Legit I know some of you darlings on here are young, but if you ever refer to my 30 year old ass as “baby boomer” again I will not be held responsible for my actions.
So like a baby boomer, but without the financial stability or racism.
Gen X…we’re fucking invisible…
40 and counting!“The lost generation.”
Y’all think it’s shit not having financial stability at 20, well I’m afraid we got some bad news for you.
Okay, kids, generation lesson, if we’re going to keep using these divisions. Baby Boomers are technically those born between 1946 (after the end of WW2, when the soldiers came home – thus, a “baby boom,” as husbands and wives were reunited after several years apart) and 1964. That makes Baby Boomers between 53-71 in 2017. And there are a variety of theories on where this generation ends – depending on what definition you’re working under, 50-53 year olds could be the beginning of Gen X.
Gen X is between 36-50 this year, give or take a couple of years. We’re a smaller generation, defined mostly by coming of age between 1980-ish and the early to mid 90s – after cable TV, but before the internet, the “latchkey kid” generation.
The oldest Millennials are 35-ish this year. So a 30 year old is most definitely not a Boomer, by any stretch of the imagination. (There’s a school of thought that puts the older members of this age range in their own small generation, “Generation Y,” but most have just decided to define Millennials as people born between approximately 1982-2004.)
So there. Know your generations, so you’re sure you’re hating on the right people, y’all.
The best/worst part of being Gen X at the moment* is that the gutting of unions and the social safety net means the Boomers are failing to retire while the Millennials are coming up and we’re basically in one hell of an awkward mid-career pinch while our bodies are starting to fall apart and our children are growing up.
(Gen X has been hit extra-hard at critical life points by recessions.)
(Also, I swear when I was a younger Gen Xer the cutoff was more like 1977.)
*Previous best/worsts include hitting puberty in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, growing up at the end of the Cold War while our media was producing story after story about nuclear annihilation, the aforementioned critical moments recessions, and thinking acid-washed denim was a great idea.
Gen X is defined as starting in 1961 when “the pill” came into being, and ends in 1991. When it was named, this was the range. Therefore, Gen Xers are between 35 (turning 36 this year) and 56.
Our experience is that Recession is the norm, world politics is constant upheaval, that the government will NEVER care about us, that the only way to survive was to work multiple jobs, and that our turn will never come.
And make NO mistake – we ARE angry. we DO NOT like anything about this.
We took the tools that our progenitors left us with and turned the internet into a real-time conversation worldwide that happens between people instead of governments or news agencies. We took the idea of escapism and pushed it to 11 (MMOs began in the 80s with MUDDs, kids). We very subtly subverted the paradigm of “this is how we do things because this is how we have always done things” to make things more efficient for everyone. AND WE DID ALL OF THESE THINGS WHILE BEING TOLD WE WERE LAZY AND UNMOTIVATED AND WOULD NEVER MAKE A MARK ON HISTORY.
Baby Boomers are not only still fucking shit up for us, they are still blaming us for them doing so.
We are angry, tired, and fed up with being ignored and disregarded.
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Meg's Mumbles 