Words, usages, and phrases that annoy the shit out of you...

I'm a '69 Gen Xer and I was in denial about most of my cohort for a long time because of observation bias — the Gen Xers I hung out with weren't listening to Rush Limbaugh every day. But white American males in particular who were in their 20s in the '90s just inhaled all of that "politically incorrect" shit, and that's who they still are.

I dunno, I managed to inhale enough of the 60s and early 70s that I somehow escaped turning into a Reaganite asshole in the 80s (I think). I was still proud to show my kid where we built the shantytown to protest our school's investment in South Africa.

I am very much an elder millennial— I remember payphones, smoking indoors, VHS rewinding machines, waiting for pornography to load on early internet connections, etc. Basically elder millennials are the youngest cohort to really experience and remember the world before widespread internet, is the way I put it.

Pals who were born 92 or later don’t have that experience at all, but they’re still “millennials.”

born in 71 and, along with ned and trayce and unperson and daddino, we are *perfect*

- remember imminent nuclear war being possible*
- was vaguely aware of 70s ~runaway inflation~ but not enough to be endlessly haunted by it like biden/pelosi's cohort
- remember the soviet union/communism in general being an insidious and implacable enemy until it suddenly all fell apart . . . hmm, i wonder about the *other* insidious and implacable enemies
- remember reagan/thatcher
- remember pre-internet and pre-phone
etc.

apologies for star wars tho

(*tbf this is nothing compared to the climate holocaust that awaits today's youth)

also

- remember AIDS

- remember NYC being "fun dangerous" (my life was definitely at risk on at least a few occasions that at the time seemed like easily defused misunderstandings)

this has always struck me as a deeply Gen X board. not sure if things are skewed because i'm a millennial, but i definitely don't have overwhelmingly negative views of Gen X. they seemed like the cool older kids on MTV and Comedy Central when i was growing up. like Jeneane Garofalo and Ween and stuff like that

ilgenxor

The ever-more-heavily populated 50-something thread certainly argues for that. Starting next year, if you go by the 1965 start date, everyone in their 50s will be Gen X. (And the oldest Gen Xers — hello jimbeaux! — will be 60.)

born in 71 and, along with ned and trayce and unperson and daddino, we are *perfect*

for one reason or another, i don’t think any of us have kids. (not that having kids is bad or wrong; just that i’m not sure how common that would be for the ilx0rs of 100 years ago)

I am technically the tail end of Gen X but don't identify as such at all really. I remember watching Slacker and reading Gen X and they seemed to be about the cool older generation. Chart is missing xennials which, while this stuff kind of annoys me and doesn't really matter, is the only generational description I've read that rings true for me.

ur all gen alpha to me, where alpha = innocent babies

I always used to find ‘global teens’ as described in the Douglas Coupland book a pretty perfect fit for xennials.

How old were you as of April 3, 2024?

Mookis, I was born in 71 and have kids. Anyway about those ilxors of 100 years ago. I found some old archived thread titles from using the Wayback Machine:

Are you staying with wax cylinders?

Ts: zoetropes vs. nickelodeons

Gerswhwin POX

Controp: were talkies a mistake?

Rollin' Al Jolson "is this racist? thread

In this thread we will anticipate and then flip out over the new Scott Joplin release

Tommy Dorsey Orchestra: why are they so bad & hated?

I’m ‘79. I am by definition Gen X but I’m glad the terms Xennial and Elder Millennial exist. I’m not Gen X. I’ve never seen Reality Bites or Before Sunrise. I wasn’t into Nirvana. I was too young to know what AIDS was while it was happening.

I’m not Millennial, either. I don’t have much in common with Millennials.

Testament to how arbitrary these rubrics are: I'm '78, have seen both those movies (former sucks; latter is p cute), was very into Nirvana when I was young teenager, and definitely knew about AIDS while it was happening. As ever, I wonder if "living in the US" is more relevant here than any kind of generational effect

How do we feel about the proliferation of "neuro-spicy"?

the what of what

I’m ‘79. I am by definition Gen X but I’m glad the terms Xennial and Elder Millennial exist. I’m not Gen X. I’ve never seen Reality Bites or Before Sunrise. I wasn’t into Nirvana. I was too young to know what AIDS was while it was happening.

I’m not Millennial, either. I don’t have much in common with Millennials.

― Premises, Premises (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, April 3, 2024 2:29 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I relate to this a lot. I was into Nirvana, but I only got into the whole grunge thing retrospectively. I guess I was into Gen X "stuff", but in a "This is what my friends' cool older brothers are into" way. And I don't relate to Millennial stuff either - they can keep their Pokemons and their emo haircuts and their consicentious work ethics

the gen whatever only applies to america and especially when i see ppl utilise it in irish context i tend to dismiss whatever they were saying tbh

x-post -

I’m ‘79. I am by definition Gen X but I’m glad the terms Xennial and Elder Millennial exist. I’m not Gen X. I’ve never seen Reality Bites or Before Sunrise. I wasn’t into Nirvana. I was too young to know what AIDS was while it was happening.

