The Me Decade Analysis

The Me Decade was the decade of the 1970s which was thought of as or characterized by narcissism, self-indulgence, and a lack of social concern in many, especially in young people. Because of this era an article called the Me Decade written by Tom Wolfe, a writer from the New York Magazine, arose on the 23 of August 1976. The intended audience of this article is, in my opinion, the ones who lived in this generation or those who are trying to learn about it. This paper was written to inform the reader or readers about the ‘me’ generation and how it affected the world and the United States in general. The author wanted to express the importance of this generation and to inscribe what this generation meant to him. He, like the me generation, …show more content…
The thirty year boom, in where the spending in the United States in the 1940s set off a boom that has continued for more than thirty years, it pumped money into every class level of the population. On a scale without parallel in any country in history. This created a surplus income, more political freedom, free time, and freedom from the grinding of work. In this generation we seen the rise of the suburb. Buying house with clapboard siding, high pitched shingle roofs, and gas light style front porch lamps, as well as all sorts of other unbelievable cute antiquey touches. Including shag carpet, barbecue pits, fish ponds with concrete cherubs urinating into them, and also they would have their large cars and boats in the garage. They also started trying to realize their potential as humans. This happened to start the do it yourself movement. The Me Decade also gave rise to the hippies. Hippies created their own dress style, vocabulary, had free sex, and took dope. This began flowering in 1965. In the 60s older people decided to start heading off to retirement villages or leisure developments, which quickly became old folks communes. This included the airstream trailers also known as the silver bullets. The old people would venture around the country creating some of the most amazing sites in the modern landscape such as the Grand Canyons, Niagara Falls, and the Death …show more content…
This is divorcing or leaving your wife to pursue self-interest and personal goals. This became normal behavior and is one of the factors that pushed the divorce rate about fifty percent. Women in the me decade also changed. They became more focused on the slogan “If I only had one life – let me live it as a ___” and they filled in the blank with whatever they chose. No longer was women just the stay at home mom or the homemaker. They began to analyze the world just as men did. This eventually led to what is known as the feminist movement or women’s rights movement. Much of what is known as the sexual revolution, is both men and women filling in the blank of “if I only had one life – let me live it as a swinger.” Swinging is a husband and a wife giving each other a license to copulate with other people. This also started what is called tripling. Which is inviting a third party, male or female, but most often female. Sexual adventuring went on a rise in this decade. This decade also seen the third great religious wave in America, also known by Wolfe as the third Great Awakening. Like the others before it, it began in a flood of ecstasy achieved through LSD, psychedelics, orgies, dancing, meditation, and psychic frenzy. The third wave built up from more diverse and exotic sources than that of the first