The Betwixters: A Look Back at the Before and After Generation By Someone Who Should Be Looking Forward

By Nicholas Ewertz

Born between 1976 and 1985, Betwixters fall between Generation X and Millennials. Previously undefined, this before and after generation has helped usher in drastic social change that pushes us closer together while simultaneously pulling us apart.

A Betwixter's life is a paradox. At one end of the spectrum sits a world yet to be introduced to smartphones and the Internet while the social media driven culture of today occupies the other. Betwixters have found themselves in the middle of a rapidly changing culture, forever bridging the gap between old school and new.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicholas Ewertz
• Release date: Apr 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476079349

Nicholas Ewertz

By day, I'm an advertising copywriter. By night, I transform into a tenacious couch potato with an impressive array of useless TV and movie knowledge. When not selling my soul to advertising, I can be found cheering on the Chicago Cubs while simultaneously attempting to get a life.

Book preview

The Betwixters

A Look Back at the Before and After Generation

By Someone Who Should Be Looking Forward

Nicholas Ewertz

*****

Copyright 2012 Nicholas Ewertz

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 – The Walls Come Down

Opinionated Consumer Socialites of the Internet Era

Chapter 2 – Global Goes Mobile

The Rapid Evolution of Cell Phone Culture

Chapter 3 – Friends With(out) Benefits

The Casual Sexification of Chivalry Killing Cougars

Chapter 4 – The Age of Isolation

The Socially Awkward Rise of a Nonverbal Lifestyle

Chapter 5 – The Pussification of America

The Devolution of Politically Correct Youth Soccer Fields

Chapter 6 – 15 Minutes of Fame

The Inflated Self-Worth of Reality TV Culture

Chapter 7 – 9/11

The Full body Cavity Searches of Non-Conforming Frequent Fliers

Chapter 8 – The Financial Crisis and Me

The Mortgaged Promise of a Brighter Tomorrow

Chapter 9 – Rollerball

Prophesying the Rise of Jonathan E.

Afterword

*****

With apologies to my mother.

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Introduction

If my current self could go back and tell 15-year-old me what he could look forward to I’m pretty sure his head would explode. I’ve been fortunate enough to live during exceptional times. While the winds of change are felt by every generation, it seems like an F5 Tornado has encircled mine. I’m not part of Generation X. And I’m not a Millennial. No, I belong to a different generation entirely. I’m a Betwixter.

Betwixter [bih-twix-stir]

noun

1. Someone born roughly between 1976 and 1985.

2. A generation that’s lived before, during and sometimes after the advent of society-changing revolutions like the Internet.

3. Bridging the gap between Generation X and Millennials.

In the years we’ve spent on Earth, before and after scenarios have dominated our existence. Take the Internet, for example. A Betwixter has lived roughly half their life without the Internet and the other half with it. As a result, we’ve grown and evolved with it. This enables us to adapt, accept and help usher in whatever new change has come along over the past 30 years. And it’s in this characteristic that the Betwixter generation stands alone. We’re a bridge connecting the past to the future.

Nothing has played a larger role in shaping and reshaping the fabric of society over the past 30 years than technology. Two easy examples are the Internet and cell phones. Other than perhaps the telegraph, no innovations have helped shrink the world more. But technology isn’t the lone cause behind one of the most dramatic cultural changes in history.

Besides the aforementioned before and after scenarios in the Betwixter lifespan, I’ve had some experiences that have helped shape what you’re about to read. I traveled to Europe a few months before 9/11, and then visited New York shortly after that tragedy befell our nation. I also worked in the subprime mortgage industry right before the financial crisis hit. Those are just a couple of examples. The goal of this book is to examine the cultural change agents over the past 30 years, looking at the positive and negative effects along the way. I’ll interweave some personal stories to help define and characterize my previously undefined generation.

What follows is my argument that the past three decades have seen more drastic social change than any 30-year span since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Yes, I know the 1960’s had the civil rights movement and the space race, but the social change that I’ll be covering in this book has been largely absent of government intervention.

Whether examining 15 Minutes of Fame, looking at The Age of Isolation or tracing The Pussification of America, it should be a fun ride. A lot has changed over the past few years, and my generation is still smack dab in the middle of it. Writing this book at this moment in time prevents me from becoming the old man at the deli counter waxing poetic about the good old days prior to the world going to hell. I’ve got about 30 years before that happens. So let’s look back at the previous 30.

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1

The Walls Come Down

The opinionated consumer socialites of the Internet era

Playboy introduced me to the Internet when I was a sophomore in high school. Over lunch hour one day, I saw a couple of seniors in an empty classroom huddled around the computer. The teacher was opportunistically not around, and the door was locked. For some reason, they opened the door and allowed me to stare excitedly into the bright screen of tomorrow.

We obviously had no idea what Internet search engines like Google or Yahoo were back then. Hell, their primitive equivalent probably didn’t even exist. So if you’re between the ages of 16 and 18 and have access to this crazy new thing called the Internet, what do you type into the web browser? The answer, of course, is playboy.com.

