Pop Culture and Music essay
In this essay it is necessary to discuss Tom Wolfe’s position to the “Me” generation. Thus, the main aim of this paper is to understand author’s attitude to the observed subject.
First of all it is necessary to mention that the “Me” generation began in the 1970s. In such a way, famous journalist Tom Wolfe said that 1970s can be considered the “Me” decade, because people changed their attitudes to life from social and political justice (that were popular in the 1960s) to self-concern (that has become popular in the 1970s). Those ages (1970s) were full of economic problems and exactly such problems led people to focus their attention on their individual needs; thus, it allows to call them the “Me” generation.
Wolfe (1976) stated in his article that “… they discovered and started doting on Me! They’ve created the greatest age of individualism in American history! All rules are broken! The prophets are out of business!”, and those words allows us to understand that author not only described the existed situation, but also showed the new way of life, revealing main behavioral motives and hidden thoughts of many people. Thus, we can say that the author was going to show its readers the way how ordinary people, become self-centered humans, using bright examples taken from that reality and adding own thoughts during their interpretation.
It is possible to suppose that the author was not neutral in his descriptions of “Me” decade, but he tried to show own negative attitude to situation, using his own energetic and satiric vision. Wolfe was also trying to give a dare to Americans for the purpose of to discredit the so-called third great awakening as nothing but destructive movement that has changed widely shared cultural views not in a good side.
Thus, taking everything into consideration it is possible to conclude that Tom Wolfe wanted us to understand that different generations have had different aims in their lives, and these other self-absorbed thoughts has greatly changed American people.
