Home » Lights, Camera, Action!

My generation has been called many things. The 'Myspace' generation, the Emo and Scene-kid gen eration, the light-year generation. Although all those tags may well be true, no thing is truer than the raw fact that that which unites us is our addiction, love it or hate it, to drama.

 

It's in the way we dress. Trends come and go like seasons and as quickly as the weather changes those micro skirts you wore last week have gone way out of fashion. Clothes, never the less, will always say something about a person, about their model. Bright neon prints or those over-sized sunglasses, they all make bold statements that beg 'look at me!' and thirst for a commotion of opinion amongst onlookers.

 

It's in the music we listen to. I have always been a bit of an eclectic; I like my Santana, Norah Jones, Incubus, but one wave that has washed over us all during our school years is that of the hugely emotional, depressing and dark music. Label it 'screamo', 'emo', 'grunge', or something indescribable, the fact of the matter is it cries for attention and conveys that in our lives there is something seriously major going on that forces emotions from us that we just can't handle. Often, people say they seek refuge in the lyrics of these kinds of songs, like they have found someone who can empathise with their state of mind.

 

It's in the way we behave and the relationships we have. Time has become nothing more than an inconvenient limitation to us, we, who belong to the faster life. We see what we want and we want it now. This has given rise to fast-food, fast cars, fast love, fast everything, to keep up with our accelerating demands.

 

With regards to behaviour, it seems to me that we like to change everything from our hair to our cars more often than ever. We grow bored of staring at one colour in the mirror every morning, of driving the same way and having people see you in the same way every day, so we change. We change because we can. We have grown so comfortable to the commercial world tending to our needs, that we expect it.

 

I think that even with our relationships, if there is no drama, we yawn and move on. We chuck the old and worn away and shop for the new model with a bit more roar. If there is no drama, we try to create it. If you think about all the arguments you have in your relationship, can you pinpoint the exact reasons and motives behind each one? My guess is that half of the time we like to stir up some fire just to uncover the excitement that gets tucked away a few months in. And, after a relationship, all the emotional baggage and confused confessions pontentially also demonstrate that we sometimes go into things purposefully to get out of them again.

 

Slowing down is not a phrase found in most young persons' dictionaries. Perhaps it's just part of growing up - a surge of energy and curiosity that makes us want everything at once until we find our footing. Whatever the reasons, I always say that while you are young you should live in a city. Experience the lights, the fights, the people and the drama - because when you're older, you'll hate it.