Generation X Doesn’t Want to Hear It

This article sums up my frustration, and I'm certain many other people from our generation.

Taken from: Matt Honan's Tumblr

Generation X Doesn’t Want to Hear It

Earlier generations have weathered recessions, of course; this stall we’re in has the look of something nastier. Social Security and Medicare are going to be diminished, at best. Hours worked are up even as hiring staggers along: Blood from a stone looks to be the normal order of things “going forward,” to borrow the business-speak. Economists are warning that even when the economy recuperates, full employment will be lower and growth will be slower—a sad little rhyme that adds up to something decidedly ­unpoetic. A majority of Americans say, for the first time ever, that this generation will not be better off than its parents.
— New York Magazine​

Generation X is sick of your bullshit.

The first generation to do worse than its parents? Please. Been there. Generation X was told that so many times that it can’t even read those words without hearing Winona Ryder’s voice in its heads. Or maybe it’s Ethan Hawke’s. Possibly Bridget Fonda’s. Generation X is getting older, and can’t remember those movies so well anymore. In retrospect, maybe they weren’t very good to begin with.

But Generation X is tired of your sense of entitlement. Generation X also graduated during a recession. It had even shittier jobs, and actually had to pay for its own music. (At least, when music mattered most to it.) Generation X is used to being fucked over. It lost its meager savings in the dot-com bust. Then came George Bush, and 9/11, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Generation X bore the brunt of all that. And then came the housing crisis.

Generation X wasn’t surprised. Generation X kind of expected it.

Generation X is a journeyman. It didn’t invent hip hop, or punk rock, or even electronica (it’s pretty sure those dudes in Kraftwerk are boomers) but it perfected all of them, and made them its own. It didn’t invent the Web, but it largely built the damn thing. Generation X gave you Google and Twitter and blogging; Run DMC and Radiohead and Nirvana and Notorious B.I.G. Not that it gets any credit.

But that’s okay. Generation X is used to being ignored, stuffed between two much larger, much more vocal, demographics. But whatever! Generation X is self-sufficient. It was a latchkey child. Its parents were too busy fulfilling their own personal ambitions to notice any of its trophies—which were admittedly few and far between because they were only awarded for victories, not participation.

In fairness, Generation X could use a better spokesperson. Barack Obama is just a little too senior to count among its own, and it has debts older than Mark Zuckerberg. Generation X hasn’t had a real voice since Kurt Cobain blew his brains out, Tupac was murdered, Jeff Mangum went crazy, David Foster Wallace hung himself, Jeff Buckley drowned, River Phoenix overdosed, Elliott Smith stabbed himself (twice) in the heart, Axl got fat.

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.

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. It wonders where its 30s went. It wonders if it still has time to catch up.

Right now, Generation X just wants a beer and to be left alone. It just wants to sit here quietly and think for a minute. Can you just do that, okay? It knows that you are so very special and so very numerous, but can you just leave it alone? Just for a little bit? Just long enough to sneak one last fucking cigarette? No?

Whatever. It’s cool.

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.

 

It sounds as if Generation X is growing into middle age. It all sounds familiar.

 

Is it that obvious? Heh...

 

Generation X was spoiled by us Baby Boomers. Yet we somehow expected them to rage against the machine the way we did. The fact that they didn't left us disappointed. But we love them anyway and still hope for a better world for them.

 

It was you? BASTARDS!

Not a bad rant, uncharted. A little bit of blowback is not unexpected or unwarranted. We at the tail end of the boomers are feeling a lot of the same pain.

 

God, that made me feel old.

 

Google - I give credit where credit is due - Bravo GenX
The rest - Do you really want the credit?

 

Except it's largely the boomers that run the banks, with a few genX types supplying them with the software to make their fraudulent schemes run.

 

Generation X is messing up everything for Generation Y. They got to ride the Dot Com boom, while we were still in school. They got the signing bonuses in the 90s, and in the 2000s those companies didn't exist anymore. They got to go to school in a time before mass school shootings, extreme security, and overly covered kidnappings.

And I don't want to hear it if they aren't doing well financially. It is the conservative baby boomers that pushed the left to become Yuppies in the 70s, but Gen X never figured out that money isn't everything in life. They are doing fine, and I'm not losing any sleep if they can't buy the newest SUV and use all the gas they want.

 

To be fair, we could never have prepared them for how fraudulent economics could really be.

 

The pains of realizing you're getting older. Too old in fact to have enough time to not only do something reckless and stupid, but also not have the time to correct, fix, or start over.

It always amuses me how each generation thinks it has it harder than the last. And how the last thinks the newer generation has it easier. Truth be told if you make everything equal, each generation is doing just about the same as the last.

 

But you don't understand, Ice Burn. GenX actually had to PAY for their own music while us baby boomers got our sex, love and rock n roll for free.

 

All things being equal? Where do I sign up to be a boomer?

I'm right on the cusp of being a GenX'er. I'm more GenY though. However I don't go around whining about how some people have it better or worse than I do. I expect everyone to put up and shut up. Pick yourself up by your boot straps and do what you need to do to make it to tomorrow. If we all just pulled our collective heads out of our asses maybe we'd get things done instead of wasting time trying to assign blame for things that don't even matter let alone need blame assigned. [/rant]

 

Generation Y, checking in. How much did you pay for college? I paid about $30,000 a year out of my own pocket working three jobs trying desperately to avoid borrowing money at a variable interest rate from insane lenders that had been let off the leash of financial regulations at the end of the 90s (not to mention the price of college has absolutely skyrocketed recently). So that was fun. I was a freshman in college when 9/11 happened and about a half dozen of my friends enlisted without thinking twice. They dropped out of college to go fight in wars that still aren't over. A lot of people my age (I was like 18 at the time) enlisted and went over. And perhaps the worst part is now, after 2008, even having a decent degree isn't a good way to get work because there are so few jobs. We didn't have 10 years to settle into a position and entrench ourselves before the real recession hit. It's starting to look like the country could be on the cusp of falling out of place as the dominant force on the planet, too, so we're going to have to life through that, telling our kids about the economic prosperity of the 90s giving way to the recession and finally the decline.

Of course, we had better access to more internet porn when we were adolescents, so I figure it's a wash.

 

This isn't a race to prove who's had it worse...

Let's face it... the boomers fucked everyone who came after. The issues that existed for genX were far more existential than what genY is dealing with today. Ultimately, it's the boomers that set the stage for everything we are going through today.

The only real difference between X and Y is a few years of working shit jobs incrementally paying off education debt. I don't want an SUV. I just want a little financial security... just like everyone else.

 

I tend to forget, that Ronald Reagan was born in 1911.
"baby boomers"...what a ridiculous name.

 

I'm just here for the awesome vid that ring posted. (yeah mah fav band stuff it)

As far as the OP goes, I don't give a shit what generation you belong to. You either make something of yourself or you don't. You can hide behind some perceived destiny that you believe was forced on you by prior generations, or you can quit bitching, quit moaning and go out and conquer the world.I'm an X'er and that article does nothing for me. Leave me alone while I have a beer.