Hello, Nice to Meet You Generation Y

The question of Generation Y, or, better known as the "Hipster Generation", has been turning around in my mind over and over again and I've come to realize that I know very little intimately about this generation that follows mine. I see these hipsters everywhere. Standing alone, gathered in groups, in their Minis and Priuses, riding their one speed bikes, drinking skinny lattes, wearing skinny jeans and vintage clothing...Hipsters, please stand up and introduce yourselves to me!

My generation, Gen X, brought to the cultural forefront many different things: rave culture, minimalism, RuPaul, MTV, the early beginnings of video games and home computers, Prepsters, the pop supremacy of U2, Madonna, and Michael Jackson, leggings, Neo Soul music, and double denim dressing.

What's going on with Generation Y? Ok, I must thank you for the skinny jeans movement (I'm a BIG fan) and the return of vintage clothing popularity (especially designer vintage), high/low dressing, and eco-conscious products and practices. But tell me what is up with the unkempt hair and grooming (beards, moustaches, and goatees, oh my!!!), sub-par social etiquette, vapid demeanor and disdain for society and the global culture? Why has your infinite style potential become so homogenized and common (plaid shirts, for example)?  What about the push for the contemporary and edgy and original?

Perhaps my own (limited) personal experience with hipsters has left me a bit sour on you, or I feel like you co-opted things that were original or new to my generation (prepsters, for instance), or I have just grossly generalized you to such an extent that I can't see the forest for the trees but what I do see is so much potential that its unfathomable. I don't want to see it get lost in the mire. I want it to come bursting forth and shower over the world. I sense the change in you, Generation Y, the change that a future brings. Please step up and bring it: the newness, the difference, the individuality. I'm doing my part. Other members of my generation are do their part as well.I know some of you are doing your share as well. I guess this is my summit, my "Geneva Convention" in my mind here, and its just time to meet and shake hands and know each other and welcome each party to the Dawn.

-fggofstyle