Category Archives: Examining Every Item on the Mindset List

#22 in a Series Examining Every Item on the Beloit Mindset List

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As their parents held them as infants, they may have wondered whether it was the baby or Windows 95 that had them more excited. (Class of 2017, #6)

Their parents may have watched The American Gladiators on TV the day they were born. (Class of 2012, #42)

Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce “tax revenue increases.” (Class of 2012, #8)

Their nervous new parents heard C. Everett Koop proclaim nicotine as addictive as heroin. (Class of 2009, #73)

Parents may have been reading The Bourne Supremacy or It as they rocked them in their cradles. (Class of 2008, #9)

Trivial Pursuit may have been played by their parents the night before they were born. (Class of 2006, #40)

The Beloit Mindset List authors have developed a nice little trope here portraying parents as distracted by things that happened when their children were born. These take the generic form of “students’ parents were doing/thinking about X on the day the students were born or shortly thereafter.” Shouldn’t these parents have been better preoccupied with the birth of their child rather than news items, trivia and pop culture?

As my colleague Disgruntled Prof mentioned earlier, the BML authors “have a bleak view of parenthood.” The list above shows us just how bleak. The worst is the parents being so upset by rising taxes that they dropped their newborns. I wonder what other news items caused them to drop their children that year?

The laziest item on the above list is #42 from the Class of 2012 as it takes the form “Their parents may have watched [insert any TV show from 1994] on TV the day they were born. Why not The Commish, M.A.N.T.I.S., Unsolved Mysteries, The X-Files, The Cosby Mysteries, or even The Simpsons reruns?

I’ll save the BML authors some time and generate a few for their Class of 2018 list:

  • Their parents may have considered leaving them on the doorstep of a Manhattan brownstone after seeing a similar storyline on Law & Order.
  • Their parents may have accidentally locked them in family’s bomb shelter while being distracted stockpiling cans of peas and bottled water in preparation for the Y2K apocalypse.
  •  Their parents may have dropped them into a bowl of french onion dip at a Super Bowl party when Rams linebacker Mike Jones tackled Tennessee wide receiver Kevin Dyson on the one yard line to prevent a potential game-tying touchdown.
  • Their parents may have been arrested for child neglect after forgetting to feed them because they were playing Mario Party 2 for 18 hours straight on their Nintendo 64.

Feel free to leave your own items for the list in the comments section.

#21 in a Series Examining Every Item on the Beloit Mindset List

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Rites of passage have more to do with having their own cell phone and Skype accounts than with getting a driver’s license and car. (Class of 2017, #14)

Father: Sweetheart, times are tough, you can have a premium Skype account, or a driver’s license and a car, or we can throw you one hell of a debutante ball.

Daughter: That’s easy, I’ll take the Skype account!

#20 in a Series Examining Every Item on the Beloit Mindset List

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“Dude” has never had a negative tone. (Class of 2017, #5)

I’m puzzled by this one. What does the word “tone” mean here?

Connotation? Voice modulation? Attitude?

If the meaning is that the word “dude” has lost its negative connotation, i.e., “a citified dandy”, that happened in the 1960s or 1970s.

If the meaning is that “dude” can’t be used to express a negative attitude, that’s clearly wrong. “Dude” can be used to signal disagreement, incredulity, disgust and other negative sentiments. The linguist Scott Kiesling calls this usage of dude a “confrontational stance attenuator.” Budweiser ran a series of commercials illustrating it in 2008.

In any case, this item contributes nothing to understanding the Class of 2017.

Further reading:

Kiesling, Scott F. 2004. “Dude.” American Speech 79(3):281-305.

Peters, Mark. 2010. “The History of Dude.” Good (April 24).

Swansburg, John. 2008. “Dude! How Great Are Those New Bud Light Ads?” Slate  (Jan. 28).

 

#19 in a Series Examining Every Item on the Beloit Mindset List

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Their TV screens keep getting smaller as their parents’ screens grow ever larger. (Class of 2017, #12)

This item posits a generational gap—old people like big TVs, but young people like little TVs!—that is imaginary.

Smaller TV screens, on iPads, iPods, smartphones and the like, are popular—for younger people and older people. And so are big screen TVs.

