The WTF Generation

Alright, now, people will often say very matter-of-fact-ly that they don't like being labelled because they're not a can of soup, or words to that effect. This is a stupid statement. You can't not label yourself. You are always going to be categorized because even if you say you're an enigma that is something. It's an ego thing, people rant back and forth about stereotypes but the most easily accessible ego trip is one gotten from being told what you are. Hence the appeal of those quizzes, apparently if I were a superhero I'd be batman, regardless of whether or not that might be true it made me feel good for about 3 seconds, then I found out that if I were a narcotic (!?) I'd be weed, that entitled me to another 3 or so seconds of ego boost following about 10 of confusion and prior to saying 'what bullshit' and going off to do something worth my time.
Even big-ass stereotype labels effect ego, being called an emo or a chav, people complain but in reality they're loving it. Why? Because all of a sudden they've got more complaining ammo in numerous different kinds, whether it be the solid slug approach of 'IAMNOTIAMNOTIAMNOTIAMNOT' or the more laser guided, stealth bomber dropped idea of saying 'Yeah, I am, so what, fuck you.' Both are terribly boring after a while. I should know, I placed myself in the latter half of this faction, got called a nerd, said 'Yup, that's me, problem?'. Those who are familiar with my blog will remember a few months back I posted something about it.
This is the issue that underlines what I'm now going to talk about, all of these groups we as a generation are separated are sub-catagories of our generation, however, what is our generation. All the other ones got names, Generation X and Generation Y came before us and there was a pretty solid argument defining their characteristics or finding one universal characteristic. Gen X were shallow. Gen Y were anti-social. We (Gen Z) are.....well both of those things....we've adopted the traits of all our predecessors and seemingly adopted no new key one or any primary trait. So what the fuck are we? The internet generation? The iGeneration? Generation WoW (that one makes me laugh)? I think I know, we are the WTF generation. WTF as in What The Fuck or wTF (wa-tee-eff) as some people I know pronounce it. Our trait is right there. confusion, masses of torrenting unbridled confusion, it's in our fashion statements, our music, our lifestyle, we have no idea who the fuck we are.
Think about it. There are so many different aspects to us it's difficult to know where to begin. Days past social disobediance in teens amounted to getting a tatoo or lighting up a cigarette. Now we do both those things among tons of other ones and don't feel the last bit disobediant because seemingly nobody cares, we want them to but they don't. Once you're past the 14 mark anything goes, it's creepy but it's true, small wonder there are kids out there beating the shit out people and sometimes killing them, they're bored, not a very good excuse but it makes a viable argument. It's almost like we're an amoeba culture, absorbing bits and pieces of other cultures until we have this patchwork of ideas and no set pattern to it. What kind of people go to raves and costume parties? I ask you, it's ludicrous if you think about it, but in another way it's pretty cool.
We have no signature drug like previous cultures did, marijuana, cocaine and E are taken along with LSD and heroin, doesn't leave much, except speed but we've got red bull so who's gonna go waste cash? Then there's the media, this is probably the biggest WTF of them all, I have this theory about that, I think media have been recycling the past so much that the way new ideas will come about is that the old ones will simply catch up and thereby run out. Imagine it: new retro, it's the oxymoron of the future! I can bet it will happen, we're recycling the '90s right now, sitcoms and gladiators are back in force and all of a sudden grunge, no wave and quentin tarantino movies are cool again. Listen to Editors and then listen to Joy Division, similar much? Eventually all this will fizzle but for now we have kids listening to metal one minute and gansta rap the next, even mixtures of both! I'm not especially big on pop music myself, I like older music often by artists that are still releasing now. Every now and again a band I like emerges on Late With Jools Holland (best music show on television) but that's about it. Pop's a loose term anyway, genre's called genre for a god damn reason, it's there so use it you stupid record label people! I hate you all you money grubbing blood sucking_ ahem, where was I?
The only specific defining feature we have are some new words, most of which ironically are the very labels we attach to each other although words like R-tard, noob, pwned and all our other internet jargon is unique but then internet is just a product of new technology, something every generation has drawn from in different ways. From the grammaphone to the walkman. It doesn't really separate us. So what I'm basically saying if you narrow it down is that our recycling and reference to past youth cultures is really what makes us who we are. A bunch of confused amoebal chameleons, I think that's got quite a nice ring to it.