Whack Job Musings on the Meta-Fad Generation

I've seen a number of articles recently that say our generation is identity-less. Or, to put it more accurately, that we have no identity because we are constantly trying out new identities. We are not one identity. But all identities. I agree with this sentiment. I see it all the time in the content I come across on the Web bashing hipsters. I see it in most content, actually. Every week, it seems, a new trend comes along. The ideals and values of last week get swapped for this next good thing--not next "big" thing but "good" because it's what feels right and true in the moment and it never sticks around long enough to be "big."

It's frightening how much this resembles Jung's definition of the mid-life crisis. According to Jung, the mid-life crisis happens around the time a man is forty (for women, earlier) because they suddenly realize that this entire worldview they've taken years shaping and attempting to perfect is bogus. They realize that there are other possible philosophies for one to subscribe to--to really believe in and based their lives around--and that their own limited perspective only seems true because it is limited--it's the one they've spent forty years focusing on. And really--any philosophy is right. So, they scramble and flail trying to make sense of philosophies they've for so long ignored (whether intentionally or not) while at the same time questioning the validity of their own. Jung likens the process to a day, in which noon marks the time of the "descent" or the mid-life crisis. "The descent," he says, "means the reversal of all the ideals and values that were cherished in the morning."

I feel like this is totally applicable to what kids of my generation go through--except that, where Jung employs the metaphoric timeline of a day to describe this process, I'd argue that we are constantly cycling through not just one day, but many, and therefore many noons or "descents" at a speed that is almost unbearable--at a speed with which we might not be able to keep pace.

We are moving too fast probably because we are so universally connected to everything and the cultural dialogue has been obstructed by too much content--too many voices attempting to speak at once. I think the best emblem of this trend is Wikipedia (or a site like Reddit) where someone can access the site with the intention of finding out about one thing--Jung, let's say--and end up skipping around until they've landed on a page about Fellini. And from there, it's on to the next topic that looks interesting. So that we never really take the time to fully try to understand one thing or spend too long in one place intellectually. We approach content now (intellectual content) like we do fads--it's a very fad-like roving where we're constantly shape-shifting--but to what end? To impress others? To know everything? I don't know.

I think part of it is that there's just so much content out there--it's too tempting to have it all in front of you and not want to devour it all. And we live in an age where everything has been anthologized electronically, nicely catalogued and made to look sexy for us. Gossip is mixed with factual information and glib references are made to concepts and entire schools of thought that we don't have the time or the patience (because the Internet has spoiled us) to properly investigate or really commit to memory. We are the ephemeral products of an ephemeral world where entire personalities are crafted on the fly.

This, I think, is largely responsible for what I deem (and I'm sure other do as well) the Hipster Epidemic. Everyone is a hipster now. But no one wants to admit it. Because admitting it would be admitting that your personality is peggable and that goes against everything we currently stand for culturally. The idea is that we can't be pegged--that we can't be labeled. Because once you put a label on something you're able to see it objectively--it's able to be reduced to an idea and therefore it can be dismissed pejoratively (not unlike the hipster label). We want so desperately to be complex and so much more than what we see in the mirror because the mirror that we're gazing into is a mirror of rapidly-recycled and new content: images, memes, catchwords, new bands that sound like old bands, new bands that sound like older bands, etc. And so we struggle to keep up with the ever-evolving world. But are we doing ourselves more harm than good by trying to outrun ourselves in our perpetual quest to unearth the next good thing before someone else does?

I don't know. I've read things that seem to suggest because we're able to cycle through content so quickly, our brains are sharper and more easily malleable to new experiences. We've become highly adaptable. I don't know if this is true because I don't feel like we're ever really learning anything. We don't have the time. So, sure: we know how to navigate technology. But is it something we can explain to someone if we had to? To me, anyway, it feels like something I've learned by instinct. I can't explain to my out-of-touch grandma how to use the Internet, let alone what the Internet is, but I can use it. And that's not good in my opinion.