Spunk & Bite Page 20

  SOUND BITE: Struggle? Ay yo, what’s up with that, brah? IMHO, that is like totally Gen X. I’m like, “I am so not going 2 kill myself for any revolution ‘less I get stuff?” Yeah, I’m down with holiness, but right now I be probing my iPod, Xbox, and cell: And you see how many fingers free?

  And now appearing in your neighborhood . . .

  TENTATIVE NAME: Generation Z

  DEFINITION: Tomorrow’s readers, born 2004–2025

  * * *

  GENERATIONS, REAL AND INVENTED

  Strictly speaking, a generation is all the individuals born (and living) at about the same time. How much do people differ from one fifteen-to-thirty-year era to the next? How much can an age group be typed?

  No one denies that such broad historical events as wars, revolutions, and depressions stamp the character of generations, or that developments like the Internet shape lifestyles and attitudes. But when it comes to a generation’s traits, all labeling is selective. Focusing as they do on certain conspicuous members of a population, labels ignore eternal differences between rich and poor, urban and rural, liberal and conservative, educated and undereducated, mainstream and marginal. Was everyone in the Lost Generation lost? Was every Beatnik on the road? Was every Xer a slacker? Was any Xer a slacker?

  If generation-naming was ever culturally regulated, it has now been “deregulated,” as sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild puts it. Marketers and the media now slice off new generations as thinly as they please. Generations are identified by their digital devices, cable channels, leisure addictions; they are confused with so-called “communities,” or affinity groups of mixed ages—the Heavy-Metal Community, the NASCAR Community, and so on.

  And who decrees which traits will represent a generation? While Gen X and Gen Y are true population groups (see the “Generations: A Pocket Guide” sidebar, above), their defining characteristics seem to be anyone’s call. If Gen Xers were slackers, why were they working eighty-hour weeks in silicon valleys? Why are so many materialistic and sarcastic Gen Yers flocking to religion?

  Increasingly, generations are defying labels, inventing their own traits and even their own cycles. Authors Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner, have written of twenty-somethings, for example, experiencing “quarter-life crises”—burnout resulting from jobs, relationships, and the search for purpose—that mid-lifers once claimed as their own.

  FINDING A HANDLE

  Are writers left with anything that can at least tilt them toward a generation’s affinities, help weave its codes into their syntax? Perhaps. Substantial numbers of people within a given age group do fit and/or buy into its stereotypes; they will follow certain observable patterns, as of expression, dress, and entertainment. Writers can study these patterns before attempting to infiltrate a generation’s media or create representative characters.

  For example, the media-and techno-savvy Yers who read Spin magazine expect a certain style of evaluative prose: a fusion of elegant and funky dictions, academic smarts, encyclopedic music knowledge, and street cred. Consider these snippets from various issues:

  . . . a heady harmonic-minor groove. . . . an ominous Autechreish pulse {that} morphs into a tightly packed metal riff . . . a history of consciousness over digitally triggered tablas and congas. . . . Imagine a Miami bass cassette in a boom box with dying batteries, with coked-up gangstas toasting beat-downs atop the noise. . . . {D}espite their hope-obliterating ennui, {they} can come strong with the stomp-box thunder . . . and sometimes you wish they’d just stick to anthemic howling. . . .recontextualized, the self-esteem is off the chain.

  In the meantime, Boomer grandparents and older Xers with kids continue in their own recognizable idioms, some writers—as in these clips from Redbook and Ladies Home Journal, respectively— lingering in the still-successful mix of psychology, sentiment, and self-orientation:

  Most of us females start out emotionally connected to other people’s feelings. Our central emotional task is to develop a strong, separate self.

  I’m loving it. . . . {My kids} need me, and tracking down footwear and translating homework is what being a mom is all about. And even now . . . after leaving the land of the solo-traveler chick and starting a family, I like the way that feels.

