Semi Blog Reini Schwede

The topic of my Seminar for 3rd and 4th grades is: Reflection of Millennials in German popular culture.

Millennials, aged between 16 and 35 years, constitute one fifth of the German population and are a serious target for entertainment industries. This generation is the most affluent generation Germany has ever seen; it is also the best educated, most diverse and seems to be the most difficult youth to analyse and put into a scheme: scholars, members of former generations complain about the inaccessibility of the Generation Easy, as the new German cohort is labelled in the Semi.

Old school media like books, research articles, surveys are one way to getting to know these youngsters and young adults. Mostly, however, products of popular culture, like Pop music, movies, magazines, you-tube videos, Facebook posts and twitter are used to introduce lifestyle and the way of thinking of this generation.

During the summer semester the following results could be established:

German Reunification provides still a great impact on Generation Easy. Cool Germany does no longer import its role models from the West, especially the US or UK. A new German generation thinks global, is internationally minded, but sees no problems anymore to applaud its German background, i.e. its cultural, social, economic and political history and present. Concepts of Utopia and Retropia no longer define the philosophy of the younger generation: important is perfecting ones’ person in the present – and making use of the multiple options modern Germany`s society provides to reach that goal. Germans popular culture reflects these ambitions perfectly.
New German, as a language, is a m ix of German with English, called Denglish, with lots of bits of pieces of other European languages thrown in; even non-European like Turkish.
Generation Easy, nomen est omen, rejects stress in their private and business lifestyle. Being very well versed in using their well-developed crisis management skills, they opt for a life in which they are the ones who call the shots. Labels as Flextatrier, i.e. flexible to an extreme, Egotactics, putting ones` self’s interest as an absolute priority, show, that non-members of this rather exclusive group are not happy about the preferences of this generation. Youth bashing has again become a new Zeitgeist-phenomenon. Work life balance is of great importance, family ditto, gender roles are newly defined.
Generation Easy is a very controversial age group. Popular culture seems to reflect their diversity perfectly well and allows students from a very different cultural and social background to get an idea, or even an understanding of young people in a modern Germany.
Participants feel encouraged to compare the findings with Japan`s Generation Y and present the group with their findings: for example, work-life balance in Japan, traditional vs modern lifestyles, traditional vs modern family life, new gender rules.
Here are some links to YouTube music videos, movies which characterize Generation Easy perfectly well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wOoLLDXbDY; https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cro+whatever; https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ein+hoch+auf+uns; https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=m%C3%A4nner+ticken+frauen+anders: