*Holds breath* I'm going in!

Ok BGSF, I'mma explain something that I saw today on TV. In England there is a dating show called 'Take me out'. The premise, is that there are 20 or so 'resident' girls. Each week a few guys go on to the show and try and choose a girl to date. The girls each have a light on the booth they're standing behind and if at any time they decide they don't like the guy, they can turn off their light, meaning the bloke in question can't pick them to date.

Anyway, one guy was on tonight who's job was as a fish monger. When the girls first saw him, most left their lights on, meaning they still liked him. He then proceeded to tell them he was a fish monger and about 90% turned off their lights.

I sat and thought about this for a while and wondered if I was just over thinking things, but to me that signifies the expectancy and attitude of my generation. The 18-27 or so era. People nowadays, especially girls (not all may I add) are vacuous. We live in a celebrity, get rich quick culture, where we all want something for nothing. Boys want to be footballers and girls want to sleep with footballers. We're overly materialistic and we've been brought up to expect great things from life, only to be left sourly disappointed when the world turns out to be not such a forgiving and easy place.

To me it seems like girls want a boyfriend who's a banker or sports star, they have overblown expectations and nice guys like our fish monger get left behind, why? Because his job isn't "glamorous."

I don't really know what my point is, it just struck me as a really shallow attitude for people to have and I felt ashamed of what some of us have become.

I think this quote applies especially well.

"Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. [censored] it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy [censored] we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

Should have went in without clothes.

I think that is sound advice for any tough situation one may face.

I keep trying this, but it never works.

I suppose it depends on the area or friends one might have, but from what I know judging the populace of Earth based off a T.V. show isn't always the most suitable way to do so. Sure you might have a bunch of materialists out there walking around, but I've seen more people who actually care about the person and what's inside rather than out.

The fact that you think this is exclusive to your generation just means that you are young. As you get older you will see this [censored] fade away. Sure there will always be gold diggers and dudes that live outside their means to get gold diggers but the vast majority of those girls, in 10 years time, will want that guy.

http://thinknice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/I-Wish-I-Was-Al-Bundy.jpg

I know, I know. I was just left feeling a little disappointed that people were judging him on his occupation like that. Plying a skill like that should be admired and nowadays having a solid occupation should be commended. Unfortunately the Kardashians are all over TV, getting paid for doing nothing.

^ These paragraphs.. sound exactly like the epiphany one gets going through high school and graduating, realizing what a bunch of materialistic, superficial, self-absorbed pricks these people are. As an advlt you'll come to know of them as the masses.

Indeed the masses are easily marketed to, easily led astray, but you'll learn that's why they're called the masses. Use them to your advantage, find friends that use a few of their brain cells, act slightly more grown up, and do this thing called give and take.

I don't think girls on a dating show are a good representation of the greater population. Most of the women on those dating/reality shows seem incredibly shallow to me.

I'd like to think it says more about what kind of girls participate in reality shows than the generation as a whole. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

The scouse guy who went on that program the other week lives near me.

I agree, most teenage people think it's just a case of college/university = rich for life, or sports/sportsman wives = rich for life.

The program is quite entertaining.

Looks and youth fade, character, humour and self respect do not, they grow only stronger with age. Theses Barbie dolls you describe will probably find themselves in a very lonely place one day.

I know there are great people out there, I've met a lot of them and found some real friends. It is sad though, thinking that people can be so self absorbed that they can't see past their own ego.

I guess it's true that the sort of people who go on dating shows are like that, but I've also noticed it in night clubs/bars etc. That's why I tend to avoid them as much as I can, unless there's a reason.

They're cattle markets of insecurity and judgement. Where people are rated purely on appearance and the clothes they wear. I always get 3 AM epiphany's where I realise how pointless it all is, but I still go again. Peer pressure aye?

This isn't something that's newly-developed- every generation had people who wanted to go after the "Alpha" males. Ask a girl if they'd rather marry a prince or a fishmonger, and almost all of them, from the dawn of humanity to the modern day would say "Prince."

What has changed was that marrage became something people had choice over- arranged marrages of some sort were a fairly common setup until (relatively) recent times.

Of course, the afore-mentioned fishmonger made a mistake by actually saying that he was... that's probably something you should mention *after* someone has gotten to know you.

I'd blame the people who raised this generation (that doesn't directly apply to parents, but media also.)

I was just watching "God Bless America" trailer then I see this thread... Coincidence?

what is bugging me more is the bunch of individualists who cry out about how special they are and how much they deserve everything when they don't do [censored] to get it

Couldn't agree with you any more right there.

Very well said.

Old sport, if your British then surely you'll see that the majority of our youth has done little but spiral downwards into destructive nihilism; being 18 and surrounded by those of a similar age I see it everyday and - quite frankly - I'm horrified.

@Zardoz, exactly that. Everyone else in class seems to try and self-justify their complete failure to learn anything or do anything other than [censored] about by saying, "It's pointless anyway, we're not going to get sponsors." Lazy bastards, I've travelled 270 miles to go for interviews for apprenticeships - to put in perspective that's from Middlesbrough to past London.

I'm not stranger to feeling incredibly cynical about our generation, about people in general, about women, and about men. I'm prone more often than not to simply default to a view much like yours, especially when it comes to women.

But I think you're wrong on a point. It's not ALL girls who want a banker or a sports star and have overblown expectations, and it's not ALL girls who will turn down a fishmonder simply because of his job.

It's just the kind of girls who go on game shows where you date people on television.

It's a reality TV show it's all scripted and they're just actors.
You want a World War, Great Depression,etc??

If some outside of Britian want to a see a bit of an example of this show, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSG42_oln6o

Fact of life. Individuals are smart. People are stupid.

Wizards First Rule and all that stuff.

Really anywhere you go the simple truth, for the most part, is that most people are quite stupid and gullible and will always take the easy path when they can, even if it is the wrong one. My generation wants everything [censored] handed to them instantly and on a silver platter. Blame the media, they place all these ideas about how we should live into our minds.

Exactly, its because the majority of the media make it seem as if its easy to get rich quickly. This is fine if you're old enough to know better, but when you're young, still in school and haven't actually done anything on your own in the world then you start to get fooled by all this Kardashian and Hilton bullcrap. Its the younger people that are targeted by all of this bullcrap("reality" shows) that seem to demonize hard work and effort while deifying laziness and vanity.

It seems that nearly every commercial on TV is about how great it would be to retire sooner and not having to work. This is teaching the wrong values to people, its doing the exact same thing as the bullcrap("reality" shows). Those same commercials always seem to forget that the road to retiring early is paved with a lot of hard work.