A few days ago I was sent an e-mail forward describing what it means to be a "child of the 1980's." The article was essentially a list of various consumer products and cartoons that summed up our formative years. Example: "We played army with G.I. Joe figures, and I set up galactic wars between Autobots and Decepticons... ...I got up on Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. to watch bad Hanna-Barbera cartoons like ‘The Snorks,' ‘Jabberjaw,' ‘Captain Caveman,' and ‘SpaceGhost.' In between I would watch ‘School House Rock.'" Towards the end of the article the author declares: "The eighties may have made us idealistic, but it's that idealism that will push us and be passed to our children--the first children of the 21st century."

In terms of children's culture, the article was accurate. I grew up watching MTV in my basement, waiting for cool songs by Peter Gabriel and John Cougar (aka John Mellencamp, etc.). I can remember some of the trials that Alvin, Simon, and Theodore faced, in their quests for gigs and experimental relationship with the Chipettes. I didn't have Transformers, but I was envious of those kids that did. I remember ancient jingles for products I couldn't even buy ("Come to think of it, I'll have a Heineken"). I was born in the year of Star Wars: 1977. In 1980, I was a tabula rasa; in 1990, I was bar mitzvah'ed and officially became a man. In the ten years in-between, I theoretically formed the basis of all my current beliefs, my social and ethical morals, and my cultural backdrop. That's why, when I read that the "eighties may have made us idealistic" in terms of GI Joe and Barbie, I feel worried. I fail to see what is ideal about overconsumption.

Did 1980s kids consume more products than 1970s kids? I think so. Aside from changes in economic prosperity, there was a difference is in the level of advertising saturation in society, and how much people accepted (and welcomed) this intrusion. As people have changed over the last 100 years, television has grown from a novelty to a drug. Advertising has followed, as the science of marketing has progressed from blatantly stupid (I have a 1937 advertisement that claims Camel cigarettes have health benefits) to diabolically clever (behavioral conditioning through overexposure to desire- imagery). Has anybody else noticed that in the last 10 years, once-sacred names have become corporate billboards? Does anybody remember Candlestick Park (now 3Com Park) and Capital Center (now USAir Arena)? Just one of the many ways in which our world is gradually becoming a billboard. This trend of corporate chicanery has wormed its way through American culture. Perhaps the 1980s were the last years in which it wasn't like that— does anybody remember public confusion at Levi's ads that didn't show jeans? Nowadays, it's acceptable (and practically a forgone conclusion) that you will not show your product. Kids of the 1970s were manipulated less, and in the 1960s, even less. When you last walked on your college campus, however, did you see people wearing clothing or did you see walking advertisements for The North Face, Calvin Klein, and Abercrombie & Fitch? Over one hundred years, our resistence to subversion has decayed to the point where we'll buy anything, so it seems, if people on TV look sexy. "Gee, if I buy Docker's, I'll get laid tonight!"

The Decade of Blandness is almost finished, and what will the children of the 1990s remember? If their ephemeral attention spans allow any actual degree of conscious thought, they'll think in faint hypnopaedic messages like "Everybody needs a little KFC" and "Just do it." There is a fair amount of injustice in a world that takes advantage of children while not allowing them to strike back in any way. These 1990s kids will be irritating, but it isn't their fault. My suggestion to parents is to give kids some origami paper and teach them to produce. To discourage creativity is to breed the next generation's parasites.

When I'm sitting in that old folks home, in 2057, drinking Steak Substitute through a tube and humming along to orchestral remixes of Talking Heads songs, perhaps I'll have a moment of clarity in which I realize that my first 20 years weren't wasted after all. I didn't just consume; I wrote short stories, I painted, I daydreamed, and sometimes, I shut off the television. I'll proudly remember the day when I was 13 or so and came to the conclusion that I couldn't buy clothing that flaunted a product name because I was unwilling to become a walking billboard, a corporate whore. I took my futile stand against letting companies control me; I abandoned consumerism. I won't want to remember what I bought; I'll want to remember what I thought, what I made, when I still could. In a fit of demented rage I'll shout, "You can make me wear bright red Tommy Hilfiger jeans, when you staple them to my cold, dead legs." And I'll tell someone else in my retirement community about my passive resistence, and he'll smile and nod and call the authorities, and Coca-Cola will have me shot for being subversive.

Copyright (C) 2000, Post-Collegiate Malaise.