Just the other day I read some “news” that froze my stomach. Ladies and Gentlemen, OUR GENERATION HAS NOW BEEN BRANDED! We are now blessed to dance in history’s eternal mausoleum as the iGeneration! What Tom Foolery! This name came about because the youth of the last 10 years, this “iGener-ation”, supposedly live life on the internet and are all narcissists obsessed with wealth, power, and fame. Because we are always letting our minds rot underneath iPods and headphones. But they failed to note that to narcissists, there is no such thing as a lowercase i!

Times have changed. Not much hippie innocence floats around anymore. We did our best to exorcise that in the 80’s. All eras have their great challenges, and elders have not exactly laid things lightly. Right at the beginning of the decade, 9/11 succeeded in doing (almost) exactly what the terrorists wanted. Many of us lost our heads with alarm, and in the process all of us have lost many previously held civil rights. We suffered, for once.

Not only did we have this tragedy, but also a war-bent president raising our flags and charging off to defend the “American Way”. Oh how we’d pay! Now, not only does the hungry young idealist have another blank war weighing on ones shoulders, but looming environmental problems and economic disparity as local stores fade out, business chains move in, and the middle class shrinks.

With society transforming and data blasting past us non-stop, it is all too easy to grow weary of the world. Many of us lead solitary, dissociated lives as a result of the natural inclinations of an industrial society for everyone to act industrial all the time.

Conversely, a subtle communal and creative impulse remains, not limited by age, or background, or nationality. The internet has been a help to this grand mixing of demographic, but I do not feel that it should define us. What I am calling for is the eradication of the use of a brand name to define us. Have we nothing to offer but gadgetry?

There are raw masses of people out there who are working without fear to shape our future. The sheer energy of UMB is a good example of this. Our generation will remain a powerful one due to the many youths sacrificing a money-pumping career for one with sustenance and soul. It should not matter whether we all adapt to a single ideology (or wardrobe). In fact, is it not healthier for a democracy to harbor a great mix of citizens? How can you name us if we do not have a face?