an expectation for lifestyle for everyone. Those necessities and amenities to which people have come to expect as part of the "American dream" have become more pricey and the notion that one needs to have them is hammered into the public by endless advertisements and "branding" that has become a science with a whole industry built around it. Also, in the entertainment media made available to people, you will find true representations of people in poverty or on the margins only in documentaries or some dystopian vision of the future or negative storylines constructed to make those without look bad. Otherwise, in sitcoms and dramas, the worlds they present are peopled by very ordinary folks living in posh penthouses and sprawling Victorian homes, who drive upscale cars, and dress in designer clothing. Very rarely to we see a portrayal of someone who is dealing with the world of work and experience grounded in reality.

Thus an expectation is set that we all are entitled to a certain style of life. I think this is what many people respond to in the younger generation. I went through a period with my son when he was in his early teens in which he informed me that he believed that it was a parents job to make certain that a child had all the things that made him "cool." I let him know that, on our income, my job was to make certain that we had the basics and coolness was not something he was entitled to. It was something he could earn or could be gifted to him at Christmas time or on his birthday.

social definition of "entitled." The word, as I see it being used in this intergenerational conversation, means whatever the user wants it to. That kid has a car? Entitlement! That kid complains about getting paid $7.25 an hour in this economy? Entitlement! Etc. What it really means is what it has meant for millenia, "Deez young kids deez days! They're just so...so....not GOOD enough!" hahahaha

(The word is also used extensively - and similarly meaninglessly - in the inter-class conversation)