The Catalano Generation is Revolutionizing Dating
Stuck somewhere in the middle, a generation helps to redefine what love should look like.
When you put a photo of Jordan Catalano in an intro to an article, you can be certain I’m going to read it.
You probably have no idea who I’m talking about if you weren’t a white, middle class American teenager during the mid-90s. Jordan’s hottie character, along with the angst-ridden main character of Angela Chase, went down in slightly-less than infamy when their vehicle “My So-Called Life” was retired after only a year on ABC. Sure, MTV revived the reruns years later to an audience years younger; but nothing quite compared to living through the teen-filled dramasodes in the fall of 1994 (for me, my junior year of high school).
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I searched Wiki to jog some memories of My So Called Life, chuckling as I read the description of the show:
The title of the show alludes to the perception of meaninglessness that many teenagers experience and encapsulates the main theme of the series. The show depicts the teenage years as being difficult and confusing rather than a light, fun-filled time.
The “themes” on the show are a far cry from what you see on teen shows today like “Gossip Girl” (sorry, that’s the only one I can pull to mind). Maybe that’s why it was canceled so quickly. But the disconnection each character displayed on MSCL, whether it was from struggling with one’s sexuality or struggling with drugs, or even as “simple” as struggling with the end of a childhood friendship, is what Doree Shafrir related to in her recent article on Slate, Generation Catalano.
Disconnection. Being stuck in the middle. Not quite fitting in anywhere.
Shafrir’s argument is that those born between January 1977 and January 1981 fail to fall in either of the defined generations that surround it. Too old to be a Millennial (previously known as “Generation Y”), too young to be a Gen Xer. Having been born in December 1978, I can relate.
Though I loved many of the movies that defined Generation X, such as John Hughes films, Singles, and Reality Bites, they were certainly geared toward an older audience who had already lived more life – and felt more pain – than I had. Don’t get me started on the Millenial generation – in terms of their media and music, I have always come off as an old fogie (though I did sink my teeth into that whole MySpace and Facebook thing…).
Who Are We?
So what defines those of us who fall in the middle? Many now occupy Wall Streets and government properties across the US, who have struggled since they graduated from college in the late 90s to maintain their career (some due to the up-and-down economy, some just tasted a hint of ‘there’s got to be something better’). Others moved back in with their parents over the last couple of years after finishing their Masters and finding they couldn’t even get a bartending gig. I have nothing to back this up, but the ‘Catalano’ generation may be the one that has the highest number of people on antidepressants.
We also may be that generation who kicked off the whole doing-worse-than-our-parents thing, and might just have the smallest percentage of marriages and kids. And no, I’m not implying the two are linked. Well, maybe.
More so, I think, when it comes to most anything with this in-between generation, we haven’t been and aren’t willing to accept the status quo. This includes the idea that marriage is the ultimate goal and that we are biologically programmed to have children. Instead, we are searching for that thing our parents never had a chance to: some form of freedom. A deeper sense of self. Fulfillment. And that sure didn’t come in our two-story home that hid anger and violence inside, or the tiny apartment that forced us to face anger as soon as we walked outside.
In no way am I implying that all of us had shitty childhoods. Many of us had great ones. But somehow, many of us tuned in early on to the fact that “it’s not all sunshine and roses” in love, relationships, or family. We refused to hide our pain – and the complexities of being human – even at 14, the hiding of which is so prized in a “perfect” America. I can only imagine the numbers of the ‘C’ generation who made their way up to Occupy New York – we never grew out of the angst. We lived it, survived, and are demanding better.
Maybe all the waiting to get married – or never getting married – has less to do with my generation’s inability to commit, or the decline of men, or any other bullshit ways the media tries to dissect us. Maybe we are the ones entrusted by a greater force to make changes and pave a better way. One lined with love on a deeper level, love of self no matter how many articles and TV shows and movies tell us not to. We just might be creating true partnerships where self-development stays on par with relationship development, therefore producing two much happier and content people.
Or maybe us “C-ers” are just kidding ourselves, and we really are the losers and lazy people they try and tell us we are. Somehow, I think we’re in the middle of proving them wrong.