Talkin' 'bout my generation

[sabotabby]

Don't tell me I'm not X. I'm on the borderline between X and Y, but my mindset is pure X.

This rant is why.

Generation X is beyond all that bullshit now. It quit smoking and doing coke a long time ago. It has blood pressure issues and is heavier than it would like to be. It might still take some ecstasy, if it knew where to get some. But probably not. Generation X has to be up really early tomorrow morning.

Generation X is tired.

...

Generation X is used to disappointments. Generation X knows you didn’t even read the whole thing. It doesn’t want or expect your reblogs; it picked the wrong platform.

Generation X should have posted this to LiveJournal.

So I'm reblogging it on my LiveJournal. Hat tip to symbioid.

Comments

[anarqueso.livejournal.com]

I almost reposted it myself, if only to relish that last line.

[sabotabby]

That last line kills me.

[cacahuate.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this guy’s definitely angry at the right people. Damn those whiny Gen Yers and their silly desire for opportunity and justice.

I get why you’d identify with some parts of this rant, and rightly so, but there’s some messed up stuff in there...

[sabotabby]

I think it's less aimed at Y and more aimed at whatever came after. Millennials? Those guys. At any rate, it's entirely counterproductive to blame them—or even to blame the Boomers—but the rant is still quite cathartic.

[cacahuate.livejournal.com]

Y and Millennials are the same thing—roughly ’80s through ’90s. Generation Z is just children, high schoolers at the oldest, so the references to entitlement, graduating during a recession, and shitty jobs are aimed at Gen Y, my generation. It just bothered me because the assumptions behind that blame are so conservative.

[cacahuate.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, that’s very fair! That is when the ire is directed at society for taking so long to give a shit. It’s the attacks on the younger generation that bother me, since that’s not their fault, and people end up making points that amount to “I had(/have) to eat shit too, so if you say people shouldn’t have to eat shit, it’s just because you have an entitlement complex. Blah blah obligatory line about everyone getting a trophy because god forbid everyone should feel like they have value.” Which is pretty conservative if you ask me.

[florence-craye.livejournal.com]

I like that article! and if anyone's wondering, Idon't identify as either X or Y (or millennials, whatever). I'm also on the border between these.

[sabotabby]

I was born in '79. Coupland, who coined the term (I feel old—you know he's designing a line for Roots now?), set the cut-off at '80, but most media seems to put it earlier. At any rate, he was writing about people in their 20s when I was in my teens, but that's the generation I identify with.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia seems to put it at '81-'82. I was born in '67, pretty clearly in Gen X.

And, yeah, LJ.

[florence-craye.livejournal.com]

I was born the year after you! I just don't have the ennui and didn't identify with most of the media of my age group. I think I've seen end dates of 79-83 in different Gen X definitions.

LOL, I don't even know what the hell Roots is. I have always felt old before my time. Or just out of step. Maybe it's because my parents were born "before the boom" or the media thing.

I think it's fine to identify with whomever works best for you! Or not at all. I see those as somewhat arbitrary, although maybe more people feel togetherness than I do.

[sabotabby]

Roots is a Canadian chain store. How do I describe it? It's such a weird phenomenon that I mostly identify with Jewish girls in the suburbs. When I was growing up, they sold sweatpants and sweatshirts with beavers on them that were more expensive than regular sweatpants and sweatshirts. Said suburban Jewish girls wore them to school (I have a strong opinion about wearing sweatpants out of the house unless one is headed for some form of exercise).

In more recent years, they have branched out into more acceptable outerwear that I kind of like, although it is still very Canadian and outdoorsy looking. I liked Coupland's line enough that I actually tried on one of his dresses, but the fabric was quite shit for what they were charging.

Hardly anyone would consider these clothes cool and trendy.

Generationally, I identify with curmudgeonly geezers, people roughly my age who act like curmudgeonly geezers, and teenagers. Pretty much everyone else can go fuck themselves.

[sabotabby]

Well, I listen to opera and Brecht/Weill cabaret songs. I didn't get it from my parents, either.

