Much has been made of the vitality that President Obama brings to the White House. To be sure, this is in part the story of his relative youth—only Clinton, Grant, Kennedy, and Theodore Roosevelt were younger when assuming the office—but it’s also a function of his ability to convince the millennial generation (or vocalize the millennial generation’s belief) that their voices matter. Given the size and scope of the challenges facing our nation, we need young people to see the stake that they have in their communities.
So I presented my work as a blogger to a group of high school seniors interested in politics yesterday, and a bunch of them told me yesterday that they don't use email anymore. The exact quote was, "Email is for old people, I just Facebook or text everyone I know". This is fairly common among people under the age of 24, who see different tools as representing different generations much as older generations thought that rock and roll was a cultural differentiator.
Bloggers and activists David All, Karl Frisch, Jon Henke, and John Aravosis were on the panel, and it was interesting that part of the conversation centered on how the Republicans are obviously going to give way on gay marriage. The younger Republicans were obviously angry that their party didn't accept gay people.
In profound ways, we're quite foreign to this younger generation. Not to be all 'these damned kidz' about it, but I tried to explain that when I grew up it was very hard to talk to friends except over a landline. And it just seemed like they didn't quite believe me, or rather, that was completely alien to their understanding of the world.
So let's have a generational discussion. I first encountered the internet when I was 17, and really started using it when I was 18. That was in 1995, but I had been on BBS systems in the 1980s and my friends had AOL and Compuserve accounts in the early 1990s.
You? And if you haven't created an account at OpenLeft, now's a good time to sign up and chime in.
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