In the 8000s, there will be only two kind of tribes living in the earth: Eloi and Morlocks. The Elois are survivors who built houses as their homes on the side of high cliffs that resembled Manhattan buildings. They live at the steep places in order to survive from the Morlocks who live at the bottom of the earth. Alexander Hartdegen, a scientist and an inventor, who is determined to prove that time travel is possible for someone by using the Time Machine, live between these hostile tribes.
The story represents an imaginative depiction of H. G. Wells, in his sci-fi novel entitled “The Time Machine”. Professor Alexander Hartdegan, a main character in the novel, tried to grasp the contradictive life meaning of the Elois and Morlocks. The pale-faced and ape-postured Morlocks keep being hunted by the Elois as food sources, dragged to the bottom of the earth. However, the Morlocks cannot reach the height of the escarpment.
Like a Time Machine, time passes by. The controversy of these two socio-humane forms keep continued. When the Time Machine goes back to the 2000s, there are groups of people who have their own uniqueness, as stated by several research conducted by world institutions (see Table). These existing and emerging groups are the so-called Millennial Generation, a most-spoken term used by various circles in various fields. The Millennials (also known as Generation Y) is a demographical group (cohort) after Generation X. Social researcher divides this generation to those who were born between 1980-2000, aged in the range of 15-34 years old. The study about millennial generation in the world, especially in America, was conducted by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) together with the University of Berkley in 2011 with the theme of American Millennials: Deciphering the Enigma Generation. In 2010, a year before, Pew Research Center also released a research report entitled Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next.
Today, globalization era has created two different characters of millennials: Oracles and Top Gun. The Oracle Generation is an agency who is considered wise and broadminded, especially on prophetic prophecy or future recognition, inspired by theological character of God. A literature study on management contains about the Celestien Management or Prophetic Management, explaining about social character called ZIKR (Zero base-Iman-Consistent-Result-Oriented). On the opposite, the Top Gun Generation is a “fast-response” community, with group of tactical and elitist characters. These characters are influenced by the release of 1986th movie, Top Gun showing the behavior of American fighter jet pilots which, coincidentally, also intervenes the behavior of the millennials, especially in America. United Nations’ opinions divide the millennials into three groups based on their age: pre-millennial (15-34), millennial (32-45) and post-millennial (45-55). These groups are considered still being able to give positive contribution to the better economic performance in a country.
Compared to other generations, the Millennials have their own uniqueness. The research result released by Pew Research Center illustrates their uniqueness by the massive usage of technology and rapid change of pop culture/music genre. The life of the millennials cannot be separated from technology, especially the internet and entertainment which have become their basic necessity. In the 80s, the motto of youth is Buku, Cinta, dan Pesta, meanwhile the millennials call it Internet, Cinta, dan Kuliner now.
As for Indonesian context, there is a survey conducted by Alvara Research Center (Hasanudin ‘Ali, 2014) which showed that younger groups of people, ranging of 15-24 years old prefer to discuss about music/ film, sports and technology while the older groups, ranging of 25-34 years old mostly discuss about social-political, economy and religion issues. The internet usage consumption of those ranging of 15-34 years old is higher compared to the older ones. It shows that they depend too much on the internet connection.
Basically, there are five things they mostly discuss about:
Religious Views
The number of Moslem population in Indonesia is the biggest in the world. However, Indonesia is governed by democratic system, not by a religion-based system. It is this principle which holds and bounds both the citizens together as a nation, as also declared by the founder of this Republic. They also declared that we need to hold to the principle as a basis and guidance to protect every citizen –no matter what their backgrounds are, as a nation. That is what we call, Pancasila. Therefore, it is important for us to portray the youth’s religious views: about whether it is conservative, moderate, or secular –or, their views about the relation between religion and nation, whether there is a change of views compared to previous generations.
Ideology and Political Participation
The general view assumes that the value of patriotism and nationalism has already disappeared from our youths. Their responses in the social media are relatively emotional, self-interested and skeptical. The sticking-out social issues are often responded controversially only by looking at the differences that might cause the opposite impacts. Related to the political condition in Indonesia, the millennials observe each-and-every nation’s political process in Indonesia and become part of the “hot” issues to discuss about. Young voters in Indonesia are dominated by swing voters (lit. pemilih galau) and apathetic voters (lit. pemilih cuek).
Social Values
The youths define a word of “family” as a relation between kids and their parents. Parents are not their role model. They even choose another role model outside the circle of family. The social values among the youths, shifting from eastern social values to a more modern western values.
Education, Job and Entrepreneurship
The most important issues the youths have been facing up to is education and job. These issues will definitely determine their future. Their success in the future will depend on how they get the job and education in the present time/ in their youth. Other than that, entrepreneurship has already become one of the alternatives among the youths in creating job opportunity: various starting up business keep appearing in several cities. Once they got graduated from college, they do not need to look for a job anymore, but they try to look for business opportunity and make it as a gate to the world of entrepreneurship.
Lifestyle, Technology and Internet
The lifestyle of young people who tend to be hedonist especially in big cities has become common knowledge. They have their own way to express their feelings. Their life cannot be separated from the entertainment and technology, especially internet. Music and movie have become their satisfying object which can be easily obtained through the internet access, including Youtube to get the up-to-date information, Facebook as their society, Instagram and others, which can be done in a mobile way.***