Where Nobody Knows Your Name

Do we really care if you're Caroline Kennedy or Caroline Hussein? Digital culture might be fueling a criticism of nepotism in politics and the workforce.

You might have had to look up the word "nepotism" in the dictionary over the past couple weeks, in light of the talk in the media about Caroline Kennedy taking over Hillary Clinton's seat in the U.S. Senate. Then again, maybe you had to look up "Caroline Kennedy" (I so forgot which one she was too): The royalty of the Kennedy name doesn't mean as much to Generation Y, because we obviously weren't around for the J.F.K. days (The New York Times).

Actually, royalty in general doesn't mean as much to us. That could have something to do with why there's an Obama in the White House and not a Clinton. While the strength of a family name might always hold fast, Americans in general, and particularly younger people, seem to be increasingly skeptical of those who receive honors based on a family name.

Sorry to pick on Caroline Kennedy (it's not like she doesn't have meaningful qualifications), but she is a perfect news peg. Critics in the press and elsewhere have questioned how someone like her, with no elected experience whatsoever, would deserve a U.S. Senate seat on the basis of family legacy (San Francisco Chronicle). However, when you look back on our political history, we mine as well be England's House of Lords --why are we criticizing this now? The criticism of nepotism is emerging from digital culture -- because on the Internet, nobody knows your name. The Internet has fueled the voice of the masses, and so we are becoming more questioning of the voice of the privileged.

Generation Y especially questions this class privilege, as products of this digital culture. I tip my hat to the past two generations, who certainly had their more poignant anti-establishment moments than we ever will, as we quietly type away in our digital universe. While baby boomers had marches, we have blogs. And it works: There is no place on earth where class is more obsolete than the Internet (even with the digital divide).

Of course, it's a tough world out there, and in the workforce, twentysomethings cannot be naive to the ways of the game. Perhaps we will see trends away from family legacy importance, but no matter what name you were born, the workforce will always be about who you know. Class privilege and nepotism will always exist, and the East Coast is especially famous for it. What is interesting is how culture is changing via the Web so that we are increasingly introduced to people on the basis of content and not connection.