Gen X: The Generation That Never Existed

i wrote a paper on that in lol college

My mom (born in '41) used to make fun of stuff like Johnny Mathis when I was a kid - that was her parents' music, and she hated it. I liked the grandparents' music, though. My parents were rock and rollers starting in the fifties, and one thing I remember from my inner suburb childhood was that not all parents their age had done the "rock and roll" thing. That confused me, because all my parents talked about was music. Then I'd go to my friends' houses, and their parents were the same age, but all of their records were easy listening / orchestral stuff and show tunes. I guess it used to be a thing with my mom's generation - the ones who had been "rock and rollers" bonded with each other and hung out together, but that bypassed a lot of other people their age. You wouldn't know that from just looking at articles and books.

Relevant:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/19/once-young-radical-now-auntie-disgusting

she was like "you can wear the clothes and enjoy the music, but don't wish yourself back there; it sucked for us"

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Friday, October 18, 2019 4:49 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

A few years ago, my mom and I were watching an episode of Man Men when a character made an anti-Semitic "joke." My mom said, "OK, see, that's why no one my age watches this show. We already went through all that shit; we don't need to see it again."

tarfumes' mom otm

that guardian article is hilarious -- it highlights one thing i def notice about people my age: that they think their opinion matters? and they are compelled to share it loudly and proudly even if it is very pointless (like, for example, what is and is not a sandwich) Who the f cares what you think about nut allergies? No one! When did anyone give a shit what you thought about nuts or nut allergies? Never! But we grew up without the opportunity to sound off about everything. Having "strong opinions" was a form of social currency that...definitely seems to have lost its value (imo).

Man Men!

I only do that on imago's poll bc <3.xp

Didn't make it more than a couple paragraphs into that Guardian article though.

But we grew up without the opportunity to sound off about everything.

hah, there are some general differences I notice in terms of social media self-presentation of Gen-X people vs. those who are younger. Though probably it's less a generational issue than a difference between people who care about their image on social media and those who don't.

I think probably gen x people are less invested in the idea of cultivating an image or a social media presence as a personal brand.

personal brand is definitely not a gen X concept

See: my ongoing and unabated disgust at selling in general. Selling myself as a brand makes me ill.

https://66.media.tumblr.com/eb2c459f4476af3bfeebf76afd92e814/tumblr_mzrpxwAllJ1qduh7lo1_500.jpg

The rest of the movie was true poisoned crap but that part confirmed my already strong belief that selling is gross. As I said, it’s my most enduring identifiable generational trait!

My experience is that this is nothing new, that nobody ever really bothered to listen to us and only acknowledged our existence under duress and, probably, a haze of boomer mockery. That the "slacker" stereotype was a deep malaise, was in many cases learned helplessness. There were more boomers with more money and they were the only ones who really counted anyway. And the other stereotype (thanks Doonesbury) was that we were incredibly rich and had made all sorts of money off the dotcom boom... in the latter half of the '90s though I was living with my mom, working part-time as a library clerk and "going to school" with my dad's GI Bill money. Some semesters I could get through the anxiety to catch the bus to class and pass some of them. Some semesters I just posted incoherent and hateful screeds to the Pink Floyd Usenet newsgroup, where everybody loved me.

I guess that's the thing about belonging to a Generation that never had a voice - at least I still get my own.

And yeah part of my marked lack of early-life success, beyond my own internalized self-loathing, was my horror and disgust at "selling" anything. One of the top reasons I didn't get into writing professionally (along with my growing belief that writing is, or was for the writers I liked, an emotionally and economically ruinous "career").

Some semesters I just posted incoherent and hateful screeds to the Pink Floyd Usenet newsgroup, where everybody loved me.

still do

awwww you're a sweetie mookieproof

I posted Fundamentalist Christian rants on Usenet when I was 16 under my real name. They still show up in Google searches.

I knew this thread would devolve into nostalgia.

[Looks into camera]

HENRY ROLLINS
You know? "Hill Street Blues" *was* a pretty good drama, for a bunch of pigs!

I think probably gen x people are less invested in the idea of cultivating an image or a social media presence as a personal brand.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Saturday, October 19, 2019 3:34 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
personal brand is definitely not a gen X concept

― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie),

All this shit makes me gag

I don't know if this is part of my Gen X ness or not but for sure I experience a flannel shirt as the shirt equivalent of blue jeans, something utterly neutral that I can wear on any day in combination with any other garment.

part of my marked lack of early-life success, beyond my own internalized self-loathing, was my horror and disgust at "selling" anything. One of the top reasons I didn't get into writing professionally (along with my growing belief that writing is, or was for the writers I liked, an emotionally and economically ruinous "career").

otm. I experienced this generalized revulsion toward sales as a mid-late boomer. because a sales career is legit horrifying. also, I noticed that writing for popular consumption was confined to careers I knew I'd hate, like advertising/marketing and almost all of it was predicated on meeting such vague criteria that no one knew in advance whether your writing would satisfy their need to generate profits. Whatever you wrote, you were at the mercy of the wind. lastly, an academic was so hotly competed for, that the process of getting one was likely to drive me insane. so I punted.

