Generation X: What a Complete Embarrassment
By: Joy Ellen Sauter
Tags: Millennials, Baby Boomers, Culture, Culture War, Gender Equality

Growing up in the 80’s made us mass consumers disenchanted by politics, earning the term slacker for life.

Photo by Bruno Aguirre on Unsplash

Full disclosure, I was born in 1974.

Just printing that fact above I fear will offend and disgust you, as I have declared myself halfway old and completely irrelevant. I see you Generation Z, finish your homework. Generation X, oh sweet Gen X, I see you, too. We were all over the internet happily saying “OK Boomer,” until one day (about two weeks ago) the tables started to turn. For the first time we heard, “Alright Karen.” As if to say (in perfect 90’s slang) “Talk to the hand, Karen, and just go back and scroll Facebook on your iPhone” As a Gen Xer, with a lot of Gen Xer friends, a rallying cry spread through the internet like a banshee, “Who did you just call OLD?” It was the perfect little jab to our still youthful in spirit hearts, and with the right amount of insult. First, it was all wrong. If any name is going to signify all the women born between 1965 and 1980 it would be JENNIFER, not Karen, JENNIFER. That fact aside, it seemed a lot of us Xers were unprepared for the cultural comparisons and criticisms about our tiny cohort of middle aged punk rockers.

This small little generation sandwiched between the ego driven and hell bent anti establishment generations, Generation Xers mean well. As hard as we try to stay silent, we keep writing articles to our defense. I am certainly tired of another editorial generalizing about growing up in the 1980’s and how Generation Xers were the generation to do this and that awesome thing, and the last generation to experience anything relevant. Maybe you haven’t had at least 5 of them recommended to you this month by Google- based on your reading history, but they exist and they are sad. It’s all the Gen Xers saying: I am still relevant. Hear me internet, hear me! Denial, nostalgia, regret, and poor memory recall set in for us middle aged when we realized we are no longer culturally relevant, that advertisers don’t spend any money luring you to buy their products, and that you are being passed up for promotions at work by Millennials. It’s degrading. It’s like we don’t even exist, like our silence is expected. The problem, may I say, OUR problem fellow Xers, is that we suck as a generation. We really suck. We are just not nearly as exceptional in our legacy as either Boomers or Millennials. I can say it, I am one of you.

I actually used to dislike the over generalizations of socially accepted generational ranges. It simplifies something that is complicated. It whitewashes what is diverse. It assumes and defines what is undefinable, experience. I have come to realize that in a culture moving so fast it is unavoidable. A decade can really make a difference in your experience. What we saw on television growing up, the toys we played with, and the popular music we listened to so heavily defined our worldview. That worldview has changed so rapidly since the end of World War II, and continues to shape children decade by decade into what they believe to be true, their voice and vision for the world, and their morality. These experiences need to be captured in little pieces of time to help our brains make sense of the speed. Putting people into pockets of time that explain, without words, their weird statements in comment sections, and even stranger revelations at our dinner table. Rebecca Solnet wrote in her 2003 book “River of Shadows, Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West.” that more than a century ago when many Americans experienced riding a train for the first time many simply vomited from the 15 mph speed. Their perception so screwed from the movement of the train that sedimentary objects seemed to also move.

Generation Xers are a complete embarrassment. We let other generations define us. (The title Generation X came from a Boomer) We let other generations talk for us and represent us in government. We never, ever asked the right ethical questions for the issues of our time, and we never had a real counterculture movement to press the establishment forward in progress for a clear vision for our children's future.

Hey Reader… I also wrote this article about Baby Boomers

1. We Did Nothing To Save Our Planet

What I should really be saying is, “How much did we further hurt our planet?” I was there. I grew up when it was called alternative energy, and then global warming. I was alive when President Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the roof of the White House in 1979. Nineteen Seventy Nine. He said at the time:

“A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a museum piece,an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever taken by the American people.”(Scientific American, August 6th 2010)