  BEING GEN Y

  Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, many a writer may want to jump the generational gap, mimicking the sound of a younger group or a special segment of it—let’s say a Boomer aiming for Gen-Y-teen verisimilitude. Well, mimicking is what writers do much of the time; that and projecting themselves into the heads of characters and readers. Those with an attentive ear should be able to pull off at least the short bursts needed for writing effective dialogue. Daily exposure to live teens might be research enough; but for style clues, one can also study ’zines, cable shows, blogs, and other forms of teen-oriented media.

  What would be learned? As it exists today, the casual speech of Gen-Y teens and young twenty-somethings—especially urban twenty-somethings—demonstrates the following salient characteristics, among many others:

  • sarcastic tone; manic leaps from the serious to the banal;

  • cute, patched-in catch phrases (Hello? Can we talk about ME now?);

  • ubiquitous intensifiers and word-compounding (That is so totally droolworthy);

  • black slang, Hispanic inflections; edgy raunch;

  • flip and gay-influenced locutions (Oh, look—it’s Mr. Get-to-the-Pointy-Pants); and

  • rude, impatient interjections (And you are telling me this, WHY?).

  Of course, casual speech is not the whole of a literary style. Young writers go well beyond hyperventilation to manifest that wired, quick-witted, stand-up-comedic quality that seems to have captivated all today’s generations. Among its elements are over-the-top images, pop-culture references, jokey punch lines, subcultural vocabularies, neologisms, and twisted grammar.

  Many of these traits are imitable—even by brooding Dosto-evskian writers, if determined enough. To achieve more than superficial mimicry, however—to rise above stereotypes—one might have to plunge into the generational world as energetically as Tom Wolfe did for his 2004 college-life novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons. Wolfe, at about age seventy, toured one campus after another, infiltrating parties and observing social nuances until he felt he could get it right. Though critics caught several off-notes, Wolfe got it right enough to hit the bestseller lists, including those on college campuses.

  A work like Wolfe’s, set more or less in a fixed time period, is one thing; the speech patterns and likely interests of its characters can be researched and locked in place. That’s how it was at the time, period. But it’s another thing to capture a style that will be up-to-the-minute when read. Consider the life span of any style—a matter of days in the youth culture. Prose that attempts to be with-it today had better see print by tomorrow, or perhaps within two or three months at the most.

  With books, the year-or-more turnaround time between the manuscript and print stages can curdle the voguish into the cringey, at least among trend-conscious readerships. Erica Kennedy’s hip-hop-chick novel Bling came out just when that term (for showy jewelry) was showing up on “enough-already!” lists. Happily, the book itself was in tune with its audience—strong in stylistic touches that, while transitory, were likely to have a few years’ momentum.

  BEYOND GENERATIONAL BOUNDARIES

  Reaching for today’s book-buying audience, writers have good reason to embrace the more engaging elements of Gen-Y style—if they fit with one’s topic and treatment. Older writers may consider their usual devices engaging enough; but they still might want to filter out geezer terms that creep unintentionally into their work: terms like dungarees, gym shoes, record player, and others that will similarly distance them from Gen-Y readers. They might heed one of those lists that circulates from time to time, enumerating references that mean little to those born after, say, 1983: Mork, J. R., typewriter, pry-off bottle cap, stove-cooked popcorn, “Where’s the Beef?” and so
on.

  To go against one’s grain—to seemingly pander to another generation—will strike many writers as abhorrent. Is it really necessary for commercial success? Of course not. But relevance to an audience certainly is—and unless your language, style, or message transcends generational barriers, some fine-tuning might be in order. And some very fine tuning at that, since any age group comprises a wide variety of backgrounds, personalities, and tastes (roughly a third of Gen Y, for example, describes itself as non-Caucasian).

  On the other hand, certain predilections and aversions of your age group will inevitably overlap with those of younger groups. You might well share stands on, say, the environment, war, poverty, or love. Within these commonalities, you’ll cross the gap. Ilene Cooper, whose acclaimed fiction for young adults includes The Kids from Kennedy Middle School series, reminds us: “The emotions and worries of teens are not that much different from what they were in my day: romance, sex, bullies, parents. The difference is the lingo. But that’s easy enough if you’re willing to watch MTV and subscribe to Teen People.”