I think none of these lame pieces about generational trends mention gen X because these days they're mostly written BY gen Xers, and thus gen X is the implied subject that is looking at and describing all other generations.

I think probably gen x people are less invested in the idea of cultivating an image or a social media presence as a personal brand.

See: my ongoing and unabated disgust at selling in general. Selling myself as a brand makes me ill.

I'm technically a millennial and I feel the same way. It's part of the reason I don't have any social media accounts (except ILX, I guess).

I'm an, errr, X-ennial and I feel the same way (I relate a lot to the intersection rushomancy pointed out between the slacker ethos and learned helplessness; that section of the Venn diagram is definitely my niche, sigh) - but that started becoming the accepted default when I was in my 20s and the earliest true millennials were barely in the workforce yet, so I'm not sure we can absolve our generation of blame for that

I think it was still in the Myspace era when a friend said that his band had had interest from record labels but they'd said they wouldn't sign him unless he could get n thousand Myspace friends and they'd need to see daily activity from him on there plugging his band and ~working the fanbase~? and I was just like, stop the world, I want to get off

I know I'm shooting myself in the foot professionally by not advertising a self-aggrandizing version of myself online but it's simply not going to happen. I'd rather abide in obscurity forever than relinquish the notion that what one makes is infinitely more valuable than its so-called maker.

First time I was aware that my generation was being moved on from was around 2008 when the singer from New Young Pony Club was asked in an interview how she felt about her song being used in an advert and she was very surprised at being asked, like of course, why wouldn't you do that?

1980 is X, right? Bc that's when Kim Kardashian was born.

mil-cusp/Xennial

but entertainers/pop figures are always weird because they mean the most to people a generation or half-generation below them (e.g. the beatles were not boomers). kardashian setting the tone for what social media branding would look like can also be read as, ppl born in 1990 eating it up and encouraging it.

McCauliffe, Henson, and Cobain were like the pivotal gen x deaths afaict.

― Go-Gurt Ops (Old Lunch), Friday, October 18, 2019 2:28 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I’m just a wee millennial, but what about Budd Dwyer?

I'm late gen x but only became aware of Dwyer via pop cultural associations.

All the talk about self-branding and sales seems like a v v good metric for sniffing out a gen x-er because, yeah, I hate all that shit with fiery intensity. This is why I have no money. But boy do I have my integrity, by gum.

god i wish someone would buy all my excess integrity

I'm extremely averse to branding/advertising/promotional/PR shit, but it's possible I was more influenced by boomers & gen Xers that other millennials were?

It's also possible that it is hard to make accurate generalizations about entire swaths of the population based on year of birth.

That's not what my horoscope said.

🤯

It's also possible that it is hard to make accurate generalizations about entire swaths of the population based on year of birth.

― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r)

And then again, it's possible that our unique shared experiences go beyond "We are the freakies and this is our freakies tree"

lol sez sund4r the 4v4nt g4rde c0mp0s3r and gui+4r t3ach3r yer such a gen-xer dude you can't hide your ~integrity~

gen-x betrayal!

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/nine-inch-nails-head-like-a-hole-anthem-900750/

But nobody could have predicted the song’s most recent iteration. On an episode of the anthology series Black Mirror, Miley Cyrus played the pop star Ashley O, whose biggest hit was “On a Roll,” a hilariously upbeat redux of “Head Like a Hole.” “I’m on a roll,” she sings over sleek pop production. “Riding so high/Achieving my goals.” Instead of “Bow down before the one you serve,” Cyrus sings, “I’m stoked on ambition and verve.” It’s such a magnificently perverse interpretation of the song that even Reznor approved of it, tweeting out “Feels like I’ve been here before” and even offering NIN–Ashley O crossover merch for sale.

Another 78'er here. I also abhor branding and selling. Although I am fine with making money.

personal branding is repulsive

Did wearing shirts/carrying bags with company logos skip Gen X? I wouldn't be caught dead wearing something that had words Supreme, The GAP, Hollister, etc, emblazoned on the front or a logo'd bag. I find it embarrassing but people actively seek this shit out.

what about hard rock café t-shirts

first time threadster was this done cause uh huh

One reason people my age get so bent out of shape about “generations” is that Gen X is the only one that fully KNOWS it sucks. Boomers and Millennials cry “Stop picking on us!” while Gen X has forty-five years of self-hatred cued up and ready to go! Stop ignoring us! WE’RE AWFUL!

— john roderick (@johnroderick) October 19, 2019

People my age did it back in the day but I'd bet dollars to donuts that those people would never have self-identified as gen x.

OMG, what if gen x is actually a form of self-selective branding, shoot me now.

xxpost

also there are those shirts that I think say stussy but until like 3 years ago I thought they said satanism. nb I am not very visually perceptive

Yeah my general irl steez is 'don't pay excessive attention to me' which is almost certainly rooted in some degree of free-floating self-loathing but I don't know if that widely applies to my age group.