Sometimes I forget that “today’s kids” never met a vinyl record. Sometimes I realize that “today’s youth” barely (maybe not at all) know about the U.S. war in Vietnam. Oh wow, my 15 and 13 year-old nieces were unclear who the Beatles were!
My icons (people, places, things) are different than theirs. Indeed, each generation has its own icons and conditions (what’s happening in the environment…like WWII or the Cold War or the GEC or…)
Check out the Beloit College Mindset List for the class of 2016 (the kids entering college right now). What an amazing and insight list…put together by Beloit every August since 1998. For this generation, born in 1994: Kurt Cobain, Jackie Kennedy, Richard Nixon and John Wayne have always been dead. Women have always been airplane space shuttle pilots. Slavery has always been unconstitutional.
Why do you and I care? Because they are the next fundraisers and we have to communicate with them and they have to communicate with donors who come from different generations. And because we might be buying them birthday and graduate gifts, too!