I was in high school when REM released their environmental warning, 1988’s “Green” album. Clearly, climate science was part of our vernacular. The hole in the ozone layer made me switch up to an SPF 4 sunscreen, and I stopped using Aqua Net hairspray. Ushering in a 1990's flat bang look that was equally as ridiculous looking. We knew, even if our government denied. We were aware even when we didn’t recycle or buy anything sustainable. We went about our lives as if it wasn’t happening, at least I did. It’s easy to blame Boomers (people born between 1946–1964) because they were the adults. They were the ones able to make public policy at that time and it was not a priority. Growing up Generation X during the 1980’s we were encouraged to consume and advertising was everywhere. Buying stuff was good for the economy we were told. Alternative energy…that just sounded, alternative and …weird, and clearly not American. When Generation Xers became adults we sat by and let Boomers continue to squash attempts to create any meaningful policy or change. We clearly didn’t care about the environment enough at that time to demand any action to improve pollution or clean up waste. We didn’t recycle, or compost, or think about sustainability. Post NAFTA we welcomed the cheaper prices of Fast Fashion in the 1990’s, and didn’t think for a second why it was cheaper, who was paying the price, and what it was doing to the earth. The mid 90's saw the first of many anti-sweatshop campaigns. The Gap and Nike, specifically, were accused of producing their goods in sweat shops oversees, and using child labor in India. Still, Americans still shopped there and the accusations (again in 2000, 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2015) had little effect on sales. We carried on as if it wasn’t happening. Yet, we knew.

2. We Did Not Care About Politics

I can feel you getting defensive my fellow Xers. I mean, Xers voted in every presidential election pretty strongly. That doesn’t make us politically active, but we have achieved the bare minimum of political engagement. As a whole, though, Generation Xers are the least represented generation in government today. The only Xer who is on the Democratic stage as of this writing is Cory Booker, and he is not polling well. As a generation we did not enter politics in the 1990’s, and as a result Gen Xers are not represented in many of our highest political offices.. We were nicknamed the “slacker” generation, but that name was given to us by a Boomer who still thought of us as lazy children. We were not lazy. We worked hard. College tuition was just starting to get expensive for the cost of living, and most of us worked through college. Some of us had two or more jobs. Not me, I am kind of a one job at a time- no job for a while, but I saw other people do it. Despite our concerns among ourselves for our future, and for America’s future. (We had that 8 month recession in the 90’s guys, remember?) Xers never saw politics as a way to fix problems in America. We saw our old hippie Boomer parents give up their ideals, move to the suburbs, stop smoking pot, and go to work in an office. At least MY Boomer parents. We saw Ronald Reagan hurt the middle class with disabling taxes. I watched my dad take a second job, and spit at the mere mention of Reagan’s name until he died. Xers saw their lives being sold out on MTV in soundbites on Real World. The quintessential Generation X movie, “Reality Bites,” had this hopeless underlying message that the establishment we always hated was just ready to cheapen and repackage our thoughts and ideas. We had no power to stop it. This same corporate machine was hiring (Medical Insurance!) and rent was due and “The Gap” didn’t pay much.

We sat down at our cubicles instead of standing up. We sat silent instead of speaking up. We slept while not getting woke. We worked and benefited from the economic boom of our generation and rightfully owned the slacker label. We just didn’t care. As a result there are no leaders, no resonating voices, and no individuals that push a Gen X social or economic agenda. Missing are policy conversations built to serve the issues facing our generation now.

Photo by Eric Nopanen on Unsplash

3. We Killed Small Business

Shop small. That’s a thing people say, right? Yet, Generation Xers are the biggest users of online shopping. More than Boomers and Millennials. We buy more, and we buy it on Amazon. Quickly hitting the order button before the impulse is completely gone. We became pretty tech savvy as a generation, embracing the internet, and we love it. We don’t understand the nostalgic reemergence of our antiquated technology selling fantastically on Ebay to Generation Z. Why Would you want to listen to analog? Why play space invaders? Why write out a thank you card, in ink? We embraced all the things our computer can do, and welcomed Boomers like Steve Jobs into our homes to make life easier. Never once asking about the consequence. We invited Jeff Bezos (a barely Boomer born in 1964) and Amazon to think big and never worry about taxes. Online shopping was easy and fun. We got a boost of dopamine when we placed an order and another when it arrived. We let Technology come in unchecked and unfiltered. We let men get rich off speculation and called them innovators and entrepreneurs. Generation Xers are the largest generation using Facebook daily in the U.S. As a generation we overlook Facebook’s growing reputation of promoting genocide, spreading lies and misinformation, and arguably dismantling democracy every day to check up on college friends. I mean, we don’t care, right?

