ACTIVITY 5 - COMMUNICATING POPULAR CULTURE

         Some two decades ago, I remember my aunt crying to the recorded message of her classmate who went abroad to study. The message was full of sincerity and love for people who will be left behind. She played the cassette player many times then, and she cried every time. After several months, I remember her coming home with letters and going out to send her own. She was in pen pal with her friend who went abroad. Sometimes, I saw her crying while reading the handwritten note. Sometimes, she’s crying. Often times, she’s doing both. And I knew then, that they miss each other.

Nowadays, with the advent of technology and the generation’s familiarity with it, it is difficult to miss someone. In this generation (Generation Y or the Millennials), everyone is connected with everyone else. Unlike my aunt’s generation, the millennials are not given enough opportunity to be sincerely dramatic. In her time, she had to wait several months before she can access recorded messages from her friend and had to wait several months before her friend can receive hers, so that if she wants to greet her friend happy birthday, she had to send it months ahead. Today, a friend’s message can be accessed in a matter of seconds (if one is lucky enough to have good connectivity). There is no longer the element of wait and thus, for a message to be considered sincere, it must be lengthy, exaggerated and with a lot of emoticons, as evident in today’s birthday greetings on Facebook and other social networking sites (SNS). Though there is an alternative and safe way to greet a friend on social media: a pre-made video message. Most of the time, the social networking site will create a Happy Birthday video for a friend and, personally speaking, I prefer this type of greeting over the lengthy, exaggerated and “emoticonfull” wall post.

    Indeed, us millennials do things differently. Our lives are often recorded in SNS and even our secrets are posted in a form of a quiz, attached to it is a promise to answer any personal question through personal messages. We also take quizzes to determine what kind of breads we are or what we look like before and after shower. These are few of the things most of us, millennials, do. It is our culture. It is our time. What happens to this culture will be up to the next generation to come. And ultimately, the Generation Y will become just another period in history. Might as well flow with it and enjoy the ride.