Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Controversy

“Generation X” turns out to be a controversial term! Apparently, some people think of “Gen X” as the equivalent of “slacker” – which few of us are, so I admit that is annoying.

And it may or may not coincide with the “baby bust” years, which according to some sources are not ’64-77, as is commonly cited, but closer to ’58-68. Hmmm. (You’d think that was just a matter of statistics… why the disagreement?) To be honest, I always thought that “Gen X” and “Baby Bust” were different labels for the same thing – but not so! (Amazing what you can learn on the Internet…)

I agree with a friend who commented – because she doesn’t like the Gen X label – that you just can’t lump her in a group w/ other people by age, because who we have things in common with is not always age-related! True.

Maybe we just have to acknowledge that all the labels & generalizations are for the media, and not for us!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh, who cares what Gen X means? Just pick a range of ages. It's like jargon or acronyms.. makes it easier to identify what you mean. I assure you there have been slackers throughout the ages and there will continue to be slackers in the future. They used to have more colorful names (see: Rebel Without a Cause, Catcher in the Rye, et. al.)

What's really important to your generation? How does it differ from generations past? How did their opinions change over time? In the roaring 20's, young people were considered decadent... shameful. My God, girls cut their hair and bared their arms and legs! Men and women danced and drank demon alcohol. They suffered through the depression and then less than 20 years later, fought in WWII or struggled to carry on home in the states. Popular culture changes, but it remains pop culture. Someday, Gen XV? will look back at hip-hop and say... what classic art that was...