European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 19, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Quota a. A a a a a a a a a Universal Ethan i tawk Steve Zahn Winona Ryder and Janeann Garofalo Star in reality bites which deals with life after graduation. Its playing on the cafes  bites and the Bridge a twixt generation by Frank Rich the new York times. After several years of trying to avoid gon ration a which has been much too ssh easily trying to upstage my own Boomer generation in the popular press i finally succumbed recently by going to see reality bites. This is the movie that has been both praised As the last word on a ers and damned As Hollywood s Slick Cost Effort yet to exploit them a which makes it this year s answer to the graduate the 1967 classic that either summed up my generation or caricatured it for big Bucks. Reality bites like the graduate is a funny movie. Out Isnit it telling the same Story. Once again a Bright but alienated recent College graduate moves about unable or unwilling to find a Job or a reason to exist. A pretty somewhat More directed Young woman must choose Between the alienated hero and  go getter. A scowling father reprimands his child a a in la Tell you the problem with your generation a you done to have any work  and everyone smokes a lot even when they Haven to just finished having sex. Has nothing changed did my generation make a major bore of itself for All these years Only to be supplanted by a Bunch of kids who Are Boring in almost the same Way in a panic i phoned my favorite source on  a my 27-year-old sister in Law Phoebe. I know that Phoebe is a card carrying slacker because she drinks Snapple shops at the Gap has had her attention Span shortened by watching Melrose place and mtg and was actually interviewed for a network documentary about Twenty somethings. She did not dispute my Point. Quot Why is this generation any More lost than any other at this age Quot she asked. So where did All this generation x hype come from., and where will it end. The pattern once again is All too familiar. In the Case of generation a the first shot was sounded by Douglas Coupland a comic if atomic packed 1991 novel of that title with a Day Glo cover computer graphics and sound bite size marginalia a then came the Media Blitz in which Magazine editors scrambled to identify and stereotype a generation. In the 1960s my generation was sold jeans Rock music love beads Quot youth Quot movies with Rock soundtracks campy posters of iconic 50s sitcoms leave it to Beaver herbal teas and psychedelia. In the 1990s, a ers Are sold jeans Rook music chokers Quot youth Quot movies with Rock soundtracks. Campy posters of iconic �?T70s sitcoms the Brady Bunc herbal iced teas and psychedelia. Coke has ingeniously combined the last two products in fruit opia a new a alternative a Snapple like beverage that comes in flavors like Citrus consciousness and Strawberry passion awareness now comes the reaction. The first serious shot was fired Early last year in the new Republic a Magazine to which Douglas Coupland regularly contributes when xer Alexander Star attacked the burgeoning cliches of a the Twenty something  the new York times published an oped essay in which two self labelled a a booklets a angered by recent generation a covers in business week and the Atlantic argued that their generation Quot older than 24 and younger than 32�?� should be seen As distinct from Quot grunge kids Quot just out of College. Quot no one we know read Douglas Coupland a generation with anything approaching the sympathy and recognition these articles suggest a they insisted. Another Rump group of a ers thoughtful contributors to a Washington Magazine called the next progressive Are declaring their own Independence in an anthology . Eric Liu the 25-year-old editor explains that his w Riters Are Quot individuals not archetypes who deliberately forsake a sound bitten graphics Laden Eye popping style Quot take that mtg and Douglas Coupland a to avoid a the snap judgments. That have characterized most reports on the Twenty so Mything  Good Luck to him. But As a member of the generation his parents warned him against i have one simple word of advice