ode to the 90s
WTF is a xennial
“Typically, Xennials don’t have the cynicism associated with the Gen X generation, but they also lack the excessive optimism of millennials, who are said to overestimate their potential. Xennials fall somewhere in between these two extremes.” –probably a boomer
When you fall between extremes, it’s easy to be forgotten. Even easier to be misunderstood. It’s all grays and purples to the outsiders. But we know better — we are a colorful bunch. We lived the rise of digital and the fall of analog. Every day we mourn it in the small things: reels of polyester film, the exquisite stink of mimeograph sheets fragrant with fresh pale blue ink, the tick of a clock, the fuzz of a radio, the penny candy, the gold bus tokens, the warm glow of a stereo dial. Our parents don’t remember these things because they were too busy raising us and now our memories are their memories. The 90s were sweet and sweaty, especially in the city, just like the kids these days imagine them to be, but with more blood. We remember the Gulf wars, our parents huddled around TV boxes, wrapping foil around the rabbit ears to stay the snow as Kuwait’s oil fields burned. We remember the drug and HIV wars, our brains like eggs in a frying pan, the sad woman diving headfirst into a waterless pool, the D.A.R.E. vans, Magic’s promiscuity, and how easy it was to stop it all — Just say, No. We remember the hope we were taught that was meant to correct the hard-bitten Xers who were always taller and grungier than us. They told us to keep hope in our back pocket for a rainy day. Perhaps that day is today. The things that mattered to us before Y2K are what we taught the world to forever and always care about — hip-hop, spontaneity, how to jump a fence, and bold ass colors.
