In Competition 2647 you were invited to invent new social types for the current decade.
This assignment, which takes you into the terrain of anthropologists and marketing men, clearly failed to inspire, producing an entry of modest size that fell short of your usual standard.
There were some harsh portraits of the digital generation. Josephine Boyle was kinder than most — ‘Fritter: Frivolous and romantically minded individual who tweets and twitters every passing thought and chance encounter’ — while Bill Greenwell appeared to indulge in some wishful thinking: ‘Wii-Frees: Parsimonious techno-hostile teenagers who insist on books with paper, Monopoly competitions, fresh vegetables and other curiosities from the previous century.’
Barry Baldwin’s Mightabeen updates a pre-existing social stereotype and captures well the jaded spirit of the age we live in: ‘the Mightabeens are the former Wannabees who have burned out or given up. They have a simple philosophy. If they have a problem, someone else is to blame.’
The first four winners, printed below, get £25 each; the rest earn £10 apiece.
Ecotists: they are dedicated to looking after number one at all costs, number one being their blinding group vision of the needs of the environment; their basic aim is to stop everything except the sun, wind and waves.
Exurbanites: with a philosophy largely based on fresh air, they are determined both to leave the city and to leapfrog suburbia. This leaves them either commuting soul-destroying distances or undertaking some non-viable rural project beyond their townie capabilities.
Golden silvers: whether through careful planning or, more likely, lucky financial timing, these pensioners have a comfortable income, most of it readily disposable as their mortgages and other commitments have been paid off; they keep many a cruise ship afloat.
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