The Class of 2018 Beloit Mindlessness List

This year’s entering college class was born the same year as Copernicium and Tickle Me Elmo and surely that must mean something. They grew up with Blue’s Clues and Game of Thrones, but they never had a chance to join the Heaven’s Gate Cult.

Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List and (barring divine intervention) will release another one Tuesday morning. We have no inside information on the contents of the list so we’ve created our 2nd Annual Beloit Mindlessness List using the same method: Without any assistance from or knowledge about anyone in the Class of 2018, we wrote a list about a bunch of things that happened roughly18 years ago with some additional items based on lazy stereotypes and trivia of interest to us. Nobody checked it for accuracy or comprehensibility.

Even if the Class of 2018 Mindset List isn’t identical to ours, they are equally valid, accurate and useful. So feel free to mix and match items as you choose.

The Beloit Mindlessness List for the Class of 2018

For this generation of entering college students, born in 1996, Tupac Shakur, JonBenét Ramsey and George Burns have always been dead.

1. Their conception may have involved the Macerena dance craze.

2. They may have fallen asleep in their cribs playing on an Nintendo 64.

3. Computers have always been beating grand masters at chess.

4. They have always feared Mad Cow Disease.

5. Titanic has always been a movie about a boat and never been a boat.

6. Hong Kong has never been a British colony.

7. Their parents may have bought them diapers at Woolworth’s, but never back-to-school clothes.

8. The Heaven’s Gate UFO cult has never been accepting new members.

9. Scientists have always been cloning sheep, but cloning humans has always been illegal.

10. Heavy metal has always been nü to them.

11. They have always been watching old sitcoms on TV Land.

12. The whining of Alanis Morisette from their parents’ stereo may have kept them awake in their cribs.

13. Copernicium has always been an element.

14. The first book their parents read them may have been Game of Thrones.

15. The Notebook has always been a romance novel, not a small book with ruled pages for writing notes.

16. Their parents may have been arrested in a melee that erupted over who would buy the last Tickle Me Elmo in the store.

17. France has never tested atomic bombs.

18. Major League Soccer has always existed.

19. Their parents went to photography studios; they take selfies.

20. Blue has always been looking for clues.

21. Everyone has always loved Raymond—the Ray Ramano character, not the Perry Mason actor, who has never existed.

22. Han never shot first.

23. They know Burt Reynolds as the porn auteur in Boogie Nights. Who are Smoky and the Bandit?

24. Emails have always outnumbered U.S. postal mail.

25. They have always been raiding tombs.

26. Their parents may have missed their first steps because they were watching the “dancing baby” on their computer screens.

27. Madonna has never performed a song worth listening to, but she might show up to parents weekend. Peter Frampton might be there too.

28. They’ve never watched certain sports teams play in particular stadiums because those teams moved or got new stadiums.

29. Thanks to federal courts, smut has always been legal on the Internet.

— August 25, 2014

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  1. Pingback: Mindset List vs. Mindlessness List (Class of 2018) | Beloit Mindlessness

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