Growing up in the 80s I heard “Baby Boomers” thrown around often — it referred to my folks’ generation, and was fairly obvious as to its meaning.  Baby boomers were post-World War 2 children, characterized by the inordinate number of them that populated the United States for the two decades that led up to the 1960s.  I didn’t feel the need to question it, it was straightforward.  Then as I became a teenager and attended university, I started to see this “Generation X” classification of children born between the mid 1960s to mid 1980s pop up everywhere, and for some reason I found it infused with shade.  I wasn’t sure why, but there was a negative connotation to it, and I was part of Generation X, so my curiosity was personal.

Above: Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder in 1994’s Ben Stiller directed Generation X dramedy Reality Bites.

From what I could glean, it suggested that we were a bit of a lost group that hadn’t had to fight in any wars and were basically spoiled, not knowing how good we had it.  As there was no defining characteristic almost lazily, the collective masses (aka press) decided to go with this label (again, this is just my take on it).  After doing some research, the all-knowing internet schooled me that it was taken from a book that gained popularity for its uncanny ability to capture 90s culture — Generation X:  Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland actually borrowed from the name of the late Billy Idol’s first band.

According to his memoir Dancing with Myself, Idol said, “We immediately thought it could be a great name for this new band, since we both felt part of a youth movement bereft of a future, that we were completely misunderstood and detached from the present social and cultural spectrum.”  

Now that sounds like something I can get down with, and wish the sentiment would’ve made its way into my consciousness.  But what I hear most often these days when it comes to Gen X is that we are the first generation to be worse off financially than the previous one, and just might not get not get full Social Security benefits.

However, it’s not all about the Benjamins for me, and I’ve decided that we are actually the most fortunate of generations culturally, and I’m excited to explain why.

I’m in my mid 40s, and a huge consumer of media and pop culture, and as such I often find myself longing for the old days, when things weren’t so fast.  When you had to save up your money to buy music, or when you had to be in front of the television at a particular time in order to catch the latest episode of your favorite TV show.  Before DVRs and VCRs, you had to be there and pay attention, there was no time for talking, or looking at your phone seeing who posted what on Instagram, because if you missed it, you were fucked.  If you needed to use the loo, you better wait for the commercials to come on.  Do I prefer it to now?  No, I am someone who watches an episode of the Real Housewives of New York 5 times in order to extract as much comedic material as possible.  That said, I got to experience what it was like prior to contemporary TV consumption.  And the quality of what I consumed when you couldn’t record the show was far better than what my parents had for decades.

Television had made leaps and bounds in quality content for Generation X. Something I noticed as young as 10-years-old.  However, I didn’t have to miss out on the classics, even at 10 I was watching old shows like The Honeymooners, Leave it to Beaver, I Love Lucy, My Three Sons etc. because there was still not the oversaturated amount of contemporary programming that there is now.

When it comes to TV and movies, Gen X’ers had the best of both worlds.  We got exposure to old fashioned TV, in its conservative and modern formats, and we are young enough to enjoy this new efficient lightning speed rate of streaming without finding it overwhelming.  Our knowledge base is much wider and on average allows us to have consumed say a higher caliber of material on average.

Netflix is amazing at making viewers believe every damn series they offer is the best there is — I don’t know who told them that to get into their panties but it’s not true.

I often spend time with those now considered Generation Y (don’t get me started on Generation Z) and realize they aren’t as fortunate because they have had so much thrown at them over the last two decades that they simply haven’t had time to consume the golden age of TV, movies and music, nor can they appreciate the way life was when you bought say a new LP.

I have lived through playing music through everything from phonographs, to 8 tracks, to cassettes, CDs, and now this digital format.  Many Boomers passed before they started streaming music, and Gen Y has no idea what sort of passion goes into making a proper mix tape on a cassette.  The patience that went into listening to the radio, pressing down the record/play/pause buttons at the same time, praying that as soon as the ads end, your latest favorite song will come on and you better be ready to release the pause button at the perfect moment and not botch it up by missing the beginning bars (or do it too fast and get that those pesky few seconds of the ad at the beginning).  Then using the dual cassette boom box or stereo you had to create a mix tape of songs that you might want to give to the girl/boy you were seeing.  It took time and effort, and you appreciated music in a way I don’t think is possible now.  You had access to songs on the radio, and then you had to buy the rest, and if you bought an album you focused on it.  You learned every lyric and you read everything they included with the music.

Circa 2002 you got the iPod and Napster and you were still in your 20s, so you got to ride the wave of the digital movement, the movement that would allow you to eventually access every song for free (if willing to risk it) at any given moment.  What a revelation!  As a music lover, this was something that revolutionized my life and happiness, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  But man, was I lucky to have gotten to experience the old fashioned way, and those albums will always mean more to me than anything since.

