Knowing a lot of people even though I am quirky… years later I am now confessing how I misread Generation X. My executive summary of said generation was for many years…
The stereotypical “latchkey generation” the generation of toughness, resiliency, throw the toys literally upon turning 18, but get rebellious in their 20s, return to adulthood by the 30s. Massive consumption of MTV when it aired music. They related to their real-personas when The Real World aired on the same said network. They created the first wave of the dot-coms and the related technologies.
Now I stand corrected and now my executive summary is this:
These people, roughly 50 to 60 million Americans live in the past, 1980s and their Silent Generation parents from the 1950s. They believed in the spirit of civil rights, but assumed we lived in a post divided culture. Despite said generation being the creators of the first wave of the Web and related technologies, they are in the minority, many GenXers are scared of technology, they are scared of science, history and other skillsets because many didn’t go or finish college. As they age, they brag about their pride of simplicity, admiring it as if it’s the present. They are “raw” in personality and language over being “real”. They insult Millennials of acting immature, but Gen X are the most commonly aged people known as having “Karen moments” that makes for good YouTube porn. They have entitlements their kids are going to be happy and healthy, and when they don’t, they blame Big Pharma and refuse to accept neurological differences of their autistic children. They refuse to admit they are overprotecting their offsprings to such an obscene level. Gen Z is blamed for everything second to Millennials, but whose the real grown up?
Lastly I would end with
People of Generation X age appeared to be the average groups of people creating criminal acts on the 6th day after the New Year at The Capital basically canceling out maturity, emotional intelligence and extreme, but malignant narcissism – an extreme that can’t be defined in the Boomers and Millennials combined.
This is going to be long 40 to 50 years as the loudest minority continue to make ruckus to civic engagement. You want to rather live under a rock instead.