Generation X: Approximately, those born between 1964-1981.
MTV Generation: Approximately, those born between 1975-1985. Also known as the XY Cusp.
Generation Y: Approximately, those born between 1980-1994.

It seems like every few months I run across a newspaper or magazine article, or see/hear a news/radio broadcast that explores one of two things.
1) Gen X/MTV/Y is going to save the world.
2) Gen X/MTV/Y is running the earth into ruin.

So which is it? Save or ruin? Salvage or destroy? Unshackle or implant ID chips?

Dude, we’re too fucking lazy to do any of that. I couldn’t even think of any synonyms for the word ’save.’ I had to use thesaurus.com.
Born in the last quarter of 1980 I take a passive offense at being pushed in Gen X. No way am I in any way like anyone born in the mid ’60s. Those people are married with two to four kids, a mortgage, an SUV, a sedan, jobs they’ll never love, spring break in Orlando (Disney), three day weekends at the lake, ethnic dinner club with neighbors, minor plastic surgery, gyms with individual televisions on each bike, elliptical, stair climber and treadmill, kitchen islands, 42-50 inch flat screens and soft core On Demand. In general.
The MTV/XY Cusp doesn’t really work for me either. On a personal note, my parents refused to get cable throughout my entire childhood, teens and early to mid 20s. Actually, they got cable installed for the first time four months ago. My Mom likes HG TV and my Dad likes Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
So I choose to be part of Gen Y. Or, Jen Why. Which brings me to the title of this blog. I’ll break it down. The spin on the cultural term actually comes from one of my favorite original television series ever, ‘Wonderfalls.’ Episode three: Karma Chameleon, original air date 3.19.2004. Watch it; you won’t be sorry. It’s a small fraction of the genius that is Bryan Fuller. Other brilliance from Fuller include ‘Dead Like Me’ and ‘Pushing Daisies.’ (I’m trying to give as much credit as possible. I have some inkling that it may be plagiarism or copyright infringement, but I’m too lazy to check it out. Hence the plug for his shows which you can get on DVD and the praise for Bryan Fuller. Have I mentioned that he’s also incredibly great looking? And a creative inspiration?) The Jen portion has special meaning to me because it’s part of my first name. The Why pretty much sums up the rest. If you don’t understand you’re either too old or too young. Or you’re a traitor to Jen Why.
Some common characteristics of Jen Whyers.
*We’re educated. Usually by traditional means and a collection of non-traditional means. We’ll read everything and become easily outraged about any kind of injustice. But can’t manage to even donate money over the Internet. Mostly because we’re either lingering in college and don’t have money or we’re under employed and don’t have money.
*In a reaction to our under employment, we frequently use the word ‘whatever’ in response to our boss’ retreating back after they’ve instructed us to do something incredibly counter productive. And then we do it.
*Our parents secretly worry that we’re not getting married and starting a family before age 30, except they’re not very secretive about it.
*We do have a few friends that have gotten married and have started having babies before age 30. We love them but they totally freak us out with their sleeping schedules and cookouts with religious neighbors.
*We used to go out a lot, but now find clubs full of underagers and martini bars full of rich people who are probably republicans. So we take solace in either drinking alone at home or frequenting dive bars. The former affording limitless consumption and the former providing limitless consumption (like Russ the 35ish bartender who lives over the bar would ever cut you off or charge you full price). Yeah, I’ll have another rail G and T.
*We also have grand dreams about what our lives will be like in the future. We’ve had them since high school. Then, we thought our dreams would start to come together in college. In college we thought it would all happen when we graduated. Now that we’re a few years past our bachelors degree, it’s got to be coming in our late twenties-early thirties.
*We’re often awake at 3:00am.
*At 4:00am we check out the requirements for applying for law school. Ooh, there’s an exam you have to take. That seems like a lot of work.
*At 4:12am we buy something on Amazon with a credit card because our checking account only has $17 in it. We could wait a few hours and just go to Borders, but there’s no guaranty they’ll have it in stock, and this way it just comes right to us. Because of course we’ve paid extra for the overnight shipping.
So to address the rest of this blog title. The part about the uniting. If Jen Whyers wanted to, we could solve that whole debacle in the Middle East, remedy Africa’s starvation and genocide, eliminate the need for gas, halt if not reverse global warming and end illiteracy. Just throwing out a few of the big ones.
Except there’s a problem. We’re either hungover or still sleeping off the four Red Bulls we drank the night before. Disentangling and enlightening the world is an activity that has to start early in the day (thank you again, thesaurus.com). Slogging out of bed or off the couch at 2:00pm; all we want is some mac and cheese and an E! True Hollywood Story about some hot mess celebutante. By the time we’re re-hydrated, it’s like 4:00pm and we’re thinking about dinner. No one’s changing the world while famished. Hence the …what? We had good intentions but got distracted by not furthering our lives.
If you identify-awesome. Rad. I knew you were out there. If you think I’m an underachieving slacker that needs to sober and shape up…whatever.