so, what am I?

Generation OMG - American youths and the Great Recession

Oh goodie. First we were Gen Y. Then Generation Why Me. And then it looked like we were shaping up to be Scuppies. But not any longer. All thanks to this depression - er, Depression 2.0... The Recession - Recession/Depression (Repression!).

What's this new label? Will we really be defined as children of the Great Recession? I'm hardly a kid (never mind the obsession with candy and puppies). I prefer the "millenial" catchphrase - 20-somethings emerging from the sheltered walls of educational institutions into the working world. Yeah...millenial - we sound like intrepid explorers with flying cars.

I suppose it's better than being "born" into the crisis, or "growing up" during it. I can't say I'd want to inherit Uncle Sam's debt right from the get go. I'd rather my Gen X sense of entitlement heighten the Gen Why Me sense of MySpace martyrdom and top it off with a Scuppie-Can-do attitude so I can roundly castigate my elders for their lack of fiscal responsibility.

The article describes the households of Depression era families:

With incomes dropping, parents fought more and drank more, leaving children bewildered and often alone. Years later, the group looked back on their childhood as a period of unpredictability, and their high school years as a time they lacked direction or a sense of confidence. As one small-business man put it, “my entire adolescence was a period of painful and frustrating disorientation.”

A period of pain, frustration and disorientation? Sounds like high school.

Besides the doom and gloom, some of the researchers imagine the younger of us in this generation will echo the conformist tendencies of the penny-pinching workhorses who grew up in the Depression (1.0). Us elders, on the other hand, are apparently flocking to AmeriCorps, Teach for America, etc, and "public agencies and Internet infrastructures."

Oh, and not to fall out of line with every other piece of Repression Coverage, here's the token silver lining bit:

Regardless of their age, members of the recession generation will most likely be shaped by a return to Things That Matter, a re-definition of values.

And then the author basically says we end up all the same anyway when we reach middle age. Generation Repression will be as diverse and as kooky and gunshy about money as the others are and were. Only we'll be more web savvy because we all learned to type through AIM.

Whatevs. I see the economy as the perfect scapegoat. Late for work in the morning? I get to blame the economy. The T is late? Damn the MBTA's fare hikes. Daylight savings? Everyone's cutting back - even on sleep.

And you just know that we're gonna be all over this when we tell our grandkids our sob stories some day. "We didn't have no hover cars, kids, nope. Only one computer to a household. And - omg - the ECONOMY WAS IN THE TUBES."

My own take? This feels too immediate to gauge how the future will define us. I do know, though, that The State of the Economy is making me hyper aware of costs, funding, spending... for my vacation in April.