[sabotabby]

I've heard some but not all. I need to download the entire thing because that's about as up my alley as you can get.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

I like the sound of those - Brecht/thingy/whatsit songs. May I have some nice links?

[sabotabby]

Here. Apologies if there are any repeats; I have multiple versions of many of the songs, so I don't know from the titles which are which.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

You have just secured all of my internet love for the rest of the week.

[sabotabby]

For the week?

Wait until you hear it. :)

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I am solidly X and have always felt like it.

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I even have a weird loyalty to Douglas Coupland and have read a number of his books past Microserfs which I suspect was the last good one. I wish he'd come out earlier. Because 1) it would have meant a lot to me, which is not a reason for anyone to come out, but also 2) it would have meant a lot to some people who didn't have it as easy as me, gaywise.

I may read a little Generation X before bed. I haven't in years.

[sabotabby]

I secretly believe Life After God is the best one. Exactly zero people agree with me.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

:)

[lienne.livejournal.com]

<3

[sabotabby]

You were also born old, weren't you?

[lienne.livejournal.com]

when I was fifteen in England with my mother some guy wouldn't give me a young-folks' discount on going up the tiny impossible tower stairs of this ancient little church because the cutoff age was sixteen and he thought I was twenty-two.

that's a yes.

[sabotabby]

ILU

[lienne.livejournal.com]

I was like "what are you"

Mom laughed

I think he caved eventually

XD

she, on the other hand, grew up young; she got carded at an R-rated movie once, when she was 42, because the guy thought she was a teenager. I was like "Did he not see the wrinkles?"

but that is just how unbelievably adorable my mother was.

[sabotabby]

Your mom sounds like the greatest ever.

[lienne.livejournal.com]

that is because she was.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

It is all completely alien to me because I haven't noticed the last 11 years passing due to traumatic shit, and have been on benefits most of my life anyway, never had a chance of a job or a house...but I have benefitted massively from decent(ish) welfare and the NHS.

I have found it all quite bewildering, the blame-tossing between generations. I always thought the people to blame were those of any generation who were into shit like jobs and home-ownership rather than a nice society with short working hours and lovely co-operatives and shared land, anyway.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

I don't seem to have a generation at all - I was born in 1975. So I'm not x, but surely not Y ? Maybe I am non-existent because I have failed to have babies.

[sabotabby]

You are X like me. Social programs soften the blow, but don't do away with all of the ways in which one generation passes on its mistakes to the next.

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

You ellipsed the part that hits me square in the gut: "It’s a parent now, and there’s always so damn much to do. Generation X wishes it had better health insurance and a deeper savings account."

[sabotabby]

I'm not a parent. But I imagine that would resonate with me if I were.

[(Anonymous)]

I find that once someone's a parent, they think that's the resonant part of any conversation.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

I posted this on Facebook. Here was my take:

The thing is that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are Gen Xers, so I think we are well represented.

Also, we cannot bitch about being culturally eclipsed by the Baby Boomers anymore because that moment is over. Yes, I got sick of golden oldies in the late 80s and early 90s when I worked at Pier 1. But now, when I walk into stores, I hear Simple Minds and Tears for Fears. We are now retro and overexposed.

This article worked because it re-exposed the fact that the economy has sucked for quite some time. The Clinton years, like the Reagan years, were not great for everyone.

By way of comparison, the Great Depression did not start with the stock market crash in October of 1929. It began when investors took their money out of manufacturing and put it in the stock market in 1925. Factories closed because the early 20s revolution in consumer goods required a much larger middle class to keep going. With the market for consumer appliances like dishwashers quickly saturated, investment went into the "Anything Goes" stock market. For factory hands, the Great Depression had already begun.

Now ask yourself if that sounds familiar in any way.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

This guy really hates Millennials.

Of course, as you know from my book, I think most generational generalizations are crap. Every generation has its reactionary frat boys, it's jocks, whatever. The categories we learned in high school are far more valid. The differences within generations are more profound than the ones between them.

[sabotabby]

It's weird how little the categories we learned in high school matter to today's kids, mind you. I see jocks who are into anime. It's one improvement I see in this generation compared to ours.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I see them as part of wider societal changes that happens on many generational levels at once. Although, I like to hope that with the "It Gets Better" effort and the gay rights movement, cruelty and bullying may make some small, lasting overall drop for everyone. My teen years was like Heathers on a good day.

