I think this post confuses invention with adoption. It's always the case that innovators in one generation become the icons of the next generation, who take whatever was innovative about them and make it normal and boring. Most of the Boomer icons, for instance, were/are Silents -- the Beatles (all of them), Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell; Neil Young is right on the cusp in '45, so if Kim Kardashian counts as X, he definitely counts as Silent.
The thing to get about Gen X is that we (like the Silents) are a last generation, while Millennials (like the Boomers )are a first generation. Boomers were the first people to grow up with TV; they had no real role models for how to live in that media environment, and thus invented their own mores. Gen X grew up in more or less the same media environment as the Boomers; then the whole world changed, right as we became adults. Millennials grew up in the new world of the internet, and as KD continually points out, were also lacking in guides to growing up there, and created their own dominant culture as they went along, generally picking up on stuff that older people invented and making it the norm. So while KD is right to say that Gen X invented a lot of the stuff Millennials are associated with, that stuff didn't shape us as kids and adolescents. We still see the internet from the outside, which Millennials can't do.
I don't know Antonio García Martínez and couldn't read his whole piece because it's paywalled, but...
Either:
He's obviously full of shit because it is in fact the Millennials who are the last good generation, and it sucks that we have to be sandwiched between Gen X, which is useless at best and Boomerish at worst, and Gen Z, which is incomprehensible and lame and seems vaguely dangerous, and by the way neither of those cohorts are as cool as they think they are, and are definitely not as cool as me.
Or:
Perhaps we all think our own generational cohort is the last good one because its values and behaviors seem normal to us. We also see our own cohort in all its complexity because we understand it through experience; as you note, our understanding of other cohorts is way more shaped by stereotypes and media portrayals.
"Though, my sense still is that those “irreverent Gen Xers” were the people who would eventually become woke."
I think there is truth to this statement. The irreverent Gen Xers thought themselves unique rebels just like everyone else. The actually counterculture individuals never liked political correctness and don't like wokeness now. Perception vs reality.
Also, I didn't read the two books you mention but the final comment of both generations being raised by baby boomers makes me think the political correctness is from the older faculty lounges rather than the student acolytes in the Gen X generation. Social media and group think just accelerated its spread to more social settings (which you mention).
Thank You for Writing this article, Katherine. I enjoyed reading it.
🔥💯🔥
As a Gen X dude born smack dab in the middle of my cohort, I look around at the world today with a sort of world weary bemusement, because I remember phones that clung to walls and huge televisions that weighed as much as a Toyota Prius. I graduated High School in 1991 and vividly recall listening to Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit"...
**Loud Sound of Needle Scratching the F#@k out of a Broken Record**
Folks, all this Generational Finger Pointing is Silly and Stupid when all around us entire Continents are ablaze, Civilization is in Free Fall, and a little thing called the Sixth Mass Extinction is kicking into high gear.
Boomers can bitch at Millennials and X-ers can commiserate with Zoomers. It doesn't matter anymore, because every single human being alive right now during this critical moment in Humanity's History will be vilified and cursed by our descendants for bequeathing them a planet that will make Mad Max and The Hunger Games look like a skit on Saturday Night Live.
They'll call us The Doomers.
Personally, that's not a Legacy that I wish to leave behind for anyone. My friends, there is too much at stake now for us to become ensnared in pointless bickering or childish name calling.
It is true that PC started in the 1990s. (Exact date: "Hey ho, Western Civ has to go," Stanford, fall 1989.) However, the widespread anti-political attitude of Gen-X contained it to the crazier reaches of campus. The Millennials being responsible for Woke is a half-truth. It's really mainly the younger Millennials/Gen-Z that are responsible for making it a generational trait.
But the authoritarian nature and content of Woke are, without any doubt, a product of the older generation, the Boomers. It is they who pioneered these bad trends on campuses way back in the 1970s and 1980s. It went from fringe, to contained threat, to rampage over about 30-40 years.
