Lo and Behold, as it turns out, our children, Generation Dot Com, look at us like we are some dinosaurs from another era in time. The things we held dear and thought were classy, have since been tossed aside. A valuable Walkman that boosted our image amongst our peers. A boombox which was our first big investment when we got our first job, and it still works perfectly, its audio cassettes (Tumikwa) still in their original cases, with music greats like Don Williams, Lionel Ritchie, Bony M, Abba, Kenny Rogers, Phil Collins, Dolly Parton, Charlie Pride and great Boy Bands like Boyz II Men, Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block. Music that you still search on YouTube and listen to it nostalgically as you snap your fingers and tap your foot declaring “That was the best music ever made”.
A Sony VCR that you took a loan to purchase because they were very expensive is now collecting dust at the back of a closet, clothes and books piled on top of it. Your VHS movie collection arranged in alphabetical order of Blockbuster movies of our time: The Godfather, Pretty Woman, Good-fellas, Home Alone, Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, Star Wars, Fried Green Tomatoes, Saving Private Ryan, Mrs. Doubtfire, Dumb and Dumber and others that you still watch on cable and declare nostalgically “They used to make good movies back then”.
You tell your children how wonderful it was to watch some of those movies in the popular movie theaters of our day; Cameo Cinema, Odeon Cinema and an occasional Indian movie at Embassy Cinema. Your children cannot believe the places you just mentioned were actually movie theaters, and they cannot believe you paid money to watch movies there. They give you the side look wondering how they can possibly be related to you.
In college, we were the first generation of students who got introduced to personal computers as a subject. We became proficient and that prepared us for the job market we were entering which was getting computerized fast. The internet came and we opened our first email addresses proudly using our full names. For our families and friends who had not experienced computers and internet, we were the heroes tasked with explaining this new phenomenon that was sweeping the globe, and they looked at us with awe and wonder.
We considered ourselves modern and tech savvy. With those credentials to our name, we assumed we will be impressive to our children and they will naturally respect our intelligence and sophistication.
