- Back in the early ’90s, boomer pundits across America declared Generation X a group of apathetic, coddled, entitled slackers. Born between roughly 1961 and 1981, they lacked any political idealism—“stuck in a terminal cynicism,” as The Dallas Morning News observed. Gormless narcissists, their “intimacy and communication skills remain at a 12-year-old level,” one expert wrote. Even Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons—one of Generation X’s most influential masterworks—complained that “there’s no intellectual pride or content to this generation. The dominant pop culture is MTV and the Walkman.”
Let me say this about middle age: it sucks.
Enjoy being vilified because it is way better than what comes next ... that is to be forsook and forsaken as you push through the "49 and Over" marketing segment.
Just you wait until to the scroll for the year of your birth becomes annoyingly long. unintelligible old-man talk finished You, too, will watch the birth years of all those whipper-snappers scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll.
And scroll and scroll and scroll until you get to your birth year and WHY are they are in Roman numerals?
40 is the old age of youth; 50 is the youth of old age
- Voltaire
I worry about death a lot more than I used to. I worry a lot more about legacy. But I worry a hell of a lot less about tangibles. I said something on a forum was "only $400" today - everybody (in that profession) should have one. Man, 15 years ago I fretted over a $35 FX box.
The way I look at it, I try to be a fuckload better off, a fuckload healthier, and a fuckload more entertained than most anybody else my age. So far, I'm doing pretty good. Funny thing happened, too - most of my life all my friends have been older. Some time about 2002 they started to all be younger.
I think it's the mindset. I've been late '20s/early '30s since I was 14 years old. Why let chronology get in the way of that?
The only thing worse than getting old, is not :-)
When I still smoked cigarettes I was sitting on a curb near a parque central in Hondarus catching some shade and avoiding my motorcycle. As I sat a small, hunched, grey-haired woman wrapped in what seemed like thirty scarves and a small straw fedora-ish hat walked slowly up to spot where I was smoking in the shade. Cane first, then feet. Cane first, then feet.
She saw me and my bad habit and looked at me and say, "Ah, la sabroso dolor." That translates roughly into "tasty pain" or so you get the figure of it.
My experience with life has been along those lines. Tasty pain. That said I have been beat down to then rise up enough times to feel like I have a small but sturdy soapbox.
Jesus fucking Christ, when will it end.
Here, here, I'm just gonna post this here because I think I've said every possible thing to say on this subject, and Jon Stewart is more eloquent than me, and uses less profanity than I would at this point.
Great quote from Stewart. Serious question 8bit, do you feel like this bias effects you at all in your actual life outside of internet discussions? If so, how?
Eh, well on a hierarchy of things people find uneasy about me, it'd probably be:
- Being Black
Having a Weird Name
Finding out I'm Muslim
My Age
So probably not too much of a negative bias. As for a positive one: people sometimes equate "being better than the rest of my generation" with "knowing how to fucking present myself." Hell, it's probably how I got my last job - I was told the person who was interviewed before me came in with tennis shorts and flip-flops. That's not because of his age, it's because he's fucking stupid.
It amazes me how people can make such a crazy wide generalization over one generation. In every generation, there'll be people who do super well, people who suck terribly, and people like me - who are just trying to make it through without fucking killing ourselves. Don't think that makes us entitled. Plus we have to deal with all the shit you guys handed to us, like the fucked up environment and my inability to get a decent job and that good 'ole widening wealth gap, but, hey, who's countin, amirite?
A couple things.
THING 1) the whole "flip flop" thing is kinda new. Yeah, you personally have your shit together. Here's the problem, though - used to be there was a higher percentage of people with their shit together. Your generation has their "shit together" less than previous generations - which is not to say you're stupid, it's not to say you're lazy, it's not to say you're entitled, it's to say that you're not hewing to the societal norms required of you even when it's in your best interest. GenXers were just as disillusioned and ironic about The Man as the Beatniks were - but when you need a paycheck, you put on a happy face. Millenials show a documented reluctance to put on a happy face. Call it will, call it stubbornness, call it resignation; at the end of the day, it is a new wrinkle.
THING 2) The first mutherfucker who took a shit and didn't bury it was fucking up the environment. Long-term ecological damage predates writing. Don't hang the goddamn greenhouse effect around my neck, punk. That job you can't get? Tell your dad to retire. I'm still in my position because he blew his 401k on Worldcom stocks and is gonna be regional GM until the sun is a cinder. Know why you can't get a job? 'cuz we're all stuck in positions we should have moved up from in '05. "Wealth Gap?" Gimme a break. That shit started unraveling in '67. Again, take it up with your parents.
I've said before - y'all got the shaft. No doubt. Y'all earned a little bitchin' about it. No doubt. You point that finger at me, mutherfucker, and I'll break it off. History ought to be taught backwards just so that everybody can see that for every effect there's a cause and for every disaster there's an idealist with startling focus and negligible perspective. It's all a continuum, it's all Hands Across America, it's all Pay it Forward and when you get in the mindset that "we" fucked up "your" world…
…well, it puts you in an "enjoy the ramen, hipster" frame of mind. Not what you want to do to a demographic that, by your own admission, has a leg up on you.
Word to the wise.
1. That's lame
2. In fairness to those implicated, eightbitsamurai is an odd name
3. How did you get in here?... we have a strict no muslim policy
4. Ah, I'd see psulli's comment and take comfort.
- I was told the person who was interviewed before me came in with tennis shorts and flip-flops. That's not because of his age, it's because he's fucking stupid.
- ....and people like me - who are just trying to make it through without fucking killing ourselves.
- Plus we have to deal with all the shit you guys handed to us, like the fucked up environment and my inability to get a decent job and that good 'ole widening wealth gap,
As kleinbl00 mentioned in this post a while back, those "Old-timers" invented the Internet. They used to be the ones picked on but as the article states, it's hard to call the POTUS' generation "slackers". I maintain that this is cyclical and will continue to occur over and over and over. Millennials will eventually be the ones complaining about the next "lazy" generation.
But seriously rezzeJ, get off my lawn.