My wife and I just had a baby. A baby boy. He is adorable, not allowing us any real sleep, but he is cute, so there is that.
Many new responsibilities come along with a new baby, one of which is the baby naming. As a religious Jew, it is traditional to wait to name the baby after the ברי מילה (circumcision), and lot’s of people give me a hard time because I say I don’t know what the name will be. “But you have had 9 months to think about it”! I know, but how can I name a child without meeting them? How can I know who this child is and get a sense of what they are until I have held them?
So he is still nameless (until tomorrow).
Self Reflection on Generational Theory and Language
And with all this, I always tend to do some self reflection and start thinking about personalities, character traits, people and their quirkiness, and most recently I have been thinking a lot about generational theory, largely because of a conversation with some friends. There were some post college aged students over and we started talking about generational differences between us and them. They are obviously millennials, and we are… well… that’s a good question. What are we?
Generational theory, as its been explained to me by my teacher and mentor Scott Hess, is that it is a soft science. By all accounts, and according to this Atlantic article I technically fall within the Millennial range (son-of-a-b*#%h!) , but I certainly don’t feel like a Millennial.
In his famous TED talk, Scott quoted this New York Times article “What is it about 20-somethings” what characteristics define a millennial. I remember distinctly in 2008 when the market crashed and I lost my job. Right around that time, my wife gave birth to our first child, and we relocated to Chicago. Actually, safe to say, I hit 5 major milestones by the time I was 23. I finished school, l moved out of my parents house, was financially independent, got married, and had a baby. That doesn’t sound much like a Millennial, does it?
While it’s not clear cut, Scott also once wrote this Quora response to the question “what generation is 1999”:
Assuming you’re talking about the common names for generations in the U.S., you are what I would refer to as a “cusper” — either a trailing-edge Millennial, or a leading edge member of what many experts/media members are referring to as “Gen Z,”
So I am a cusper.
I lean more towards the Gen X then Millennial for sure, but there are certainly aspects that I am stuck with. Like emojis.
Emojis Are Part of My Vocabulary
I use Emojis at work and I should be Embaressed, but I am not. It seems normal.
It’s weird and I don’t know how it happened or when it started. I suppose we do so much chatting over gchat, or whatsapp, or whatever. But people used to say “it’s hard to tell if you are kidding or not in email”. Well now there is the 🤣 (laughing face tilted) so you know it’s supposed to be funny instead of the 🙄 (sarcastic looking up to the air) to know they thing you are lame. Someone says something, the 👍 (thumbs up) emoji seems to fit better than just saying “yes” or “ok”. Someone thanks you for something, the 🙏 (prayer hands) feels appropriate and a show of humility, and when something is really special I find myself using the ❤️ (heart).
I will use the 😁 (smile face showing teeth) and this 😥 (sad face) in regular WhatsApp messages because it seems more genuine then the regular sad or smile face. Sometimes, I even use the 😊 (blushing proud face) because it seems more genuine and fitting for the emotion I am trying to convey.
What The Actual Hell Are you Talking About?!?!?
While I am no doubt a bit delirious from lack of sleep, I am not just rambling. There is a point.
I have seen the meme of ancient Egypt hieroglyphics, how we used to be with language, and now we are back to it.
It’s funny.
It’s also different, and no to take the joke to literally, I find and view emoji not as a replacement of vocabulary, but an extension of it. Maybe that’s the Millennial in me talking. Heck, I am blogging. That is DEFINITELY the millennial in me talking.
Scott says that the reason we all hate Millennials is because we Gen Xers are jealous of them and we worry that Millennials are better than us.
Before you get pissed at me, watch Scott’s TED talk and you will understand.
Look, I don’t care for the Biebs too much, but you gotta hand it to him he has done something incredible. And while it’s not our taste, thats fine, but if the older generation learns any one thing from the later one, it’s emojis, which while ridiculous, serve an incredible purpose which I doubt they even realize. The subtitles in what Millennial language means, like hey vs. heyyy, that’s stupid. But saying something that actually means the same thing with a bit more emotion attached to it, now that’s a novel idea!
They say a picture is worth 1000 words. Maybe that’s what emoji is supposed to do. A way of conveying more emotion into what we are trying to say, and unbeknownst to them, this may in fact be the great contribution of the millennial generation…
….
But then they go and do this s#*t and I take back everything I ever said nice about them…
LOL 🤣
Blogging Challenge status: Baby birth can’t stop me! 8 out of 12. 4 to go!