Congrats on Adulting, a Presumed Trophy for Millennials

I was at Target this afternoon and saw this trophy.  At first I wondered why Target was selling these, until I read what it said: "Congrats on Adulting".  Honestly I did laugh.  Then I rolled my eyes.  Then I laughed again.  A trophy for those who get participation awards, to go along with Monopoly for Millennials.

Growing up in the early 80's, and graduating High School class of 2000, I get lumped into the Millennial generation, though I still argue my age group falls into a micro-generation, lost in between X and Y.  The Xennial.  A little bit analog; a little bit digital.  I was a kid before the internet caught on and everyone had cell phones.  In a way I'm glad for it.  Technology is a help but a hindrance, and it's nice unplugging to get back to basics.

Even so, I'm still technically a Millennial, the generation that gets teased.  We're such easy targets.  But I don't take it personally.  I like a good laugh.

Glad and Proud to be a Xennial

(The Oregon Trail Card Game)

A couple years ago I wrote a blog post: Nostalgic Over Lost Marbles and the Millennial Micro Generation Gap.  Claiming, "Those of us who were born in the early 80's remember record players, remember VHS's and cassette tapes, remember a time before the internet existed, remember when music was able to fit on a CD and then an MP3.  I remember going to the little arcade at Pizza Hut to play games, before my family splurged on a Super Nintendo (I had to visit friends homes to play the original NES.)  I think I truly belong to a micro generation that spans two eras, the post analog and the pre digital.  That's where I belong."

In the last couple weeks the term Xennial started going around the internet, defined by those living at the end of the analog and beginning of the digital, 1977-1983, the classic (and best) Star Wars years.

The micro generation I've felt connected to finally has a name.

Some sources have claimed GOOD magazine coined the term in 2014.  Another source says Dan Woodman, Associate Professor of Sociology at The University of Melbourne, started it.  He states, "It was a particularly unique experience. You have a childhood, youth and adolescence free of having to worry about social media posts and mobile phones... We learned to consume media and came of age before there was Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat and all these things where you still watch the evening news or read the newspaper."

 I remember starting BYU in 2004 at 22 years old, already feeling a disconnect with those 4 years younger.  All these kids suddenly had cell phones!  They had iPods!  I used the free payphones scattered around campus and carried a discman sophisticated enough to also have fm/am radio.  I literally walked around from class to class wearing earphones, not silly earbuds, carrying my discman in front of me, trying not to jiggle it so the CD skipped.  I felt so cool.  Those kids with their iPods were lame.

I'm glad I grew up before the digital world and internet took over.  I'm glad I grew up playing outdoors, laying in the grass, and then occasionally allowed to play Nintendo when chores and homework were finished.  Sometimes I played games at the arcade along with pinball and skee-ball.  It was fun going to the computer trailer at school to play The Organ Trail.  All the trophies, medals, and ribbons I received were earned, not given.  Nothing tracked me via GPS.  I wasn't tied to a device.

The Xinnial micro generation is probably the last generation to truly experience a carefree childhood where we were allowed to get bored.  Boredom is fuel for creativity.  It was a good period to grow up, spanning the best of both Worlds, aware of the past, but having the excitement and curiosity of the future.

I'm glad to be a Xennail.

Nostalgic Over Lost Marbles and the Millennial Micro Generation Gap

 I survived Black Friday!  This was, in part, because I decided to properly honor Thanksgiving by staying at home and eating delicious pie, and then delightfully sleeping in the next morning.  And when I finally ventured into the cold on a day known for sales, steals, and brawls, it was in the afternoon after all the crazies had left to sleep off their all-nighters.

Still, going in and out of stores, though fun, can grow tiresome, and at around 8:30 pm I was ready to call it a day when my Mom and I went to the Provo Riverwoods.

Suddenly I found myself in Blickenstaff, an old fashioned toy store with goodies new, old, and remade.  It's a fun place to visit, and I quickly grew nostalgic over an era I never lived in, mainly the 40s-50s.  Ironically those were turbulent times, but I think it's the innocence and honesty of the times I long for.

 As I walked around I spotted a large barrel of marbles, each for a whole $0.29, and my mind went to two places: The first being "Hook," which I watched on Thanksgiving, remembering how Tootles "lost his marbles," and then getting them back by movie's end, overjoyed; and the second was my remembering elementary school, hanging with the boys while playing marbles.  I have so many scattered memories of my younger days, but I remember quite fondly laying on the dirt, circle drawn, as I tried to knock out fellow kids marbles, and not lose my own.

Playing marbles was an age old pastime, which Schulz captured several times in his comics, even going back to 1955, an early indication of this game's popularity on the schoolyard that somehow lasted into the 90's.  I remember when my 5th and 6th grade teacher, Mr. Bloomstrand, let a couple of girls and I pick out a free marble from a large jar full of colorful glass balls.  I picked a purple/white marble that has managed to survive these 20+ years, mainly because I never played it in a game in fear of losing it.

When I was in the 6th grade the game was banned, thanks mainly to a few kids who cried and complained over losing all their marbles, ruining it for the rest of us (a foreshadowing of life, really, or a sad omen for the future, encouraging a generation of poor losers and wimps.  I think losing marbles builds character.)

Pogs then became popular, they we're literally everywhere, and an easy replacement to marbles, until the school banned them as well.

But then this all got me to thinking, I was born in 1982, which makes me a millennial, spanning those born between early 1980's to early 2000's, and yet I don't really relate to those born in the last half of the millennial range.

Those of us who were born in the early 80's remember record players, remember VHS's and cassette tapes, remember a time before the internet existed, remember when music was able to fit on a CD and then an MP3.  I remember going to the little arcade at Pizza Hut to play games, before my family splurged on a Super Nintendo (I had to visit friends homes to play the original NES.)  I think I truly belong to a micro generation that spans two eras, the post analog and the pre digital.  That's where I belong.

I remember a simpler time.  I remember marbles and cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers.  Staring up at a clear night sky with no light pollution.  I grew up on Star Trek the Next Generation and Road to Avonlea.  I'm somewhere between those two as well.   

iPads didn't exist in school, we didn't need them to learn, we had books, and that was good. We weren't taught towards tests. We learned to cultivate our imagination.

I think I've gotten off topic.

Written rambling.

Marbles.

Those beautiful pieces of spherical glass.

A game I was never great at but enjoyed, and learned a lot, too.  Sometimes you win.  Sometimes you lose.  And there are real consequences to winning or losing.  There isn't a participation award, you either win or lose marbles, no in between.  You learn to be a good sport.  You learn to enjoy the win: It meant something, because you earned it.

Every generation needs to learn how to play marbles.