The term “Me generation” has persisted over the decades, becoming synonymous with the baby boomers to many Americans. The 1970s were also an era of rising unemployment among the young, continuing erosion of faith in conventional social institutions, and political and ideological aimlessness for many. In fact, a spotlight on the personality of the self is a defining element of American culture. By the mid-1970s, Tom Wolfe and Christopher Lasch were speaking out critically against the culture of narcissism.These criticisms were widely repeated throughout American popular media. The 1960s are remembered as a time of political protests, radical experimentation with new cultural experiences (the Sexual Revolution, happenings, mainstream awareness of Eastern religions). "TIME Covers the Sixties" will be on view at the National Portrait Gallery through August 9, 2015. Loyalty to institutions, traditional religious faiths, and other common bonds were what that generation considered to be the cultural foundations of their country. Photographs From the Last Quiet Places on Earth. The Civil Rights Movement gave rebellious young people serious goals to work towards. More acerbic lampooning came in Shampoo (1975) and Private Benjamin (1980). Generation Me is a product of a massive, pervasive shift in cultural attitudes that took place in the U.S. between the end of World War II and the year 2000. Most of all, what came across onscreen as well as in Greenfield-Sanders’ portraits was an unapologetic affirmation of the essential Boomer mantra—yes, it is still all about ME. The baby boomers (Americans born during the 1946 to 1964 baby boom) were dubbed the “Me” generation by writer Tom Wolfe during the 1970s; Christopher Lasch was another writer who commented on the rise of a culture of narcissism among the younger generation. Bill Murray? Between 1989 and 1994, I conducted a number of interviews with one of the biggest stars of that era, Katharine Hepburn. In a panel discussion at the Newseum moderated by PBS Newshour journalist Jeffrey Brown, Greenfield-Sanders said it had been “a nightmare” to select his 19 Boomers. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. Smithsonian Institution, (Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (courtesy of the artist)), (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time Magazine © Louis Glanzman), (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time Magazine), (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine), (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of an anonymous donor), (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time Magazine © Denise Bouche Fitch). Earlier eras, particular the 1950s, are often characterized as conformist. Why Are All Swedish Cottages Painted Red? Personality quickly became the focal point of America’s rising consumer culture. The marketing of lifestyle products, eagerly consumed by baby boomers with disposable income during the 1970s, became an inescapable part of the culture. Baryshnikov? California Do Not Sell My Info The Boomers’ social subset is so vast that a list of one-Boomer-per-year seemed preferable to organizational chaos. “The new introspectiveness announced the demise of an established set of traditional faiths centred on work and the postponement of gratification, and the emergence of a consumption-oriented lifestyle ethic centred on lived experience and the immediacy of daily lifestyle choices.”. The development of a youth culture focusing so heavily on self-fulfillment was also perhaps a reaction against the traits that characterized the older generation, which had grown up during the Great Depression. If you are accessing TIME.com on a public computer, you are advised not to click on the "Remember me" option. Not all young adults were enamored with the lifestyle choices being offered to them in mainstream culture, however. Health and exercise fads, New Age spirituality, discos and hot tub parties, self-help programs such as EST (Erhard Seminars Training), and the growth of the self-help book industry became identified with the baby boomers during the 1970s. The phrase caught on with the general public, at a time when “self-realization” and “self-fulfillment” were becoming cultural aspirations to which young people supposedly ascribed higher importance than social responsibility. Keep up-to-date on: © 2020 Smithsonian Magazine. Her books and exhibitions run the gamut from the pioneers in early broadcasting to Elvis Presley, Katharine Hepburn and Katharine Graham. The “Me” generation in the United States is a term referring to the baby boomer generation and the self-involved qualities that some people associated with it. Cultural experimentation was justified as being directed toward spiritual or intellectual enlightenment. “The Boomer List” will be at the Newseum through July 5, 2015. Nor did it have plots with lessons to teach its audience. Neither the exhibition of large format pigment prints, nor the accompanying PBS American Masters documentary “The Boomer List” follows a strict chronology from 1946 to 1964. Unapologetic hedonism became acceptable among the young, expressed in the Disco music popular at the time. Did the Northern Lights Play a Role in the Titanic's Demise? This is a generation, after all, that thinks of itself as “forever young,” even as some near 70. Every generation is guilty of putting the “Me” in its ME-dia, and with each generation of media technology, the “Me” gets bigger. As a member of this generation, it’s interesting to read about the thoughts that professionals have about us. Hollywood cinema had helped to shape the idea of “Me,” for adolescents of the great depression, who would grow up to became World War II’s “Greatest Generation.” But it was television that branded the coming-of-age for the Boomers. The introspection of baby boomers and their focus on self-fulfillment has been examined in a serious light in pop culture. In the U.S., millennials are the children of baby boomers, who are also known as the Me Generation, who then produced the Me Me Me Generation, … By Seattle Municipal Archives from Seattle, WA – Pedestrians on First Avenue, 1975Uploaded by jmabel, CC BY 2.0. This was the environment that precipitated gravitation toward Punk rock among America’s disaffected young people.
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