I think this post confuses invention with adoption. It's always the case that innovators in one generation become the icons of the next generation, who take whatever was innovative about them and make it normal and boring. Most of the Boomer icons, for instance, were/are Silents -- the Beatles (all of them), Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell; Neil Young is right on the cusp in '45, so if Kim Kardashian counts as X, he definitely counts as Silent.
The thing to get about Gen X is that we (like the Silents) are a last generation, while Millennials (like the Boomers )are a first generation. Boomers were the first people to grow up with TV; they had no real role models for how to live in that media environment, and thus invented their own mores. Gen X grew up in more or less the same media environment as the Boomers; then the whole world changed, right as we became adults. Millennials grew up in the new world of the internet, and as KD continually points out, were also lacking in guides to growing up there, and created their own dominant culture as they went along, generally picking up on stuff that older people invented and making it the norm. So while KD is right to say that Gen X invented a lot of the stuff Millennials are associated with, that stuff didn't shape us as kids and adolescents. We still see the internet from the outside, which Millennials can't do.
I don't know Antonio García Martínez and couldn't read his whole piece because it's paywalled, but...
Either:
He's obviously full of shit because it is in fact the Millennials who are the last good generation, and it sucks that we have to be sandwiched between Gen X, which is useless at best and Boomerish at worst, and Gen Z, which is incomprehensible and lame and seems vaguely dangerous, and by the way neither of those cohorts are as cool as they think they are, and are definitely not as cool as me.
Or:
Perhaps we all think our own generational cohort is the last good one because its values and behaviors seem normal to us. We also see our own cohort in all its complexity because we understand it through experience; as you note, our understanding of other cohorts is way more shaped by stereotypes and media portrayals.
"Though, my sense still is that those “irreverent Gen Xers” were the people who would eventually become woke."
I think there is truth to this statement. The irreverent Gen Xers thought themselves unique rebels just like everyone else. The actually counterculture individuals never liked political correctness and don't like wokeness now. Perception vs reality.
Also, I didn't read the two books you mention but the final comment of both generations being raised by baby boomers makes me think the political correctness is from the older faculty lounges rather than the student acolytes in the Gen X generation. Social media and group think just accelerated its spread to more social settings (which you mention).
Thank You for Writing this article, Katherine. I enjoyed reading it.
🔥💯🔥
As a Gen X dude born smack dab in the middle of my cohort, I look around at the world today with a sort of world weary bemusement, because I remember phones that clung to walls and huge televisions that weighed as much as a Toyota Prius. I graduated High School in 1991 and vividly recall listening to Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit"...
**Loud Sound of Needle Scratching the F#@k out of a Broken Record**
Folks, all this Generational Finger Pointing is Silly and Stupid when all around us entire Continents are ablaze, Civilization is in Free Fall, and a little thing called the Sixth Mass Extinction is kicking into high gear.
Boomers can bitch at Millennials and X-ers can commiserate with Zoomers. It doesn't matter anymore, because every single human being alive right now during this critical moment in Humanity's History will be vilified and cursed by our descendants for bequeathing them a planet that will make Mad Max and The Hunger Games look like a skit on Saturday Night Live.
They'll call us The Doomers.
Personally, that's not a Legacy that I wish to leave behind for anyone. My friends, there is too much at stake now for us to become ensnared in pointless bickering or childish name calling.
I know we can do better. We must do better.
We no longer have a Choice.
TC
🕊️🌈
It is true that PC started in the 1990s. (Exact date: "Hey ho, Western Civ has to go," Stanford, fall 1989.) However, the widespread anti-political attitude of Gen-X contained it to the crazier reaches of campus. The Millennials being responsible for Woke is a half-truth. It's really mainly the younger Millennials/Gen-Z that are responsible for making it a generational trait.
But the authoritarian nature and content of Woke are, without any doubt, a product of the older generation, the Boomers. It is they who pioneered these bad trends on campuses way back in the 1970s and 1980s. It went from fringe, to contained threat, to rampage over about 30-40 years.