The Origin of the Retro Generation

[Retro Woman Revolution!]

If you like this article check out more like it at Retro Woman Revolution!

In the late Nineties and Naughties media culture pushed a saccharine brand of non culture onto the young masses. This degradation of taste included musical acts like Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, Girls Aloud and many other crass knock off's of knock off's. Film was better with releases like Lord of the Rings and the Matrix, offering a complex backdrop of intelligence which was soon watered down with the overflow of remakes, and repackaged live action filming of classic childhood cartoons and shows being prostituted by a failing Hollywood as guaranteed money makers. Television became overrun with X Factor, Britain's Got Talent, fill in the blank Idol, Big Brother, I'm a washed up has been, make me eat paste, and other rubbish reality based programmes where 14 year old girls and drunken yobs vote on their mobiles. In the midst of all this rank commercial rubbish the young impressionable generation separated like water and oil into two groups.

The first group was the majority, or as an old friend from school calls them Sheeple. These Sheeple were eagerly shepherded into believing whatever the media said was popular was actually good. The crasser and more vacuous the better, and they lapped up and propped up so called "talent" just because it looked good in a mini skirt. These same Sheeple react the same way to politics, news coverage, commercialization and every other aspect of life, they simply accept what is presented to them and take it as written that it is fine.

The second group that floated to the top were people who inherently realized that the mass culture and ideas being fed to them were rubbish. This group spent school years rummaging through their parents record collections, watching old films, and reading about eras gone by. Because of this keen interest in history and past pop culture each person in this group created their own look and identity, shopping at charity shops and vintage clothing stores, mixing periods and accessories to create something totally new. Musical interests from every genre and every decade came together inspiring a new retro feel to the music of this group. It is this group that is now surfacing as the idea makers of the generation, the leaders, the risk takers. These people now in our twenties are taking over mainstream culture and spreading these new ideas to the sheeple.This group is the basis of the Retro movement now in full swing.

As both groups grew up and entered the adult world, we were treated not as a cohesive generation with values and beliefs, but as a demographic group to be marketed at. This adulthood has been marked with career opportunities limited to either minimum wage drudgery, or positions as corporate clones or striking out on your own. We started off in a boom period amassing debt and buying a lifestyle we could not actually afford. Now, regardless of how successful we have been we find ourselves in recession and radically changing how we are living. This recession is the mark that is really defining us and bringing us into our own.

The largest and most radical new direction we are adapting to in our budgeting is the stark fact that processed frozen foods, and take away currys are expensive. It is by far cheaper to cook for yourself, and cook from scratch. Cooking from scratch is also better for the environment and healthier. When we begin the process of learning to cook, because many were not taught so much as how to boil water for tea, we start with the tiny small recipes designed for single secretaries. This soon progresses into the realization that bulk is the cheapest way to cook and shop, whether it's a stew or making strawberry jam the big pots have to come out. While we may not all be Gordon Ramsay, everyone can learn to cook simple foods that fill the stomach. This is now being seen on the high street with sales of frilly pinnies and aprons sky rocketing, and shops barely putting them on the shelf before they disappear.

Fashion is also being influenced by the second group of the generation. Beehive hairdos and mod suits from the 1960s have come back into fashion. The merchants that haven't caught on to the new retro trend are still in recession, while shops like Cath Kidston pander to the nostalgia of days gone by are reaping the rewards and proving recession proof. A return to putting in an effort, and vintage inspired clothes are filling shops further bringing the Sheeple into the new pastures of the rebels of their own generation. Fashion is a key aspect, with the 1950s and 1960s being the most popular eras. This radical return to the past is the fall out of an angry public fed up with a fashion industry intent on designing for body types that don't actually exist on the high street. Vintage designs take into account multiple body types, promote elegance, and make us feel unique, something that bog standard t shirts and trackies don't do.

Our generation was raised after the chaos of the initial AIDS epidemic, because of this we have had it hammered into our brains since we can remember to always use condoms and only sleep with partners in a committed relationship. Unlike the baby boomers and even Generation X, we are not an overtly promiscuous group of humans even if some would have us portrayed that way. Rather, the trend is for us to find the right person and stay in a long term committed relationship and do everything we can to keep it from disintegrating. Marriage is not necessarily the outcome, but committed relationships are the dominant way we are living. Marriage in some societies is frowned on because of a distrust of the church and religion, but is mostly not as common a choice as it would be because of the continued belief in women of my own generation that you cannot get married until you can afford to have a lavish over the top ceremony. Marriage however, whether it's religious or civil is the final seal of a committed relationship and is that step beyond that states that you are prepared to commit to a person and go through life as equal partners, come what may, a step easier to make if you are already removed from the culture of easy relationships of a previous generation.

With the commitment of mature adult relationships comes children. As I have noted in other articles, our generation have a different outlook on childrearing than our parents and predecessors. We are finding ways to raise responsible carbon neutral children who will in turn be responsible adults. While the Sheeple continue to utilize plastic, electronic toys made in China and video games for their offspring. The Rebels and more of the Sheeple are switching to traditional wooden and cloth toys due to a fear of lead paint and chemicals in toys being made in loosely regulated Chinese factories. These same parents are switching off the telly as a child minder, and instead engaging their children with books and projects in conjunction with a plethora of studies from multiple governments that state that telly and monitors are damaging to small yard apes below the age of 8 years old. Furthermore, they are bringing their children in to the social and cultural life of their family their community, and their cultural community as early as possible thus creating an earlier bond and a wider range of interests for the child who has not been parked in front of In the Night Garden or Teletubbies.

The Retro Generation is coming into it's own and forming a generation that is complex, rich, and separate from it's parents. While technological over stimulation defines us in part we are also an intelligent, informed group that is concerned about the environment and are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to save the planet. We are not the vacuous, frivolous, Charvy generation that we are regularly portrayed as, rather we are heralding a return to taste, and traditionalism that is overlooked by the mainstream media. We are a generation where responsibility, and reality have a more direct impact on us than any dogmatic ideology and failure to recognize us and the continued ignorance of us will lead to political and economic consequences for those who think we do not exist or that we are not worth paying attention to.

[La Maison Des Chats]

Interesting monologue. Thank you for sharing your personal persective.