Each generation has popular culture and historic events that shape its members. Luckily, a group is keeping track of those items. Wisconsin’s Beloit College recently released its annual “Mindset List,” which helps professors keep pop culture references in check. They learn what the incoming freshmen relate to and since many of the students were born in 1992, the instructors learn what topics to avoid.
The list is of particular importance to me, as I will be teaching one college class this semester. I’ve been studying the 75-item list nightly. Here are some you may find interesting:
- The class of 2014 has never had a need for wristwatches, they have cell phones to tell time.
- “Caramel macchiato” and “venti half-caf vanilla latte” have always been coffee shop lingo.
- Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.
- Colorful lapel ribbons have always been worn to indicate support for a cause.
- They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.
- Russians and Americans have always been living together in space.
- Music from the band Nirvana plays on the classic oldies station.
- Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine.
I have a few more things I can add to the list. For the Class of 2014, Neil Patrick Harris has always played the character “Barney” on How I Met Your Mother, the hit NBC show. But before every show on television was a primetime medical drama, a 16-year-old Harris starred in Doogie Howser, M.D. Each of the 97 episodes that aired in the early 90s opened with a recognizable synthesizer melody. If I close my eyes, I can hear it now, maybe you can too. (If not, head to YouTube and check it out).
Harris appeared on Saturday Night Live and played that iconic television show theme. It started out with just him, a keyboard and a black background. It is my favorite SNL skit due to the simplicity and the memories it brought back. I laughed until I cried and I watched it at least five times, thanks to the DVR.
As I explained the skit to my sister-in-law I asked if she remembered Doogie Howser.
“What’s a “doogie howser”?” she asked.
Uh-oh.
This wasn’t on the “Mindset List”! At that moment, I fell into a generation gap and smacked the bottom of it pretty hard. It wasn’t the first time I realized that my pop culture references might be lost on younger people, but it is certainly the most memorable instance.
Recently my Friends references have also become obsolete. This is devastating to me, but I just can’t use them when talking to young members of Generation Y and especially Generation Z (those born after 1991). I suppose it makes sense since filming for the Friends series began in the summer of 1994 and three-year-olds wouldn’t care about the latest Ross and Rachel drama.
As I prepare to enter a college classroom to teach, I will have to keep my pop culture references in check. I will probably carry with me my well-worn copy of the “Mindset List.”
Maybe I’ll just start using clever, timeless lines from Friends without revealing where they came from. Perhaps then the Generation Zers will think I’m funny, not dated.