I recently got a shout out from Kristina at The Debutante Ball for my past experience as a Karaoke queen (B.K. - before kids). It got me thinking about whether or not singing Karaoke is a generational thing - or at least the way we sing Karaoke.
My husband's siblings range in age from late 30s to early 50s - which means his nieces and nephews range in age from early 20s to mid 30s. When we get together - we Karaoke. What I find interesting is that the Boomers among us sing - but only those who have great voices. The Xers will sing regardless of talent. And the Ys are not all that interested, because not having turned 30 yet, they are still cool and do not sing Karaoke (unless they've had one too many Coors lights.
It's been my experience that Boomers don't like to do things unless they are sure they are "doing it right." They have a much bigger fear of screwing up than the rest of us. As an educator, I've seen it time and time again among this cohort. Xers don't like to fail, but they are much more comfortable at figuring things out as they go (they are the original gamer generation). An Ys, well, they don't fear failure because in their cohort, everyone's a winner and everyone gets a trophy.
3 comments:
Hey Suzanne!
I like your take on this. Our generation doesn't believe in leaving these kinds of things to the pros. Used to be that only journalists got to have their say in print and only professionals would sing in public, but now...blogging and karaoke!
I'm an Xer and I've done karaoke once - and that was only because I was in Japan and karaoke is very different there (you get your own room for your group - no strangers to watch you make a fool of yourself). We all sang together "Born in the USA". It was pretty fun & funny.
That being said...I hate the noise of karaoke. If it's going on at a bar or event I attend, I leave. It's like the sound of car racing or football on TV - it gets under my skin and makes me want to rip someone's face off.
Sing in your car and leave it at that!!
Speaking as a Gen Yer, I'd say that we're most likely to karaoke with friends more privately - either by going to a more authentic place where they have private rooms or having a karaoke set-up for house parties.
For Gen Y, it doesn't matter if you're good or bad, so long as you know the person (ie, people you don't know suck, but all of your friends get a trophy/pat on the back).
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