This quote is from an insightful article in The Santa Barbara Independent about how growing up with school shootings has become a defining generational characteristic:

...what is fairly new and somewhat specific to our generation is the extent to which pop culture builds bonds across national and even international boundaries. Since we were seven or eight years old, we've been watching the worldwide web grow into a globe-spanning network of collective cultural consciousness and shared social space.

When someone blogs about the Backstreet Boys in Boise, the twentysomething reading it in Britain gets it immediately. When someone mentions slap bracelets or creates a Facebook group devoted to the bygone computer game Oregon Trail, every Generation Y-er with internet access gets to reminiscing right away. When The Spice Girls come on in the car, you can guarantee that any girl within earshot will start singing along.

And, when someone talks about leaving his iPod behind as he fled a lecture hall under siege in yet another school shooting, it resonates. It is a sad truth that the phenomenon of school shootings is something else our generation shares with one another.

Posted by anastasia