Gen X: The Generation That Never Existed

no one has good qualities.

especially not gen xers aka boomers-lite

gen xers are the only good coworkers to have because we are the only ones who understand we’re all shit coworkers

cf Office Space

I'm self-employed. I no longer have co-workers, only clients. I feel like we are the "customer service" generation.

that makes you like the youngins

My parents (born in 1943 and 1944) are VERY adamant about not being Boomers and not having been hippies. They identify as warbabies. My father thinks he was a Beatnik and my mother thinks she was, like, a boho folkie Joan Baez type. Whatever gets you through the night, as Bob Marley sang on Shaved Fish.

Me, born 1971: I think I ended up being exactly the right age for Pacman, Thriller, Duran Duran, Members Only. Also Little Creatures and maybe Green.

Not much else. I felt too young for some stuff (Residents), and too old for some other stuff (Nirvana). I went on lots of weird detours relative to my peers, and there were certainly things that I explored later and ended up liking in retrospect.

One way in which cultural thinking about "decades" sucks is that you often don't really know you're in them; they can only be understood in hindsight.

All that said 80s music formed me and it is still my bedrock.

the 90s tv/movie version of the 80s was so crazily inaccurate to me, but by 2005 the revision was the history. Its kinda like how by 1985 everyone in 1967 was hippie, or how 50s greasers were a dominant social group i guess.

it’s like by 2005 ppl acted like joy division and magazine and wire and foetus were what we ALL listened to, but man journey was huge.

My feeling is that there are certainly generational traits and difference but they are usually discussed in a pretty narrow way and *usually* mean a certain subset of middle class to upper middle class white people -- and ignore lots of those too. Like the 90s is the story of grunge and blah blah blah but is the real story me wearing my Beastie Boys Check Your Head ringer tee, or the other (much more numerous) kids at my school who turned Garth Brooks into the biggest act since the Beatles and still filling football stadiums to this day?

also I think that if you broke things down by race/socioeconomics etc I think you'd find many more commonalities than by generation. hanging out w/my sister's family, i'm struck by how much my nephews (14) have with my brother in law (46), like he complains about the rap they listen to (they do like Eazy E now though since the movie) but they share a lot, even culturally, and sports etc, and basically they all live in the same suburban world and I think they have more in common with each other than they do, for instance, a 14 year old Mexican kid their age living in L.A.

Like a lot of the stuff that is different is pretty superficial: fashion, haircuts, how skinny or not skinny their jeans are, music...but I think their worldview and values are in line and as they get older the superficial differences will fade too.

Are you saying that you and your family don’t have friends in low places?

Like YMP, my parents are pre-boomer (born a day apart in the same hospital in 1944) and were emphatically not hippies, as they did not go to college after graduation in 1962. They had 1950s childhoods. To them, hippies were collegy (both of my mother’s younger brothers went to college and both were kind of hippyish). My mother was a classy version of a hair-hopper and my dad was a jock who liked the blues. They met at Danceland when they were 17 and were pretty much scenesters but not beatniks. My mom loved Roy Orbison and Tina Turner, my dad Hank Williams and James Brown. Their last musical hurrah was seeing the Rolling Stones play to 200 people, and then they went onto the suburban conveyor belt and had two kids, yada yada...

Haha no my brother in law loves Garth

There was way more prominent Garth Brooks love at my high school than Nirvana/grunge, but maybe that changed in/after 1992? I was gone by then.

Definitely as many Skynyrd t-shirts as Depeche Mode t-shirts at my high school. As much love for NKOTB as OMD.

There really were multiple eightieses; different people could drift through that time in totally separate cultural universes with little awareness of one another.

I suspect that is true of all times and places - perhaps moreso now than ever.

I think there were maybe a dozen people at my high school (2000 students total) who had Depeche Mode tees. ... vs. the hundreds of Guns N Roses, Garth Brooks, and Metallica shirt wearers. Plenty of NKOTB, but I think the NKOTB shirt wearers were mostly freshman girls

hey 2000 students isn't very podunk!

My first entry in my long-dormant blog of random yearbook photos through the ages (I was very bored and into my scanner at the time) was my freshman hs yearbook 1989-1990 and the photos of the seniors illustrate a range of 80s to 90s transition. https://yearbookeditor.tumblr.com

for example https://yearbookeditor.tumblr.com/post/28058759438/four-female-seniors

hey 2000 students isn't very podunk!

