Class of 2010 - I Must Be Getting Old!

BELOIT COLLEGE'S MINDSET LIST® FOR THE CLASS OF 2010

At the beginning of the fall semester since 1998, Beloit College in Wisconsin has released the Beloit College Mindset List. This list is the creation of Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Public Affairs Director Ron Nief, it looks at the cultural touchstones (icons and events) that have shaped the lives of today’s first-year students.

Members of the class of 2010, entering college this fall, were mostly born in 1988. Billy Carter, Lucille Ball, Gilda Radner, Billy Martin, Andy Gibb, and Secretariat died before these students were born. I was born in 1962, you can do the math.

1. The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
plez sez: I still remember the drill of hiding under my desk at school in the event that the Soviet Union "dropped the bomb" on us.

2. They have known only two presidents.
plez sez: I was born when Kennedy was in the White House and remember every one from "Tricky Dick" Nixon to W.

3. For most of their lives, major U.S. airlines have been bankrupt.
plez sez: I used to fly to college on Piedmont and Eastern Airlines.

4. Manuel Noriega has always been in jail in the U.S.
plez sez: He's still alive?

5. They have grown up getting lost in "big boxes."
plez sez: I remember when the small town I grew up in opened its first fast food restaurant: a Kentucy Fried Chicken that only had one kind of fried chicken.

6. There has always been only one Germany.
plez sez: The East Germans were as reviled as the Soviets.

7. They have never heard anyone actually "ring it up" on a cash register.
plez sez: As a teenager, I bagged groceries at the first store that had scanners to read the bar codes on packages and every package didn't even have them.

8. They are wireless, yet always connected.
plez sez: My mother still uses a rotary phone in her house.

9. A stained blue dress is as famous to their generation as a third-rate burglary was to their parents'.
plez sez: Ahhhh... the days of Watergate when every Republican was considered a crook.

10. Thanks to pervasive headphones in the back seat, parents have always been able to speak freely in the front.

11. A coffee has always taken longer to make than a milkshake.

12.Smoking has never been permitted on U.S. airlines.
plez sez: Airline seats used to have ashtrays built into them.

13. Faux fur has always been a necessary element of style.
plez sez: Faux fur has always been tacky.

14. The Moral Majority has never needed an organization.

15. They have never had to distinguish between the St. Louis Cardinals baseball and football teams.
plez sez: Or how about the Los Angeles Rams and the Baltimore Colts?

16. DNA fingerprinting has always been admissible evidence in court.

17. They grew up pushing their own miniature shopping carts in the supermarket.
plez sez: Paper or plastic?

18. They grew up with and have outgrown faxing as a means of communication.
plez sez: You could never read the fine print on faxes anyway.

19. "Google" has always been a verb.
plez sez: You can find ANYTHING on the Internet.

20. Text messaging is their email.
plez sez: In early systems, email was confined to the company that you worked for.

21. Milli Vanilli has never had anything to say.
plez sez: Fab and Rob should've kept their "Best New Artist" Grammy - so what, they couldn't sing. Don't forget my number.

22. Mr. Rogers, not Walter Cronkite, has always been the most trusted man in America.
plez sez: "And that's the way it is..."

23. Bar codes have always been on everything, from library cards and snail mail to retail items.
plez sez: Just think, someone used to have to go around a grocery store and put a small tag with the price on everything.

24. Madden has always been a game, not a Superbowl-winning coach.
plez sez: Go Raiders!

25. Phantom of the Opera has always been on Broadway.

26. "Boogers" candy has always been a favorite for grossing out parents.
plez sez: Never heard of 'em.

27. There has never been a "skyhook" in the NBA.
plez sez: There will ALWAYS be a "sky hook" in the NBA.

28. Carbon copies are oddities found in their grandparents' attics.
plez sez: Press real hard when you write so your signature shows up in triplicate.

29. Computerized player pianos have always been tinkling in the lobby.

30. Non-denominational mega-churches have always been the fastest growing religious organizations in the U.S.
plez sez: I think it was Karl Marx who said, "Religion is the opiate of the masses".

31. They grew up in mini-vans.
plez sez: I hate mini-vans.

32. Reality shows have always been on television.
plez sez: What ever happened to classic westerns like "Rawhide", "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza"?

33. They have no idea why we needed to ask "...can we all get along?"
plez sez: We owe so much to Rodney King and the Los Angeles Police.

34. They have always known that "In the criminal justice system the people have been represented by two separate yet equally important groups."
plez sez: "Law and Order" is the best show on television.

35. Young women's fashions have never been concerned with where the waist is.
plez sez: HUH?

36. They have rarely mailed anything using a stamp.
plez sez: Thank God!

37. Brides have always worn white for a first, second, or third wedding.
plez sez: No comment.

38. Being techno-savvy has always been inversely proportional to age.
plez sez: Back in the olden days (the early 80's), older, rich people where the only ones who could afford new technology.

