The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for ages 21 & above
The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for ages 21 & above
Joined: 12/31/69
#0The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 12:48am
What events would you say define your generation?
Political
Cultural
Social
In my opinion, my generation is defined by:
Political - The Kennedy Assassination & the war in Vietnam
Cultural - The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and the film version of THE SOUND OF MUSIC
Social - The Civil Rights Movement and Stonewall
#1re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 12:53am
How are we classifying generation? I'm 28, but I feel like current events are defining MY generation.
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be enbered with your old nonsense. ~ Emerson
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#2re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 12:58am
A few more to add --
Cultural: The Graduate and 2001: A Space Odessey and Hello, Dolly! and Funny Girl
All in the 60s, hmmmm. This means I was under 21 when these things happened...which means the age parameter of this this thread...nah, one needs the distance of time...I didn't necessarily know while living through my teens that I was living through defining moments.
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#3re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 1:00am
Whichever events you believe are the ones that unmistakenly define your generation.
[This is definitely a late night thread created by someone who should be in bed.]
#4re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 1:01am
Is it wrong that I don't think anything of REAL importance happened during the 90's? However, I will admit that I wasn't paying much attention.
Edit: And by REAL importance, I mean affecting my life. 
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be enbered with your old nonsense. ~ Emerson
Updated On: 12/26/05 at 01:01 AM
#5re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 1:01am
This is tough. Hmm.
Political
The fall of the Berlin wall
Challenger disaster (I don't know if this really fits as political, but..)
Cultural
Nirvana
Madonna
MTV
"The Silence of the Lambs"
Social
AIDS
Rodney King
eta: I'm 27, so I used my formative years (mid-eighties to early nineties) as my period.
Updated On: 12/26/05 at 01:01 AM
#6re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 1:06am
Political: The first Gulf War
Cultural: The emergence of Grunge and Hip Hop
Social: (still thinking) I'm stuffed and exhausted.
(Now, I'm semi-cheating off of Calvin.)
Social: The O.J. Simpson trial
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be enbered with your old nonsense. ~ Emerson
Updated On: 12/26/05 at 01:06 AM
#7re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 5:39am
Hmmm, I barely made it into the Gen X timeline, so for me...
Political:
9/11
Bill Clinton sex scandal/impeachment
Gay Rights
Cultural:
9/11
Kurt Cobain-music and death
Lillith Fair
Alanis Morrisette-Jagged Little Pill
The Brat Pack
Internet
Social:
9/11
AIDS
Internet
Pretty pretty please don't you ever ever feel like you're less than f**ckin' perfect!
nmartin
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/3/05
#8re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 8:27amVietnam, Watergate, Nixon resigning, Jim Jones (huge story at the time), The Godfather, The Exorcist, and a lot more I can't think of right now. (senility? maybe.)
#9re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 8:48amBasically, everything that Calvin and JG2 said can go for me, too.
#10re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for age
Posted: 12/26/05 at 9:03amI was a baby when JFK died, but when John Jr. died, it was definitely significant for my generation. I was very surprised and shocked at the affect it had on me.
Have I ever shown you my Shattered Dreams box? It's in my Disappointment Closet. - Marge Simpson
#11re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for age
Posted: 12/26/05 at 9:23am
Well, it's weird and perhaps not completely appropriate to say it defined my generation at age 26, but Sept. 11. I was only a few months removed from working in the World Trade Center, though, so that might explain it.
Others:
Political
The Clinton/Lewinsky Scandal
The Gulf War
Cultural
The rise of Britney and Co.
The Ipod
The evolution of the home gaming device
Digital recording for television
Social
AIDS
The return of "old" STDs
For me, anyway: the return of unprotected sex in certain circles
grizzabella
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/11/05
#12re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for age
Posted: 12/26/05 at 10:07am
Interesting topic for speculation just before the beginning of another year. But like so many other aging Baby-Boomers, I'd have to say...
Political: The Kennedy Assassination, The Vietnam War, Watergate, The Martin Luther King Assassination.
Cultural: The Beatles; Rolling Stone Magazine; The Village Voice; Woodstock; Jesus Christ Superstar; The Kennedy Whitehouse, Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, Gunsmoke and Bonanza, Star Trek, A Charlie Brown's Christmas.
Social: Integration, Hippies, synthetic fabrics, stereo sound (Lol!), Cinerama, marijuana and LSD, The 1969 Moonlanding and the Space Program in general, vaccines for childhood diseases.
"And the postman sighed as he scratched his head, you really rather thought she ought to be dead..."
#13re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for age
Posted: 12/26/05 at 10:43am
Hm... interesting.
Political
The Fall of the Iron Curtain/Gorbachev
Ronald Reagan/Reaganomics
Social
AIDS/Safe sex
Other
Madonna
The synthesizer in music
The Breakfast Club, E.T.
