Gen X
Showtime, Synergy!
There’s a hilarious meme that goes: “What’s the most overlooked generation? Baby boomers, Millennials, Gen Y, Gen Z …”
What is it about Generation X that makes us so forgettable? We’re the side character whose name no one can remember, the awkward friend brought along for the double date.
We are the parentification generation. Children of divorce. Latchkey kids raised by Atari, MTV, and VCRs. We are the rerun generation. Daytime talk and game shows. Time travel and body swapping.
For a brief time, we were blamed for everything: Is Gen X ruining America? Buying enough houses? Having enough kids? Saving enough for retirement? But then the internet happened, and Y2K happened, and the media had a new obsession: Millennials. What would life be like for the first generation born in the computer age? Magically, all the attention shifted to them. Were they ruining America? Probably!
Maybe Gen X is forgettable because we wanted to be forgotten. Maybe we succeeded at making ourselves disappear. Like my favorite cartoon characters: Jerrica turning into Jem (“Showtime, Synergy!”) or the cool girl in the D&D cartoon with her invisibility cloak.
We were the kids on the milk cartons. We were in the classrooms when the Challenger exploded. We held hands across America. And when the Gipper said, “There you go again,” we moonwalked and ‘Like a Virgin’ed in between the ‘84 Olympics and the Ollie North trials.
We were the HIV test generation. Even while our music urged us to “Talk about sex, baby, talk about you and me, talk about all the good things and the bad things that can be.” Do us, baby. We so horny. We want to sex you up.
We watched the Berlin Wall fall. And Tiananmen Square. And when Rodney King asked us to get along. And when Clinton said it depends what ‘is’ is. When the Chads hung us out to dry, and we found out why Ollie was on trial, we thrashed with Teen Spirit. We watched the Juice speed away in a white Ford Bronco. We were out of high school for Columbine, but close enough to feel it. On 9/11, we were the young workers in the Twin Towers and in the wars after. In the Crash of ‘08, we tried to save for retirement and buy enough houses.
“Maybe Gen X is forgettable because we wanted to be forgotten. Maybe we succeeded at making ourselves disappear.”
And we did talk about sex. We talked about priests and pastors, Boy Scout leaders, coaches, doctors, businessmen, gurus, actors, musicians, producers, judges, and presidents.
We were the parents when COVID shut us down. We were the teachers and the veterinarians. We worked in grocery stores and hair salons.
A generation is just a group of people who experience things together. They hit the bumps at the same time. They heard the same crap on the radio and watched the same commercials. They’ll sing along to the same song in the supermarket and look across the produce knowingly.
“Oh, yeah,” our look says.
You were there when they asked, “Where’s the beef?”
You know what I mean when I say, “1.21 jigawatts!” and “Not my Ritchie!” and “Don’t feed them after Midnight.”
In Colorado, we watched Elway and the Three Amigos together. We explored Black Bart’s Cave and dressed like pioneers, ate sopapillas, and played Skee-ball. We stuck our Hubba Bubba to the Gum Tree and hoped our white shorts wouldn’t be too see-through after the Log Ride. When our side came up on the Sea Dragon, we said, “Tastes great!” and the other replied, “Less filling!” We went to WaterWorld and Celebrity Sports Center, Chuck E. Cheese, and Lakeside. In Boulder, Crossroads made good things happen, and we were “flying away to a day at Westminster Mall.”
Even if no one remembers Generation X, I will remember you. We still have a long way to go and a lot to go through together. If those Millennials don’t ruin everything first.