I’m not Millennial, either. I don’t have much in common with Millennials.

― Premises, Premises (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, April 3, 2024 9:29 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol O I love the things by which you define Gen X because, based on those, I'm the opposite yet still feel similarly.

I know most of the dialogue to RB and love it but not because it's a good movie by any stretch of the imagination lol.
Before Sunrise is wonderful. You should watch it.
Nirvana - yep.
AIDS - I feel like I never didn't know about AIDS but I grew up on Fire Island in the 80s so yeah.

I remember hating Reality Bites.

For me Reality Bites was where generational media representation tipped from "hey, this is me!" (Slacker, Nirvana, the first season of The Real World!) to "ok now yr just pandering."

Greatest Generation ugh. You're right it's for Yanks.

― The Prime of the Ancient Minister (Tom D.), Tuesday, April 2, 2024 3:47 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

A lot of the popular conception of recent generations comes from the work of sociologists William Strauss and Neil Howe, who were explicitly writing about them within an American historical context. Their first book, published in 1991, was called Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069, in which they theorized that American history repeatedly cycles through four distinct generational types. Then they wrote books that specifically analyzed the beliefs and attitudes of Gen X (which at the time they called the 13th Generation, because it's apparently the 13th generation in American history) and millennials (a term that they coined). The latter was called Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation because, according to their theory, millennials are the same type as the Greatest Generation within the four-generation cycle.

But wrt to not being Gen X or a Millennial - when I saw Reality Bites (in the theatre obvs) I was 15 and it was like oooh I can't wait to grow up and live in a shitty apt with my friends not like I was watching my peers so there was a disconnect.

xp (Needless to say, a lot of this is hooey.)

x-posts Yeah, I'm sure it was not nearly as appealing if you weren't a 15 year old girl with the world's biggest crush on Ethan H.

People born in the British Isles after WW2 are known as 'the post-war generation', sensibly. The only booms going on at that time were from unexploded German ordnance accidentally trodden on by poorly-paid rubble clearance teams. And the only X's in relation to what Americans call Gen X were the ones put on ballot papers next to Tony Bair's name in 1997 before everyone twigged he was a war criminal. We just don't really do generations.

xp haha, as a nearly 30 year old man I wanted to tell the characters to get off my lawn. I was a big fan of several of the actors, but much preferred them in other films.

I want to be part of the Greatest Generation, so unfair!

Sorry, Tom, we came in after the good times.

Was it “reality bites” not the “the big chill” for gen x

sorry for atrocious grammar

I have never seen The Big Chill.

I have not seen it in years, but have watched it probably upwards of a dozen times.

Holy shit, maybe I am a Boomer.

I've never seen Reality Bites. The movie young teenaged me watched and thought "I wanna be that guy!" was Repo Man.

And to be clear, I wanted to be Sy Richardson, not Emilio Estevez.

I was deeply embarrassed by Reality Bites at the time. I had friends who liked it but mostly I hated everything about it. I was 18 and had been through a lot already at that point and those people were not people I related to at all. Absolutely loathed Ethan Hawke and his character. I was a very grouchy jaded young person. As a GenXer frequently was.
I’ve grown to be much less of a hater but at the time hating was the only currency I had.

I feel reasonably millenial I guess. Born into a cozy End Of History consensus, radicalized by the '08 crisis. Remember a time before the internet, followed it as we both became older and worse. I don't think millenials have a Big Chill/Reality Bites type movie, though alarmingly enough it could still happen.

Well the character isn't a very good one though he redeems himself at the end. Kinda.

I think if I was 18 when I had seen it I might have felt similarly but I was a very bright-eyed young 15 y/o who didn't know better yet.

I think it's harry potter for them. Idk but I feel like milennials fucking love him and having never read nor seen any of it/them that's one thing that tells me I am definitely not one of them.

Harry Potter is not a Generational Statement! Of course there's tons of popcult I associate with millenials but Reality Bites/The Big Chill are explicitly about their generations.

The characters in The Big Chill were the cooler older siblings I didn't have. Interestingly, it was in heavy rotation among my friends in college in the mid-80s, which would have been more about 15 years removed from the college experience of those people.

"Cool" may be pushing it for some of them.

Mean Girls is the Millenial big chill/reality bites y/n

Hmmmm maybe? No, I don't think that's quite right but it's close.

Daniel I know! I was being silly but HP does seem like a very big deal for them.

It’s probably fight club or something

In the UK Skins is the millennial generational thingie, although I don't know how well remembered or loved it is.