The Identity Crisis

In today's faltering market of foreboding foreclosure, iniquitous identity theft, and futile fighting, it's hard to remember we're all just kids. However, it is in that loss of remembrance that we lose ourselves. We splay ourselves across FaceBook, MySpace, Blogger, Digg, or any other website. We lose touch with the innocence we once held dear. The internet is a powerful yet derisive tool. It is both a playgound and a cemetery for, in the virtual and sometimes literal sense, alter egos. Hate crimes published on the Internet's grounds are often published by the amicable schoolmate or quiet kid in the corner. Well, what has happened? In this alluring anonymity, did we lose touch with who we are? Then let me guide you back to home. We are quiet literally the future of the United States of America, and by extension, the World itself. That's a pretty big mantle to inherit. Are we up to it? Or when the time to serve our country comes about, will we be stuck sniggering at the latest picture of that celebrity and teasing each other on virtual wall boards? It's a sense of maturity that we lack now that develops over the next two years. At least I hope it does.

So back to this "Identity Crisis". We seem to be disconnecting from who we are as a person, and who we are as an Internet user. Quite often, I'll find myself saying things online to someone that I'd never consider saying to their face. It's desensitizing. It has gotten so bad that people are even forgoing the more traditional and once conventional approach to dating and instead chat it up with lol's, omg's, and my personal favorite, ily. How lazy are you that you can't type out one of life's most profound phrases that establishes most lifelong trust? We seek each other out over the Internet, form quick relationships, and then ask each other out in the crudest of fashions in a vulgar sub-English dialect called "ChatSpeak".


How will our generation be remembered? The 1950's youth are the high swinging kids with the handheld radios who went down to the Soda Shops for a little pop. The 1960's were characterized by their own drug problems, but also a lot of pacifist movements. The 1970's gave popularity to artists like Elton John, and saw Nixon rise in popularity and then decline QUICKLY. This led to bunch of sensationalists who lead the workforce today. Advances in technology and a crackdown on drug usage led the 1980's generation towards electronic music and gaming. Which brings us to the 1990's. Our generation. The popularly labeled Generation Y. We live in a world of instant gratification where FaceBook, YouTube, Texting, and IM reign supreme as our forms of entertainment. No wonder we're being diagnosed with ADD every five minutes. Look at our sources of entertainment! They change radically every time you refresh the page or turn around! We, as a generation, cannot seem to latch onto anything for more than a short while.


Never, in the history of generations, has a group of "individuals" lost its innocence so quickly. The worst realization is that this isn't new. Generations have been pushing the innocence out earlier and earlier, every decade. The trend is accelerating. The 2000 generation is reaping the benefits of having an omniscient tool at their fingertips far earlier than we ever did. Granted, we didn't have the tool in our early youth, so we can't be blamed, but that doesn't change the disturbing fact of the matter that our little siblings are quickly being corrupted.

[/rant]

- Jonathan