It's unfortunately that time of the year again. For 11 years now, as the academic year begins, you can count on Beloit College to come up with another one of their Mindless Lists to tell us dull and trivial things they think are relevant to understanding the incoming freshman class. I still can't figure out either who the audience is for this or if any of it is even remotely relevant, but apparently we academics are supposed to take this list and meditate on how these kids today are so different from you and me.
For example, this year's Mindless List starts off by saying: "Most of the students entering College this fall, members of the Class of 2011, were born in 1989. For them, Alvin Ailey, Andrei Sakharov, Huey Newton, Emperor Hirohito, Ted Bundy, Abbie Hoffman, and Don the Beachcomber have always been dead."
Huey Newton? Abbie Hoffman? Who's given any thought to them for 30 years? I guess the audience is supposed to be all the aging hippies who are now professors about to retire. I hate to break it to the aging hippies, but these people were history even when I started college, whenever that was. And I don't even know who Don the Beachcomber was.
So what are some other mindless facts about this class of 2011?
"4. They never “rolled down” a car window."
So what?
"10. Pete Rose has never played baseball."
Is this supposed to be an interesting and relevant shared cultural moment? For whom? I looked it up, and Rose retired in 1986. Hence, it's unlikely that anyone born after about 1976 would have had much of an awareness of Pete Rose as a baseball player. 1976. That means that for your 30 year old professors and librarians, Pete Rose has in effect never played baseball. Oh, and so what?
"15. Russia has always had a multi-party political system."
I wasn't aware it had a multi-party political system. Are you sure this is accurate? Have you asked Putin for his opinion on the matter?
"17. They were born the year Harvard Law Review Editor Barack Obama announced he might run for office some day."
Well, that's certainly meaningful for the twelve Americans outside of Illinois who'd heard of Obama before he was elected to the Senate.
"21. Eastern Airlines has never “earned their wings” in their lifetime."
I don't get this one, either, and I'm certainly not 18 anymore.
"24. Being “lame” has to do with being dumb or inarticulate, not disabled."
Who writes this stuff? That's like sooo 1985.
"26. Katie Couric has always had screen cred."
Screen cred? These hipsters sure know the lingo. Is this why she's always third out of three in the ratings?
"34. They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as “The Joker.”"
He played the Joker the year they were born. Presumably they were born in movie theaters while their parents were watching Batman. I think it's more likely they were introduced to him in 1996's Mars Attacks!
"28. They never found a prize in a Coca-Cola “MagiCan.”"
Again, I don't even know what this is. Perhaps I don't drink enough Coke.
"41. The “Blue Man Group” has always been everywhere."
This frightened me, until I looked around and realized that wherever the Blue Man Group is, it isn't in my library.
"43. Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal."
Apparently the authors have been living in a bubble for 30 years. This is certainly no new demographic development.
"53. Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre."
I looked this one up, too. Apparently, it's both.
"45. They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee."
This is hardly new. I hate to break it to you, but if you can remember where you were when Kennedy was shot, you're old.
"62. They have no idea who Rusty Jones was or why he said “goodbye to rusty cars.”"
Who? Is Rusty Jones some American icon or something? Never heard of him.
"68. Burma has always been Myanmar."
Okay, when did this happen?
I mean, really, what are we supposed to get out of this? I can see nothing on this list even remotely useful for understanding college students today. Apparently the compilers of the list don't realize that almost all the people reading it have actually be alive the last 18 years. We know what's going on in the world. Is this supposed to make us appreciate how ignorant these kids are? How limited their worldview? Or are we supposed to use it to communicate with them somehow? "Hey kids, what do you think if Couric's screen cred?"
One introduction I read to this ( I think in the Chronicle of Higher Education) noted that those pop culture references old professors make aren't meaningful anymore. That's not a sign that the professors should study these stupid lists. It's a reminder that professors should stick to their subjects and not try to be "relevant" or "hip" by referencing popular culture, unless, I suppose, they're actually teaching a class in popular culture.
Popular culture has always been a generational issue, but the Mindless List doesn't seem to realize it. Surely these aging hippies who reference Abbie Hoffman in class like anyone's ever heard of him can think back to the 1960s and remember professors trying to connect with those kids back then by referencing the Andrews Sisters or Buster Keaton movies. I don't even want to think about the popular culture of whatever era I grew up in, because it's just too horrible. I'd rather refer to Cary Grant and Cole Porter on the assumption that everybody is equally ignorant.
The only lesson we learn from the Mindless Lists is that the compilers think we're all fools who will try to communicate with 18-year-olds as if they were 50. When I used to teach, instead of referencing popular culture, I always made sure to sprinkle my discussions with references to historians or philosophers or poets, and occasionally a classic movie or composer, not to show off, but to show the students there was another world, a broad cultural world, outside of the limited domain of their knowledge.
Perhaps instead of pap about Pete Rose, the Mindless List could include things like: "For them, Beethoven is a movie about a big dog. Why don't we try to teach these kids something?"
I doubt it will happen though. I'm waiting seven more years for the best one. For the class of 2018, they can add:
"Beloit College has always been publishing these stupid lists."
