Word: gen
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...rather than electing to tune in, turn on and drop out, Gen Xers are proving to be deeply competitive. Back when bumper stickers exhorted one to make love not war--in 1973, to be exact--only two-thirds of twentysomethings polled by Yankelovich agreed that "competition encourages excellence." Today 82% of their counterparts say, "I like to compete: it makes me perform better." The recent surge of extreme sports--from bungee jumping to sky surfing--is no accident. The hip slogan of the Gen X T shirt? NO FEAR. Indeed, adversity, far from discouraging youths, has given them a harder...
...this group went to the polls. But those were the days when young people still believed they could change the world. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson's poverty chief, Sargent Shriver, predicted the war on poverty would be won "in about 10 years." Today everyone knows better, and Gen X was molded during that learning process. "In the old days, politicians at least pretended to have principles," laments Beth Englander, 26, a former VISTA volunteer. "Now they're not ashamed to switch values just to get elected. Every time we hear of a new scandal, we're, like...
...among Xers is a product of coming of age when that was the message coming from the Administration," says Mia von Sadovsky, 29, an ad-agency researcher. "We have hard-wired into us a different approach to getting things done." A survey by Third Millennium found that 53% of Gen Xers believe that the TV soap opera General Hospital will outlast Medicare. If permitted, 59% of Xers would opt out of Medicare and save on their own. Of any adult generation, they have the weakest attachment to political parties, and in 1992 Gen Xers cast a higher percentage of votes...
Burdened by college loans and facing a shifting job market, Gen X yearns for affluence. In that, it takes after its grandparents more than its parents. A generation ago, small was beautiful and materialism had fallen out of fashion. Only 31% of twentysomethings in 1973 agreed that money is "a very important personal value." Today 64% of Xers and matures say, "Material things, like what I drive and the house I live in, are really important to me." Only half of boomers feel that way. Fewer twentysomethings seek "a simpler life," and, strikingly, a third of them agree that...
...While Gen Xers may be avid shoppers and dominate the market for designer jeans and expensive sneakers, they are as skeptical of the media as they are of politics. The hippest ads tap into their hostility toward hype. "Don't insult our intelligence," read one Nike magazine spread. "Tell us what it is. Tell us what it does. And don't play the national anthem while you do it." Sprite rocketed from seventh to fourth best-selling soft drink after scrapping its schmaltzy jingle, "I Like the Sprite in You," in 1994 in favor of the slogan "Image is nothing...