Challenger explosion
Jurassic Park
Celebrate Life
Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. - Randy Pausch
Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. - Randy Pausch
#14re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for age
Posted: 12/26/05 at 10:51am
Remember the little girl from Maine, Samantha Smith, who wrote to Gorbachev and was invited to Russia? It was a big deal in New England at least. My cousin was the news reporter assigned to travel with her.
And then she (Smith) and her father died in that private plane crash not long after.
Have I ever shown you my Shattered Dreams box? It's in my Disappointment Closet. - Marge Simpson
#15re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for age
Posted: 12/26/05 at 10:52am
Political
the assasinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, and the Kent State Massacre all showed me that everything I had been taught in school about America was just talk. After all of these happened (Kent State being the last in 1970, my childhood ended
Berlin Wall going up
Social
Civil rights Movement
Stonewall
Cultural
The invention of the cassette tape
The Free Love/Hippie movement
Recreational Drugs
It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story...
AGATHA CHRISTIE, Life magazine, May 14, 1956
#16re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for age
Posted: 12/26/05 at 10:54am
Hmmm... Interesting topic. I'm going to answer and I think my answers might surprise you a little bit...since I'm 25 but I live in Israel, so the events that have shaped my generation are totally different than yours!
Oh and I'm looking at the last 15 years approx.
Political:
The Gulf War
Peace with Jordan and Arafat
Rabin's assassination
Intifada (terror attacks)
Withdrawl of troops from Lebanon
Disengagement
Cultural:
The Americanization of our society
Instant/reality "nothing" stars
Social:
The huge immigration from Russia & Ethiopia
Horrible economic state (due to the intifada)
"Years from now, when you talk about this - And you will - Be kind. "
kjklo
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/29/03
#17re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for age
Posted: 12/26/05 at 11:15am
Political--Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, Watergate
Cultural--Rock Music, Television
Social--Birth Control Pill, Microchip
#18re: The defining events of your generation--This thread is suitable for age
Posted: 12/26/05 at 11:19am
Hm... how could I forget cable television.
I believe that's what sped up the americanization of other countries, such as Costa Rica, where I'm from. Until then, we only had a few American shows (dubbed at that) on tv and movies. Once cable came along, it was pretty much U.S. tv 24/7.
Celebrate Life
Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. - Randy Pausch
Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. - Randy Pausch
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#19re: The defining events of your generation--Suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 11:25am
Great to have global responses.
It reinforces the fact that no matter how universal we believe our own perspective to be it's only one of many, even for those of the same chronological generation.
Updated On: 12/26/05 at 11:25 AM
Plum
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/4/04
#20re: The defining events of your generation--Suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 11:41amThe assassination of Itzhak Rabin.
#21re: The defining events of your generation--Suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 11:45am
I would have to say the earliest personal ones that I remember affecting me directly were both the summer of '69. I was not yet 7 years old... and within a month of each other, I remember sitting at my grandma's house, watching "Over the Rainbow" playing again and again on TV. I was VERY upset (hey, I was a kid!) that nobody had told me "The Wizard of Oz" was playing on television. Then my mother quietly said (as nicely as she could) that Judy Garland, who had played Dorothy, had died earlier that day. I remember sitting there, stunned, trying to comprehend that "Dorothy had died." My mother and grandmother tried to explain a little bit about drug overdoses and alcohol abuse... and I kept watching my favorite song from my favorite movie playing on TV all day long. I was so sad. I had no idea that at a bar in NYC that same evening, as a direct result of Judy Garland's death and police brutality, an emotional riot would break out that would throw the door wide open, once and for all, on the Gay Rights movement. Something that wouldn't affect me directly until years later. But, boy, did it affect ALL of us who can speak and live and love even remotely openly today. If Judy only knew.
The other event, only about a month later (as I recall), was when I was AGAIN sitting at Grandma's house... watching (on her stunning 16-inch Black & White set with rabbit ears!) this funny looking man in a white space suit, bouncing around on a white, rocky surface. They tried to tell me how important this was. We were watching the first transmitted footage of a human being walking on the moon. I remember watching their faces, and thinking how cool the world was. That anything and everything was possible.
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Updated On: 12/26/05 at 11:45 AM
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
#22re: The defining events of your generation--Suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 11:48amhmmmph
nmartin
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/3/05
#24re: The defining events of your generation--Suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 2:31pmThe Teletubbies are soothing.
Plum
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/4/04
#25re: The defining events of your generation--Suitable for ages 21 & above
Posted: 12/26/05 at 2:37pm
Rabin's assassination had the exact opposite effect on me. It was a closing of possibilities, a cynical reminder that things don't change with a handshake.
Sorry, I'm in a mood today.
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