The Class of 2017’s parents are buying bigger TVs because parents are usually the members of the family who buy family TVs. (They probably bought a lot of those small screens their kids use as well.)

It’s a problem when the self-designated experts in identifying generational divides don’t understand the difference between a generation gap and gap between what expenses parents and their children pay for.

 

#18 in a Series Examining Every Item on the Beloit Mindset List

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There has never been a Barings Bank in England. (Class of 2017, #56)

An earlier post in our continuing series examining every item on the Beloit Mindset List was an overview of 20 items about things that happened outside the United States, most of which were clearly not “cultural touchstones” for 18-year-old Americans, including the presence of McDonald’s in China and Moscow, the availability of Pepsi in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and the Royal New Zealand Navy’s daily ration of rum.

I think we can safely agree that the non-existence of a British Bank is similarly of no significance for understanding the mindset of incoming U.S. college students.

#17 in a Series Examining Every Item on the Beloit Mindset List

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Olestra has always had consumers worried about side effects. (Class of 2017, #53)

One of the problems with generating a list of “cultural touchstones” by looking at newspapers from 18 years ago is that they don’t tell you what will happen in the next 18 years.

Olestra is apparently still found in some foods, but it has not been a successful product.

According to a report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

As of 2002, olestra is a moribund, if not totally dead, product. Procter and Gamble announced several years ago that it would not seek FDA approval to use olestra is products other than snack foods. In February 2002, P&G even sold its Cincinnati olestra factory to Twin Rivers Technologies of Quincy, Massachusetts, though P&G retained the Olean brand name. Finally, sales of Frito-Lay’s WOW chips and Fat-Free Pringles crisps have declined steadily. Sales of WOW have declined more than 60 percent since their peak.

That doesn’t seem like much of a “cultural touchstone.”

Center for Science in the Public Interest. “A Brief History of Olestra.”

 

#16 in a Series Examining Every Item on the Beloit Mindset List

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While they’ve grown up with a World Trade Organization, they have never known an Interstate Commerce Commission. (Class of 2017, #23)

This item is ridiculous as it supposed that the Interstate Commerce Commission was more than a peripheral blip on the radars of most average Janes and Joes before it was abolished in 1995. It’s remaining regulatory responsibilities were transferred to the Surface Transportation Board (STB) post 1995. How many students consider the STB to be an important cultural touchstone today? Likewise, would they have cared much about the ICC had they lived during the previous generation? The most important thing the ICC did culturally was abolish segregation on bus lines and in railroad dining cars, but that happened in the 1950s and early 1960s. Given that, conceivably the ICC could have been an item on the BML for the class of 1979 if the BML existed then, but even that is a stretch.

Should we expect an item on the 2018 list that mentions the shuttering of the Board of Tea Appeals in 1996? The BTA was a federal agency that adjudicated claims by tea importers who were denied the right to sell their products by a board of tea-tasters who made sure tea imported into the U.S. was of sufficient quality. That sounds more important than what the ICC was or wasn’t doing during the year they were born.

Crusty old professors are still mourning the closure of all the defunct New Deal agencies, so the reminder that the Bureau of Tea Appeals is gone may hit a raw nerve.

#15 in a Series Examining Every Item on the Beloit Mindset List

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They have never seen Larry Bird play, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a football player. (Class of 2002, #31)

Members of the class of 2002 were born in 1980. Larry Bird retired from pro basketball in 1992 when members of this class would have been 12 so this item assumes that anyone in this class would not have watched professional basketball or noticed one of the NBA’s most popular players play for one of the league’s most popular teams until after the age of 12. The summer after his final NBA season, Bird played in all eight games for the gold-medal winning United States basketball “Dream Team” alongside Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley. Sports Illustrated called that team “arguably the most dominant squad ever assembled in any sport.” What 12 year old wouldn’t be interested in watching that given the hype surrounding the Olympics that year?

