Speak for yourself

As promised a couple posts back, I'm going to pick the appellation that best fits our generation from all of the names that have been suggested so far. Here goes:

First, I'm going to dispatch a few in large chunks.

Too narrow/specific:
• The My Space Generation
• The Grand Theft Auto Generation
• The Nintendo Generation
• The MTV Generation
• The MyPod Generation

Focused on time period rather than character
• The thirteenth generation
• Regan Babies
• The Millenials
• Echo Boomers
• The Second Baby Boom

The rest I'll deal with individually.

Generation Y: Nah, I don't want to be defined simply as the ones that came after Generation X.
The Boomerang Generation: This refers to our apparent tendency to return home after college. While it may be something we have in common (and probably a sign of a poor economy), I don't think that it says much about our character.
The Next Generation: Star Trek is more a Generation X thing. This name has little else to offer.
The DARE Generation: Certainly a common theme of our childhoods, and probably had a lot to do with our cynicism. Not terribly applicable now, even less so in the future.
GenerationNext: Too unspecific.
The Google Generation: I think google does embody a lot of what I see in our generation, though it was formed by Generation Xers. Still, while google certainly has staying power, its novelty will eventually wear off and it will become less appealing.
The Einstein Generation: This certainly piques my ego. Refers to our ability to multi-task. A little too narrow a scope, though, and we should resist the pandering for posterity's sake.
The Me Generation: Comments on our tendency to keep to ourselves, communicate online, etc. A little insulting, easily misinterpreted.

Second Place
The iGeneration (or internet Generation): Hard to cross this one off. We certainly have been shaped in large part by the ability to communicate instantaneouly, and to access information at will. Still, while the internet does have a big effect on our lives, I am going to refrain from pinning our identity to a technological innovation.

The Winner
So, my pick of the suggested names for our generation:

The Cynical Generation
We were born into an era of polemics. The older generations are sharply divided on many issues, and every where we turn we are confronted with their angry rhetoric. We see their unwillingness to compromise and win-at-all-cost outlook, and are understandably turned off. There is no unchallenged authority in our lives.

We are skeptical of just about everything. As far as entertainment goes, we gravitate towards the satirical and irreverant--just look at the success of South Park, or The Daily Show, or the resurgence of Monty Python. The first style of music completely our own was the super-cynical Emo, which, of course, immediately created millions of super-cynical Emo-haters. Even in the world of sports, we root against anyone who enjoys too much success, no matter how good their backstory (see the New England Patriots, the San Antonio Spurs, etc.). As far as movies go, we have a predilection to the conspiratoraial (The Matrix, Fight Club) and the one-man-against-the-system (Enemy of the State, Shooter, anything Denzel Washington, may, many others), which hints at our displeasure with the status quo.

This evidence having been considered, I think that The Cynical Generation speaks to our character pretty well, or at least better than anything else that has been suggested to date.