Where's muh Gen X'ers at? 40-54 Y/O brahs checking in

[BEATDOWNS]

I am 38 and have no clue which category i am in?

 

[therealdope]

Not only a member of Gex-X, I read the book Generation-x in my mid 20s, I was a bum doing McJobs in a ski village and I used to read soc.culture.genx newsgroup on the interwebz before there were web browsers/web sites.

 

[Midnighter]

I am 38 and have no clue which category i am in?

Homosexual.

No that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[HelloJapan]

Fuck ya, brah. Plus we created the best decade in music. We run this shit!

 

[TeTe]

Fuck ya, brah. Plus we created the best decade in music. We run this shit!

 

[Jack Handy jr]

Uncle Handle checking in



1971

 

[Danger Dave]

While Boomers and Millennials are constantly at each other's throats over who's ruining the world, Gen X sits back and laughs. The ageism in the workplace thing is funny because it reminds me of this article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/style/gen-x-millenials.html

Granted I'm on the cusp being born in 1979, but still I think that it's funny how millennials in the workplace get so high and mighty about how they are on the cutting edge of tech when it was Gen X that truly started the digital revolution in the 90s and invented all things millennial. Have any of you guys come across this ageism b.s. before? Especially any of you that work in the tech industry?

"Were we not apathetic so much as app-athetic. Sorry, that was lamestain. Whatever! The digital natives of the millennial generation would hardly be drowning in 1s and 0s without Xers like Elon Musk (b. 1971), Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google (b. 1973), Jack Dorsey of Twitter (b. 1976) and even Tom Anderson of Myspace (b. 1970), who for a brief, shining moment was everyone’s friend."

"Who’s sorry now? Between 2010 and 2016, Generation X saw its median household net worth skyrocket 115 percent. Boomers were still mired at pre-2007 levels.

Maybe that’s the thing about being a generation without any particular identity or belief system: We are adaptable, a weedy species, like rats or cockroaches, built to survive any environment. We are hard to stamp out."

"We invented “woke”
We were never an afterthought of American politics if you take “politics” to mean the all the real stuff that goes on outside the Beltway, in terms of gender politics, racial politics and environmental politics.

It might be a cliché to say that we are a generation of iconoclasts and mavericks, wired to challenge authority. But when Apple unveiled its “Think Different” campaign in the ’90s, they were selling to us. And we bought it."

oh god i just googled it and i am a millenial. By like 2 years. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

 

[MastiffMike]

I ain't falling for this!



First you want our birth dates, then our SSN and credit cards?

 

[therealdope]

“Negative? Moi? I think realistic might be a better word. You mean to tell me we can drive all the way here from L.A. and see maybe ten thousand square miles of shopping malls, and you don't have maybe just the weentsiest inkling that something, somewhere has gone very very cuckoo?”
― Douglas Coupland, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture

I remember there were jokes about gen-X's pointless future.

Q: How do you stick it to the baby boomers?

A: don't give them extra ketchup that they ask for with their order of fires.


BTW - I think Shampoo Planet by Coupland does a better job of capturing my sub-age group within Gen-X.

 

[AGGAMEMNON66]

While Boomers and Millennials are constantly at each other's throats over who's ruining the world, Gen X sits back and laughs. The ageism in the workplace thing is funny because it reminds me of this article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/style/gen-x-millenials.html

Granted I'm on the cusp being born in 1979, but still I think that it's funny how millennials in the workplace get so high and mighty about how they are on the cutting edge of tech when it was Gen X that truly started the digital revolution in the 90s and invented all things millennial. Have any of you guys come across this ageism b.s. before? Especially any of you that work in the tech industry?

"Were we not apathetic so much as app-athetic. Sorry, that was lamestain. Whatever! The digital natives of the millennial generation would hardly be drowning in 1s and 0s without Xers like Elon Musk (b. 1971), Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google (b. 1973), Jack Dorsey of Twitter (b. 1976) and even Tom Anderson of Myspace (b. 1970), who for a brief, shining moment was everyone’s friend."

"Who’s sorry now? Between 2010 and 2016, Generation X saw its median household net worth skyrocket 115 percent. Boomers were still mired at pre-2007 levels.

Maybe that’s the thing about being a generation without any particular identity or belief system: We are adaptable, a weedy species, like rats or cockroaches, built to survive any environment. We are hard to stamp out."

"We invented “woke”
We were never an afterthought of American politics if you take “politics” to mean the all the real stuff that goes on outside the Beltway, in terms of gender politics, racial politics and environmental politics.

It might be a cliché to say that we are a generation of iconoclasts and mavericks, wired to challenge authority. But when Apple unveiled its “Think Different” campaign in the ’90s, they were selling to us. And we bought it."

We were ruining the world before Millennials. The difference is they are giant sensitive cry baby pussies, so they’re an easier target.


Boomers know we’ll pull them in a coma if they talk shit.

 

[MusterX]

Gen x'ers should have studies done about us. We are from two different worlds. I remember main streets, and rotary clubs of my grandparents era, and yet have lived far more of my life then not with internet.

We are the cusp generation.

100% true. I'm an old Gen X'er but I remember when my grandmother still had a party line meaning she shared her phone with 3 different neighbors and you could pick up the receiver and hear your neighbor talking on the phone. I remember when there was no internet or smart phones but more amazingly, when I was a kid we didn't even have cable T.V. We had about 5 channels of television, and if you were lucky you had a couple UHF channels like 27, 33, 39 and those channels signed off at 2a.m. and the television didn't work again until the next day.

