Girls -- the sequel

[shipperx]

Okay, actually it has nothing to do with "Girls." 

Except perhaps as an existential response.  The cry in the wilderness of the voice of a different generation. :)

Article: Generation X Doesn't Want to Hear It

Excerpt:

Generation X is sick of your bullshit.

[Millenials] 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.

Generation X is used to being fucked over.  It lost its meager savings in the dot-com bust. Then came George W. 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. {...} 

Generation X is tired. {...}Generation X wishes it had better health insurance and a deeper savings account. {...}

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 we 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 fucking cigarette? No?

Whatever. It’s cool. 

Generation X is used to disappointments..."

Hee!  Full article here.
   

Comments

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes...

And those of us in the "lost generation" between the boomers and Gen-X, kids of the 70's who didn't really fit in the boomer generation and didn't really fit with the kids who came later, who don't actually QUITE remember the moon landing but we DO remember (kind of) Watergate; we got our first computers in college and if we were lucky, they had dual floppy drives so you could save programs (because an on-board hard drive? Inconceivable wealth! And yet I finally got one... with an ENORMOUS 170 megs on it, how would I EVER fill that???)... They say I'm a boomer, but I don't buy it.

We're kinda tired, too.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

My first computer was a 486. It had a couple of megs of memory.

Megs! LOL!

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my first was that 64-K dual-drive floppy. Ah, it was SO IMPRESSIVE!

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

I'm variously classified as a boomer or x-er. I have virtually nothing in common with the boomers. Those were my older cousins who didn't want to sit with me at holiday dinners. They're edging into their medicare years. I'll hit 50 this year.

I'm not a Gen Xer, really, I guess. But I sure identify with them a lot more.

And my first computer was an 8086. My first hard drive had 10 megs. I was an early adopter!

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'll be 48 this year, and the wife just turned 50, and neither of us think we're Boomers; not precisely Gen-X'ers, either, but yeah, more in common with them. The Lost Generation.

I kept the 64-K dual-drive for years, then graduated to the PS2 with the 170-meg drive. I think it cost more than all three of the computers we currently have in the house... with a combined memory of about 1 1/2 TERRAbytes... :D

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

I'm embarrassed to say how many T-bytes we have now. In our defense, we're HUGE geeks, and we have a self-built wireless entertainment system hooked up to all the rooms in the house. That probably has about 5 Tb on it now. My own computer only has 3. :D But hey, storage is CHEAP now!

When I got the 10 mb harddrive, and installed it myself, it cost me $500 - which is $980 in 2012 dollars.. You can buy a 2 Tb drive now for $129.

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was just counting the actual computers -- not the Tivo, the iPods, the cameras, or the external hard drive (2 T-bytes). I'd have to sit down and figure out how much TOTAL computing power there is now -- we like to remark that an iPod shuffle has more computing power than was required to send a man to the MOON. What a time traveler from the past would think of us...

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

LOVE this.

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

You did miss the best line - the last: "Generation X should have posted this to LiveJournal. "

WE'RE HERE TOO! (though I'm a borderline boomer/x-er.)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Gen-X totally does LJ. Gen-X can't quite figure out what to do with tmblr though. ;)

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

I have one! I use it for...nothing. I occasionally tag-surf there.

[green-maia.livejournal.com]

Yeah...I thought LJ was OURS, and it was tumblr that I can't make heads or tails of those kids use...

[rahirah]

Every time I see one of these things about how Generation Whatever is the most woobified and put-upon and misunderstood generation ever, I roll my eyes, because every single generation since humanity figured out that "Oook!" means "Watch out for that leopard" is convinced that they have it the worst and no one has suffered as they have suffered and no one will ever understand their pain.

[green-maia.livejournal.com]

Though to be fair, it is equally true that every single generation since humanity figured out that "Oook!" means "Watch out for that leopard" is convinced that the next generation is a bunch of spoiled brats who have always had it easy compared to us and our REAL pain.

[rahirah]

One of the great disappointments of my life when I was twenty-something was the gloomy conviction that I hadn't suffered, and could therefore never be a great artist. *g* (Now I'm more relieved than disappointed!)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the movie "Midnight in Paris" with Owen Wilson? It's all about his being a writer who wishes that he'd lived in the 1920s Paris because it was the greatest time ever. He ends up time travelling there, meeting Hemmingay, Dali, Picasso, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and a character who is convinced that the 'greatest time ever' was the La Belle Epoque. She'd give anything to meet Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Pisarro, etc. Leading the protagonist to realize that we all romanticize some previous period to be better -- more romantic, more creative, etc. -- than our own.

