The Trouble With Gen Y

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

That's quite some statement.

My mum and dad partied quite hard in the 70's if I'm to believe them. Certainly the photos seem to back up their memories. The discoteque was all the rage. They bought. And they did it on one lorry driver wage.

We had a VCR too around 1984. I remember it well. Top loader.

You wouldn't have done it where I was Lorry drivers money can be quite good. How did they save while partying. I had a good time before I started to save Holidays abroad etc but not while I was saving and the first few years after buying.

[Deleted User]

Newsflash - middle class people has nice stuff in the 70s and 80s, just like they do now.

Mid 80s and my household had 2 computers (bbc micro and xz spectrum) , a VCR and holidays abroad once a year. Sure, dad had an outside toilet as a kid in the 60s but a university education fixed all that.

GeorgeHowell

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Yer, some young will want that.

But then so did some of the boomer generation when they were young.

No good comparing the average person back then to the specific people you describe today.

Compare the average person back then to the average person today .... I don't think you will find much difference, bar technology has moved on and the VCR of yesteryear has been replaced with new technology today.

Boomers spent money on entertainment just as the youth do today. What was the boom in record shops all about otherwise?

You keep banging on about iphones, but iphones don't even have the biggest market share. Android do at nearly 60% of the market. So what you describe simply cannot be true.

I personally believe the problem today is media. You see a LOT more of what goes on. Everyone has a camera on them. Everyone is making movies about everything and putting them up on youtube / facebook. So you see what is happening, whereas 40 years back, you didn't see that your nephew had just chucked up outside his local pub. It just happened and you didn't have a clue.

The youth haven't just changed in the last 10 or so years. What has changed is your access to monitor what the youth get up to.

What's actually recorded and available to watch shows the same happening back then as happens today. Just look at the Birmingham nail bombings media reports. Birmingham was buzzing with partying youth. Those youth are now todays boomers. So no point in pretending you were all sat inside couting the thrupenny bits in your house deposit jar.

I'm afraid that completely misses the point.

Popular culture changes over time, but what does not change is that you can't get a quart out of a pint pot. People have to set their priorities according to their means. The Baby Boomer generation did not live a completely monastic life in order to save to buy property, but it was by and large willing to make sacrifices. Anyone who blew all their money on booze, 45 rpm records and LPs, mini skirts and flared jeans etc and then moaned that they couldn't muster a deposit would have been laughed out of court. Their peers would have told them to cut back and save up, like they were doing. Nowadays there is a contingent that seem to think it is a matter of entitlement to have it all, affordable or not, and that if they can't afford everything they want then someone else should be coughing up on their behalf. And the worst thing is that they are taking seriously in some quarters.