Difference between revisions of "2660: Gen Z"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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| number    = 2660
 
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| date      = August 17, 2022
 
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| title    = Gen Z
 
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| image    = gen_z.png
 
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| titletext = Curdled milk, of a peculiar kind, made after a Bulgarian recipe and called "yaghurt," is now a Parisian fad and is believed to be a remedy against growing old. A correspondent who has tried it, says he would prefer to die young. (1905, The Elk Falls Journal)
 
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==Explanation==
 
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Older generations are often confused by the trends and norms of younger people, and this comic aims to contextualize this common situation by placing it in a historical perspective — featuring the usual cast of xkcd in historical garb. White Hat (wearing a white boater) has seemingly just finished introducing a topic of discussion to the rest of the group; he knows the rest of his group will find the topic weird, but is willing to defend Gen Z with the excuse "that's just how they do things." Black Hat is expressing a notion that sounds a lot like  [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc juvenoia], and is quick to make sweeping generalizations about the younger group.  The other reactions depicted are representative of the broader spectrum of possible responses: either surprised interest or cautious acceptance. There is no evidence that White Boater is correct about how Gen-Z does things.
 
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Neither knee-jerk rejection nor forward-looking sympathy are specifically praised by the main text of the comic, but the example highlighted in the title text seems to imply that Randall would like to emphasize openness to new things.
 
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The title text [https://mobile.twitter.com/xkcd/status/1560020008545165319 quotes] a newspaper from Elk Falls, Kansas, which on May 18, 1905, told of a "Parisian fad".  The item was a shortened version of an account which also ran in many other newspapers.  In this case, the "fad" is the introduction of {{w|yogurt}} (spelled "yaghurt" in this publication, probably because English spelling of the word was not standardized yet and may have been influenced by the French spelling ("yaourt") and phonology).  In the modern day, yogurt is enjoyed as a common food in most [[559: No Pun Intended|cultures]], but in 1905 the concept was bizarre and repulsive to many readers.  This shows that things which are dismissed as "strange" because of preconceived notions of a particular group (that curdled milk is necessarily bad) may, in fact, be perfectly acceptable once more context is obtained.  It is also worth noting that yogurt was not invented in 1905, but had existed for centuries prior; despite this, the recent introduction to French culture is what prompted its recognition as a nascent "fad".  This may be analogized to various fads and trends which {{w|Gen Z}} is embracing which may appear unfounded to members of older generations, but which nevertheless represent acceptance of ideas which did not originate with members of that generation.  Randall may have chosen this particular version of the item in part because it omits some of the statements in the longer item, such as that consumption of yogurt could “prolong human life to what is its normal span - a century or so.”
 
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This is not the first comic to identify "modern" complaints or viewpoints as having been present throughout history in various forms (see comics [[1227: The Pace of Modern Life]] and [[1601: Isolation]]).
 
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The humor in making generalizations about people born in specific time periods is also seen in [[973: MTV Generation]], [[1962: Generations]] and [[2249: I Love the 20s]].
 
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==Transcript==
 
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:[Six individuals in clothing representing early 1900s' American fashion stand in a line.  Four of them have speaking roles, from left to right, and two stand in silence, contributing to the feeling of a conversation amongst a crowd gathered around the first speaker]
 
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:Speaker 1 (white brim hat): Now, it may sound strange, but it's how Gen Z is doing things!
 
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:Speaker 2 (wavy hair, dress with belt): Gosh!  Is that really true??
 
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:Speaker 3 (dark hat with indent): Ridiculous.  It just goes to show what I've been saying about them.
 
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:Speaker 4 (hair in bun, dress with lace hem): Now now, maybe we just need to change with the times.
 
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:[Caption below comic:]
 
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:People ascribing qualities to "Gen Z" have the same energy as small-town salespeople in 1905 talking about what the ladies in Paris are up to.
 
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{{comic discussion}}
 
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[[Category:Food]]
 
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[[Category:Social interactions]]
 
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[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
 
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[[Category:Comics featuring Hairbun]]
 
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[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
 

Revision as of 22:30, 29 January 2024

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