And that there really is something to be said for antibiotics. :)

[rahirah]

Hee! For me it was never really wanting to be born in another time, just the feeling that if one had it too easy in life, one would never be able to produce Great Art, because suffering made you deep or something like that. And while I hadn't had a perfect life, I'd never Truly Suffered and was hence doomed to artistic mediocrity.

At twenty-something I was kind of a twit. *g*

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I'm a tweener, too. The Dazed and Confused gang! I like Gen X better than the Boomers, but I'm neither here nor there.

Oh, and my first computer was a vic 20, which hardly counts. I got a Leading edge in grad school, no hard drive.

[green-maia.livejournal.com]

LOL!!!

[ceciliaj.livejournal.com]

Reality Bites is so ridiculously good.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

Awesome:)

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I'm torn about this, because I do see loads of entitlement in specific members of my generation, and I hate that. Also, I don't think that people really change very much--we can try to categorize generations one way or another, but people are people and always will be. [eta] Also, I think the obnoxious, entitled kids are the ones who are the loudest, but they're not all of us--there are plenty of us who aren't entitled and who know the value of hard work and who never expected to be handed anything because we had to work hard to get what we have--all those things old people praise. It's just that we're too busy working to actually kick up much of a fuss, and so nobody hears from us.

On the other hand, what's the point of playing up generational differences, especially since Gen X now has maturity and wisdom that comes with age? I mean, I'm sure Gen Xers were just as obnoxious as we are when they were young, because most of the time young people are obnoxious. They might have displayed it in different ways, but the emotions behind it were no doubt the same. People have been "kids these days!"ing as long as there have been people. My generation is obnoxious now, but we'll probably settle down and get over it. Because that's what growing up is about, and we've just started that process.

On the other other hand, Gen X is finally old enough to be the ones yelling at the kids to get off their lawn, and I look forward to doing the same some day (I'm gonna be an awesome crusty old lady, like a Maggie Smith battleax, hopefully), so why not let Gen X have that enjoyment now?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oh the Winnona Ryder/ Ethan Hawke genre was full of obnoxious whining. :)

I was just laughing because the link was given to me in a discussion thread regarding "Why Mellinials get Joss Whedon's "Cabin in the Woods" and why Baby Boomers never will". I openly mused, hey what happened to Gen X? Aren't we allowed to get or not get Cabin in the Woods too? ;)

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Yup, obnoxious whining is a trademark of the young! Hopefully we all outgrow it at some point. :D

Yes, you do seem to get sidelined quite a bit, probably because there are fewer of you? You should write your own post on whether or not you get Cabin in the Woods.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'd have to see it first and that probably won't happen until it shows up OnDemand.

And as far as weird quirks of a generation goes, I saw (part of) "Red Dawn" again recently (Patrick Swayze was so young!) Yep, we had hang-ups! :)

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't know if I'll be able to see it while we're in theaters, either. But someone should write it!

I've never seen it. I might have to check it out for the sake of understanding the older generation.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Red Dawn - The commies invade the US of A. High School jocks have to take to the forest to survive and fight a guerilla war against the Cubans (and the Russians).

And yet somehow, the Chinese weren't communist...

[rahirah]

I think a number of people of all generations fall into the "Get it, but don't particualry want it" category. *g*

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it seems to be pretty polarizing.

[green-maia.livejournal.com]

OMG. Did you just call my generation mature and wise???

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Relatively speaking. More so than when y'all were young, more so than we are now. Just talking about how you gain wisdom as you get older.

[beloved-77.livejournal.com]

Generation X is tired of your sense of entitlement

WORD.

Generation X is self-sufficient. It was a latchkey child.

I did my own laundry at 11, and by the time I was 15, I cleaned the house, grocery shopped, and made dinner for my mother. I know 20-somethings who whose mothers still make them bag lunches to take to work. :-P

they were only awarded for victories, not participation.

O.M.G. So much this!

ETA: Technically, I'm right on the cusp of Gen X and Gen Y, and while I don't identify 100% with Gen X, I don't identify with Gen Y at all. :-P