Generation Gap

I wanted to share this cuz I think it is interesting, it came from me talking about postmodernism and my screenplay...

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Julian (me)– per your post above about others here thinking you are immature. What we have here is a failure to communicate. (That’s a line from a very famous movie that many of us here in Jurassic Park remember clearly!).

I think the problems you are encountering here {The Writers Building} are, for the most part, generational. Most members here, judging from the bios, are Baby Boomers and grew up at a time when we inherited the world our WWII parents created for us; a world that was saved from facism by a military paradigm. Our folks came home from war, went to work for big companies based on a military, bureacratic models and bought us televisions and and some toys. Our folks stayed married and retired with a gold watch and enough in the bank to buy a condo in Florida or Arizona.

When Boomers went to work, interestingly enough, we accepted the general bureacractic paradigm and bought into most of the ‘rules’, thinking that we could work really hard and get rewarded for it. Boomers brought some changes into the workforce, namely the concepts of life/family issues, but for the most part, Boomers aren’t as adapable as we’d like to think.

Boomers’ kids, however, the Gen Xers and the Yers had a much different experience – you’re much more cynical because you saw your parents divorce in record numbers, you saw your parents get downsized and you realized that the only way to get ahead in this world is to rely on yourself. Plus, you are the most pampered generation in US history. While you may not have had a parent at home when you returned from school in the afternoon, you had a cell phone, a computer and anything else you wanted. In essence, you expect to be listened to and given as much authority and autonomy as you want because that’s what you had in your household.

I think what you’re bumping into here at TWB is no different than what’s happening at companies and businesses everywhere. The Boomers are still running the shop but we cannot for the life of us figure out how to keep Gen Xers and Yers in the workforce. We think you are too arrogant and selfish and not ready for the responsibilities you tell us you deserve. You think we are too old and stuck in the mud and unwilling to look at the world in a new way. Who cares if I work from my back deck at midnight rather than coming into the office? It should be about getting the work done, right?

What to do? Hell if I know; but my suggestion to you, Julian, is to try to understand where most people here are coming from and stop arguing when you receive advice that you don’t agree with. Instead, ignore it and move on. The business we are trying to break into is still being run, for the most part, by Boomers and the push-back you are getting here so far is based on that paradigm - scripts need three acts, a clear and concise story and logline, yada yada yada. If you have skill as a writer, you’ll be able to create a marketable script that speaks eloquently about postmodernism, though it may not ever use that word in the screenplay, logline or marketing materials. Or, you may simply need to find others in the industry who speak your language; go the independent route where you are less likely to run into the walls you are running into here. This just may not be the right community of wanna-be writers for you.

My suggestion to my fellow dinosaurs is to try to keep an open mind to what Julian is saying and understand where he and his generation are coming from as it’s very, very different than our experiences. We might be able to learn something from him. The Gen Yers are tremendous problem-solvers which is good news for all of us Boomers entering our golden years with some overwhelming societal/political issues ahead. Julian’s posse will be the ones to tackle health care, social security and, the most important thing – what we’ll go see at the senior matinee!

** My reply **

Thank you Sara!

You are exactly right, we have a failure to communicate, people are not treating me like the adult I am. Last I checked 23 is an adult, and I do expect to be treated as an equal in this system. I have just as much a right and a place here as anyone else, period.

I may be young but my mind is old, I am the oldest 23 year you will ever meet. Just the fact that i am here talking to you and wanting to learn from 'old people' is a testimate to that.

>>Boomers’ kids, however, the Gen Xers and the Yers had a much different experience<<

To say the least, just like the kids being born today or that were born in the 1990's or earily 2000's will have a totally different experience than I had, and I think many of them are spoiled 'brats'. When i was born, no one had a computer, or a CD player... now computers fit in your pocket, ipods, and HDDVD's are coming... the pace of change will only get faster, like it or not that is the way it is. You are best t except the change, don't fight it (or me), since nothing can stop it. Don't blame me, you Boomers are the ones who started the snow ball rolling!