I don’t remember much about it other than we were disappointed. But I have no idea what we were expecting. That month’s issue online? A gallery of naked ladies to drool over? We had no clue. All we knew was that it took the page 30 excruciatingly long seconds to load—which seems like three weeks when you’re trying to view boobs on a teacher’s computer at school.

The whole experience lasted maybe three to four minutes (insert sexual joke here). I remember our thoughts quickly turned from This is the greatest thing ever to So…was that it? in the blink of an eye. I left the room shaking my head as I walked through the hall muttering to myself, Maybe someday I’ll be able to see naked ladies on this Internet thing.

Today, anyone who fails to activate their pop-up blockers can tell you that naked ladies (and men) are found all over the Internet. In fact, according to the TV special Porn: Business of Pleasure, every second $3,072 dollars are spent on adult content, more than 28,000 Internet users are viewing it, and 372 users are typing adult terms into search engines. I don’t think that’s what Al Gore had in mind when he invented the Internet.

Salvation for the lonely man – that’s what the Internet’s become. You can surround yourself with friends who are thousands of miles away all while sitting comfortably on your couch. Keeping in touch has never been easier and more immediate. But it’s also never been more of a passive exercise.

You have to work hard to feel lonely on the Internet. With a click of a button, you can find people with similar passions, goals and views. Think you’re the only one who enjoys woodcarving while hanging upside down? You’ll no doubt find a message board or group dedicated to that craft.

The Internet has developed into a great recruiting and gathering tool. Whether political activists, hate groups, conspiracy theorists or any organization imaginable, the Internet is the 21st century light tower that illuminates a rallying cry for people to gather and assemble. It also makes geography less relevant. Your group of upside down woodcarvers can be spread out all over the world but can come together online. The telegraph connected the world like never before. The Internet has shrunk it.

But bringing so many people together isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Every onramp to the information superhighway is cloaked in anonymity. You know the hot chick you’re talking to in that chat room? There’s a 50/50 chance that she’s really a dude. That’s an extreme example, sure. But our online personalities often don’t reflect our real personalities. The protection anonymity affords us can be seen in the comments of any article, story and blog. Suddenly the most soft-spoken person finds the courage to be insulting and hurtful because of the computer screen they can hide behind (hatergirl189, fuck you!).

The growth and evolution of the Internet has also invited laziness. Remember that terrible movie with Sandra Bullock called The Net? Yes, it was ridiculous. But the life of isolation the main character leads is much more possible and even encouraged today. Everything has an online presence: companies, stories, people, services, you name it. You can find anything you want online these days, as long as you’re willing to look for it. Thanks to the Internet, house arrest is tolerable.

Until about the 4th grade, the only video game I had was called Go play outside. The next year I got a Sega Master System. Not a Sega Genesis—the Master System. I thought that thing was awesome. But even though I played it quite a bit, it was a part of my life. My life didn’t revolve around it.

As the technology evolved over the years, video games found a new home on the Internet as well as online networks. Today, people invest hours and hours of time playing games online. But the online capabilities of video games offer a new level of human interaction, even if it isn’t actually human.

The lure of the online game is simple to understand. It’s fun, adventurous, but more than anything, it offers the user an escape from their current life. From 9 to 5 you might have a shitty job or maybe a loveless marriage that you have to deal with at home. You can reinvent yourself online in the mythical backdrop of your choosing. And you meet, interact and team up with people who share the same interests.

As the Internet continues to evolve, human interaction evolves with it. Consumerism, social interaction and news are three areas that have been transformed and transfixed by the Internet. The consequences haven’t been all positive. But it’s certainly come a long way since a group of teenagers were captivated by their first glimpse of playboy.com.

In 1894, Sears, Roebuck and Co. introduced their catalog Book of Bargains: A Money Saver for Everyone. This revolutionized consumerism in America. Westward expansion had spread, driving the country further apart. With the advent of the Sears catalog, suddenly it didn’t matter if you lived in the middle of nowhere, you could receive the same goods as someone living in Chicago.

The Sears catalog helped shrink an ever-expanding world with its home delivery service. A century later, the Internet was doing the same thing, but much more dramatically. Right from the get-go, it’s had far-reaching effects for business and consumers. Shopping, as it turned out, was made for online.

I remember reading about what was going to be available on this new fangled thing called the Internet back in the mid-‘90s. Everything I read made it sound like there would be vast areas to shop online, like malls where you could find anything. I remember wondering how that would work. Would you navigate through graphics on your screen that look like an actual mall? And would there be escalators? Needless to say, I had a lot to learn.

Growing up, there was one moment each year that got me a little more excited than I’d like to admit. And that’s when the JC Penny Christmas catalog arrived in the mail. I’d spend days looking through that thing, marking specific items I just plain wanted, forget about for Christmas. It was the only thing I knew that compiled a shit ton of products in one place for consumers to browse. That catalog was my