Ilia Jones breaks the first rule and talks about ‘Fight Club’ and it’s connection to Generation-Y.
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As a blood-soaked Brad Pitt (Tyler Durden) explains the rules of “Fight Club,” I realize that this movie is not only brilliant, it’s Generation-Y in a nutshell.
As a generation that wears sweatshirts instead of suits, occupies Wall Street and questions the government peacefully, we are the “Fight Club” of our time.
This film brought to light how utterly useless it is to try to define perfection, and it can pretty much take full responsibility for making thrifting cool (sorry, Macklemore). We are the “all singing all dancing crap of the world.”
Thank you to “Fight Club” for opening our eyes and defining our generation. Here are 15 reasons why “Fight Club” defined Generation-Y:
1. We accept and embrace our differences
Specifically, our downfalls. For many generations, being the same was sought after and being different was taboo. “Fight Club” taught us that being totally screwed up was great — greater than being a factory-made consumer zombie.
2. We don’t accept wastefulness.
We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.
This served as a wake-up call for us. We’d rather spend our money on traveling or concerts, and experiences over material is a mantra of our generation.
Just like Tyler Durden produced soap out of fat, we are the generation of DIY. In a less grotesque way, we are focused on decreasing waste just like good ‘ol Tyler D.
3. We’d rather chase a dream than chase money
Corporations are still huge, but we would rather be chasing a dream living in a no-bedroom apartment than making a CEO even more money than he needs.
If that dream is to visit each and every underdeveloped country in the world, you better believe you’ll see us working the local coffee shops to get there. We’ve accepted that choosing a dream sometimes means being uncomfortable for a while, and that’s alright with us.
4. We use our voices
We’re starting to realize there are more of us than there are of them. Granted, we aren’t going to be blackmailing our boss anytime soon; we are the ones protesting on the corner, using social media to be loud about our opinions and actually taking action to change things.
5. We aren’t afraid of failure because we know it’s inevitable
You wanna make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs.
And break some eggs we do. We don’t mind if someone sees us fall; all that matters is that we tried and tried again.
6. We look for the hidden message
If you wake up at a different time in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?
We don’t just do things to do them. There is meaning behind everything, and you better believe we will find it. Just like failing is inevitable, it also happens for a reason. Get out of our way because we’re about to figure this one out.
7. We are indefinable
I say let’s evolve, and let the chips fall where they may.
There is not one thing that defines our generation; we’re messy and obnoxious, brilliant and confident. We like to talk about ourselves because we are utterly indefinable.
8. We are philosophers
Reject the basic assumption of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions.
We took this quote to heart. This generation is responsible for holistic remedies, preventative medicine taking over and hopeless theorists.
9. We are no longer spectators
The movie is literally about the drive to feel something, the human desire to be involved and not just sit back and watch. This happens to also be the defining characteristic of our generation; we ask questions, and we engage with the world around us. We read the ingredients.
10. We are innovative
Attending a support group for a disease you don’t have is the “Fight Club” version of absorbing any and all information from every minute of life.
We are innovative in that we use everything this world has to offer us to create, grow and learn. We also change the way the world works. We’ve changed the way businesses do business, the way companies advertise their products. We’ve shifted the power to our hands as consumers.
We’ve figured out that anything made of plastic can be made of recycled material, instead.
11. We say what we mean
Three pitchers of beer and you still can’t ask.
Oh, we can ask, and we will. This whole “being polite” thing is completely wasted on us when it comes to saying what we mean. Thank goodness, too, because we don’t deal well with passive-aggressive.
12. We have a weakness for Starbucks
This one isn’t something I’m personally proud of. Call it subliminal messaging if you’d like, but after “Fight Club” came out, Starbucks profits skyrocketed. There is a Starbucks cup in plain sight in every “Fight Club” scene.
13. We make our own rules
Our club is the Mother Nature club, and we want to talk about it. The first rule is, you do not f*ck with Mother Nature. We don’t care that leather pants are cool again; we’ll get some pleather pants at the thrift store and look and feel like a million bucks.
We decide where we spend our money, and we decide when the earth runs out of natural resources; we are going to postpone that for a very long time. We have forced the creation of bike lanes and city-wide bike rentals because well, we aren’t into fossil fuels.
We make our own rules, but you can talk about these.
14. We really do believe we’ll be millionaires and rockstars, and it has nothing to do with money
We have a different definition of being rich. Experiencing the world and taking care of it makes us rich. We have made our own rockstars via YouTube, and we don’t need celebs to be on every Pepsi commercial to buy their albums. We are in charge now.
15. We crave originality
Just as we are obnoxious, we are easily bored. We crave originality, and we won’t settle until we get it. We don’t care about having the latest hairstyle; we create the latest hairstyle. Fitting in doesn’t matter to us.
Photo Courtesy: 20th Century Fox/Fight Club
I’m sorry, but this is not only annoyingly self-congratulatory, but it’s just complete wishful fantasy.