Another Second Time Around

The sophomore slump. The sophomore jinx. There are no second acts. Everywhere you look, there are institutionalized doubts on people being able to do something in their second year or second time around.

And the so-called "sophomore year" of my thesis is a real challenge. Showing the creation of the GenX stereotype in the "freshman" year comes together organically, but where to take it next is hard. Yet when I broke down the sections on separate pieces of paper, I seem to have many ideas for the sophomore year, thematically representing the currents of 1992-93 and related topics.

I could break it down, to some degree to a central thrust: The idea of Generation X going mainstream and, like many college sophomores, GenX (or Jenn X) deciding to go forth and start exploring. MTV makes a rare positive appearance here, with their Choose or Lose campaign (which, let's face it, is much better named than Vote or Die) trying for the first time to really make young people movers and shakers on the political scene. And with Bill Clinton riding his saxophone and the youth vote into office, you can argue that it succeeded.

But the downside is the generation taking on the status of a political football. Douglas Coupland recalls with amusement both political parties getting in touch with him and offering large sums of money if he can help them "reach X." This despite his titling a chapter of his book, "We are not a target market." This could be a place to include the Century Foundation polemic that looks to increase engagement among the younger generation* (*provided those youngsters support progressive candidates and causes).

And what of all that crazy, Xtreme marketing to Xers? Is this a decent place for it? Somewhere I just need to roll out those wonderfully insipid and similar marketing slogans, as chronicled by Thomas Frank, that tell Xers they will be different if they join the hoard of people who use this product.

Somewhere I have to take on the mushrooming of GenX stereotypes and, to a limited degree, the accuracy of them. Certainly Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone doesn't exactly find scintillating engagement among the generation, athough Meredith Bagby loudly disagrees. This could be a place for that dogfight. Plus, perhaps, Tom Beaudoin's study of GenX and faith, where he finds Xers less interested in religious institutions but still very much into spirituality.

This could even be a place to work in all those '80s movies. Jonathan Bernstein notes that if we look past the camp and cheese, these movies defy the stereotypes of their own decade in that they are more about making connections across socioeconomic lines than the pursuit of material wealth. The working-class girl can end up with the rich guy, and the "Material Girl" video can end with the producer spiriting away Madonna in a beat-up truck instead of a limousine. What reporters took as slacking was actually some members of our generation deciding that there are more important things than getting rich ...

... which, to some degree, shows how a generational divide was part of all the myth-making. And the rise of all things X would only make the generational chasm wider. But I'll wait on that, as it's something I plan to explore in the "junior year" section, and the next blog installment.