Forget cable, I remember getting our first microwave and thinking that shit was magic. We all spent all our daylight hours outside, there was no reason to be in the house unless it was to do homework, eat dinner, or sleep. The examples of the world pre-internet and smartphone would be endless. An entirely different reality almost. When I tell my kids what the world was like with no computers and no cell phones they stare blankly at me. They will never even understand that there were pay phones on every corner of every city in America.

 

[MusterX]

Jesus Christ. Could you imagine if we became famous and all the #metoo gang raided our posting histories, lol? We'd make Louie CK look like an altar boy.

Gen X is a different breed. We actually did smoke in the boys room. My wife's high school had a smoking section for the students...let that sink in some.

 

[HUGHPHUG]

Turned 45 last month

I like it when I find out some of you are older than me, you and Ottawa and there has to be more

Fuck I'm 44 next month, BIRTHDAY!

 

[Wet Blanket]

100% true. I'm an old Gen X'er but I remember when my grandmother still had a party line meaning she shared her phone with 3 different neighbors and you could pick up the receiver and hear your neighbor talking on the phone. I remember when there was no internet or smart phones but more amazingly, when I was a kid we didn't even have cable T.V. We had about 5 channels of television, and if you were lucky you had a couple UHF channels like 27, 33, 39 and those channels signed off at 2a.m. and the television didn't work again until the next day.

Forget cable, I remember getting our first microwave and thinking that shit was magic. We all spent all our daylight hours outside, there was no reason to be in the house unless it was to do homework, eat dinner, or sleep. The examples of the world pre-internet and smartphone would be endless. An entirely different reality almost. When I tell my kids what the world was like with no computers and no cell phones they stare blankly at me. They will never even understand that there were pay phones on every corner of every city in America.

The old microwaves with the dials were amazing.

I mean, they're no rehydrators...

 

[tonysmasseuse]

I remember there were jokes about gen-X's pointless future.

Q: How do you stick it to the baby boomers?

A: don't give them extra ketchup that they ask for with their order of fires.


BTW - I think Shampoo Planet by Coupland does a better job of capturing my sub-age group within Gen-X.

I agree, Shampoo Planet is also the far better book, funny and really accomplished (rather than just a collection of ideas like Gen x: Tales was), really one of Coupland's best, along with Hey! Nostradamus, and All Families Are Psychotic.

From a European perspective, i think a big reason why Gen X took us by storm was two-fold:

Up until that point we (my generation) didn't think we were anything. Now suddenly there was a label for us shadowy misfits who didn't fit neatly into what was already trite and worn-out stereotypes: Hippies, punks, skinheads, rockers, yuppies... Also, the 'x' - sufficiently abstract - helped soften the blow of being labelled at all for a generation vehemently opposed to being labelled.

Secondly, and i think this point was obscured for the longest time (much like a tiny orbit moon is overshadowed by a planet) that was all the furore of the gen x label and all the gorgeous new concepts like McJobs etc that came along with it):
The real insightful social commentary on what was going on on a much deeper, more impactful and so far enduring level was that we (Europeans) were, and are, now default americans.
Or McAmericans, if you will.

 

[MusterX]

The old microwaves with the dials were amazing.

I mean, they're no rehydrators...

Haha yea, our first microwave looked something like this. You set the power and the time but you better know your shit because that's a small nuclear device.

 

[Wet Blanket]

Haha yea, our first microwave looked something like this. You set the power and the time but you better know your shit because that's a small nuclear device.

Yup!

They were all big enough to fit a turkey in as well. You know, so you could have it burnt to a crisp on the outside and ice child inside.

 

[Andy Capp]

Gen x’er here and I never heard the term woke used when I was a youngster. That is a stupid term coined by millennial shit heads and asshats on the web nowadays. Fuck the term woke, clap back, broke the internet, and all the other stupid terms asswipes use today.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

[Andy Capp]

53 yo checking in.

54 in less than 2 months. I was born right on the cusp between Boomer and Gen-X. That being on the cusp shit is difficult but it also gives insight into both. I love that thanks to my father I know who Tom Mix and Errol Flynn are, but also that I enjoy movies, music, TV shows, and books from every decade since too. I could have been the hipster of all hipsters except that the above combo also meant I was horribly out of touch with what was actually current, always seeming to be too busy still enjoying the stuff of years past to know anything about what was trendy right then.

Speaking of enjoying the stuff of years past, if I hate millennials it's for this reason only--one said to me, I don't watch anything older than I am.

“Negative? Moi? I think realistic might be a better word. You mean to tell me we can drive all the way here from L.A. and see maybe ten thousand square miles of shopping malls, and you don't have maybe just the weentsiest inkling that something, somewhere has gone very very cuckoo?”
― Douglas Coupland, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture

Interestingly, the inventor of the shopping mall had in mind open areas and green spaces and grew to hate what became of the mall in North America with closed in, antiseptic, muzac playing spaces. Disgusted him, me too.

 

[VivaRevolution]

Gen X is a different breed. We actually did smoke in the boys room. My wife's high school had a smoking section for the students...let that sink in some.

Yep, i had a smoking section at my first high school.

I remember this kid who lived on a farm got a carton of Marboro's for Christmas when he was 9.