From Behind the Lens
Feb. 2007
I’m getting old….I think….
By Colleen Swartz
I’m at that age where I am starting to realize that I am getting older. I catch myself saying things like, “I don’t know what these kids are using for brains these days.” Which is something that would (and I’m sure did) come directly out of my Mother’s mouth at one point or another.
On the other hand, I really don’t feel all that old. Oh sure, after a long day of shooting, my legs are a bit sore and my back takes a little while longer to straighten up when I stand, but over all, I am in pretty good shape. I carry an average weight, haven’t found any gray hairs yet, still run and play and party, I feel young, I think young… in my head I can’t be that old.
Yet people are starting to call me Maam instead of Miss and my 9-year-old son thinks I am a total dork. I used to be tuned into the music scene, but now my I-Pod could be considered a total embarrassment to people under the age of 30. My retirement savings is now becoming a major source of concern to me and my long-term plans are now my short-term goals. My boyfriend started buying me Hydro-Derm for my wrinkles and my father hasn’t questioned my attire once in 3 years.
Here we are, looking at generation next. I need to come to terms with the fact that I am not part of it. I was born in 1969 so I absolutely missed the “baby boomers”. I guess I am in the “Generation X” but that doesn’t feel quite right either. The exact demographic boundaries of Generation X are not well defined. Although the term Generation X appears back as far as the early 1960s, it was popularized by Douglas Coupland’s 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, in which Coupland described the angst of those born between roughly 1960 and 1965, who, originally and incorrectly labeled as part of the baby boom generation, felt no connection to its cultural icons. In Coupland’s usage, the X of Generation X referred to the namelessness of a generation that was coming into an awareness of its existence as a separate group but feeling dwarfed and overshadowed by the Boomer generation of which it was ostensibly a part. Afterwards the term stretched to include more people, being appropriated by the generation following the Baby Boomers and being used by marketers throughout the 1990s to denote potential buyers who were in their twenties at some time during the decade.
If I am part of Generation X, then I am told that my influence over pop culture began in the 1980s and may have peaked in the 1990s. Does that mean I am over with? Have I lost my power to influence pop culture? It seems so because every time I try to shop in the juniors section and try out one of those cool, mod fashions, I just end up looking like a fool. I tried the low-rise jeans, but my ass crack hung out on one side and my belly on the other. Add in the “bare midriff” trend and it was a total disaster on me. Scratch that fashion trend for those over 30. I just bought some of those cool fuzzy boots made entirely of long fake-fur and my friend asked me if they were warm because she had poor circulation too.
The next generation to get a label is now “Generation Y”. Born during a baby bulge that demographers locate between 1979 and 1994, they are as young as five and as old as 20, with the largest slice still a decade away from adolescence. And at 60 million strong, more than three times the size of Generation X, they’re the biggest thing to hit the American scene since the 72 million baby boomers. Still too young to have forged a name for themselves, they go by a host of taglines: Generation Y, Echo Boomers, or Millennium Generation. Well I missed that generation by a good 10 years.
I guess I fell through the cracks. Too young to truly be an “X” and too old to try to pull off a “Y”, I’ll just have to forge my own identity.
It’s not all that important to me that I have a generational identity, just that I have my own. I’ll continue to buy Levis and Nike, I’ll listen to Nickelback, Sanatra or Gwen Stefani, ride a Tohatsu around Sturgis, and I’m not going to pierce, tattoo or dye anything that I haven’t already. I’ll be my own little “Generation C” and grow in the areas I want to, stagnate in those where it is too late for me to change anyway, and set my own trends.
And that is how I see it, from behind the lens.
Your comments and feedback are always welcome at Colleen@digitalmagicbigshots.com
