tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/generation-war-8782/articlesGeneration War – The Conversation2021-02-25T15:08:50Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1559742021-02-25T15:08:50Z2021-02-25T15:08:50ZApple’s new emojis are more ammunition for the online generation wars<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386448/original/file-20210225-23-1hng3vt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C1%2C968%2C597&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blog.emojipedia.org/first-look-217-new-emojis-in-ios-14-5/">Jeremy Burge/Emojipedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When I saw the news that Apple would be releasing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/17/vaccine-syringe-and-flaming-heart-iphone-reveals-more-than-200-new-emojis">217 new emojis</a> into the world, I did what I always do: I asked my undergraduates what it meant to them. “We barely use them any more,” they scoffed. To them, many emojis are like overenthusiastic dance moves at weddings: reserved for awkward millennials. “And they use them all wrong anyway,” my cohort from generation Z added earnestly.</p>
<p>My work focuses on how people use technology, and I’ve been following the rise of the emoji for a decade. With <a href="https://emojipedia.org/apple/">3,353 characters</a> available and 5 billion sent each day, emojis are now a significant language system. </p>
<p>When the emoji database is updated, it usually reflects the needs of the time. This latest update, for instance, features a new vaccine syringe and more same-sex couples.</p>
<p>But if my undergraduates are anything to go by, emojis are also a generational battleground. Like <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/middle-part-skinny-jeans-tiktok-b1804294.html">skinny jeans and side partings</a>, the “<a href="https://blog.emojipedia.org/is-the-laughing-crying-emoji-cancelled-heres-what-we-know/">laughing crying emoji</a>”, better known as 😂, fell into disrepute among the young in 2020 – just five years after being picked as the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151201223617/http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/11/word-of-the-year-2015-emoji/">Oxford Dictionaries’ 2015 Word of the Year</a>. For gen Z TikTok users, clueless millennials are responsible for rendering many emojis utterly unusable – to the point that some in gen Z barely use emojis at all.</p>
<p>Research can help explain these spats over emojis. Because their meaning is interpreted by users, not dictated from above, emojis have a rich history of creative use and coded messaging. Apple’s 217 new emojis will be subjected to the same process of creative interpretation: accepted, rejected or repurposed by different generations based on pop culture currents and digital trends. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two emojis of a syringe - one dripping with blood, one with clear liquid" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386237/original/file-20210224-21-9kk7gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386237/original/file-20210224-21-9kk7gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386237/original/file-20210224-21-9kk7gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386237/original/file-20210224-21-9kk7gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386237/original/file-20210224-21-9kk7gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386237/original/file-20210224-21-9kk7gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386237/original/file-20210224-21-9kk7gp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Previously, the syringe emoji suggested blood extraction. The new, updated emoji looks more like a vaccine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blog.emojipedia.org/vaccine-emoji-comes-to-life/">Apple/Emojipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Face the facts</h2>
<p>When emojis were first designed by Shigetaka Kurita in 1999, they were intended specifically for the Japanese market. But just over a decade later, the <a href="https://home.unicode.org/">Unicode Consortium</a>, sometimes described as “the UN for tech”, unveiled these icons to the whole world. </p>
<p>In 2011, <a href="https://instagram-engineering.com/emojineering-part-1-machine-learning-for-emoji-trendsmachine-learning-for-emoji-trends-7f5f9cb979ad">Instagram</a> tracked the uptake of emojis through user messages, watching how 🙂 eclipsed :-) in just a few years. Old-style smileys, using punctuation marks, now look as outdated as Shakespearean English on our LED screens: a sign of fogeyness in baby boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) or an ironic throwback for the hipsters of gen Z.</p>
<p>The Unicode Consortium now meets each year to consider new types of emoji, including emojis that support inclusivity. In 2015, a new range of skin colours was added to existing emojis. In 2021, the Apple operating system update will include mixed-race and same-sex couples, as well as men and women with beards.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1361983113849667591"}"></div></p>
<h2>Bitter boomers?</h2>
<p>Not everyone has been thrilled by the rise of the emoji. In 2018, a Daily Mail headline lamented that “<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5628765/Emoji-ruining-English-language.html">Emojis are ruining the English language</a>”, citing research by Google in which 94% of those surveyed felt that English was deteriorating, in part because of emoji use. </p>
<p>But such criticisms, which are sometimes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/17/why-i-hate-emojis">levelled by boomers</a>, tend to misinterpret emojis, which are after all informal and conversational, not formal and oratory. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10862960802695131">Studies have found</a> no evidence that emojis have reduced overall literacy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/emoji-arent-ruining-language-theyre-a-natural-substitute-for-gesture-118689">Emoji aren't ruining language: they’re a natural substitute for gesture 🔥🔥🔥</a>
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<p>On the contrary, it appears that emojis actually <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118771952.ch13">enhance</a> our communicative capabilities, including in language acquisition. <a href="https://www.languageatinternet.org/articles/2019/gawne">Studies</a> have shown how emojis are an effective substitute for gestures in non-verbal communication, bringing a new dimension to text. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17470919.2013.873737?journalCode=psns20#.VLadY2TF871">A 2013 study</a>, meanwhile, suggested that emojis connect to the area of the brain associated with recognising facial expressions, making a 😀 as nourishing as a human smile. Given these findings, it’s likely that those who reject emojis actually impoverish their language capabilities.</p>
<h2>Creative criticism</h2>
<p>The conflict between gen Z and millennials, meanwhile, emerges from confused meanings. Although the Unicode Consortium has a definition for each icon, including the 217 Apple are due to release, out in the wild they often take on new meanings. Many emojis have more than one meaning: a literal meaning, and a suggested one, for instance. Subversive, rebellious meanings are often created by the young: today’s gen Z.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://emojipedia.org/eggplant/">aubergine</a> 🍆 is a classic example of how an innocent vegetable has had its meaning creatively repurposed by young people. The <a href="https://thetab.com/uk/2021/02/11/brain-emoji-tiktok-194766">brain</a> 🧠 is an emerging example of the innocent-turned-dirty emoji canon, which already boasts a <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/irl/sexting-emoji/">large corpus</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three emojis, one blowing out air, one with spiral eyes, one in clouds" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386426/original/file-20210225-19-11u6vz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386426/original/file-20210225-19-11u6vz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=239&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386426/original/file-20210225-19-11u6vz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=239&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386426/original/file-20210225-19-11u6vz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=239&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386426/original/file-20210225-19-11u6vz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386426/original/file-20210225-19-11u6vz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386426/original/file-20210225-19-11u6vz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These three emojis will also hit iPhones with Apple’s latest update. Their meaning is yet to be decided.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blog.emojipedia.org/first-look-217-new-emojis-in-ios-14-5/">Emojipedia/Apple</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And it doesn’t stop there. With gen Z now <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/julianvigo/2019/08/31/generation-z-and-new-technologys-effect-on-culture/">at the helm of digital culture</a>, the emoji encyclopedia is developing new ironic and sarcastic <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/14/tech/crying-laughing-emoji-gen-z/index.html">double meanings</a>. It’s no wonder that millennials can’t keep up, and keep provoking outrage from younger people who consider themselves to be highly emoji-literate.</p>
<p>Emojis remain powerful means of emotional and creative expression, even if some in gen Z claim they’ve been made redundant by misuse. This new batch of 217 emojis will be adopted across generations and communities, with each staking their claim to different meanings and combinations. The stage is set for a new round of intergenerational mockery.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155974/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Brill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Millennials’ favourite 😂 is the latest casualty of gen z’s emoji snobbery.Mark Brill, Senior Lecturer, School of Games, Film and Animation, Birmingham City UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/741582017-03-15T19:16:11Z2017-03-15T19:16:11ZTwo decades after Gangland, the precariat is ageing and cultural scapegoating thrives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160880/original/image-20170315-11525-f3k0kb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cultural scapegoating 'still functions as a proxy for economic marginalisation'.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hartwig HKD/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In the second of our articles examining the influential book Gangland 20 years on, its author Mark Davis reflects on the cultural landscape today.</em> </p>
<p>“Has anything changed?” Two decades after I published my book <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21796288-gangland">Gangland: Cultural Elites and the New Generationalism</a>, about the domination of the “generation of ‘68” in Australian cultural life, I still get asked that question.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=889&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1117&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1117&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160657/original/image-20170314-10720-6cco5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1117&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Sure, many of the personages who I had a bit of fun with in the book are still around. Phillip Adams still rules on Late Night Live and has a column, apparently, somewhere behind the Murdoch paywall. Ray Martin pops up on TV from time to time. Anne Summers is still a strong voice for feminism. I still see literary critic Peter Craven’s byline on reviews and commentary from time to time. Alan Jones still thunders away on talkback. Helen Garner still writes books. But others have retreated from public life — Beatrice Faust, David Williamson, George Negus. And others who starred in the book — Christopher Pearson, Paddy McGuiness — have slipped away entirely.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a new group of movers and shakers has come into the media spotlight: Waleed Aly; Maxine Beneba Clarke; Mariam Veiszadeh; Tim Soutphommasane; Susan Carland; Anita Heiss; Yassmin Abdel-Magied. And that’s just off the top of my head. Now, many of them, ahem, aren’t exactly the voice of youth. But hey, they’re a new guard.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160834/original/image-20170315-10178-wnicj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Miranda Devine in 2014: part of the ‘conservative flotilla’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
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<p>And then there’s the conservative flotilla that has arrived since the late 1990s. Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, Tim Wilson, Rita Panahi, Janet Albrechtsen, Tim Blair, Chris Kenny. A whole book could be written about how they take up lots of prime media real estate but pretend to be beleaguered by the left.</p>
<p>But the roll call of people who took up a lot of airtime was only half the story.</p>
<p>Actually, Gangland was a book about a lot of things. (Though not actual gun-toting gangsters, which is where it got filed in some bookshops, with Chopper Read.) </p>
<p>It was a book about the culture wars and the theory wars. About second versus third wave feminism, and the myths of “victim feminism”. About panics about “political correctness” and the easy adoption of anti-PC speak by members of the “generation of 68” who should have known better. It was about piercings, tattoos, and anxieties about technological change, seen in “spotter’s guides” to youth subcultures that appeared in the media (“know your Goth”), and hoary staples of 1990s journalism, like young people are only useful to have around when you need to program a VCR.</p>
<p>My aim was to talk about the cultural issues impacting Australia at the time, and ask why they were so often expressed through the prism of generational difference even as the voices of young people were relatively absent in public commentary.</p>
<p>I also wanted to talk about intergenerational inequality. It seemed to me that young people were being set up for a fall. Moral panics about young people in the mainstream media, and their relative absence in that media other than as a spectacle of unworthiness, made it easy to cast them as scapegoats for their own disenfranchisement.</p>
<p>In this respect not much has changed at all. You could write the same book right now. Negative gearing for investors. Rampant housing speculation. Astronomical rents. Attacks on penalty rates. Fee-paying degrees. TAFE cutbacks. A lack of full-time, full wage jobs. Inaction on global warming. Lockout laws. The transforming of welfare and employment agencies into organisations of social punishment. All impact disproportionately on the young and many are straightforward intergenerational theft.</p>
<p>The institutional lockout of young people, as others have said, is an analogue for a <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2016/march/1456750800/richard-cooke/boomer-supremacy">larger cultural and psychic lockout</a>.</p>
<p>Cultural scapegoating, meanwhile, still functions as a proxy for economic marginalisation. We all know the media stereotypes about how “gen y/millennials” are <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/gen-x-perceptions-a-workplace-challenge-for-gen-y-20150610-ghl8dm.html">“lazy” and “entitled”</a> brats who need to <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/gen-x-and-y-its-time-to-toughen-up-20150305-13wjy2">“toughen up”</a>, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/money/planning/staying-at-home-for-longer-leaves-parents-counting-the-costs-20170215-gue1f4.html">sponge off their parents</a>, are <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/comment/another-brick-in-the-wall-of-gen-y-cultural-decline-20140106-30dg4.html">degrading the culture</a>, lack “hunger” <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/why-oh-why-does-gen-y-not-get-it-20131016-2vn4u.html">on the sporting field</a>, and are <a href="http://junkee.com/new-breed-gen-y-bludgers-destroying-australia-according-daily-telegraph/85377">destroying the economy</a> with their “bludging” ways. And how they need to be treated differently at work because they’re <a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/careers/continuous-candidates-how-gen-y-changed-the-employment-game/news-story/d190c3515d0546e4b8e42cb60627f17d">unreliable “job-hoppers”</a> with <a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/generation-unprepared-the-school-and-university-leavers-with-no-skills-to-work-at-all/news-story/0e91ba570511643e5e223910aecf9616">no work ethic</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"829118284192690178"}"></div></p>
<p>All of which <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/workplace-relations/university-of-sydney-research-busts-myths-about-gen-y-and-millennials-20160609-gpfti1.html">recent research</a> <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-20/five-facts-which-show-gen-y-has-it-worse-than-baby-boomers/7644186">shows</a> to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/millennials-in-the-workplace-not-as-different-as-you-think-74107">simply untrue</a>, not to mention out of touch with <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/events/generation-less-exploring-the-economic-challenge-for-young-australians/">economic reality</a>. Meanwhile some demographer pays $22 for <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/weekend-australian-magazine/moralisers-we-need-you/news-story/6bdb24f77572be68330bd306c14ee8a3">smashed avo</a> at his local hipster café (it’s $17 at my local) and <a href="http://mashable.com/2016/10/17/millennials-respond-to-smashed-avocado-criticism/#CcTBUYNOJaq6">starts</a> a <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3849462/Columnist-Bernard-Salt-causes-outrage-smashed-avocado-housing-affordability.html">media</a> <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/sold-to-the-kid-eating-avo-toast?utm_term=.ombly3ZpX#.kied6eD8R">storm</a> with talk about how if young people didn’t waste their money on such indulgences they’d be able to afford a deposit on a house. Um, yeah, sure.</p>
<p>But this is no longer just about young people. In the 1990s, young people were at the cutting edge of economic reform, guinea pigs for waves of workplace casualisation, the privatisation of education, attacks on welfare, and the watering down of workplace protections.</p>
<p>Young people, along with women and working class men, have been the tryout audience for a new <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Precariat-New-Dangerous-Class/dp/1472536169">economic precarity</a> that is now working its way up the social strata into the middle classes. Even old age pensioners now, are having to deal with cutbacks once unthinkable.</p>
<p>Intergenerational warfare isn’t the answer to any of this.</p>
<p>Nor is the far-right populism currently sweeping the world. As I said back in the 1990s, the plight of young people said a lot about failed political leadership and failed economic orthodoxies. Not much, then, has changed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74158/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Smashed avo storms, news stories about lazy millennials … Has anything changed in the 20 years since Mark Davis wrote his influential book Gangland?Mark Davis, Lecturer in Publishing and Communications, University of Melbourne, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/573052016-04-06T11:02:35Z2016-04-06T11:02:35ZMillennials v baby boomers: a battle we could have done without<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117539/original/image-20160405-28973-1x1bpt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The generation of young people who came of age during the new millennium – “millennials”, as they’re commonly known – has divided opinion like no other. Some have deemed them a <a href="http://www.spectator.co.uk/2013/08/why-interns-dont-deserve-pay/">self-pitying and entitled</a> bunch; <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21688583-ignore-moral-panic-about-lazy-self-obsessed-millennials-world-will-be-fairer">lazy</a>, deluded and <a href="http://time.com/247/millennials-the-me-me-me-generation/">narcissistic</a>. Others take a more sympathetic view, raising concerns that millennials are at risk of becoming a “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/30/britains-youth-at-risk-of-being-lost-generation-warns-equality-report">lost generation</a>”. After all, they are making the transition into adulthood under much more precarious circumstances than their parents experienced as part of the “baby boomers” generation. </p>
<p>The challenges millennials face include the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/christina-franks/cost-higher-education_b_4721592.html">rising costs of education</a>; an increased likelihood of unemployment and underemployment – even for a growing <a href="mailto:https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ier/futuretrack/findings/stage_4_report_final_06_03_2013.pdf">number of graduates</a> – and <a href="mailto:http://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/publications/pr/ebn_pr_living%2520standards.pdf">falling incomes</a> even when they are employed. For millennials, home ownership is an increasingly distant prospect, and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/16/average-monthly-rent-hits-record-high-of-816-highlighting-housing-shortage">private rents are soaring</a>. To top it all off, young people have been <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/blog/benefits-sanctions-are-adding-bleak-prospects-young-people">hit particularly hard</a> by benefit sanctions and cuts to public sector funding.</p>
<p>Since the global financial crisis, the supposed plight of the millennials has given rise to the argument that inequality is an age-related issue: young people are disadvantaged, while baby boomers collectively <a href="http://www.if.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-Intergenerational-Fairness-Index.pdf%20">prosper at their expense</a>. This idea is exemplified by the Guardian’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/series/millennials-the-trials-of-generation-y">recent series on millennials</a>, and perpetuated by <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/family/baby-boomers-versus-the-millennials-is-the-battle-of-our-time/%20">other outlets</a>. With austerity and weak economic growth ensuring that the opportunities for younger people are comparatively diminished, even academics are raising “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13676261.2013.836592#.Vv3m5WSriko">the issue of youth-as-class</a>”.</p>
<h2>Facing the changes</h2>
<p>We don’t deny that the experience of being young has changed significantly. But this notion of a single millennial experience deserves some serious questioning. While young people are encountering changes – and often challenges – in terms of employment, education and housing, they do not all experience this hostile landscape in the same way.</p>
<p>By talking about “the millennials” as a disadvantaged group, we’re in danger of obscuring other, more fundamental differences between young people. For example, class background is still a particularly important determinant of a young person’s <a href="http://fap.sagepub.com/content/6/3/427.refs">life chances</a>. Our <a href="http://www.socresonline.org.uk/18/3/11.html">own</a> <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13676261.2015.1112885">research</a> – as well as the work of many others – demonstrates the importance of parental support for young people transitioning into adulthood. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117648/original/image-20160406-28935-5mtqca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117648/original/image-20160406-28935-5mtqca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117648/original/image-20160406-28935-5mtqca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117648/original/image-20160406-28935-5mtqca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=706&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117648/original/image-20160406-28935-5mtqca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117648/original/image-20160406-28935-5mtqca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117648/original/image-20160406-28935-5mtqca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Where’s my parental support?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Having a room in the family home or access to other family finances is key to undertaking unpaid internships or volunteer work. A monthly allowance from your folks while at university facilitates access to important <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/spais/migrated/documents/report.pdf">CV building activities</a>, which top graduate employers seek from applicants. It ensures that during your exams you don’t have to carry on looking for a job, and it helps you to avoid the choice between eating or heating. </p>
<p>Gifting or loaning deposits for a <a href="http://soc.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/02/23/0038038516629900.abstract">rented or purchased home</a> is still a middle-class practice. There are many other ways that parents can, and do, use their resources to help their <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/mortgages/11355595/Mortgages-where-parents-help-children-buy-homes-do-they-work.html">children onto the property ladder</a>. </p>
<h2>Class struggle</h2>
<p>So, while middle-class young people are clearly facing difficulties during their transition to independence, they are also more likely to have access to resources that are unavailable to their less-advantaged peers, which help to reduce risks and protect them from uncertainties. These resources help young people to “weather the storm” and influence <a href="https://theconversation.com/london-elites-are-also-being-priced-out-of-their-homes-heres-why-it-matters-49175">who survives and prospers</a> in the current conditions. </p>
<p>Let us recall some other significant class-based advantages: higher education <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03054985.2015.1082905">remains very stratified</a>, and those attending elite research-intensive institutions are <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-4446.12021/abstract">disproportionately middle class</a>. Children of middle-class parents <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/pdf/Working-Paper_Introducing-the-Class-Ceiling.pdf">earn more</a> than peers of working class origins, even when they obtain employment in top jobs. And while baby-boomers may be <a href="http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-perspectives-housing-and-home-ownership-in-the-uk/">holding onto the housing stock</a> for now, the children of the property-owning middle classes will one day inherit it. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117651/original/image-20160406-28970-1gjz245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117651/original/image-20160406-28970-1gjz245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117651/original/image-20160406-28970-1gjz245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117651/original/image-20160406-28970-1gjz245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117651/original/image-20160406-28970-1gjz245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117651/original/image-20160406-28970-1gjz245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/117651/original/image-20160406-28970-1gjz245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What’s in an age?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As well as class, research has long shown how gender, race, disability and a host of other factors work to shape a person’s future. More recent evidence suggests that the financial crisis and subsequent austerity have had a particularly <a href="http://wbg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/De_HenauReed_WBG_GIAtaxben_briefing_2016_03_06.pdf">disproportionate effect on women</a>, certain <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/poverty-across-ethnic-groups-through-recession-and-austerity">black and minority ethnic groups</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2016/feb/24/austerity-disabled-people-norfolk-council-care-act">the disabled</a>.</p>
<p>What’s more, proclaiming an inter-generational war unhelpfully clouds the fact that the prospects for certain groups of older people are just as bad – if not worse – than for many young people. Despite the dominant media image of the resource-rich retiree, many older people <a href="http://www.cpa.org.uk/cpa/docs/R4AA/R4AA-The_myth_of_the_baby_boomer.pdf">do not have</a> comfortable pensions, homes or savings to fall back on. And as the state withdraws funding for public services such as social care, older women have been forced to step in and undertake <a href="http://www.carersuk.org/for-professionals/policy/policy-library/valuing-carers-2015">unpaid labour</a> by caring for elderly family members.</p>
<p>Declarations of inter-generational conflict between baby boomers and millennials might grab headlines. But the real story is the same as it ever was; that our society is plagued by long-standing, ongoing inequalities relating to class, race and gender. The portrayal of millennials as victims has allowed the experience of the squeezed middle class to take centre stage. Now, it’s up to us to question who’s really at a disadvantage in our society – and how we can make life fairer for all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Roberts has previously recieved funding from the ESRC for social research about young people.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Allen has received funding in the past from the ESRC and British Academy for research projects which have now ended.</span></em></p>Much like the latest Zack Snyder film, the inter-generational war being played out in the press seems largely unnecessary.Steven Roberts, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Monash UniversityKim Allen, University Academic Fellow - Sociology , University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/225182014-01-31T03:03:22Z2014-01-31T03:03:22ZGeneration War re-ignites battle over a nation’s ‘true’ history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40171/original/shqbt9tm-1391055872.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Generation War provoked fierce debate and protests with sympathetic portrayals of German soldiers and depictions of Poles as anti-Semitic. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS/ZDF</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Polish reactions to the German TV series <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/ww2season/about/page/i/3/h/Generation-War/">Generation War</a>, which has just <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/107497539913/Generation-War">screened in Australia</a>, confirm that the history of World War Two remains highly contentious. The resulting public debate tested Polish-German and Polish-Jewish relations and placed historical memory at the forefront of the disputes. </p>
<p>The series first aired in Germany last March. It told the story of five young Germans in the 1940s who, as German newspaper Der Spiegel <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/zdf-tv-miniseries-reopens-german-wounds-of-wwii-past-a-891332.html">put it</a>, “lose their innocence without being malicious”. The broadcasts contributed to Germany’s ongoing re-assessment of its past, especially among post-war generations. </p>
<p>The series inevitably raised questions about the responsibility of ordinary Germans for the crimes of the Nazi regime. More specifically, questions were asked about these depictions on public television in a historic drama miniseries, which was sure to attract a wide audience.</p>
<p>The reactions in Poland focused less on Germans being presented as likeable human beings caught in the war than on Poles being portrayed as anti-Semites. Such depictions (in only a few secondary scenes) led the director of Polish public television, <a href="http://translate.google.com.au/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliusz_Braun&prev=/search%3Fq%3Djuliusz%2Bbraun%26biw%3D2560%26bih%3D1214">Juliusz Braun</a>, to fire off a protest to the German TV station. <a href="http://www.polskieradio.pl/5/3/Artykul/811499,Niemiecki-serial-antysemicka-AK-Prezes-TVP-to-calkowicie-falszywy-obraz">His letter</a> objected to the injurious and false simplifications of the historical image of Poland, which could not be justified by the creators’ artistic freedom. </p>
<p>Protests by Polish public organisations led a month later to the government <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2300724/Fury-Poland-German-war-drama-tries-spread-blame-Holocaust.html">issuing an official letter of protest</a> signed by the Polish ambassador to Germany. The Polish embassy in Washington protested at <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/14/embassy-row-poland-protests-film/?page=all">plans to broadcast</a> the series in the US. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/generation-war.html">news in August</a> that the BBC would air the series caused another uproar in Poland. The sizeable Polish community in the UK held protests against screening <a href="https://docs.google.com/a/theconversation.edu.au/document/d/1b1wT55IzS4_-ErugOg9L_-tDB7Bb1XwFzQXQ6fp8qY8/edit">“a film slandering the Polish Home Army”</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40169/original/6xww9djr-1391053067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40169/original/6xww9djr-1391053067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40169/original/6xww9djr-1391053067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40169/original/6xww9djr-1391053067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40169/original/6xww9djr-1391053067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40169/original/6xww9djr-1391053067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40169/original/6xww9djr-1391053067.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster reading, in Polish, “New provocation! New manipulation! New Europe?” objects to the German TV miniseries Generation War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Poland, the broadcasts on three consecutive evenings last June was preceded by an aggressive drumming up of expectations of controversy about a German director’s negative depiction of Poles. It was difficult to watch the series without anticipating those most “controversial” bits. These became the focus of a debate aired live after the last episode.</p>
<p>In an ironic turn of events, Juliusz Braun was heavily criticised for screening the series on public television in Poland. The leading Polish right-wing party, Law and Justice, <a href="http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/138820,TV-chief-resignation-called-for-after-German-antiPolish-broadcast">demanded his immediate resignation</a>. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Anti-Defamation_League">Polish Anti-Defamation League</a> contacted the Attorney-General’s Warsaw office to report a crime of “public slandering of the Polish nation”. </p>
<p>Why has this series caused such a strong reaction in Poland and among Polish diaspora around the world?</p>
<h2>Power of the myth</h2>
<p>In the post-war Soviet takeover of Poland, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armia_Krajowa">Polish Home Army</a> was dismantled. Its members were vilified, persecuted and executed (or otherwise exiled for life). For many generations of Poles, the Home Army soldiers came to symbolise honour and ultimate sacrifice in the fight for freedom.</p>
<p>Accepting that the Home Army was anti-Semitic would go against the myth of the glorious Polish soldier and survivor. The notion of martyrdom that this evokes, centuries-old and all-important in the Polish imaginary, is always accompanied by tales of heroism.</p>
<p>In this TV series, instead of heroes, we see a bunch of dirty and primitive bandits who commit very questionable acts and display questionable attitudes.</p>
<h2>Historical truth</h2>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland_(1989%E2%80%93present)%20Poland%20has%20sought%20to%20recover%20the%20%22historical%20truth%22%20after%20%20half%20a%20century%20of%20Soviet%20propaganda.%20Contemporary%20Poles,%20who%20in%20their%20vast%20majority%20rejected%20the%20Soviet%20version%20of%20history,%20have%20been%20engaged%20heavily%20in%20making%20public%20the%20%22real%20historical%20truth%22%20-%20the%20version%20of%20history%20silenced%20by%20the%20pro-Soviet%20regime.%20Truth%20about%20the%20%5BKatyn%20massacre%5D(http://www.katyn.org.au/">Since 1989</a> is a perfect example.</p>
<p>However, within this project of rewriting the national history, it is difficult to fit in multiple interpretations and varying viewpoints, especially on the most sensitive topics.</p>
<figure>
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<h2>Victims and perpetrators</h2>
<p>Generation War’s five main characters are portrayed as young, idealistic and somewhat naïve. The experiences of the war lead them to certain actions that might be questionable, but, as in any film or TV series, the viewer cares about and feels for them. </p>
<p>The implicit message is that these were the average Germans. Caught in the enthusiasm for the war project without being ideologically involved with Nazism, when faced with harsh reality they were forced to act as they did by circumstances and not by their own will.</p>
<p>The character of the SS officer does not in itself balance the overall impression that the main German characters are almost the victims of the war and not the perpetrators.</p>
<p>Among non-German characters, on the other hand, the Polish Home Army soldiers are probably the least sympathetic of all. In the scenes that most outraged the Polish public, they are simply repugnant and framed almost as perpetrators of the Holocaust. </p>
<p>This is an issue so sensitive in Poland that after US president Barack Obama referred to “Polish death camps” in 2012, he <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/01/obama-polish-death-camps-regret_n_1561894.html">formally apologised</a> for the “inadvertent verbal gaffe”. Obama acknowledged that these were, in fact, Nazi camps located on German-occupied Polish territory.</p>
<h2>Polish anti-Semitism</h2>
<p>So, were/are Poles anti-Semitic or not? Well, yes and no. The fury over the TV series confirms that this issue remains highly problematic. </p>
<p>It is difficult to accept expressions such as “Polish death camps”, with its implicit message that these were Polish-orchestrated and operated. It is equally difficult to accept that there were no anti-Semites in the Polish Home Army, or anti-Jewish crimes committed by Poles. Poles were victims of the Nazi terror, but some Poles also perpetrated anti-Jewish violence. Neither one nor the other can be denied. </p>
<p>A fully accurate re-examination of this chapter of history will be impossible. This is because of the unreliability of primary sources from the WWII-era, due to the age of first-hand witnesses, as well as Soviet authorities’ heavy postwar manipulation of the collecting and archiving of testimonies. Thus the goal for the historians will be to engage younger generations in a constructive dialogue by carefully considering multiple viewpoints and experiences.</p>
<p>The national project of rewriting Polish history ought to have room for a re-evaluation of Polish attitudes towards the Jews. Poland should seek a reconciliation with this difficult chapter of the past and ultimately a celebration of a 1000-year Polish Jewish history so that, as <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/a-land-of-ghosts-20140113-30pbe.html">Michael Gawenda wrote</a>, the story doesn’t have to end in a cemetery.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22518/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aleksandra Hadzelek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Polish reactions to the German TV series Generation War, which has just screened in Australia, confirm that the history of World War Two remains highly contentious. The resulting public debate tested Polish-German…Aleksandra Hadzelek, Lecturer in Social and Political Change, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.