Are we the Gap generation of the ’10s?

First of all, I want to say sorry, for any mistakes you may find in this story. English is not my mother tongue languge (!) . Anyway: here I go.

Last night I came home after a long day of work and I had only one thing that was waiting for me. No no , I am no saying a girlfriend sitting at the table with an home made dinner (that’s why I had a very fast dinner), but the last episode of the final season of Mad Men (ok sorry , the middle season finale episode). I watched those 50 minutes of ” eye candy ” without thinking of anything else, hypnotized in front of the computer in my room in Amsterdam. Of course it was raining outside (like in every typical dutch day), which may have helped my thoughts flowing inside my mind . The fact is that this episode , besides the already mentioned rewarded and perfection of the sets , beside the actors who are just getting better and better in every episode, beside a perfect narrative timing , it made me/ us remember an event as spectacular as the moon landing from the Apollo 11 on July the 20th, 1969. For me , son of Generation Y , it still seems absurd to think that in ’69, so basically 45 years ago , in a decade when Internet did not exist and in which the technological progress was just getting started, a man has made that “little / big step .” Although it seemed a thing possible only in the movies , it happened , and it was a memorable event. And the last episode of Mad Men “Waterloo” shows us those moments, when the whole world was glued in front of the television to watch that big step for mankind. Those who were children in those years, like my parents , still remember those moments , that step which introduced the fear that maybe the world would have changed too quickly, that our species would have been throw into space, over Earth borders . The adults were excited and scared at the same time for what would have happen later. Others thought it was just a waste of money and that the world would have starved to discovering the space. America followed in silence the great achievement and the challenge won against Russia for the conquest of the space.

This episode of Mad Men , however , made me think of a thing . My generation , people who like me grew up in the 90s , has never witnessed such an event . Maybe 9/11 was the last event to be followed from all around the world. But it was another kind of event. It was not a step forward for humanity , a connection that as Peggy Olson says “We were hungry for it”, it was a catastrophic event , a world drama . Of course, I wonder if we will experience another event like the moon landing , an event that holds the world glued to the television, that makes us take the bike to go to friends and share it together, or that makes us stop working and makes us all gather in the same office in silence. Will we ever see an event that we know will change forever the way we think and see things or our species ? Over the last few years we said farewell to great thinkers and very great people. Political leaders such as Nelson Mandela , or extremely talented people and artists. Artists that have been idols for generations . I watched on youtube the video of the first moonwalk by Michael Jackson, aired in 1983 on Motown 25th, and I wonder if I will ever have the fortune to attend such an event . Which idols do my generation have? Which singer or sport player or politician or contemporary writer we will regret in 40 years ? Who is the Michael Jordan of today , or ours Martin Luther King ? Who are the “rebels” of the Apple spot that today are leaving an indelible mark in history, and that we will cry in 30 years ? In a world where videos that last longer than 7 seconds bore us , where just the perfect hashtag can lead you to become a celebrity, and the grumpy cat earns million dollars a year ( and FYI, I am the first to appreciate it . I almost put it as my screensaver), how can we think that some people will leave an ever lasting mark?

Ok, wait, let’s stop the drama. Don’t let ourselves go to a life made of frozen pizzas or B-movies on the couch. Because now WE are the young people. We are the generation of 20 year old and 30 years old people. Now we have to face with this task. Perhaps we must become the idols of the next generation , we have to be our idols. And maybe this brought us back to the beginning of this post, the fact that we are hungry. Hungry for culture and connection of people who can inspire us , hungry for relationships that last , hungry for jobs, hungry for world events , hungry for the future. Maybe we are just like the generation gap of the ’60s . We are starving , and not just for food.