04 at 2:35pm

We attend a lot of theatre in the SoCal region, and it's always disheartening to see the almost absolute dearth of young attendees. However, I know there is a thriving children's theatre scene - not only here, but most major cities as well - and most school systems operate a theatre program of some kind. And there seems to be a growing focus on new plays and playwrites - here in SoCal there's at least three major regional groups focussed on it.

Storytelling has been with us from the dawn of communication - it just keeps evolving over time.

[Pip]

Posted: 10/11/04 at 2:52pm

Just out of curiosity, has there ever been a time when there was a noticeable amount of young people in that age bracket in the average audience? Doesn't appreciation of some art forms tend to mature with age and taste? I think everything mentioned in the above posting is pretty much true...we are a spoiled, jaded, and culturally shallow bunch...but that was said about my parents' generation as well. We are what we are, but that doesn't mean we're going to be like this forever!

[Jess1483]

Posted: 10/11/04 at 3:07pm

Well, according to that description, I am the essence of generation Y. I'm 19, played video games and used a computer since I was little w/out thinking it was strange, and I'm a micro-managed (though mostly my own fault) over-acheiver.

And I say to you "have some faith!" I know who Alfred Hitchcock is, I love theater, and I have many friends who do as well. Sure, not everyone can appreciate such things, and it truly angers me that many people of my generation can't at least respect it, but I'm sure that was true for other generations as well. I can guarantee that my dad as a young adult had no interest in theater, and now it is one of the things we can enjoy together. We'll grow, and mature (as Pip said) and it'll be fine. Sure, theater will change with us, but it did for your generation as well, and will continue to change for many generations to come.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 10/11/04 at 3:11pm

I think Pip hit on a very valid point.

[Broadway Matt]

Posted: 10/11/04 at 3:15pm

thanks Baby Boomers for raising my generation to be mostly comprised of self-absorbed little monsters with bad taste. I'm self-absorbed but but only because I KNOW I have good taste, and not in the ignorant blindly-arrogant way of most my age. I'm a classic self-absorbed.

but this is what happens when an entire generation of parenting technique toes the line between the freely idealistic ultra-liberalism of the Boomers as young people, and the isolating empowerment-hoarding ultra-materialism of the same Boomers during the Cold War and 1980's economics. the Baby Boom is a confusing generation in itself, and the influence has bled through to Gen X and more severely into Gen Y. And since they've been fed all this hype about the kids being the great hope for the future, how the world's problems are going to be solved by the geniuses THEY'VE given birth to, this previous generation has been all too willing to hand over all of the power and leverage, all of the money and influence, and all of the right to dictate what counts as Entertainment to a group of people that never learned to deal with basics like dealing with a bully or making their own "play dates" or dealing with life's rough edges without the luxuries of a "disorder label" absorbing the blame and a medication absorbing the responsibility. they can't be expected to appreciate real art that can't be compressed into 30-minute capsules.

before I go way afield, i'll say in short: theatre will be fine, but I can't be so sure about the rest of society.

theatre is in for a rough ride as far as the mainstream is concerned. it will continue to grow I believe, but only through the efforts of artists, students, and fans like us who had exposure to its beauty and classic works and luckily connected strongly enough to accept being forever on the margin of the majority. good art is very powerful. but that makes it all the more important to support the arts now and keep them in schools, for the love of god!

[GovernorSlaton]

Posted: 10/11/04 at 4:52pm

I would say that that age range (15-25) actually stretches farther down maybe towards 12 or 13. That report is quite accurate; it perfectly describes the kids in my town. This probably isn't completely our fault. We are growing up in a time when information is five seconds away; when TV has seven hundred channels and counting; when playing video games and going on the computer is favored over exercise. It's caused low attention spans, which is why none of us can concentrate for more than ten seconds if something isn't interesting. Hopefully this is just a phase, and when "Gen Y" become adults, we won't be so goddamn lazy and ignorant.

[Plum]

Posted: 10/11/04 at 7:39pm

Dammit, I thought I was weaning myself off this site...

At 19 years old, I fall right in the middle of the age group described as Generation Y. I've been using a computer since I had the hand-eye coordination to handle it, though I didn't really play action video games so much as things like Oregon Trail and Sim City. But keep in mind I asked for piano lessons (and art lessons and science camp and a dozen other activities) because I had an interest in them. I didn't get shoved into them because my parents wanted to be rid of me for a few hours, or because they wanted to mold me into some kind of super-kid.

Yes, I probably qualify as an overachiever. And heaven knows I was never really rebellious. But if you give me free time I'll know exactly what to do with it- read a book. And that's something else my parents gave me.

If anything destroys my attention span, it's the Internet. If anything builds it back up again, it's the fact that I'm a long-time classical musician. And when you're trying to master a passage of Beethoven by repeating it for the 35th time in a row, or working through a tricky section in a Brandenburg concerto with the rest of the orchestra playing different parts all around you, you've got to be able to concentrate.

Maybe my generation has the attention span of gnats. But maybe that's partly because advertisers have been trying to get us interested in the "next big thing" since we were kids, trying to get us to spend as much money on trends as possible.

Every adult generation likes to look at the kids beneath them and sneer, "They're not as good as us." "Oh, in the good old days, kids wouldn't have turned out like that." To that I reply (very maturely): Kiss my ass. My generation has kids who are umbilically attached to their Playstations. But it also has plenty of kids who are smart, responsible, and more attached to Habitat for Humanity than any game console. The fact that we're not exactly like you doesn't make us worse than you.

I think the problem with my generation, if it can truly be called a problem, hasn't been our parents. It's been our circumstances (in the U.S.- this doesn't apply to other places.) Generation Y was brought up in safety and spent its adolescence in the prosperous 90s. I'm not saying they're soft (that is and always will be a horse**** accusation). I'm saying they never had a sense of urgency. Nothing was vitally important to do.

That's changed. 52% of kids aged 15-17 used to think voting wasn't important. Now that figure's in the single digits. I don't know what that will mean beyond November, but I hold it out as a sign of hope. Give us something to do and we'll shock you all with what we can accomplish. Kind of like America in general.

[zoran912]

Posted: 10/11/04 at 8:10pm

CAN I GET AN AMEN!

Get it grrl!

[BroadwayDiva]

Posted: 10/11/04 at 8:18pm

I'm in this age-range, and the description fits almost everyone my age that I know. They all have multiple computers, cell phones, playstation, X-Box, GameCube, Nintendo, etc. And when they ask my cell phone number and I say "I don't have one", they look at me like I'm crazy. The most technology I have is the computer, phone, and TV, none of which are in my room. When I say I like to read, I get these looks like "What's wrong with you?" And I believe that voting is VERY important. I will ask my friends their position on the up-coming election, and they say "Well, it doesn't matter to me. I don't vote." I can actually say that some of my friends do not know who John Edwards is. My peers don't know the difference between Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative, etc. It kind of sickens me.

Updated On: 10/11/04 at 08:18 PM