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First of all, my parents are immigrants and I came to the States when I was 3, but I am experiencing a lack of coherence in the youth culture surrounding me (in college).
If there was a time period I could have the opportunity to experience, I seriously consider the 60s. Not because I like all the music or anything like that (I'm hardly a fan of rock n roll), but it seems that the youth then - albeit taking it to an extreme sometimes - were much more united in their experience and attitudes, something that is missing in the youth today. I know I am sounding like an old guy for saying what's "missing in the youth today...", but I really don't understand why, even though we often get together and have parties, hang out, date, etc... why everything feels so isolated and fake?
Or maybe it's just me who's already a grumpy 20 year old guy. Hmph
You're not imagining things. For one thing, young people do not come from a common starting point culture-wise. Their communities don't do things together and they don't discover why their country has its common celebrations on special days throughout the year. So there's a real lack of a sense of purpose, and life turns out to look super-boring, like it's not really life but just abstract existence... It's not a new phenomenon but it's much more intense now, in a world where life without TV is inconceivable, and learning through real-life experience is pretty much illegal, not to mention despised by small-minded know-it-alls who speak in advertising cliches.
TV and school both have this kind of anti-traditional, alienating influence on people. They'll leave you blowing in the wind unless you have an unusual sense of purpose at a young age. Chances are that after a childhood saturated with TV and schooling, you'll end up wondering what bizarre deeds your neighbors and "people out there" are capable of (and I don't mean "capable" in the sense of positive achievements). Just think: school and TV have trained you to blandly tolerate a long series of "simulated realities" that have been presented to you in keeping with an unseen schedule (like the man behind the curtain). Meanwhile, in the outside world, it's like you never know what anybody else would do if something important were to happen for real, because you've all been drilled in passively observing simulated reality and learned not to react to it. (The drilling is more intense with movies because the experience can involve simulated, lurid sex and violence.) So you'll figure that reality is something that you and society must protect yourselves from. To see it on its own terms would just be too risky. So you'll collectively agree that freedom must end.
What's happened is, people of influence have taken secularism and accelerated it past the speed of sound, hoping to turn life itself into a made-to-order fantasy world driven by mental confusion and pleasure-seeking. Their plans for the world cannot tolerate high cultural ambition, so they've moved to extinguish it, by means of the way they've designed modern schooling and entertainment. People have been trained to take no pride in their civilization -- they don't even know what it is -- they only know what they "like" and how to pursue it, and they've been browbeaten into "liking" only those things that pose no threat to the secular-materialist powers that be.
It seems most people who are that way do not have many passions or goals in life.
I'm 28 but after finishing college, I've rarely run into people like what you've described. Once they start "real life", they're forced to deal with issues other than simply TV and sex alone.. or if they choose to ignore the real world, they'll run into serious hardships. And trust me, anyone who has experienced any sort of hardship is gonna care about more than TV and sex.
i've got kids in your age range, not all of them are like that.
I'm lucky that mine are serious and goal oriented as are many of their friends. I suppose it has a lot to do with where and how you're brought up. Mine had the advantage of a rural upbringing and strict parents. We always asked where, who with and when will you be back among other things. Sure, they balked at times but it got them nowhere.
Too many kids today were brought up with little being expected of them and as a result, they expect little of themselves.
You sound like a nice, level headed kid. Trust me, there are more of you out there.
Hey dude, I'm your age (and funny enough have a similar background as my family also moved here when I was 3). I'm part of a campus organization that tries to raise awareness about human trafficking. I'm also trying to become more involved in the animal welfare organization (their schedule didn't really jive with mine this semester). Plenty of students in all sorts of organizations like that.
So yeah, a lot of people our age do care. You just gotta look for 'em! There's nothing going on like there was in the 60s because there isn't one big unifying thing. Everyone our age was affected by Vietnam.
As someone who was a child in the 60's, I can assure you that young people then were also primarily interested in sex and TV.
The difference was, 20-somethings in the 60's were generally far more intelligent and articulate than their modern-day counterparts. Why? Because there was no Internet, no cell phones to take up endless hours and no time-wasting texting. If you wanted to relax, you read a book, something which seems utterly alien to many young people today. Conversation was ubiquitous. Now most college-age kids can't have a conversation to safe their lives.
I realize there are exceptions to this rule. But I teach graduate students and most of them haven't a clue how to converse unless it's texting. Sad.
Sounds to me like you're a grumpy 20 year old who just wants to be unhappy. Chance are you're no better than everyone else, find people with common interests and stop worrying about what other people are interested in.
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