Generational Analysis

This page is a generalized exploration of generational attitudes and behaviors through a series of articles.

Specifically, there will be articles on media, advertising, consumption, healthcare, politics, morality and economics as well as topical articles.

 

Overview:

My observation has been that the Baby Boomer generation is incredibly polarized in lifestyle, ideology, spirituality, attitude, morality and life in general. As a generalization they are walking contradictions with a complete lack of self awareness and incredibly hypocritical. The overwhelming paradigm that keeps popping up in my study is extremism or polarity, most things are either/ or with baby boomers. The other overwhelming trend is complete self absorption. What else would expect from the generation that went from Hippy to Yuppy overnight? 

 

Methodology:

I have been studying various media pertaining to the generational studies and particularly Baby Boomers. I will respond to what I find that expresses poignant cultural observations. 

One of the first things that I noticed about Baby Boomer studies is that most of the media studying the Boomers is made by the Boomers. In a way this provides an insider perspective but most of the media is incredibly biased due to observational bias and preconceived belief systems. There is information with no perspective. It is knowledge without wisdom. Also, the source of almost all Baby Boomer material being produced almost exclusively by Boomers illustrates the incredible self absorption of that generation as you will see from the case studies.

 

Quantitative:

The boomers are a very large proportion of the population.

(Generation Ageless, p. 7)

Boomers also have much high median income than any other cohort.

(Adapted from US Economic Census 2004)

Boomers also have disproportionate wealth.

(Adapted from US Economic Census 2004)

Case Study #1:

Generation Ageless by J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman, 2007, HarperCollins.

“How Baby Boomers Are Changing the Way We Live Today… And They’re Just Getting Started”

The focus of this book is generational trends and the implications of such trends in marketing. It is written by two boomers who have an advertising and marketing background. It is very interesting the labels that are chosen to represent different generations. The boomers are called Boomers, of course, but their parents generation are called “Matures” rather than The Greatest Generation or The Depression Generation and their children’s generation are called “Echo Boomers” rather than Millennials or Gen Y. This initial observation shows how boomers overwhelming look at themselves as the center of the universe. This theme, acute narcissistic tendency and psychological neoteny, is repeated continuously through the majority of the material that I have reviewed. “The mistake has been to assume that Boomers would ‘mature’ as they get older.” (p. 201)

No, Boomers certainly did not get any more mature with age.

The boomers, in general, have a uniform focus on youthfulness throughout the cohort. This perpetual mid-life crisis seems to be the driving motivation for many of the observable group behaviors. “Our common understanding of the concept of retirement does not apply to the boomers.” (p. 41)

Healthcare for the boomers is lifestyle medicine. The shift in focus from curing to disease to improving appearance and sexual performance is a very telling example of boomer’s youth-centricism. Healthcare is age management to boomers in a typical boomer reinvention of the wheel. 

A common theme in this book is the commodification of identity. Boomers want luxury to the nth degree, have a win at all costs new realism, a “he who dies with the most toys wins” attitude and are a generation with “a rapacious appetite for over-the-top accumulation and consumption. What’s never changed about the boomers is their youthful focus on self.” (p. 121) 

Boomers like to break the rules but in a controlled manner. The notion of safe adventure is very big with boomers. This expresses itself by a proclivity to partake in very controlled acts of self perceived rebellion. Boomers love to combine lifestyle consumption, luxury to the Nth, group individualism, youth centricism and safe adventure through packaged safaris in Africa, riding a Harley or camping in a luxury RV.

The product experience is more important than the product itself. There is consistently a link between boomer’s expression of ethical identity and brand choices. This is readily apparent through marketing trends like green washing or the ubiquitous pink ribbons on yogurt or soup.

Boomers tend to ironically flock to a sort of group individualism. There is a tendency to segregate themselves into ideological cliques (conservative, liberal, spiritual, executive, blue-collar, religious, etc) and espouse themselves as unique individualists in a group setting, the ultimate contradiction of a group of outsiders. This boomer generation trend gave rise to niche media, corrective news and selective content. Boomers tend to surround themselves with information that agrees with their own outlook. This kind of ideological segregation further reinforces their chosen group identities.

Cultural Significance:

The Baby boomers are a very large generation and, even so, have a disproportionately high influence on culture. American popular culture is a direct representation of Boomer’s identity. Particularly: commodification of identity, rampent consumerism, group ideological segregation, youth centricism and safe adventure. For better or worse, Boomers are completely in control of America through disproportionate wealth and power. “Rather than step aside for the next generation, we boomers still feel like we have something to say.”

 

Case Study #2:

Spiritual Marketplace by Wade Clark Roof, 1999, Princeton University Press

This book focuses on the commodification of spirituality and religion. In particular there has been a trend towards niche and lifestyle branding regarding religion.

