Generation Whatever

[waider]

I read Generation X years ago. Mid-nineties, possibly. It didn't gel with me in any sort of way, and I found Microserfs to be something I could identify with much more. After a while I went back and reread Generation X, and being a little older it meant something more to me. I decided that this reflected the fact that I wasn't actually a Gen-Xer myself, having perhaps missed the window by a few years.

Now, it appears, I am Generation X, as this slashdot article bluntly defines it.

Now I wonder where my nearest Ikea is?

Comments

[merde.livejournal.com]

that's the definition of Gen-X that i'm most comfortable with. i've heard a bizarre range of years including up to 1984 or so (what on earth do people born in '84 have in common with us?), but i think the Slashdot definition hits the nail on the head. the whole point of defining Gen-X is that we're not a big generation like the Boomers. we didn't get their financial advantages, and we also didn't get the advantages of the rabidly pro-kid society that emerged after we hit puberty. and the reason no name for the next generation has really stuck yet is that they're too young to actually have done anything to define themselves as a generation.

the Gen-Xers weren't the ones who got out of college and hopped straight into high-tech jobs with billions and billions of stock options -- they were the ones we paved the road for. for the generation after us, it was cool to be a geek -- we were the ones who got picked on for it, and who did all the hard work of making the tech industry what it was by the time they took it over. plenty of us have reaped some benefits, but plenty more of us have gotten screwed, and we're going to be increasingly screwed as we get older.

the older we get, the harder jobs in the oh-so-hip tech industry will be to get, and the less chance we'll have of recouping our losses. and then we'll get screwed when we retire and there's no social security left for us. the noise we make about that will ensure that there'll be enough for the next bunch, but we'll never see the benefit.

we fell in between the drug generations, in between the politically empowered generations, in between the fun generations, and the media wants to steal even our name from us by trying to cram half of us back into the overflowing "boomer" cubbyhole and the other half in with the squirming, MDMA-addled youth.

whatever else we're called, we're basically the Doomed Generation. we're so doomed. i wouldn't want to be us, because we're so doomed.