D-Mo Generation

I want to coin a phrase just for the hell of it. The Internet is popularising stupid terminology such as “staycation” and “pwnage” and I want to get in on the act (although, I must confess that, prior to looking them up, I really had little idea what either of those two examples meant).

The Internet gave way to the term “emo”. When I say “gave way”, I mean it broadly popularised it. It may have been in existence before that but it came to a lot of people’s attention through crazy shit on the Web. I don’t, therefore, see any reason why I can’t be getting in on the act with a broadly meaningless term of my own. Ladies and jellyspoons, I give you “d-mo”.

“D-mo” stands for “demotivated” and captures a growing demographic in their 20s and 30s who are trapped between two generations of crazy people all the while waiting for their time to come when they can begin to redress the global balance.

Think about it, if you’re in your 20s or 30s, odds are you look at the generation above you and, in particular, the world leaders and go “holy shit, I can’t identify with these people and I’m damned sure that they don’t do much to represent my interests” and then you look at the generation below you and go “fuck me, they don’t know jack: their school tests are ridiculously easy, they’re protected from everything by the state and they’re growing up to be crazy and spoiled”. This has to have an enormous demotivating effect and lead to general apathy about life, the universe and everything. I mean, what do you do? You bide your time until your generation becomes the legislators and world leaders all the while hoping and praying that the younger generation somehow learns to communicate in a language more advanced than text-speak. You listen to the news report telling you about the pensions crisis that will affect the generation that preceded you, all the while silently understanding that the Government aren’t even discussing the fact that you’ll be lucky to get a pension at all. You see interviews with youngsters who can’t seem to finish a sentence without saying “like” or “y’know” 24 times in the process. World leaders drag their feet on climate change worrying about the immediate ramifications without consideration for the fact that, without action, there won’t be any world left to save. What the hell are you meant to do?!?

I could be wrong, this could be something that affects generations other than my own but it does seem like my generation is a sleeping giant waiting to be awoken. We’re used to the fact that China is a major power and needs to be dealt with – no doubt my generation in China realises that they need to play nice with the rest of the world too! We realise that we can’t just strip mine the whole planet and hope that it won’t cave in. We realise that politicians and news groups are governed by special interests and cannot always be trusted to do what’s right. And where do these realisations lead us? No where. Because we also realise how disenfranchised we are by the economy at large: how much we are slaves to industry and corporate might. We have little hope but to wait for our turn and try to make the most of what little, limited life we have. It’s a crushing reality to live with and the defining feature of the “d-mo” generation.

There you go, Internet, have another stupid term to play with.