under the macroscope. | mar. 15 / 1740

shakedown, 1979
cool kids never had the time
on a live wire, right up off the street
you and i should meet...
- from "1979" by the smashing pumpkins (from the album mellon collie and the infinite sadness).

in september 1993, grade 9 students in ontario were subjected to a grand experiment by the provincial government called "destreaming." in an effort to ease the transition between elementary and secondary school, "advanced," "general" and "basic" categories of course difficulty were eliminated from the grade 9 curriculum, and all the students were grouped together.

the program remained in place until the provincial government decided to shorten high school to four years from five; streaming was then necessary in grade 9 to ensure that students received a worthwhile high school education. i really don't know if destreaming helped smooth anyone's transition into high school, especially since the most difficult things to cope with in grade 9 are social, not academic, in nature. either way, the fact that the program was deep-sixed shortly after it began is a pretty strong indication that it did not do what it was supposed to do, notwithstanding the fact that one government (bob rae's) introduced destreaming and another government (mike harris's) removed it. and the fact that it was introduced at all shows me that governments have no problem messing with the minds and psyches of the people who are going to be running our country by the middle of the next decade. what's really scary, though, is that governments and everyone else who experiments with our motivations and desires seem to have picked a very specific sample of test subjects.

in the middle of the '70s, the united nations declared 1979 the "international year of the child." this makes a lot of sense; people born in 1979 turned 21 in the year 2000, making us the first adults of the new millennium. while this might seem like a horrible cliche to a postmillennial society, it probably had a lot more resonance a couple of decades ago. so, although the u.n. never expressly stated the importance of this 21-in-2000 connection, it certainly does make a 1979 focus a little more logical.

perhaps this feeling i get of a special 1979 focus is common for all people born in the same year. i really don't know, and i never could. but off the top of my head, i can think of several examples of obvious, targeted marketing and analysis of people born in 1979: the aforementioned destreaming; grade 4 and grade 9 standardized testing; and the frosh music compilation series (which came out as most ontario-born, university-bound 1979'ers were entering their first year of postsecondary education) are a few random examples.

so, the obvious question: why target a specific age group, and why 1979? i have my "year of the child" theory for the second part of that question, but really i have no idea. the first part, though, is connected to the sad reality that we all must face: we are regarded by all who engage in public relations as consumers and/or producers, rather than as citizens and/or people. remember jfk's "ask not...but ask" quote? that's the core of the thing. the people who make the things we buy are in bed with the people we elect to lead us, and together these groups are working very hard to ensure we all experience a comfortable and worry-free life. to accomplish this, sometimes you need to find a guinea pig. i think the first adults of the 21st century have big, red marketing dots on the tops of their heads.