39. "So" as in "Sooooo New York," has always been a drawn-out adjective modifying a proper noun, which in turn modifies something else.
plez sez: Whatever!

40. Affluent troubled teens in Southern California have always been the subjects of television series.
plez sez: Let's thank Aaron Spelling for another indelible cultural icon: "Beverly Hills 90210", which started in 1990.

41. They have always been able to watch wars and revolutions live on television.
plez sez: I remember very grainy black and white clips about what was going on in Vietnam during the nightly news, but to this day, I have no idea why we were over there fighting - similar to Iraq, except we now have CNN giving blow-by-blow details in high definition television.

42. Ken Burns has always been producing very long documentaries on PBS.

43. They are not aware that "flock of seagulls hair" has nothing to do with birds flying into it.

44. Retin-A has always made America look less wrinkled.
plez sez: Good thing I am aging gracefully.

45. Green tea has always been marketed for health purposes.
plez sez: Hey, Lipton's with a slice of lemon ain't half bad, either.

46. Public school officials have always had the right to censor school newspapers.

47. Small white holiday lights have always been in style.
plez sez: My parents' Christmas trees always had lights that were all of the colors of the rainbow, and each bulb was about 300 degrees. For some reason, the little candles we put in each window only had blue 300 degree lights.

48. Most of them never had the chance to eat bad airline food.
plez sez: Well, the airlines rarely feed you these days, now they don't even serve peanuts.

49. They have always been searching for "Waldo."
plez sez: Who's Waldo?

50. The really rich have regularly expressed exuberance with outlandish birthday parties.

51. Michael Moore has always been showing up uninvited.

52. They never played the game of state license plates in the car.
plez sez: I always found that game to be boring, because I grew up in New York with 3 older brothers and I always got stuck with states like Montana and Idaho!

53. They have always preferred going out in groups as opposed to dating.
plez sez: And people wonder why we have movies like "Brokeback Mountain" in wide distribution.

54. There have always been live organ donors.

55. They have always had access to their own credit cards.
plez sez: My 5 year old daughter keeps asking me for her own cell phone - what is this world coming to?

56. They have never put their money in a "Savings & Loan."
plez sez: My first bank account was in my town's Savings & Loan when I was 6 years old - $20 I got for my birthday.

57. Sara Lee has always made underwear.
plez sez: Does she still make coffee cake?

58. Bad behavior has always been getting captured on amateur videos.
plez sez: No pictures, please.

59. Disneyland has always been in Europe and Asia.
plez sez: When I grew up, Disney was in California.

60. They never saw Bernard Shaw on CNN.
plez sez: WOW! Bernie Shaw ushered in the cable revolution and round-the-clock news reporting.

61. Beach volleyball has always been a recognized sport.
plez sez: Only at family reunions.

62. Acura, Lexus, and Infiniti have always been luxury cars of choice.
plez sez: Cadillac Coupe DeVille with power windows, 8 way seats, and an 8 track player - now that's luxury.

63. Television stations have never concluded the broadcast day with the national anthem.
plez sez: When I grew up, you couldn't watch TV past midnight, because all of the stations went off the air until 5 am.

64. LoJack transmitters have always been finding lost cars.
plez sez: The first car I bought after I graduated from college had LoJack; my car was never stolen, so I don't know if the damn thing even worked.

65. Diane Sawyer has always been live in Prime Time.

66. Dolphin-free canned tuna has always been on sale.
plez sez: Shhh... don't tell anyone, but that dolphin meat added flavor.

67. Disposable contact lenses have always been available.
plez sez: There's no good excuse not to pick on the nerdy geeks anymore; it used to be in bad taste to hit someone who was wearing glasses.

68. "Outing" has always been a threat.
plez sez: See #53.

69. Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss has always been the perfect graduation gift.
plez sez: Graduation from kindergarten, I presume?

70. They have always "dissed" what they don't like.
plez sez: How trite.

71. The U.S. has always been studying global warming to confirm its existence.
plez sez: And Al Gore ahs finally confirmed that it exists... only 20 years after starting the Internet.

72. Richard M. Daley has always been the Mayor of Chicago.
plez sez: And Michael Jackson has always been the King of Pop - I had to find a way to mention his name on here somehow.

73. They grew up with virtual pets to feed, water, and play games with, lest they die.
plez sez: Are there virtual pet cemetaries?

74. Ringo Starr has always been clean and sober.
plez sez: "I get high with a little help from my friends" - as sung by Ringo Starr on the Beatle's hit "A Little Help from My Friends" on the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album in 1967.

75. Professional athletes have always competed in the Olympics.
plez sez: It all goes back to those dreaded East Germans and their professional athletes and steroids.

© 2006 Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin