Sunday, June 13, 2010

Class of 2010

Congratulations to the graduating class of 2010! I think you are truely the last of a generation.

I am at the tail end of GenX, which remembers BETA, VHS, 45's, and cassette tapes. We remember a time when we had to use the Encyclopedia Brittanica vs. Wikipedia. We went to library and used the card catalogue, hand copied notes from our BOOK source, and traslated that into a research paper.

We used to volunteer to turn the projector's reel when the audio cassette's recording "beeped".

Does anyone remember the "new" videos on laserdisc, which was going to replace the VHS? Laserdiscs were the size of LP's!

MTV actually showed something new called music videos, and musicians were beginning to furthur their limits. The new genre called "Rap" was just emerging. Michael Jackson released a video called "Thriller" which redefined what a music video could be.

Like the generations before me, I am grateful to have seen so much technology advance so quickly. But it still scares the heck out of me! I have my laptop computer which has more than the 1G of memory my larger computer in college had. I have a digital camera with 7.5 megpixels. If you take a bad picture, you simply delete the picture instead instead of having it printed, pay for it, and then regret it.

Now I come back to music. I remember buying my first cassette tape which was Tina Turner's "1984". I bet you can't guess what year I bought it. When I reached high school, I owned my first "Walkman", which is a portable CD player. I used to save my money to buy CDs. I now own an iPod with 8G of memory. They managed to fit 8 of my college computers into one, tiny... what? It isn't a box... uh... well, it still blows my mind!

So to this generation getting ready to enter college or the work force, I wish you much luck in your futures! And prepare yourselves to listen to us, "older" generation talk about the "good ol' days". :)

1 comment:

Jen said...

Ah, yes, I bought a Wham 45. Remember when we used to listen to stories on records? Or how schools had filmstrips that some lucky kid got the advance when the "beep" sounded?