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, October 22, 2019 11:39 AM (five minutes ago)

It was the only high school for the entire town. ... grades 9-12. ... except for the "continuation school" ... which is where the kids that got expelled for fighting and drugs got sent, along with the girls that had babbies.

But back to the t-shirts -- also a significant number of Iron Maiden and Misfits shirts, whether the wearers (mostly boys) were into those bands or were mostly about black t-shirts with skulls on them, idk, but really, the dominant graphic tee had the Raiders logo on it. Also black + skull

your school was five times bigger than mine

my state was probably five times bigger than yours, too!

over three times bigger, yes

My school was only high school for entire town too. Still is, tho the student body has more than doubled since I graduated. School is in new building too...with windows!
Sorry but I'm going to have to confiscate your podunk card.

y'all got some tiny states on yr side of the country!

def were still a good amount of metalhead burnouts in my hs

Sorry but I'm going to have to confiscate your podunk card.

I feel like I get podunk points for the fact that my hometown is only known for being where one specific food item is grown

and that all of the nearby towns also had their designated specific food item?

garlic vs. artichokes FITE

I don't think anyone would take away Castroville's podunk card ...

in terms of actual competition, it was garlic vs. lettuce

tho Salinas (lettuce) had two high schools

anyway it was a dumb place and I am glad I left

There really were multiple eightieses; different people could drift through that time in totally separate cultural universes with little awareness of one another.

This is the thing that really hit me maybe ten years ago when I first noticed that kids these days were wearing things that I remember actually owning or experiencing - seeing them combine clothing from groups who absolutely would never have hung out together or actively hated each other.

My high school (7-12 grades) had like 500 people total and were the really big school in the area. We had exactly one goth, maybe five skaters, and like a dozen metalheads total.

My feeling is that there are certainly generational traits and difference but they are usually discussed in a pretty narrow way and *usually* mean a certain subset of middle class to upper middle class white people -- and ignore lots of those too. Like the 90s is the story of grunge and blah blah blah but is the real story me wearing my Beastie Boys Check Your Head ringer tee, or the other (much more numerous) kids at my school who turned Garth Brooks into the biggest act since the Beatles and still filling football stadiums to this day?

also I think that if you broke things down by race/socioeconomics etc I think you'd find many more commonalities than by generation. hanging out w/my sister's family, i'm struck by how much my nephews (14) have with my brother in law (46), like he complains about the rap they listen to (they do like Eazy E now though since the movie) but they share a lot, even culturally, and sports etc, and basically they all live in the same suburban world and I think they have more in common with each other than they do, for instance, a 14 year old Mexican kid their age living in L.A.

Like a lot of the stuff that is different is pretty superficial: fashion, haircuts, how skinny or not skinny their jeans are, music...but I think their worldview and values are in line and as they get older the superficial differences will fade too.

OTM imo

whatever, millenial

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/laurenstrapagiel/gen-z-is-calling-gen-x-the-karen-generation

gen z aren't millennials

If I'm a boomer, they are millennials, case closed. Now get off my lawn!

ha at “ok edgelord”

i would find being called "karen" by a gen zer deeply funny so i'm in favor of it

im related to two boomer karen’s, this nameshamegame is obviously lame, get back in your lane shitstains.

for this Gen-Z-er, the name is permanently linked to the spoken-word bridge of "Steal My Sunshine"

or no wait i'm a millennial, i forgot again

Apostrphe

I know we been saying ok boomer but y’all can’t let Gen X get away with dumb shit either. They probably still hate gay people, are the generation where Karen’s exist, the ones who got mad about the Starbucks Xmas cup, and buy dumb shit like Hot Wheels edition Camaros lmao

— Edwin Mezantino (@mezzizle) November 6, 2019

I was going to point to Tunic (Song For Karen) as exhibit A in Gen X's embrace of Karens, only to learn that Kim Gordon is very much a Boomer.

Except the song is for Karen Carpenter.

http://static-cms.legacy.com/sites/default/files/styles/hero_detail/public/karen-carpenter-getty-hero_0.jpg

lol, suzy beat me to it

Lol, I'm aware of that

karen carpenter: famous to boomers, known to xers, unknown to millennials, mark of shame to zers

Fight this generation