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It's morning. The news blares on the alarm clock as you awaken. You step outside to read the morning paper with breakfast. The radio is still sending you information as you drive to work, noticing all the billboards along the way. At work you may take a break to gather some information off the internet. At five, you go home, radio still sounding the news, and find that there are a lot of advertisements in today's mail. As the day closes, you top it off with an evening of film-at-eleven news watching and commercial absorbment. This is a typical day in the world of mass media and commercialization. It impacts everybody in this country, every day. Above the surface, people can react to various mass media in several different ways. But what if there was a generation of people who were born in this mass media culture's prime, how would they deal and react to this late twentieth century phenomenon?
Actually, there is a generation of people born in mass media's prime. They have been born accustomed to TV and news, and have grown up at the same time as other forms of mass media have grown as well, such as the internet. They are Generation X, the generation of teens and twentysomethings. As a member of this generation, I too, feel the strong impact that mass media and commercialization has on my life. But how do we react to all this? Has mass media made us stoics, taking for granted the thousands of images and ads we see everyday? Or has it empowered us, raising our awareness of serious issues, making us more visually literate?
One of the best ways to see how we react is to look to some authors from our generation. Through their writing styles and use of examples, we can gain some insight into Generation X's reactions of mass media and commercialization. Alexander Star, in his 1993 article "The Twentysomething Myth," in The New Republic, develops such an argument. Not only does he state that the Generation X label was created by media, he goes on to say that Generation X is "addicted to irony (hence the title)," and "many do share an ironic immersion in the mass media" (68). Authors like Ian Williams practically fall into Star's argument, albeit with valid excuses, while some Generation X authors like Elizabeth Wurtzel go beyond this and use mass media for self help and awareness. Looking at these articles can help us to think more critically about Star's hasty generalizations.
One of the authors that best suits this purpose is Ian Williams. In his essay, "Trash that Baby Boom," Williams explains, through his writing style and examples, how Generation X responds to mass media. According to his essay, Generation X has been so accustomed to constant exposure to mass media that they have become very skeptical of what they see and criticize it through the use of satire.
Williams explains how critical Generation X has become toward mass media when he states that "The grand ideas in life...were exposed long ago to us as dubious conventions at best. It turned more than a few of us into philosophical nomads, believing very little of what we hear and giving us a "bullshit alarm" more sensitive than any seismograph" (181). He also explains how Generation X uses satire to criticize when he says, "We strive against boredom, our biggest foe, and do so by laughing--and what makes us laugh is the absurd" (182). Williams criticizes the baby boom generation and mass media by the use of satire, and it shows in his style when he says that "sex these days is as spontaneous as the Brezhnev funeral" (174), or his classmates' reaction to the news of the Challenger, "trading our favorite Christa McAuliffe Spring Break jokes" (184), or the Berlin Wall coming down, "I guess that means Dresden gets Happy Meals now" (184).
So, how do the rest of us react to all this? As a Generation Xer, I feel that I also criticize what I see on television a lot, and my main way of criticizing is to make fun of what I see. I couldn't even watch the Academy Awards without making a snide comment here or there about how long a speech was, or whether or not a film deserved a certain award. My favorite TV shows also criticize what we see in the media. Television programs like The Simpsons, David Letterman, and Mystery Science Theater 3000 take current events in the news, television, and film and criticize them with the use of satire. I feel that this use of satire is not a sign of insensitivity, but heathy skepticism with a bit of fun mixed in. So, I can really identify with what Ian Williams is saying.
However, not all mass media is greeted by authors with satirical criticism. In her epilogue of Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel uses mass media impact to back up many of her concluding claims. She utilizes mass media, not only to improve her credibility, but to raise the public's awareness of such a serious issue as depression. She uses examples and statistics from The New York Times to show how widespread the use of Prozac has become. In one instance on page 334 of her book, she cites the Times exclaiming that "six million in the United States alone" use Prozac. Later on, on page 341 and 342, she makes the connection of the number six million with the same number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. A pretty powerful connection, I think, and one that could not have been made without mass media. She uses statistics in her writing to make her claims seem more creditable. She strengthens her account of how commonplace depression is in America when she states, "According to a study done by the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, in 1990 alone 290 million work days were lost to depression. The same report also states that depression costs this country $43.7 billion annually" (339).
She may also find comfort in the fact that she is not the only one taking Prozac, and the main way that she finds comfort in that is her exposure to mass media. She refers to articles in the Times as well as books and journals that made the bestsellers list, such as Peter Kramer's book, Listening to Prozac. When she uses mass media in her writing, it makes her seem like an extrovert and in the know, an opposite from what she's like in the rest of her book.
I also try to use mass media in my writings to improve my credibility. Instead of going to the library for information, I usually surf the internet or read a magazine or newspaper first to find the information I need. When I need to be assured that I'm not the only one in the world with my unique interests, I find a magazine that shares my related hobbies, or I find web pages that are specific to my interests. I also give a standing ovation to mass media when it comes to raising the public's awareness of things that need to be known and dealt with.
So, Generation X is very much impacted by mass media because they were born into its prime and have grown up with it. Such exposure has made us very skeptical of what we see, and we react to it with an air of cynicism. Writers such as Ian Williams use satire in their writing to criticize what they see in the media. However, we also rely on mass media for our information and to bring us as a generation closer together, like Wurtzel. So, hopefully it is clear that mass media has had a massive impact on Generation X.