The class of 2008 2009
For the last few years, folks at Beloit College have prepared a "Mindset List" for each incoming class of Freshmen. It’s a good reminder, to me at least, of just how differently they perceive the world. Great stuff for marketers to remember…
Some highlights:
- They
don’t remember when "cut and paste" involved scissors.- Pay-Per-View
television has always been an option.- Jimmy
Swaggart and Jim Bakker have never preached on television.- Pixar
has always existed.- They
never saw the shuttle Challenger fly.- They
never saw Pat Sajak or Arsenio Hall host a late night television show.- Digital
cameras have always existed.
This is a great way to remember that our stories can sound so dated when we don’t freshen our examples and pick out some new metaphors.
I remember a guy at a workshop making (what he thought) was a funny observation based on something Archie Bunker said. Half the room just looked lost. “Who is this Bunker guy,” they wondered.
It made the workshop sound like “lame storytime with Grandpa.”
The class entering college this fall is the class of 2009.
I honestly couldn’t care less that Entertainment Weekly has always been on the newsstand for these students. But I guess that’s a somber harbinger of #75:
>They have always been challenged to distinguish between news and entertainment on cable TV.
…and a sign of a serious generation gap.
–tully monster, from whose perspective humans had always walked on the moon
mm..and the tv in my room still has a bunny type antenna which I have to move to catch signal and see the simpsons. :|
I love this list. Every year, it scares me more and more. I used to have a website dedicated to the ’80s, and the people that would e-mail me got younger and younger every year. From “Hey, I was in high school in the ’80s!” to “Hey, I was born in 1980!” to “I was born in 1989!”
The first e-mail I got from someone born in the ’90s reminded me to live in the now.
Thanks for sharing Bren!
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose?
I’m only 28 and a lot of this list scares me. I was talking to someone this weekend who was 10 years younger than me, and I realized their educational landscape was completely different to mine. They grew up with the internet while I waited until college and even then had to use Lynx as my browser. Does anyone else feel so distanced from people who are 10 years younger than them?
Don’t be too worried. I graduated in 2002 (and am currently 25) and the list for my year is almost entirely untrue. Perhaps the more recent lists are also less than factual.
They never saw the Challenger fly.
Wow. That’s sobering. Seems like yesterday…