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- AL
- The Annoyed Librarian is possibly the most successful, respected, and desirable librarian of her generation. She has no other interest than to bring her wit and wisdom to the huddled librarian masses yearning to breathe free. The Annoyed Librarian is a free spirit and you are lucky to have her. Fan mail may be addressed to: annoyedlibrarian AT gmail.com
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33 comments:
small observation: you're such a list luster.
keep'em coming, AL.
If they were to ride in my 2002 minivan, they'd be rolling down the windows, driven by an old lady who remembers when JFK was killed, listening to Pete Rose on a Cincinnati based talk show.
This list is yet further proof that the boomers are totally self-absorbed in their own trivial existence. That, and they probably got all these useless bits of trivia off Wikipedia. The "if you worn born in..." crap is interesting for about five seconds. More interesting is birthday cake. Oh, right, yuppies don't do carbs. I forgot.
Okay, I was born in '76 and I don't recognize most of those "pop culture" trivia. And I consider myself fairly well-versed in popular culture (maybe more than I should be). I do remember Pete Rose playing baseball, though, but that's probably because I grew up a Phillies fan.
I've been to Beloit - it's a sad, run-down little place. Give the poor people some credit, maybe they're just trying to make their lives a little less miserable.
Hell, I was born a few years before 1976 (no, not saying exactly when), and I certainly missed a few of those too. In fact, this is so good, I am actually posting my own rant over in the blog.
I went to Beloit College and it's a wonderful school, but I've always thought the mindset lists were inaccurate and pointless. Every year when the new list gets national attention, I find it irritating. I don't think many professors or students there care either.
There's really no relation between what happens on campus and the city of Beloit. There's almost no interaction between the two. So you can't blame it on "poor people...trying to make their lives a little less miserable." There's no excuse for the silly lists.
My professor for a graduate level rhetoric class sent this list around yesterday, and I realized that I was between eight and twelve when most of those things happened (Berlin Wall coming down, Silence of the Lambs released, etc). I'm mystified by the JFK reference...JFK was assassinated forty-five years ago, but even Oliver Stone's film is fifteen years old! I'd be shocked if very many freshman had seen it. It certainly isn't aimed at graduate student TAs, who do a lot of the freshman teaching in my department.
I love this list!!!!!!
but now I have to make my own for kids of the class of 2029. "For you, George W. Bush is the President of Iraq. Water is a rare vapor carried in balloons and slowly absorbed into the skin via a complex series of tubes. The Internet is a vitamin supplement taken as a suppository..."
Students these days are reverting to 18th century empirical philosophy. Very hip stuff.
Kids, Pete Rose is this guy with a bad hair cut that is on ESPN once and a while.
I don't know, I think they're kind of fun; albeit they do focus too much on boomer trivia and things that are pretty much subjective, such as:
Michael Moore? How about always a phony?
Katie Couric? Who?
I was born in 1968, and I remember when telephones had dials and there were two kinds of computers, the glorified calculators we called home computers and the mysterious and never seen mainframes. I remember regular gasoline, big cars, the Cold War, and the days when you could be yourself and not worry about how some politically correct absolutist will pigeonhole you.
It's probably a sign of the social zeitgeist the list just goes on and on with lots of personal opinions (Jerry Springer, the one on the space program, etc.)
It would have been better if they'd focused on a shorter list of major changes and left people's opinions out for facts, but then the list gets attention and attention is everything.
And for the really feel old factor, the sixties references were obsolete even when I was a freshman in 1986.
Now back to the eternal job hunt.....
"...but now I have to make my own for kids of the class of 2029. "For you, George W. Bush is the President of Iraq. Water is a rare vapor carried in balloons and slowly absorbed into the skin via a complex series of tubes. The Internet is a vitamin supplement taken as a suppository..."
This reminds me of the movie Idiocracy. If you haven't seen it, go rent it. It's what we all have to look forward to.
"...When I used to teach, instead of referencing popular culture, I always made sure to sprinkle my discussions with references to historians or philosophers or poets, and occasionally a classic movie or composer, not to show off, but to show the students there was another world, a broad cultural world, outside of the limited domain of their knowledge...."
So what did you do? Give it up as a bad habit? Teaching, I mean.
While you're on the subject of mindless lists, you should have brought up the things librarians debate on their groups/lists/whatever.
Deep technical topics? New techniques? No, things like how to word signs telling people to turn their cellphones off, new websites to look at, other blogs to read, and the endless merry go round about intellectual freedom with the caveat librarians are somehow crucially involved in saving the world. And let's not forget the roundtables and symposiums to pay money and debate these things with real, live librarians! Oh, the glory it adds to the old resume!
I've left my last list, no more fifty e-mails a day of junk, and trying to network as a "Frusty." All it got me was an endless stream of spam to my e-mail account.
It's interesting to compare the Class of 2002 list with the current Class of 2011 list. The 2002 list is actually factual and somewhat informative. The 2011 list seems more like propaganda.
