THE OLD-COLLEGE-TRY LIST for the Class of 2028

THE OLD-COLLEGE-TRY LIST for the Class of 2028

The college and university class of 2028 will enter classrooms this fall. They were born in 2006. They have never shared the planet with Betty Freidan, Shelley Winters, Kirby Puckett, Abu al-Zarqawi, or Peter Benchley. “Friend” has always been a verb, and “tweet” always a click. Barack Obama was elected …to the Senate. Terrorists thrived from India to Iraq. You could watch a video on your wrist. People were still going to Blockbuster stores. People made lists and put them in buckets. Tony Blair was becoming the incredible shrinking prime minister. A meal in the college dining room that cost five dollars the year they were born now costs about $7.79 today.

1 They are the first generation to avoid the inconvenience of appointment TV. 

2 Google has always owned YouTube.

3 Iraqi WMDs have always failed to show up. 

4 Comet dust has always been retrieved and brought to earth for us to study and admire. 

5 There has always been a female mass murderer. 

6 Hamas has always been winning elections in Gaza.

7 NASA has always been keeping a close eye on Pluto just in case. 

8 Water has always been suspected on one of Saturn’s moons. 

9 Folks have always been tweeting, and only later were they X-ing. 

10 Iran has always had low-grade enriched uranium. 

11 Knowledge of the human genome sequence has always been total. 

12 Montenegro has always been an independent state. 

13 The US Armed Forces have never been in Iceland. 

14 Liquid explosives disguised as soft drinks have always been part of the terrorist tool kit. 

15 Tony Blair’s political career has always been winding down. 

16 Watches have always doubled as video players. 

17 North Korea has always been doing nuclear tests. 

18 Northern Ireland has always been devolving, 

19 Saddam Hussein has always faced the noose and lost.

20 New English words have always included “bucket list” and “crowdfunding.” 

21 “The Departed” has always been pronounced “the de-PAH-ted.” 

22 A film about a dysfunctional family and child beauty pageant has always earned 12 times what it cost to make. 

22 George W. Bush did not begin to be popular again until they were ten years old. 

23 American Idols have always needed two nights a week. 

24 Housewives have always been desperate–and real. 

25 The year they were born was the last when Mom and Dad were getting red-packaged movies in the mail. 

26 “Friending” became a verb the year they were born. 

27 Phones have always doubled as flipable Razrs.

28 Web nerds have always been ecstatic over RSS. 

29 You’ve always been able to generate your own brilliant internet content. 

30 Blockbuster has always launched, too late, its online service. 

40 As infants, they might have been scared by hoodies or oversized sunglasses but wouldn’t have noticed low-rise jeans or crop tops. 

41 PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii awaited their maturity, which would come, per always, faster than their parents expected. 

42 Enron has always been in the courtroom deep doo-doo. 

43  The Stoning of the Devil stampede in Saudi Arabia has always killed hundreds.  

44 Shakira has always been of the humble opinion that Hips Don’t Lie. 

45 Yet another Beatles break-up: Paul and Heather. 

46 Hannibal Lecter has always been rising for the last time, thank goodness. 

47 Cell phones have always turned us into mindless beasts, or so Stephen King would have us believe. 

48 Da Vinci has always needed decoding by a symbologist. 

49 A book about Lincoln’s cabinet has always given Barack Obama some ideas. 

50 Since they’ve been born the cost of college has risen 55 percent.