Talkin' Bout Our G-G-G-Generation

If you think multimedia is nothing but a bunch of twentysomethings hanging around their lofts listening to Soul Coughing and tugging on their nose rings, think again. The scales are tipping... there are a lot more suits sporting cel phones and wireless modems around our neighborhood these days. Even our sysadmin wears a necktie occasionally. Yup, folks is gettin' more respectable everywhere we look.

We're still a hard-workin', fast-talkin', deal-makin' bunch. But we're a little older, and perhaps a little wiser, and this industry has aged us all. Quite frankly, the glamour is gone.

We may be jaded, but it's not too late for you, friend. Here then are our suggestions for becoming a member of Generation Web...

 

What to put on your homepage

 

  1. Trippy photo of yourself (heavily distorted with KPT 'Bad Shrooms' filter)
  2. Links to projects you've completed
  3. Links to projects still under construction (will yield 404s)
  4. Link to 'To Do' list (approx. 238K of text, and growing)
  5. Mailto:'s to all of your addresses (the more you have, the more important you must be)
  6. Web interface to finger program
  7. Mysterious Javascript hack that greets user with extremely sensitive personal information
    ("Welcome, visitor from 127.0.0.1 -- I see you haven't bathed yet today.")
  8. Cookie. Gotta have a cookie.
  9. Link to resume (not that you'd ever think of leaving your current job *ahem*)

Films you simply must see

 

  1. Blade Runner
  2. The upcoming re-release of the Star Wars Trilogy
  3. Casablanca (Bogey was the ultimate suave, nerdy guy)

Films you don't have to see, but probably will because all your friends are going

 

  1. Anything having to do with sysadmins and guns (e.g., Erasure)
  2. Anything having to do with hostile alien races being thwarted by a regular Joe and his Powerbook (e.g., Independence Day)
  3. Anything with really impressive computer graphics (e.g., Toy Story, Nick Parks films, Jurassic Park)
  4. Anything starring Keanu Reeves as a geek (Johnny Mnemonic, Chain Reaction -- Little Buddha doesn't count)
  5. Most any remake of a comic book (e.g., Tank Girl -- but skip Judge Dredd)
  6. Strange Days (for the concept)
  7. Until the End of the World (for the gadgetry)
  8. Tron (for historical value)
  9. Network (for balance)
  10. Lawnmower Man (to see what Hollywood thinks VR is)
  11. All of the Star Trek movies (except 1. You can skip 1. And 5.)
  12. Anything that has the words "Virtual Reality", "Interface", "Hacker", "Net", or "Cyber" in the title (be sure to talk REALLY LOUDLY about technical impossibilities throughout the film)

Books to have on your shelves

 

  1. Microserfs (Douglas Coupland)
  2. The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design and Computers as Theater (Brenda Laurel)
  3. Careers in Multimedia and Multimedia Demystified (vivid studios)
  4. Neuromancer and Burning Chrome (William Gibson)
  5. Snow Crash, Interface, and The Diamond Age (Neal Stephenson)
  6. The Telephone Book (Avital Ronell)
  7. Understanding Comics (Scott McCloud)
  8. Being Digital (Nicholas Negroponte)
  9. Living at Lightspeed (Danny Goodman)
  10. O'Reilly's camel and llama books (O'Reilly and Associates)
  11. SIGGRAPH conference proceedings from the last four years (not that you've ever actually read them...)

Magazines to leave lying around your bathroom

 

  1. Lifestyle pubs: WIRED, The Net, .net (UK), Martha Stewart's Living
  2. Industry pubs: Inter@ctive Week, Web Week, Multimedia Producer, Advertising Age, New Media
  3. Technical pubs: Software Development, Dr. Dobbs
  4. Arty pubs: Metropolis, Interactions, Communication Arts
  5. Comic Relief: Might, Santa Cruz Comic News
  6. Any mainstream mag that has a cover story on the Internet
  7. Lots of little zines -- the weirder and more paranoid, the better
  8. To impress company: New Yorker, The Economist
  9. On your bathroom terminal: The Reader's Digest website

Television (whether you're in the room or not)

 

  1. msnbc, c|net, and locally produced multimedia shows
  2. anything you or your coworkers have been interviewed for
  3. MTV, but only for the ads
  4. Melrose Place (but only as a drinking game)
  5. Babylon 5 and Star Trek (TOS, TNG, DS9, or V)
  6. Saturday morning cartoons (Bullwinkle still rules, but The Tick and Animaniacs are worth getting up for)

Clothing that identifies you as a member of the gang

 

  1. Chunky high-heeled black boots or oxford-style Doc Martens (Tevas if you live outside the city limits)
  2. Little oval glasses
  3. Shaved head
  4. Facial hair experiments (a goatee? how t i r e d )
  5. T-shirts from Apple projects that never saw the light of day (even better if the group no longer exists)
  6. Anything from the X-Girl catalog
  7. Email pager
  8. Key card (worn as jewelry)
  9. Bike messenger bag (contents: Latest model Powerbook, spiral-bound sketchpad, ergonomically correct pens, business cards you collected at a rave last weekend, bottle of Odwalla juice, toothbrush and towel in case you have to spend another night at the office, last month's Wired which you're still trying to find time to finish reading, contracts you were supposed to look over for big meeting with clients but never got around to reading...)

Phrases to pepper your conversations with

 

  1. "But- but- they don't know the first thing about interface design!"
  2. "Put it in email and I'll think about it."
  3. "It's not about a highway! It's about community!"
  4. (Programmers only) "What do you mean there's no more beer?"

 


  
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