Internet generation

An emerging term in theoretical and popular discourse to denote the American generation immediately following Generation Y (or The MTV Generation). Born since early 1990s, the defining cultural-historical event to distinguish this cohort is that they spent the their formative years in an age of the birth and rise of the Internet. Thus, the Internet Generation has no recourse to a memory of (or nostalgia for) a pre-Internet history, a factor which greatly differentiates them from older generations, even Generation Y, who had to learn to adapt to 'new' technologies. The iGeneration simply takes the Internet for granted as 'natural,' with sites such as MySpace, YouTube, iFilm, and the ever-growing use of Internet Forums, Wikipedia, and Imageboards as part of its global cultural ecosystem.

One can compare this situation to those who grew up with TV vs. those for whom TV was a 'new thing.' The iGeneration therefore emerged within a paradigm shift that changed how humans relate to each other and how (virtual and real) communities form within globalization and therefore cannot be lumped together with previous generations. Other neologisms to denote this demographic cohort include Internet generation, iGeneration, and the MySpace Generation.

Other terms that have been used in conjunction with this generation include:

• MyPod Generation (from the fusion of "Myspace" and "iPod")
• N-Gen
• e-Generation (stands for "electronic generation")
• Generation D (for "Digital")
• Generation V (for "Virtual")
• Loli-boomers
• Generation M
• Millennials

The name "iGeneration" is based on the popular iPod music device, as the majority of iPod owners are members of this generation. The term was popularized by MC Lars in his song "iGeneration", which was made into a music video. The term foregrounds the paradoxical ways in which this generation's idiosyncrasic subjectivity and individualism ("I") develops within global capitalism and its technological mediation in a way that both constrain and expand the possibilities for identity-formation, akin to how Michel Foucault points to the relationship between sexuality and discourse in the nineteenth century's generative effects of power.