Redlin5 said:
...how many of us literally live in our parent's basement?
I'm 21, working three jobs and trying to get into university in Vancouver to take a 4 year film course to get my degree and get into the industry. I'm here because the rent is cheap although I may move out and room with three friends I know from High School. Still waiting on that one to see how that'll pan out.
The point is my sister pointed out to me the other day the truth of it. I'm living in my folks basement.
I want out. I want to be independent and doing my own thing. Working two retail jobs and one Pizza job is boring. x.x
Anyway. Just wondering how many others here are in a similar situation.
I do I've admitted it before. I am pretty much the living incarnation of the stereotype. I am a fat, balding, glasses wearing uber-nerd in my late 30s who lives with my parents, my bedroom is in the basement (albiet a nice, wood paneled room).
I've been forced into retirement after a decade in Casino Security, suffer from brain damage, medicate myself heavily, and living on social security am actually concerned for the future about how I'll make everything work when my parents are gone since they will not live forever (though I'm sure I'll manage).
I'm a little less shy about my situation than most. It makes me angry a lot of the time more than anything.
In general the reason why this portrayal became insulting is because of how it applied to slackers, the implication being that the guy living off their parents, or at least accepting lodging, wasn't even trying. It typically goes along with unemployment and a bunch of other things. The idea being that "there is something inherantly wrong with anyone who could possibly be this interested in, or know this much about an esoteric subject like this".
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One other thing I'll say about the stereotype is that it's pure Generation X, and became so well known because there is a lot of truth to it, but not because the people doing it failed in some way. People will use anything they can to look down on others.
The bottom line is that Generation X is/was "the lost generation", the generation being skipped socially and economically due to extending lifespans and social changes. The idea being that due to modern medicine Baby Boomers are living longer, and staying more active than generations before them. Typically as a new generation is coming of age, the previous generation is stepping down and their children's generation moves into the same jobs and places int he social structure in order to replace them as they retire. In this case it didn't happen, and sociologists were pointing out for a long time it was going to turn out this way. The Baby Boomers are instead starting to slow down and retire just in time or Generation Y to move up socially.
This is a lot of what people, especially Generation Y, miss about the 1990s, the whole Emo/Goth scene, the angst, "extreme" attitudes and the like. The 1990s were a time of extreme escapism from a reality you knew was never going to be yours, and venting a lot of anger and depression. Today's youth have nothing to be depressed about, where with Generation X you literally went from self validation programs in school, to taking civics and sociology where you learned exactly why you were never going to amount to anything. Queue the angst, and the whole "slacker" attitude where people didn't want to do try and act up to their potential, because they knew they weren't going to go anywhere, so why break your arse?
With few if any meaningful jobs, you saw kids increasingly staying at home, it isn't like someone could just boot a Gen Xer out the door like with previous generations and expect them to find their way, after all there were no decent jobs as the parental generation was still holding them all, and most people were smart enough to realize it, as well as the fact that they would be holding them until Gen-X started to hit their late 30s through their 50s, at which point they would be too old to start the way they were supposed to and Gen Y would roll right on in.
This is incidently why "oldies" stations playing music from the 1960s and 1970s remained (and still remain) such a big deal, since the Baby Boomers had all the money, and music is used to promote products, where "everyone" meaning Boomers and Gen Y, agree the 1990s suck and it's hard to find much stuff from that period being given much credit, that being the big "teen/young adult" period for Gen X.
At any rate, the bottom line is that despite where I am now, where I've been, etc... the point is that while seemingly a horrible insult, the whole "Basement Dweller" thing came about for a reason. It's used to slam not just game nerds, but stoners, slackers, and pretty much the majority of an entire generation (though exceptions do exist). Without the reasonable expectation that a Gen Xer could get a good job (given the guy with it is still holding it, and nowhere near retirement) and have their own house/apartment/condo/whatever, huge numbers stayed home... duh, and quite a few are sensitive about it.
Personally I think it's going to be fairly interesting what's going to happen with Generation Y because while coming up with oppertunities they are going to have to deal with both the burden of supporting the Baby Boomers, and Generation X which was unable to contribute much of anything, just wait until they wind up having to deal with one, but not two generations hitting the social infrastructure en-masse one after another. That's one of the big reasons the goverment has been concerned about a social security/medicare/retirement crisis... a concern going back decades now since everyone saw exactly this coming.
