Generation Y 2.0

What’s different about the US presidential election? The fact that there is a black American presidential candidate or a potential female vice-president? A chance for the democrats to win back what they believe is rightfully theirs after the Bush years? Maybe, but it is much more than that. For the first time in perhaps as long as forty years or more, Generation Y have been very much actively engaged in this campaign.

Record numbers of young voters have signed up to vote in the 2008 US election. For those who see our GenY colleagues as apathetic, this appears to fly in the face of those who believe in stereotypes. Something has gripped the American consciousness but rather than fuel the glamorous ideological aspects of the campaign, Obama’s crowd have tried to ‘non-ideologise’  and to involve and engage their voters in new ways.  They have brought the campaign into the 21st century with social networking, online forums, blogs, campaign youth volunteer groups, Facebook followings, approachability, cool branding, and real involvement of America’s youth.  So much so that Obama has surrounded himself with diverse advisors including twenty one year old Tommy Stadlen from West London.  In addition to probably the largest emerging teen population America has ever seen, these are the voters and citizens of the future and they have been placed  key in this campaign right from the party nomination rounds and endless university campus visits.

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