Thanks, Captain Obvious!
Feb 28th, 2007 at 3:29 pm by Maya
Gen Y-ers are (generally speaking) selfish narcissists. So I can look forward to an old age run by a bunch of whiny-ass titty babies? Can’t wait.
All the effort to boost children’s self-esteem may have backfired and produced a generation of college students who are more narcissistic than their Gen X predecessors, according to a new study led by a San Diego State University psychologist.
And the Internet, with all its MySpace and YouTube braggadocio, is letting that self-regard blossom even more, said the analysis, titled “Egos Inflating Over Time.”
In the study being released today, researchers warn that a rising ego rush could cause personal and social problems for the Millennial Generation, also called Gen Y. People with an inflated sense of self tend to have less interest in emotionally intimate bonds and can lash out when rejected or insulted.
I hate to overgeneralize, but I would say that my encounters with them in the work place bear that out. Most of the young’uns these days walk in thinking they’re stars and deserve to go right to the CEO’s seat. I can’t tell you how many friends have called me after work to laugh about the outrageous sum of money that some green fresh-out-of-college kid demanded for his utter lack of experience.
Listen to me talking about those young whippersnappers! When did I get old?
complaining about how selfish and narcissistic the youth of today are is a time-honored tradition, dating back at least to when my grandmother was told be her parents (circa 1916) that her generation thought only of themselves and didn’t understand hardship like their immigrant parents.
maybe it’s just that young people are just self-centered. it’s part of being young. and older people are just resentful of the self-centeredness of youth. it’s part of being old. i live on a college campus and frankly, when i was an undergraduate, i expect i would be doing pretty much what i see my wife’s students doing.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
I am an old man
Living alone
my loved ones stuck me here
in this nursing home
I’ve lost all usefulness
I want to DIE.
-Nursing Home Blues, DRI.
Little bastards need to work in the coal mines for a few years, preferably starting at age 12. Maybe then they;d have some fackin’ humility.
Students think they’re so special…
Today?s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according …
yeah, narcissists. i’ve met a few. could this be the explanation for the rash of Hipsterism plaguing our streets?
and how do we explain George Bush? now *there’s* a narcissist.
“I’m the Decider!(tm)”
you know Douglas Coupland, the guy that supposedly coined “Gen X”? He’s older than me–he’s a Baby Boomer.
Yeah, I remember 1985, when I joined the workforce with a newly-minted college degree, and took loads of crap form older workers for weeks for the sin of earning a whopping $27K straight out of school.
“The egotistical generation ahead of us” has ever been thus. And it isn’t even an American thing anymore - you have the “bean sprout generation” of Japanese kids becoming adults in the 1990s, and people in China are already complaining about the “little emperor” generation that hasn’t even reached adulthood yet.
“I’m concerned we are heading to a society where people are going to treat each other badly, either on the street or in relationships.”
Heading? Bwahaha.
Hey, I didn’t say these kids invented narcissism. I’m not saying I wasn’t a selfish little fuck in my own right, or that there aren’t old narcissists. But it is clearly getting more prevalent When 30% more college kids score high in the NPD test than 20 years ago. When the latest teen gift craze is plastic surgery, I’m not gonna say I’m surprised.
What bothers me most is that this sort of behavior, whether from Bush or from the kid next door, is becoming the new norm.