Spirituality and religion have always helped provide a narrative to life in the collective consciousness. Religion and spirituality fulfilled human social, intellectual and emotional needs. People have always adapted their lifestyle to their religion and their religion to their lifestyle. This trend has certainly been adapted by Baby Boomer’s seeking higher truth. The blur between lifestyle and religion is illustrated by the propagation of niche collectives such as eco-spiritualist or motorcyclists for Jesus that attempt to impart secular activities with meaningful spiritual symbolism. 

As open, competitive religious economy makes possible an expanded spiritual marketplace which, like any marketplace, must be understood in terms both of “demand” and “supply.” In a time of cultural and religious dislocations, new suppliers offer a range of goods and services designed to meet the spiritual concerns; and, in so doing, respond to and help to clarify those very concerns. (p. 78)

Boomers, in general, tend to remix and repackage cultural themes and convince themselves that this repackaging of old ideas is new, at which point they differentiate themselves from the old paradigm in favor of the “new” old paradigm.

“New spiritual techniques” are thus not altogether new, only a repackaging and reinterpretation of older religious practices… People who consider traditional prayer as a remote and alien practice, might attach new meaning and efficacy to it in this re-defined context. (p. 92)

Cultural Significance:

Baby Boomers spend an obscene amount of time and energy reinventing the wheel and there is nowhere that it is more evident than in their relationship with religion. Baby boomer’s spirituality illustrates the need of boomers to associate their identity with their consumption and to segregate ideologically through group-based individualism. These behaviors provide a great deal of insight into the current state of culture and lifestyle in regions that are predominantly boomer influenced.

 

Case Study #3:

Generation at Risk by Fran Sciacca, 1990, Moody Press

“What Legacy are the Baby-Boomers Leaving Their Kids?”

This book is written by a fully indoctrinated bible thumper so a lot of it comes off, unsurprisingly, as preachy as hell. However, when the author is not trying to conform his writing to his personal ideological identity or, rather, when he is purely expressing his supporting information he is actually somewhat insightful. However, this book (and this article hehe) suffer from an excess of quote dropping.

In the sixties, when they were at the height of their original popularity, The Beach Boys propagated their own variant on the American dream, painting a dazzling picture of beaches, parties and endless summers, a paradise of escape… it was the suburban myth transported to the Pacific Ocean…. Rich and fast, cars, woman, one suburban plot for everyone; a sea of happy humanity sandwiched between frosty mountains and toasty beaches, all an easy drive down the freeway. (pp. 158, 160 from Jim Miller, “The Beach Boys,” Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock, NY, Random House, 1976)

That sort of ideology was the basis for the early mentality of boomers which started as a hedonistic, Dionysian mob and transformed into a moral numbness which prompted a spiritual quest for fulfilment. 

Although that progression is quite cliche, it seems like a fairly accurate portrayal.

The stereotypical path of baby boomer culture was:

Greaser/ Beach Boy style —> Kool Aid Hippy/ Woodstock —> Protester Hippy/ College Kid —> Jaded Yuppy —> Mid Life Crisis/ Self Help Book Reading/ Faux Spiritualist

In all phases of the boomer cultural progression the common theme is excess and a desensitization due to over-stimulation. This has lead to a culture of hypocrisy.

A telling example is the message regarding sex that boomer’s pass on to their children. Basically, boomers tell their children, “I lived through the sexual revolution and from experience I have learned that meaningless sex is empty and unfulfilling, I mean, we already did everything you could possible imagine better than you could ever do. We were free spirited nymphs and had amazing sexual experiences that you couldn’t even begin to comprehend.” 

That is a (very slight) dramatization, of course, but that seems capture the theme of most communications between boomers and future generations; mixed messages that convey huge perception versus reality identity crisis. 

Boomers have a tendency to rationalize any behavior or attitude even with evident contradictions, “Barbie’s a good doll, she just likes nice things.”

Even in pursuit of greater good boomer’s have a tendency to exhibit a complete lack of self awareness: The counterculture had drawn a circle around all that was wrong with America, only to discover they were inside the circle. (pp 111)

Cultural Significance:

The common threads in boomer identity and ideology are hypocrisy and a complete lack of perception (especially regarding their own behavior). Combine that with the immense cultural and economic power possessed by the generation and, well, it explains a lot of the way things are and the current lack of authenticity in everything from media to politics to law to commerce to spirituality.

The most apparent fallacy in boomer ideology is the idea of right or wrong. Boomers tend to polarize issues and (for the most part) lack the necessary faculties to make intellectual compromises and see both the right and the wrong. Morality and ideology for boomers is digital while real life situational moral issues are multi-faceted. It is this oversimplification and fish bowl modeling regarding contextual issues that exemplify boomer behavior. This arises from a deep seeded childlike Narcissistic tendency.