>>The Boomers are still running the shop but we cannot for the life of us figure out how to keep Gen Xers and Yers in the workforce. <<

I have to disagree with this statment. The problem is actually that the Boomers are living longer and are not leaving the workforce, while the X&Yers are entering and the economy is not (being allowed to) growing fast enough to give them the postions many are qualified for. This is what leads many of the XY kids to be even more bratty, they don't have to do anything because it is all done for them, they don't have responsibility because it is not given to them, so what do you think they are going to do...

>>We think you are too arrogant and selfish and not ready for the responsibilities you tell us you deserve<<

This is also a major problem, for both parties. Boomer refuse to let go of the ranes, and want to continue to do things in a way that no longer makes sense in light of the present state the world is in; sometimes, many are coming around i might add.

>>You think we are too old and stuck in the mud and unwilling to look at the world in a new way.<<

Often also unwilling to except the proven physical reality of the world today, the nature of the tsunami of change taking place, and the potential of the generation that follows you. Boomers are too busy fighting and harking on XYers, rather than trying to work with them, or learn from them. They are the ones who started the generation war and they are the 'adults/bigger people' who should end it!

>>Julian, is to try to understand where most people here are coming from and stop arguing when you receive advice that you don’t agree with.<<

I am more aware of where many people are coming from than they are aware of where i am coming from, they simply don't like or are threatened by where I am coming from. I came here for help and advice, and am always greatful for TRUE guidance and WISDOM. I seem to get pointless critisism and mockery more often, which i find immature and laughable. I don't get offended, I am not easily offeneded. What people say is characterisitc of who they are and how they think, and i love building pictures and understandings of people, our posts tell others a great deal about us...

>>you had a cell phone, a computer and anything else you wanted.<<

I didn't have a cell phone till I was 18, I have used computers since elemetary school though. I did not grow up wealthy, but I was rich in everything that mattered.

>> In essence, you expect to be listened to and given as much authority and autonomy as you want because that’s what you had in your household.<<

I expect to be listened to, as do others, becuase i am part of this world too. I am hear to say and i have a stake in the future of this planet and this country! Brushing someone off becuase hey are young is folly, it's ridiculous and ludacris. I am the future, I am just getting started and if people don't like me, too bad, there is nothing they can do to stop me or my generation from coming to power. I think the boomers should be nice to the XYers becuase they are the ones who will be desciding the best way to take care of the Boomers as they begin to age and leave the work force.

>>The business we are trying to break into is still being run, for the most part, by Boomers and the push-back you are getting here so far is based on that paradigm - scripts need three acts, a clear and concise story and logline, yada yada yada. If you have skill as a writer, you’ll be able to create a marketable script that speaks eloquently about postmodernism, though it may not ever use that word in the screenplay, logline or marketing materials.<<

The business we are trying to break into has impossible odds stacked agianst you, if you really want to be sucessful in it, it probably needs to be more than a hobby. The Film business is run by trends, and by Boomers and people who are obsessed with youth, and youth culture BTW. The markets runs the biz, while yes the Boomers through a generational stroke for fortune (Boomers on average did not save any more than people today, but becuase they plunked $2000 dollars down on a house in the 70's and it's now worth $2 million, they have all the money and capital wealth) have all the money, but are burning out on idea's, especially since the Boomer are not the majority of movie goers, XYers are.

I am finally getting the point though that you Boomers don't like postmodernism, you don't get it (who does by the way?) and it bothers you. But you are also not giving me a chance. I am so busy defending my self from critics and naysayers that i cannot even finish my script! Once I am done my script will speak for itself.

>>It should be about getting the work done, right?<<

Right. It is about results, not about me.

>>My suggestion to my fellow dinosaurs is to try to keep an open mind to what Julian is saying and understand where he and his generation are coming from as it’s very, very different than our experiences. We might be able to learn something from him. The Gen Yers are tremendous problem-solvers which is good news for all of us Boomers entering our golden years with some overwhelming societal/political issues ahead. Julian’s posse will be the ones to tackle health care, social security<<

Those are the least of the problems ahead. My generation MUST be problem solvers because we have inhereted a whole heap of them (including red budget ink as far as the eye can see). We cannot solve the problems plauging the world alone however, and the mentality if Boomers that "Oh, we'll just have the next generation deal with that" must end immediately. The problems are all of ours and they need to be addressed and fixed with rapid diligence, more are on the way.