When it comes to technology in general, I feel like Gen X was there for the onset of the tech age.  We got to work with the first Macintosh computers, we lived through dot matrix printers and early operating systems, Atari video games and all that came with computers being sold to the masses.  However, did I have an old school typewriter and type up my book reports and research papers on it?  Absolutely!  The good ole fashioned typewriter was a staple for us as kids, and we all had a bottle of White Out for any errors we were sure to make.

The appreciation for this cumbersome way of word processing is not lost on us, but we were right there at the perfect time for things to change and revolutionize and make our lives easier.  And things moved quick enough so that Gen Xers are young enough to embrace the likes of Facebook, Twitter, IG, Snapchat, Tik Tok, and all the rest of the social media apps that Boomers might find too puerile, and be embarrassed to use.  The idea of using hashtags is beyond their patience or desire to learn and probably seems silly and unnecessary, though as we all know, if you don’t keep up with such things, you can fall behind quickly and feel a bit disconnected from society.  I mean, I fought Facebook at first, but quickly realized I better get onboard because it was soon going to become a necessity to an extent and hinder my development and ability to stay current and fall by the wayside.

I also find that Gen X’ers were often schooled at the most perfect time as far as not having the internet to give them the answers to things that would go in one ear and out the other.  I think there is something to be said for having to actually read books and do the research.  I can’t imagine what life is like now for students who will always be tempted to find an old book report online, or ask someone online to write them an original one for a small fee.  I mean, I probably would’ve indulged in that sort of thing.  Instead Gen Xers got lucky, we were forced to do it the old fashioned way by going to the library, looked at microfiche and hoping that our local library had the books we needed or newspaper articles we needed to complete the research. But then as soon as we entered the workforce, where getting things right was the difference between your having a job and not, voila, there was suddenly Nexus Lexus and eventually Google to give us those answers (we should already know).

This may all seem a bit trivial to some, and there are tons of arguments you can make to refute what I see as being born at the perfect time.  Of course I can’t possibly know what advancements are to come.  But I know given the way things are moving, they will come quickly and so I feel like the quicker we move forward, the more information that will be out there, and the harder it will be to consume all the wonderful things that happened in the past.  I mean, do I wish I was born when there was horse and buggy?  Nope!  I would go nuts every time it broke down, and the appreciation one might claim comes with it taking ages to get somewhere would only make me anxious, as I would fear once I got to a faraway land, the chances of me making it back might be much less than say now.

A great deal less.

Below are a few examples of Generation X in pop culture.

1991’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Kurt Cobain and Nirvana became  the official anthem of Generation X.

Followed closely by 1991’s “Black” by Pearl Jam.

In 1992 Singles starring Bridget Fonda and Matt Dillon would become the definitive Gen X movie.

1994’s Reality Bites starring Ethan Hawke, Winona Ryder, Ben Stiller, and Janeane Garofalo would already hysterically point to schisms between members of Gen X.

Sources for research and further reading:

GENERATION X (1965-1980)

That comment in The Observer was in reference to a then-recently published book called Generation X by Jane Deverson and Charles Hamblett. A few years later, Joan Broad bought a copy at a garage sale, her son found it, and he fell in love with the name.

That son was Billy Idol, and according to his memoir, Dancing with Myself, “We immediately thought it could be a great name for this new band, since we both felt part of a youth movement bereft of a future, that we were completely misunderstood by and detached from the present social and cultural spectrum. We also felt the name projected the many possibilities that came with presenting our generation’s feelings and thoughts.” The band Generation X would begin Billy Idol’s career.

But the name Generation X wouldn’t become associated with a wide group of people until 1991. That’s the year Douglas Coupland’s Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture was released. The book became a sensation for its ability to capture early ’90s culture and, although it didn’t coin the words, helped popularize a range of terms as diverse as McJob and pamphleting—and a name for an entire generation.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Generation X, or Gen X, refers to the generation of Americans born between the mid-1960s and the early-1980s.
• Gen Xers, which fall between baby boomers and millennials, number around 65 million.
• Members of this group are approaching the middle of their working careers and potential peak-earning years.
• The generation is on track to become the first generation to be worse off in terms of being prepared for retirement than their parents.

“In his final chapter, Fussell named an ‘X’ category of people who wanted to hop off the merry-go-round of status, money, and social climbing that so often frames modern existence.” However, in a 1989 magazine article^[5] Coupland attributed the term Generation X to Billy Idol, since it’s the name of the band Idol broke through with.

Novel[edit] Coupland felt that people his age were being misclassified as members of the Baby Boomer generation. “I just want to show society what people born after 1960 think about things… We’re sick of stupid labels, we’re sick of being marginalized in lousy jobs, and we’re tired of hearing about ourselves from others” — Coupland, Boston Globe, 1991^[6]