In fairness, much of our current culture and political strife could not have been predicted. How could we know that a corporate culture left unchecked would eventually need regulated. (I guess we slept through that class in American History) Maybe we still think it doesn’t need regulated. It doesn’t matter. Generation Xers are brand loyal, rewards members, frequent shoppers and prime members. We love the simplicity of the iPhone, the ease of Amazon, and the convenience of the Walmart Pick up window. We have bought into the establishment until we became the establishment’s biggest supporters. We watched local businesses get sucked away, feeling guilty, but justifying to ourselves that it was progress. Online was cheaper. Online has more choices. Never asking once if we are ever better off having more choices. Generation X let this happen, selfishly dumping many of the economic and cultural problems facing America today onto our children. We continued to let Boomers talk and Millennials demand. Corporations grew, billionaires grew, the internet exploded. Gen Xers never really knew how to add to the conversation. This is why Generation Z calls us out. They are angry, and we’re just sitting back with our Starbucks (rewards card!) trying to look cool.

4. We Never Fully Supported Gender Equality.

This one hits particularly hard for me. I was once a Women’s Studies major, back in 1995 when it was new and sounded so amazing. In the 90’s my college classes had names like, “Gender and Society,” “The History of Women in America,” “The History of Women Writers,” “Introduction to African American Women’s Experience.” Way before #Metoo there were Riot Girls. Although I was way too much of an introvert to crowd surf, it was something Generation X Riot Girls did to challenge gender stereotypes. If boys could do it, we could do it. When P.J. Harvey wrote the album “Rid of me,” in 1993 it was a mainstay in our CD players. Maybe just my CD player. We understood our oppression, and now that it was OVER-whew- life was so much better. That’s right. It was over. By the 1990’s many of us openly talked about taboo topics like sex and rape. The first wave of feminism was behind us. You could buy Ms. magazine at the Ben and Jerry’s newsstand. It was right there next to “Time” and “Newsweek.” I was so self assured in my equal place I gave a pro choice speech for my college freshman public speaking class that upset so many people my professor gave me a “C” even though the speech was an “A” in his words. Wait, I thought women could do anything, be anything, say anything.

Except, that wasn’t true. Gen Xers grew up still learning that certain experiences were just never to be spoken about, ever. It was understood growing up, but quietly so, that adults who rape children were to be protected and molestation was never an acceptable topic. You could be LGBTQ, and come out of the closet, but it wasn’t safe to be really open about it. Personally, intimately, just between friends, but not really coming totally out. Understand your oppression, read all the books, listen to all the speeches, talk to your friends, but never be loud about it. Don’t step out too far out of line. Be wild and punk rock as long as it was within reason. As long as you didn’t give a loud speech about pro choice, the 14th Amendment and legal precedent in front of a group of 18 year old boys. Xers girls were told they had limitless opportunity, but were still enormously silenced in our attempts to be loud.

The greatest example of Generation X’s road to literal embarrassment is Woodstock ’99. Generation Xers 30 year anniversary to the original peace and love weekend. It was July, it was blisteringly hot, and there was a shortage of water. There was a shortage of a lot of things people needed to survive. True to the lack of Gen X spirit, and our love of corporate America most of the vendors at the event started price gouging the items in short supply. (like $4 for 20 oz of water, $6.11 adjusted for inflation) Especially egregious because concertgoers were frisked at the door and not permitted to bring in outside food and water. Then, the constant shout outs for girls to “show their tits,” including a request by Dave Mathews while on stage performing. It was later described as chaotic harassment. Later, photos of women who complied with the request started showing up on the Woodstock 99 website without their consent followed by comments on the quality of breasts in each picture. Then, the reported sexual assaults, including 2 reported gang rapes. Only one concertgoer was ever charged. Women reported being followed and assaulted randomly by groups of men who used fingers and objects and sometimes their penises to assault them.

In the end we burned it all to the ground.

“Skin the sun

Fall asleep

Wish away

The soul is cheap

Lesson learned

Wish me luck

Soothe the burn

Wake me up”

“Dumb” Lyrics, Kurt Cobain

By Joy Ellen Sauter

I am re imagining myself as a full time writer. I write about culture, mental illness, my childhood, and my dogs. Follow me for more fun.

Sources

“Generation X is a Mess” The New York Times. 5/14/19

“How Generation X is Losing out to Corporate America” Jack Kelly. Forbes Magazine. 7/30/19

“The Forgotten Generation: Let’s Talk about Generation X” Angela Woo. Forbes Magazine .11/14/18

“Why Generation X Might be our Last Hope” Rich Cohen. Vanity Fair. 8/11/17

“19 of the worst things about Woodstock ‘99” Daniel Kreps. Rolling Stone. 7/31/14