The Daily Feather — Dude, Where’s My Car?

The Millennials had their choice of Bill & Ted or Wayne & Garth. Gen-Z had Jesse and Chester. As one Common Sense Mediareview by an 11-year-old posted two months ago delighted, “This movie is ridiculous and that's WHY it's so good! It’s absolutely hilarious.” In a theme reminiscent of 2009’s The Hangover, Ashton Kutcher (Jesse) and Seann William Scott (Chester) portray stoner slackers (was that redundant?) who regain consciousness after a night of partying with no recollection of where their car is. With a title capturing the essence of the time’s teen zeitgeist, 2000s Dude, Where’s My Car is not a film QI recommends. As much as we could have embraced a great adventure film involving pizza, aliens, pudding, and strippers to engage audiences, we just didn’t get it. But then, we Gen-Xers only have the capacity for pizzas and stoners colliding in one scene, when Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High had a double cheese & sausage delivered to his history class. Classic.

Three generations. Three very different perspectives. From the vista of financial market history, we Gen-Xers at QI were finishing up high school when the stock market crashed in 1987. What followed was a halcyon era when all we needed to do was ‘be there’ to absorb the riches flowing freely from every crevice. While the dotcom bomb left a mark, Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan was well on his way to indemnifying every nook and cranny of risky markets. As was the case with the Millennials, the real mark was left by the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). But what of Gen-Zers, those roughly between the ages of 12-27?