The following are from the current 2011 list:
3. Rush Limbaugh and the “Dittoheads” have always been lambasting liberals.
5. Michael Moore has always been angry and funny.
12. Religious leaders have always been telling politicians what to do, or else!
Good grief! What a list. I was born 1966, am better at pop culture than most my friends, and lots of this list leaves me blank.
6. They may confuse the Keating Five with a rock group. Yeah, an 80s group would be my guess.
12. Religious leaders have always been telling politicians what to do, or else! This has always been true.
19. Classmates could include Michelle Wie, Jordin Sparks, Who are these people?
22. No one has ever been able to sit down comfortably to a meal of “liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.” I'm not even sure what this means.
46. Most phone calls have never been private. This reminds me of a friend that had a party line into the 1980s.
66. The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born. I believe the World Wide Web was invented in 1993. They are a little off here.
I went to Beloit College and it's a wonderful school, but I've always thought the mindset lists were inaccurate and pointless.
Yeah, it's a solid SLAC. Blame the Marketing Dept. as they are the root of all evil at every college and university.
I think it's really important to have a decent sense of cultural history. I wonder if lists such as these encourage the divide. Growing up, I knew plenty about the era my parents grew up in. My parents actually paid some attention to mine as well. Isn't that normal?
"So what did you do? Give it up as a bad habit? Teaching, I mean."
I decided I'd rather be a fully employed and decently paid librarian than a part-time, poorly paid adjunct. Such is life.
Oh, and I had to give up on listservs years ago, so I have no idea what they were doing. I used to subscribe to several, esp. in the days before blogs, and I found that eventually I was deleting them all without reading them. I get emails sometimes telling me that people are discussing a particular AL piece on some listserv, and I figure if that's the best they can do the list is probably a waste of time.
Touche'
This year's list is lamer than usual. Or maybe I'm more cynical? Anyway, I remember being amused by this list in the past.
"Hello Rusty Jones, goodbye rusty cars" - I remember the tune to this jingle, but perhaps it's a Wisconsin thing, not a generational one? I grew up near there.
I still roll down my windows, and I bought my car this century!
My favorite:
50. Smoking has never been allowed in public spaces in France.
How does this have any impact on most 18 year olds?
The lists are terrible. I remember the one they came out with one year that claimed CDs had "always been a part of [my] life." Sure, they might have been *invented* before I was born, but that doesn't mean they were a part of culture. I remember the first time I saw a CD, and I wasn't an infant. They make similar errors with almost all of their examples.
i like to use these to see how far behind the times my family was. and for the record, I "rolled down" my car window just this morning... and it's a 2001. Not very fancy, but as new as some of these incoming freshman are likely to drive. i would like my share of the crack, please :)
This is a "jumped the shark" kind of thing. There was a point, maybe ten eyars ago, when the list has a few "wow" items, mostly technological. Sadly, like most discourse, it must all slant to pop culture and politics. Which are more or less the same, but I digress.
--Taupey
Supposedly, Beloit was named when somebody dropped a quarter in a toilet.
The only possible conclusion is
that Beloit is admitting freshmen
who actually ARE this ignorant.
More likely, it's a case of what
passes for humor in the world of academia these days
*for the record, I "rolled down" my car window just this morning... and it's a 2001. Not very fancy, but as new as some of these incoming freshman are likely to drive.*
Beloit is a private school, so these kids are probably driving spiffy new cars with power windows.
I think this list should have focused on things these kids could actually understand, like "For you, TV dinners have never taken longer than 5 minutes to cook and have never come in a metal tray". "For you, there have always been more than 13 channels". "For you, MTV has never actually played a music video--nay, you don't even know what a music video is".
Idiocracy, indeed.
If they were using my office as a seminar room I'd play them a loop of Adolphe Menjou singing "Two White Arms" (so bad they never recorded a B-side!) until they'd properly learned to reference Wallace Beery, Blue Coal, Fay Wray and Gene Tierney. Tough love.
AL: we really need your best (worst) list of mindless lists as a point of reference for the unwary.
With regards to Mr. Rose, I suspect what they meant to say is that he's never been associated with baseball, not that he's never played baseball. '89 was the last year he managed the Reds, after receiving a lifetime ban in August. The ban has had no impact on life in America, that I can perceive...
It was nice to see some love for Don the Beachcomber. He ruled! But I thought he died in the 60s. Oops.
I took issue with the list last year. I never did figure out who was being had on that one.
Goober, Anyone?
I went to Beloit and, while it is a fairly rigorous school, this boomer drivel list is really all it's known for outside of the Midwest.
Tom McBride, the professor who compiles it, is actually an incredibly engaging lecturer, though.
Another thing (besides the list) that is annoying about Beloit College:
Students are virtually quarantined on campus due to insane housing requirements and the students' perception that the town of Beloit is somehow a dangerous and unwelcoming place to be (a perception that the college perpetuates). Students are required to live in dorms for three years and financial aid is slashed if they move off campus during the fourth year. The college defends this policy by blathering on about its "unique sense of community," blah, blah. Really, though, it's just a ploy to reel in extra dough through exhorbitant dorm and meal plan rates.
I remember that Rusty Jones jingle It's been in my head for 30 years.
Good Bye Rusty Cars
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