Here’s A Less Serious Report, But Is There Some Truth In This Cartoon?
We’re lightening up this week for our ongoing series of Incidents & Accidents. Instead of recounting a collision, here’s a cartoon from veteran journalist Mike Roth, depicting the Gen X-er on the snow. What think? Truth?
Selfie stick, Ear pod/buds, posting to social media while speed dialed to 11…
All too true.
I don’t know…Gen Xers are now between 40-54 years old. It’s their kids Gen Zers and MAYBE some Millenials (GenY). I know…I feel older now too!
Agree–that dude is Totes Millenial!
Most of the Gen Xers I know who ski are parents, thus just about as cautious as I am on the slopes.
yeah got the gen ex wrong. but the sketch is true not matter the age
I think the term ‘selfie stick’ is a misnomer (?).
Shouldn’t the term be “narcissist stick” ?
I wouldn’t call it a “narcissist stick”. I wouldn’t even call it a “selfie”. I have been taking pictures that include me in the picture for decades, long before the word “selfie” became popular.
My dad used to take a lot of pictures and none of them were selfies. He took a lot of pictures of landscapes. But months or years later, he would look puzzled at time when viewing those photos, wondering why he took them or even where they were taken. There was nothing identifiable in many of his photos. So, the whole family learned from it that it is important to include some people in the photos, and yes, ever your own face if there is nobody else around.
Once you have a picture with yourself in some interesting surroundings, it is a lot easier to remember the event, and it is also easier to determine when the photo was shot, because of recognizable old clothes, or a beard that I used to have but not any more.
I think it makes perfect sense to include yourself in many of your pictures. It has nothing to do with narcissism. Instead, it’s to make the photo more interesting, more memorable, more recognizable. In a way it’s also like a “time stamp” (Just look at those stretch pants I used to wear on the slopes!)
Without a person in the picture, you will sometimes look at an old photo and wonder where that picture was taken and why. Just a patch of snow somewhere. Just a sandy beach somewhere. Just some trees. Were there any birds in that tree, or why did I take that picture?
🙂
More Gen Z type of behavior. Scary nonetheless.
This is posted on behalf of Peter McCarville.
I encourage all of you to get your definitions correct and learn a bit about the generations you are criticizing. Gen X, Millenials, i Gen (sometimes called Gen Z), etc. I can recommend a book that might help you understand the kids of today. It might be a good thing for readers of Seniorsskiing.com since many of them are grandchildren of the very people that read Seniorsskiing.com.
The book is:
iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood–and What That Means for the Rest of Us by Jean Twenge.
“A highly readable and entertaining first look at how today’s members of iGen—the children, teens, and young adults born in the mid-1990s and later—are vastly different from their Millennial predecessors, and from any other generation, from the renowned psychologist and author of Generation Me. (AMAZON)”
Obviously calling a group of people names or making fun of them is just stereotyping. I have a daughter who fits the category, age-wise, we are talking about (she his now 21). She and her friends are lovely people and great skiers. Using labels with kids today is no different than when the current younger crowds use the phrase “OK Boomer”. Nobody (including seniors) wants to be negatively labelled. I had a grandmother who once said that labels are for jars.
I suggest that the “Incidents and Accidents” page be mothballed. I never liked the idea in the first place as it had “bitch session” written all over it. It seems like my assumption has come true. In a sad way, a large portion of the responses on the Incidents and Accidents page reinforces negative stereotypes of seniors. Let’s all recognize that there is space for all of us on the mountain this holiday season and beyond.