The second part of this item assumes that when two athletes have the same or similar  names the memories of the first (older) athlete are cancelled out by the existence of the second (younger) athlete. In this case the authors of the Beloit Mindset List want you to believe that a middling NFL running back had erased the memory of one of the NBA’s all time greats. In fact in the middle of Karim Abdul-Jabbar’s (nee Sharmon Shah) (KAJ-NFL) rookie season (1996) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (KAJ-NBA) was named to the NBA’s “50 Greatest Players” list complete with the accompanying hoopla. The similarity between the two athletes’ names was mentioned in game recaps and KAJ (NBA) eventually sued KAJ (NFL) for trying to ride his name to glory and profit. KAJ (NBA) eventually prevailed and in 2000 KAJ (NFL) changed his name to Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, but by that time all the HGH injections couldn’t salvage his brief NFL career.

KAJ (NBA) played in the NBA until members of the class of 2002 were 9 years old. As in the Larry Bird item above, to buy into this you would have to believe that kids don’t watch basketball until they are at least teenagers. Not only that, you would have to believe that kids on every basketball court in America had never tried a “sky-hook” and had never heard of its originator.

Six -time NBA champ, and six-time MVP, KAJ (NBA) played for 20 seasons and has a list of accomplishments too long to list here. Compare that to KAJ (NFL) who played five seasons from 1996-2006. He gained only 3,411 yards in his NFL career and was notable only for being the NFL touchdowns leader in 1997 with 33. His career ended with a whimper in 2000 with a one-game stint with the Indianapolis Colts in which he gained -2 yards on 1 rushing attempt.

This doubly dubious item clearly shows that the BCML’s authors know nothing about sports, fame, or the college students whose intelligences they attempt to insult.

#13 in a Series Examining Every Item on the Beloit Mindset List

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Lenin’s name has never been on a major city in Russia. (Class of 2012, #38)

Muscovites have always been able to buy Big Macs. (Class of 2012, #52)

The Royal New Zealand Navy has never been permitted a daily ration of rum. (Class of 2012, #53)

Margaret Thatcher has always been a former prime minister. (Class of 2013, #5)

The KGB has never officially existed. (Class of 2013, #13)

The European Union has always existed. (Class 2013, #23)

McDonald’s has always been serving Happy Meals in China. (Class of 2013, #24)

Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Latvia, Georgia, Lithuania, and Estonia have always been independent nations. (Class of 2013, #38)

Disney’s Fantasia has always been available on video, and It’s a Wonderful Life has always been on Moscow television. (Class of 2013, #46)

Two Koreas have always been members of the UN. (Class of 2013, #67)

Official racial classifications in South Africa have always been outlawed. (Class of 2013, #68)

Conflict in Northern Ireland has always been slowly winding down. (Class of 2013, #71)

Czechoslovakia has never existed. (Class of 2014, #32)

American companies have always done business in Vietnam. (Class of 2014, #41)

They have never worried about a Russian missile strike on the U.S. (Class of 2014, #68)

Japan has always been importing rice. (Class of 2015, #17)

The Communist Party has never been the official political party in Russia. (Class of 2015, #23)

Russian courts have always had juries. (Class of 2015, #46)

Folks in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have always been able to energize with Pepsi Cola. (Class of 2015, #67)

The Sistine Chapel ceiling has always been brighter and cleaner. (Class of 2016, #75)

The Mindset List mavens do their research by looking at 18-year-old newspapers. Each year’s list consists mostly of confused references to things that happened 18 years earlier. Some of these things happened in other countries and most of these things are not going to be “cultural touchstones” for incoming college freshmen in the United States.

The 21 above items from the Classes of 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016 and (with one exception) are set entirely in foreign countries. Many of them are at least peripheral to the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Children growing up after the end of the Cold War had a different set of fears and understandings of the world than those of us who had to worry “about a Russian missile strike on the U.S.” (the item that gets to the point). This is a worthy point to make about the “mindset” of recent students, but it is obfuscated with references to such trivia as the availability of Big Macs, juries and “It’s a Wonderful Life” in Russia.

The end of apartheid was another big deal; college students throughout the U.S. demonstrated against it. But what’s with the Royal New Zealand Navy’s daily ration of rum, one of the most obscure references on any of the Mindset lists?

Taken together, the above items demonstrate a failure of the Mindset crew to be able to synthesize things that happened 18 years ago into any useful information about the mindset of incoming college students.