Crystal Ball - Generation Neo

Trendwatching isn’t all about reporting what is currently happening trend wise – it also requires an effort to be able to predict what will happen if things continue going down the road they are going now. It’s not a crystal ball method – we are not predicting the future or giving sure answers. It’s more an empirical approach to society – using the tools we have now, the knowledge we gained through the research to write these article and a gut feeling to say what we believe that will happen in the future.
So I decided to grab a tough subject and do my own prediction. Generation C is peaking and given the short time span that the Internet has nowadays, it’s time to start looking to the next generation who will emerge after C’s cast its influence on society. It’s not something I believe will happen in the next year, but it will happen eventually.
As a famous Portuguese author once said, society undergoes a cycle of materialism / spirituality – D. Quixote vs. Sancho Pança. Cervantes made a strong analogy via the characters from the famous novel showing the heroic spirit of D. Quixote and the down-to-earth approach of Sancho Pança. That is what we can see Generation wise. Generation C is all about content, consumer generated information, a self regulatory system created by users where the opinion leaders emerge from the selfless dedication they present in reporting the newest and surest information on the online world – and subsequent validation from their peers. In a same approach, information is more and more not focused on real data – opinions and invalidated wiki structures are the sure sources of information for this generation. In the same line of thought, there has been a shift in the knowledge hierarchy due the web – since it’s so recent, the younger you are, the more knowledge and natural skill you have to understand and deal with the online world. No longer do the older people retain the secrets of society and economics – they are being dictated by the younger Generation C members who are influencing the threads of fate.
Taking this shallow (because I could go on forever regarding the role of Generation C in today’s society) approach on the current state of events, we have the common ground to try to look into the next Generation. To do so, I’ll take into account the following factors:
- There is a nostalgia trend in Society that shows that people miss the “big brother” like influence of the Father figure. Fascism was born that way. But due to Casual Collapse and being Beyond Good and Evil, the younger generation will not fall into the same mistake and develop a different interpretation of this need. But the oldbies of Generation C have the know-how to guide the next generation down a more righteous path.
- New media entertainment – be it Videogames, Podcasts or Youtube – are shifting their purpose from a mere entertainment vehicle to a art form of its own – and better yet, a educational tool that provides a better development of consumers in a younger age. Take into account the rise of educational videogames with the Brain Age genre, or the success of the Wii as an active videogame system, or even the ever growing number of “how to” videos emerging in Youtube. People are learning their trades on the web and their IQ is being stimulated in new ways – and they like it. Another Portuguese author once showed how untraditional, experience based knowledge was way above the traditional bookish knowledge. Will it continue this way or will the two merge into a new type of learning methodology?
- The large number of people who are participating in Blogs, forums and wiki like online societies are thinning to the few who not only retain the necessary skills to provide plausible information, but are also dedicated to the cause. There will be a casual collapse in the Web 2.0 that will define who’s worth reading and who’s not – and that’s a good thing. The new Generation will not have time to spend on opinions that aren’t coming from reliable sources and will create a natural filter to this. This is an evolving trend that comes from the current Adam Smithyan like invisible hand that surfs the web and regulates opinion.
- Cash will always be important, but stress, be it the traditional Stress or Stresstetainment, will take its toll on the new generation. Downshifting will become more and more the solution for consumers to be able to enjoy life in the fast lane.
- Simple will become the new premium. Sure, Gourmet chips with special spices might sound good now, but after 5 other brands release the same type of product, the consumers will be ready again for the simplification of products – it will be the new rise of plain salt flavored chips.
There are a few more items I could touch at this point, but it will have to stay for a later article. For now, we can invest time in researching the last 4 points that deserve an article each for itself. But believe me when I say that, if society keeps going the way it is, we are in for a new generation whose keywords can be – PDF bookish knowledge, sustainable stress, neo-yuppie, implausible materialism, invisible regulatory hand, category simplification. This is just scratching the surface. Brands better be ready for it - Generation Neo is dawning.
But there will be more on a later article. If you have any inputs you consider relevant for the topic, be sure to drop a line. And once again I say – this is not predicting the future, it’s opinionating about how things will come to be if they go down the path they are going now.