I need your help as much as you need me, we are all here together and we can all work together and achieve great things, together; or we can faulter and struggle alone.

There is no point in fighting, that solves no problems and often leaves people hurt and un productive. It is time to join forces and finally do what we are hear to do! Learn and sell screenplays!

Peace & Love

Postmodernism! (I had too:)

Best,
Julian Tyler

P.S.
sorry for errors i don't have a lot of time

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With all possible and serious respect, Sara-- PPPPPFFFFFFTTTT!



Pigeonholing individuals (and their attitudes about writing, art, discussion, reasonable conduct, ad nauseum) according to something as arbitrary (and often flat out misleading) as marketing labels (Boomers, Xers, Yers, Millenium Babies, etc etc etc, blah blah) applied based upon year of birth pretty much excuses everyone from any personal responsibility and culpability here.

If Julian (or I or anyone) wants to burn up their small amount of "starter credibility" in any newly-joined social group by entering the room and immediately launching into a strange convoluted self-adoring ramble about topics the group has consistently indicated little or no interest in ("POSTMODERNISM!"), it's not the room's responsibility that he have a nice comfy podium from which to bray. That possible unenjoyable fact is no more a factor of age than it is of astrological sign or the pattern of bumps on the head. Rather, that's just plain old group dynamics, the sort of thing that has been around since the first time two members of the genus homo hunched around a water hole to compare hunting exploits.

As much as I enjoy Strother's voice being invoked, what we have here is not "failure to communicate." It's a refusal to communicate -- a lack of willingness to even try to communicate. Communication is a two-way thing. If someone bangs cymbals in an effort to draw an audience so they can then hold court in a play for attention and praise and applause and respect, that's something closer to performance, and in that case the audience has no responsibility to give a flip if a performer bores or annoys. Pleasant or not, that seems the description many might use to describe Julian's antics onsite since his arrival. It surely describes my take on the situation, and I've swapped a few comments with others who echo similar sentiments. (And for the record, I have not called for Julian to be driven from the site, though I did write to Admin and ask "am I the only person who's getting bored and turned off by the pointless noise in that thread?")

Julian might well be an intelligent guy -- I honestly have no idea. The sad part is that right now I no longer have much interest left in bothering to find out, as I'm really really bored by what I see as grandstanding and pomposity and a childish need to argue as proof of relevance. Can he win back ground lost in this recent episode? Surely, but not by demanding my respect, nor by having others demand the same even as they insult me by trying to dismiss me as merely the sum of the stereotyped shortcomings they choose to ascribe to something as arbitrary as year of birth.

My lack of interest in Julian's grandiloquent pronouncements is not a result of being born during the Eisenhower administration or the Kennedy administration or the Nixon administration or the first full moon following a thunderstorm in an odd-numbered month of the first Reagan mid-term election. Like you and me and everyone other person here who's slapped down a credit card and paid for a year's worth of hopefully intelligent respectful discussion about screenwriting, Julian is competent (and expected) to make his own decisions and live with the results. That's the responsibility of every thinking member of any social group. If at any point he chooses to abdicate his responsibilities and behave in a way which brings him attention and judgments he doesn't like, well, I feel for the guy but don't blame my parents. If I'd been born twelve years sooner or twelve years later, Julian's responsibilities as a member of the tribe would still remain exactly the same as they are for everyone else.

Bottom line: if someone acts like an interesting respectful thoughtful guy, chances are most folks will think of him and treat him as an interesting respectful thoughtful guy. Conversely, if someone acts like a booger-eatin' moron, chances are most folks will think of him and treat him as (wait for it...) a booger-eatin' moron.

Life is hard. Bring a cushion.

Them's my two cents and change.