Director’s Notes:

One of the Truths about aging is you will start to resent the Youth. I’ve always known this. My parents and aunts/uncles used to make commentary about my generation when I was a teenager. But when I spent time around my grandparents, they were still hanging on to bullshit about my parents’ generation. The pattern was pretty easy to recognize, even as a kid.

“But this generation is different!”

Of course it is. And the generation before than was different, too. They’re all different, but also the general pattern is always the same. As you age, you lose relevance in pop culture, and it’s made worse by a feeling of exclusion from what the Youth are doing. They’re making fun of your old clothes, your old songs, your way of speaking. They’re changing the language. They’re changing the music. Or they’re coopting old fashions, and maybe you don’t feel like they’re respecting the history.

Here’s the thing about every Young person throughout history: They’re clever, funny, curious, and full of energy. They make bad decisions. They act annoying. They push buttons. They innovate. They create. They learn. They’re young people. This is what young people do. It’s technology and political circumstances that define a generation’s personality.

Today we have our first generation of people born full inside the World Wide Web. The Information Superhighway. And who have had access to social media the moment they reached high school. They’re louder than any generation before because the technology allows the youth to connect on a global stage.

Older folks eye-roll at the way the Youth think about appearance and branding, because we grew up without smartphones. Self-visualization was not as immediate in an era of film cameras and physical scrapbooks. But if we HAD had the ability to take a true selfie, we would have been the same as the GenZers in this regard.

So, this episode is a way to play around with this thought, between Cecil, Tamika, and The Triangle, we have 3 different generations of people reacting differently to the circumstances. It’s really hard as an older person to make room for the Youth, because they’re already making room for themselves. It sometimes feels as if they’re encroaching upon us. (And maybe they are? What are you gonna do about it?)

But I think there’s a lot to love (and learn from) younger generations. I’ll never be part of the Youth ever again, but I can certainly bask under the same sun.

Jeffrey Cranor
September 15, 2024

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