this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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Millennials are ignorant of Rodney King Riots, Desert Storm, Waco / Oklahoma City Bomber (far right domestic terrorism), Newt Gingrich's rise of the 'Party of No', and other such political events of their era. Pop quiz, what is the Cranberries's Zombie song about?
Gen Z however is keenly aware of the problems occurring around them.
I remember the politics of the 90s. It wasn't as happy as others point out here. We really didn't start the fire.
Columbine happened under our childhood yo. And the 1980s going Postal craze was a different brand of public mass shootings. 9/11 was the SECOND attack on the Twin towers after all.
The quiz was for other millennials, to drive home the point being made about awareness.
I'm also a millennial and all my friends are millennials.
Outside of my history-buff friends, most of my friends (despite being Engineers, Doctors, PH.Ds and other well-educated positions) are very ignorant of the 90s era of politics. All of us have had our awakening starting with 9/11 or so. In fact, the only reason why I know these things is because I explicitly went back and studied the politics of my childhood. Its not a thing I knew back then.
Typical Gen Z will know "This is America" references the Charleston church shooting. As well as adults.
You know why? Because today, we have the internet, and everyone is far more knowledgable and can pick up on references. Back in the 90s, "Zombie is about The Troubles" was obscure, and hell... just knowing what "The Troubles" were was kind of obscure with a lot of people completely ignorant to the events.
Today, we have things called cellphones, Wikipedia and Google. The level of obscurity and references in our modern media landscape is far more subtle because everyone and everything is smarter. Have you ever use the Dewey Decimal System, card catalog, and microfiche to look up information? Shit was hard to do research back then.
No, I’m a millennial I used the Internet.
Bullshit.
The best we had in the 90s was Encarta, ya know, that CD-ROM Microsoft sent with some computers?
My library was on Dewey Decimal / Card Catalog for a good chunk of my childhood. If I was looking up information, it was like that. The computers were some weird old DOS-like prompt screen that almost no one knew how to use. No fucking internet. My Dad happened to be able to get Microsoft Encarta and that was the first time I ever was able to look up information in any manner similar to today, but as a CD-ROM it was only about historical / cultural old stuff, not about recent events.
And secondly, bullshit. Wikipedia wasn't invented yet... and if it had been invented, it wasn't respected until the 2010s+ (unable to be used to write our school reports off of). So what website were you even using back then if you happened to magically have access to the Internet?
We were playing Neopets, maybe using GameFAQs or spreading memes on SomethingAwful. But looking up information? What is this, 2010s+ ?? No one trusted the internet yet for information.
Wikipedia started in '01. I was absolutely using it before '02/'03 for schoolwork. Just because you didn't know about it or how to cite things doesn't mean that applies to everyone.
You're very combative that anyone could've had a different experience than you. Internet in the 90's was not abnormal. Usenet/IRC/AIM/other various messengers were all big then even if it was the latter end.
Rage Against the Machine was huge in the 90s, just because you sang along not noticing the lyrics doesn't mean everyone else did either.
He's the one
100% bullshit. You're forgetting that I've actually lived in this era. No teacher was accepting of Wikipedia citations until the later 00s. There was no trust on Wikipedia's articles until much later. You didn't cite Wikipedia because your Teachers would penalize you for doing so. (and this culture was true well throughout all the 00s). Citations on the other hand, were just a Microsoft Word / .doc plugin so it wasn't that big a deal.
Furthermore: there were competing online wikis and webpages. I don't even think Wikipedia was the breakout wiki at that age, but instead the C2 Wiki.