  Then, too, the last thing any generation wants is a steady diet of its own voice. Though Gen-Y novelists are now blossoming, only one (Lauren Weisberger) appeared on a recent list of campus best-sellers. The other twenty-nine authors ranged from pre-Boomers (Tom Wolfe, Philip Roth) to such diverse Xers as Dave Eggers and Sophie Kinsella.

  Writers have to see what works. They can stick to what feels comfortable, or they can tweak language and style to engage new readerships. But never should they abandon the fundamentals of storytelling or of poetry—those principles that have worked since Homer and Beowulf. Nor should writers shortchange their own passions. Yes, do think outside your generational box to connect with contemporary audiences. But tell a story brilliantly, touch the inner self, and readers will embrace your passions as well as your values—all the more so if you have relieved the soul’s weariness of generational themes.

  The next generation off the assembly line may be “not-your-father’s-car” or your own old beater, according to those who label it. But under the hood, the forces that engage the human spirit will look pretty much the same.

  TWENTY-NINE

  HOT POP AND EPHEMERAGY

  Determined to be every bit as punchy and engaging as the competition, many writers pepper their works with references to popular culture—the newly popular, the lingering, and the nostalgic. A seductive practice, it is also a risky one—as fizzle-prone as low-carb Pepsi or a John McEnroe talk show. (See the risk?) But when a pop reference is on the money, precise and incandescently clever, applause rolls in like royalties to P. Diddy and 50 Cent combined.

  In the literary world, risk-takers can earn such admiring words as these from The New York Times, praising one of Mark Leyner’s madcap novels: “Love seems lukewarm compared to Leyner’s red-hot riffing on the ephemera of popular culture.” That “red-hot” label could be slapped on to most of Leyner’s work, and on to that of several other manically tuned-in authors—at least when their works first flame through this kwazy, pop-obsessed atmosphere we occupy.

  But what exactly comprises the realm of “pop”? Apparently, just about everything that flashes by the window of mass notoriety: celebrities, commercial products, films and television programs, political figures, comic book characters, fashion, catchphrases, jargon, social trends, and other such transitory phenomena. Building on the attractions and aversions they evoke, writers use these elements in figures of speech—metaphor, hyperbole, allusion, etc.—or simply haul them into their works for (usually comic) effect. I offer the term ephemeragy for all such uses of pop references. And ephemeragy, I would say, is one of the most stimulating devices in the writer’s toolbox.

  GET ’EM WHILE THEY’RE HOT

  Stimulating indeed are the latest ingots from the entertainment mills, the news furnaces, the forges of commerce. They already spark and glow in the minds of thousands, perhaps millions, of digitally connected readers. Why shouldn’t one seize upon them? Writers have always been drawn to the fleetingly popular—that’s why our classics abound in footnotes. Take a figure like Bonturo Danti of Lucca, notorious in Dante Alighieri’s time as a symbol of corruption, then forgotten. When he shows up in The Inferno, jammed into boiling pitch, Dante describes him sarcastically as the only Luccan politician innocent of graft. That, for contemporary readers, was the equivalent of saying, “He was cleaner than Enron.”

  Ephemeragy not only pleases an audience, but can make a writer (or a character) appear au courant, hip, with-it—the go-to source for what’s hot and how to spin it. This is no minor laurel, especially in journalism. But then again, there’s those risks to be considered: No matter how clear it seems to the author, a pop reference can soar over most readers’ heads, or arrive so dated that the fossil who delivered it can only be pitied.

  And so writers take their chances, gauging as best they can the longevity of the material and its window of exposure. Some items are fit for no more than a Tonight show monologue; some resonate for years, and a few become iconic. Here, for example, are some ephemeragies that tickled me when they were fresh. Take it on faith that the context set them up brilliantly; but as for staying power—well, you be the judge:

  Ryan and Travis, as the bobbing heads {of the film Open Water} project the manic indignation of Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie forced to pump gas.

  (—Mike D’Angelo, Esquire)

  “All you’re wearing {to a Halloween party} is a black polyester suit and giant googly-eyed glasses.”

  He . . . smirked. “I’m Alan Greenspan.”

  I thought he was the lady from the Old Navy commercials.

  (—Leslie Stella, the Easy Hour)

  I accidentally swallowed Mike Tyson’s false teeth. I can’t believe it! They were gold, but money isn’t the issue. . . . The problem was that Mike was planning to have those teeth set into a medallion of commitment to me.

  (—David Sedaris, Barrel Fever)

  Before this {flap over discussions of sexual preference in children’s programming} is over, we’re going to find out that SpongeBob is the illicit spawn of the Tampa shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge.

  (—Maureen Dowd, The New York Times)

  “You tell us what you want—which films you want Arnold Schwarzenegger inserted into and we do it right here for you. . . . you can even fax your order in and we’ll deliver the Schwarzeneggerized videos to your home. . . .” “OK. I’d like My Fair Lady with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Professor Henry Higgins, Amadeus with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Salieri instead of Murray F. Abraham.”

  (—Mark Leyner, Et Tu, Babe)

  {The film Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights seems} like an episode of American Dreams written by Pepé Le Pew . . . with lines that sound as if they were spoken by Dirk Diggler in the porno-movies-within-the-movie in Boogie Nights.

  (—Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times)

  Why did these ephemeragies tickle me back then? How could they not, taking risible characters from pop culture and wielding them as tools of ridicule and farce? But of course, there will be no tickling of readers who are unfamiliar with Pepé LePew (the Warner Bros. Skunk of Love), or cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants of Nickelodeon, and so on. Theoretically an author could stop to explain an item, as Dowd does briefly with Bubba the Love Sponge. But economy is crucial in ephemeragy; if you have to explain it, then you’ve chosen the wrong reference, or you’ve chosen it for the wrong audience.

  To the authors of most of our examples, the pop references would have seemed relatively enduring at the time they were chosen. But things lose their notoriety or acquire a new type of it. Audiences change their points of view. A television series folds, and with it die such allusions as, “They’re single again, with Felicity-esque daughters,” as a Time staffer wrote in 1999, referencing the soon-to-be-concluded drama series Felicity. Each year, writers need to weed out ephemeragies based on yesteryear’s headlines—especially those done to death and back again: Janet Jackson’s
“wardrobe malfunction,” Howard Dean’s “I have a scream” speech, Martha Stewart’s jail time. Or, if discarding such references is simply too painful, writers can archive them for use in accordance with the following schedule (an update of James Laver’s “cycle of fashion,” first presented in Tastes and Fashion in 1945):

  The Cycle of Pop:

  Today: Hot

  One month old: Tired

  One year old: Cringey

  Five years old: Carbon-dated

  Ten years old: Nostalgic

  Twenty years old: Retro

  Thirty years old: Classic

  Fifty years old: Innocent

  One hundred years old: Ur-

  THE TIME RISK

  Ephemeragy for the purpose of mockery—perhaps the most familiar type—runs a special risk. What if the item referenced undergoes some dark fate, such as grave illness or death, before or soon after the mockery sees publication? The very ephemerality of pop references bids one to ignore posterity; but posterity doesn’t go away. For instance, journalist Mike Barnicle wrote in 1997 that John F. Kennedy Jr. had “the body of Joe Piscopo and the brain of Sonny Bono”—forgettable, tasteless, and tragic ephemeragy, as recalled two years later by columnist Frank Rich. Barnicle’s reference was mean-spirited enough in itself; but in early 1998, after a skiing accident in which the well-liked Sonny Bono died of head injuries, it seemed more tasteless than ever.