The "Me" generation (also called Generation W) in the United States is a term referring to the baby boomer generation and the self-involved qualities that some people associate with it. The 1970s were dubbed the "Me decade" by writer Tom Wolfe; Christopher Lasch was another writer who commented on the rise of a culture of narcissism among the younger generation of that era. 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.
Origins
Jogging and other health and diet trends went mainstream with the Me generation.
The cultural change in the United States during the 1970s that was
experienced by the baby boomers is complex. 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). The Civil Rights Movement
gave rebellious young people serious goals to work towards. Cultural
experimentation was justified as being directed toward spiritual or
intellectual enlightenment. The mid to late 1970s, in contrast, were a
time of increased economic crisis and disillusionment with idealistic
politics among the young, particularly after the resignation of Richard Nixon and the end of the Vietnam War. Unapologetic hedonism became acceptable among the young.
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.
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 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.
That generation had learned values associated with self-sacrifice. The
deprivations of the Depression had taught that generation to work hard,
save money and not spend it, and to cherish family and community ties.
Loyalty to institutions, traditional religious faiths, and other common
bonds were what that generation considered to be the cultural
foundations of their country. Baby boomers gradually abandoned those values in large numbers, a development that was entrenched during the 1970s.
The 1970s have been described as a transitional era when the self-help of the 1960s became self-gratification, and eventually devolved into the selfishness of the 1980s.
Characteristics
Discos and nightclubbing became popular with Me generation singles during the 1970s.
Health and exercise fads, New Age spirituality such as Scientology 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 1970s. Human potential, emotional honesty,
"finding yourself', and new therapies became hallmarks of the culture. The marketing of lifestyle products, eagerly consumed by baby boomers with disposable income
during the 1970s, became an inescapable part of the culture. Revlon's
marketing staff did research into young women's cultural values during
the 1970s, and the research revealed that young women were striving to
compete with men in the workplace and to express themselves as
independent individuals. Revlon launched the "lifestyle" perfume Charlie, with marketing aimed at glamorizing the values of the new 1970s woman, and it became the world's best-selling perfume.
The introspection of the baby boomers and their focus on
self-fulfillment has been examined in a serious light in pop culture.
Films such as An Unmarried Woman (1978), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Ordinary People (1980) and The Big Chill
(1983) brought the inner struggles of baby boomers to a wide audience.
The self-absorbed side of 1970s life was given a sharp and sometimes
poignant satirization in Manhattan (1979). More acerbic lampooning came in Shampoo (1975) and Private Benjamin (1980). The Me generation has also been satirized in retrospect, as the generation called "Generation X" reached adulthood, for example, in Parenthood (1989). Forrest Gump (1994) summed up the decade with Gump's cross-country jogging quest for meaning during the 1970s, complete with a tracksuit, which was worn as much as a fashion statement as an athletic necessity during the era.
The satirization of the Me generation's 'me-first' attitude perhaps reached its peak with the television sitcom Seinfeld,
which did not include conscious moral development for its baby boomer
characters, but rather the opposite. Its plots did not have teaching
lessons for its audience and its creators deliberately held the position
that it was a "show about nothing."
Persistence of the label
The Me generation, for the most part, embraced entertainment and consumer culture.
The term "Me generation" has persisted over the decades and is connected to the baby boomers generation. Some writers, however, have also named the Millennials "the Me Generation" or "Generation Me", while Elspeth Reeve in The Atlantic noted that narcissism is a symptom of youth in most generations.
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. This was the environment
that precipitated gravitation toward Punk rock among America's disaffected young people. By 1980, when Ronald Reagan
was elected President, a growing number of America's baby boomers had
also begun turning toward conservative political and cultural
priorities.
At the same time, the realities behind the label have not escaped notice. As Eastern religions and rituals such as yoga grew during the 1970s, at least one writer observed a New Age corruption of the popular understanding of "realization" taught by Neo-Vedantic practitioners, away from spiritual realization and towards "self-realization". The leading edge of the baby boomers, who were counter-culture "hippies"
and political activists during the 1960s, have been referred to
sympathetically as the "Now generation", in contrast to the Me
generation.