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

This is one thing I've heard more and more of, that groups that wouldn't be caught dead associating with during my High School Days of Olde (aka 12 years ago) intermix and that those categories don't matter anymore.

And I will be continually mystified by the juggalo phenomenon.

[xturtle.livejournal.com]

I totally love that rant. And I think it resonates with me especially because I'm on the tail end of gen X. By the time I was old enough to notice, the media had already pegged me as a burnout loser and started focusing on the "class of 2000." You know, those kids three years younger who were somehow, inexplicably, less akin to me than most of the teachers who were fifteen years older.

It's not that I dislike Millenials. I just resent the hell out of their failure to save the world after all the crap I put up with.

[sabotabby]

I don't even resent them. It's entirely the media and sociological framing that I resent.

[nichtsda.livejournal.com]

This essay would resonate with me more if presented in a distressed typewriter font with some ironically appropriated 50s clip art!

I sometimes find the emphasis on Kurt Cobain a little myopic since, honestly, more of my peers listened to Madonna than Nirvana. Listening to indie rock wasn't a rejection, that I could recall, of my parents and authority figures, but of my Color Me Badd loving classmates.

I don't personally have any beefs with the Millennials -- I work with three and they're all smart, talented and generally optimistic people. They don't speak in lolcat or mystify me with their fast adoption of technology. (I should say I think it's unfair to suggest Gen Xers aren't technology adopters like Millennials, since we were often accused of being too technophilic in the 90s. Oh no, we like computers and video games and the internet. WHERE IS THE HUMAN TOUCH? To recast Xers as the clueless parents who can't make the VCR stop blinking 12:00 is lazy and inaccurate.)

Boomers, though... sheesh. They weren't necessarily parents to Xers (even if they technically were) so much as cruel older brothers. When they weren't stomping around yelling about how great they are, they'd be slapping you in the face with your own hand and demanding you stop hitting yourself. Then they'd take your lunch money, use it to buy Twinkies, tell you they're going to share it, then shout "Psyche!" and force you to watch them eat both cakes.

I know I rant about them all the time, but they really need to... gah. I mean, look at Forrest Gump. That movie speaks the Boomer mythos louder than anything else I've ever seen: We changed the world just by EXISTING, man! Didn't fight? Didn't march? Didn't speak up? Didn't so much as think a progressive thought? Bravo anyway, Boomers.

The generation before them (and the one before that) did a pretty good job of fucking things up, too, though, so I shouldn't forget that. But they weren't trying to make you think they were cleaning up the world while taking a massive dump on it. They were just ignorant assholes.

[sabotabby]

I resent Boomers as a group, though not individually. I mean, shit-tons of my friends are Boomers. (Shit-tons of my friends are Millennials, too, and I don't see a vast generational gap. I do with my kids, but I probably won't in a few years.)

What bothers me is being labelled the Generation of Suck With Nothing to Offer, and you are 100% right about the distressed type.

[nichtsda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I should have said my resentment for Boomers is collective/cultural.

I never liked these messages:

"Protestsing? What are you protesting? Your protests are hollow. We already FIXED everything, kids. Gee, you're so politically apathetic!"

"Looking for a job? Ha ha, good luck, we have all the good ones, and we're NEVER going to retire! Just to make it more interesting, we voted for Reagan and supported his cuts to higher education grants. Gee, you're a bunch of unambitious slackers. What gives?"

"Ha ha, no sexual revolution for you, unless you use a condom! Man, all that 'free love' was so great! Too bad you missed out, and you're all depressed and anxious and kinky freaks, to boot. Oh, can you tell the Millennials to abstain? We insist upon it."

"I feel sorry for you latchkey kids. You are deprived. My mother was always at home, and she baked us cookies every day! It was a wonderful childhood. Welp, gotta go to my high-paying job! I'll be home in about 70 hours."

