A Gen X’er Explains to Millennials Why You’re Being So Maligned. We’ve Been There.
The photo above is a collage a millennial (also described as “Generation Y”) made showcasing every derogatory headline they could find about their generation. It’s gone viral because yes, it’s funny, but it also shows how out of control generational stereotyping has gotten.
Those of us who were born between 1961 and 1981 and were therefore arbitrarily put in the “Generation X” group know all about how stupid, and yet very stubborn and long-lasting, these stereotypes can be.
We’ve been called “the latchkey generation.” The “MTV generation.” The predominant word used to describe us was “slackers”. There was even a movie called “Slacker” — it was filmmaker Richard Linklater’s first film (I have to admit I do like that movie, even while I resent the fact that it was pointed to as the consummate portrayal of my generation.) Doesn’t anyone see the irony in the fact that Linklater is a borderline Gen X’er himself, and clearly NOT a slacker? He’s made many critically claimed, successful films, including “School of Rock” and “Boyhood.” “Slacker” even won a Grand Jury prize at Sundance.
We were also labeled “cynical” and “disaffected”. Apparently this was due to having grown up during the turbulent late 60s and early 70s and being imprinted with the lessons from Watergate that politicians are not to be trusted.
We were also the first generation whose parents used TV as a babysitter. Many of us can remember the bologna song (“My bologna has a first name..it’s O.S.C.A.R…) better than we can the words to the national anthem.
According to Wikipedia, the term was first used in the 1950s, before we were even born, but Doug Coupland’s 1991 novel “Generation X: Tales for An Accelerated Culture” really popularized the term. I read the book. I remember being entertained by it, but not thinking that the ennui of its characters necessarily only applied to my generation. For me, Coupland’s enduring legacy will be coining the term “veal fattening pens” to describe the cubicle office culture society shifted to in the 1990s. He made me totally unable to be satisfied working in a cubicle ever again.
Coupland actually said in interviews that the title came from Billy Idol’s band and a1983 book by Paul Fussell — in “Class”, “X” stood for a social group, rather than a generation. “In his final chapter,” Coupland said, “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.”
Coupland also told the Boston Globe in 1991, “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.”
I can’t help but think he must have been really pissed off, then, that demographers and the media ran with his title to proceed to..LABEL US ALL and become the “others” who told us ALL ABOUT OURSELVES.
Now, I’m not trying to suggest there’s no validity or benefit to conducting studies of certain demographic groups, categorized by age. I am a sociologist, by the way, who worked for 7 years for the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit that studies and surveys just about everything and everyone. I simply think the labeling and negative pigeonholing that started with my generation has become a bit, well, ridiculous, as the “millennials killing it” collage very cleverly shows.
Even as Millennials are now taking the brunt of media dissing for all manner of invented transgressions — everything from killing beer (if this is true, then why are the craft beer stores and bars I go to in my city always full of 20- and 30-somethings??) to killing sex itself because they’re allegedly not having any (sidenote: as a Gen X’er who has dated and continues to date people in that cohort, I can tell you that’s a load of bullshit. At the risk of, as millennials call it, “TMI”, I can say they’re having PLENTY of sex and are actually quite good at it, too. Not to mention being much more open than previous generations to kink, LGBTQ, and alternative lifestyles), we Gen X’ers are STILL being slammed by the media.
Now that we’re in our 40s, and 50s, the “ignored generation” is supposedly freaking. the fuck. out.
Here’s a sample of some recent headlines:
Even though we’re in midlife crisis mode and supposedly having “hallucinatory” acid flashbacks triggered by our dwindling retirement funds, somehow we’re expected to be royally pissed off at young people (“hey you whippersnappers! Get off my Gen X lawn!”) and carry the burden to “save” the country from this “entitled, spoiled”, avocado-toast-eating, Coachella-loving group that’s allegedly killing everything.
So take heart, Millennials. You’re not alone in being exploited by this demographic stereotyping BULLSHIT. We Gen X’ers have been dealing with it for the past 20 or so years. Remember, we’re the “cynical” generation, so we can tell you exactly what lies at the root of all this — PROFIT. The media makes money and gets page views appealing to the lowest common denominator of people who don’t really want to think too hard about the world and prefer labels in nice little wrapped up packages to figure everything out (can we come up with a label for THOSE people? Because..those are the same people who gave us Trump.)
It’s the same reason why they still publish astrology bullshit in 2017, despite astrology being the biggest, oldest scam on the planet.
Plus, the media loves to foment anger and disgust from one group to another. It’s a nice distraction while the government picks all of our pockets and robs us blind (that’s my Watergate-influenced disaffectation talking, there.)
Anyway, we Millennials and Gen X’ers know EXACTLY who’s to blame for all of our problems, don’t we?
Copyright 2017 S. Wade
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