[sabotabby]

This x 1000

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

I'm on the Gen X and Y divide too, I can identify with both, but I mostly identify with X more than not. But yeah, this sounds like a classic "I'm jaded, self-righteous and oh yeah been there done that" rant that boomers are famous for. Disappointing because Xers are sounding more like boomers more and more.

[sabotabby]

Of course. We're getting old. I think the author's tongue is firmly planted in his cheek, however.

[misfratz.livejournal.com]

Going to join the critics, sorry. I think the whole 'generational' thing is not only false but classist. I was born in 1978, so I do vaguely remember some of the cultural references, though Nirvana were already old when you and I were teenagers, surely? But then, I didn't finish school until 1997, so I don't identify with the 'graduated university in the 90s when there were no jobs' thing- though there were few jobs, there were some, just shit ones and nothing permanent, and that's still the case now except for the privilieged few (guy I am 'seeing' is 8 years older, he's still on temporary contracts and looking for new jobs every 6 months or so at nearly 40, so actually that's true for genX classic definition too- they're not all now in work permanently, though I suppose America/Canada might be different in that respect). There hasn't really been a period of full employment in the UK since the 70s anyway, and since the 80s when thatcher fucked everything over, there have been no permanent jobs. So of course that's not new, but I don't think 20-year-olds are saying it is, they're just saying 'how fucking dare you call us slackers for not getting jobs when THERE AREN'T ANY?' Which is what my 'generation' should have been doing too, instead of being ok with it. Anyway, also the thing about GenX now having kids: well, if I am genX, I am young genX, and I've had a kid for 10 years now. So, this is the classist bit: poor people/working class people/underclass people have children in their late teens or early 20s. This is rational based on differential life expectancy and the increased health problems imposed on poor people by inequality, however much 'the state' might try to make out that it's a 'lifestyle choice'. So really, I can't identify with genX people who are just now having babies and going 'oh actually this is quite hard work' when I was doing that at 22 and they were all glowering at me because my toddler interrupted their listening to their ipod on the bus, or whatever. We didn't own a house then, either, and most poor people don't own houses or have secure jobs when they have kids. I really wish people who do this generational stuff, even though it's inevitably going to be cliched wank, would realise that actually not everyone lives the perfect linear school->university->job->marriage->mortgage->kids->retirement pattern of the upper middle classes. But mainly I'm just like 'eh' because how am I supposed to identify with any of this shit when none of it is about my life at all.

[sabotabby]

Well, any sort of broad generational sweeps are going to be classist (and racist and biased based on geography) because of the WEIRD factor.

Most folks I know my age are still not in permanent permanent jobs. Like the job that my mom has, and everyone of her generation expected and mostly got, and the job that I have. Even the people I know who get paid well are in contracts for one year or two years.

[(Anonymous)]

I find it's a case of parenting.

If your parents told you get to get outside and play dammit, you're Gen X.
If your parents told you outside was a scary place and OMG YOU MUST STAY INDOORS UNLESS SUPERVISED, you're Gen Y/Millenials whatever you call the next generation.**

** this definitions doesn't work if you actually lived somewhere unsafe but suburbia rarely is

Some people in the 79-83 are Gen X by that definition. Some are the next generation.

[sabotabby]

Huh. I was a latchkey kid, but there was also quite a bit of middle class pressure on me to do various lessons and such. So I'm still in between.

[caudelac.livejournal.com]

me too.

[curgoth]

My first impulse was to launch into a rant about when Gen X is/was; according to the dates Coupland used, my mom was only a couple years shy of Gen X, which seems like it ought to disqualify me.

Then I actually read the post and, generational taxonomy aside, yeah, that is totally my generation right now.

I wanna go see live shows, and go out clubbing. But shit, I'm tired, and that stuff is all fucking late.

[sabotabby]

Yes. This. I miss dancing and why can't they make shows earlier?

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

That post is like reading a post by Ioz or Twisty Faster that I disagree with. It's great writing, I enjoyed reading it, I'd pass it along to others. I just happen to quite disagree with it, mostly on axes that other people have already covered, but also on the axis of "oh my god Strauss and Howe have your number and I bet you've never fucking read them."

[sabotabby]

Hahaha.

On an unrelated note, you are reminding me that I need a Transmet icon.