One of the longest bows I’ve seen drawn about the effects of the global financial crisis is this obituary (and not in elegiac style) for the 80s. And Gen X. Apparently because of Robert Zemeckis. And therefore Gordon Gekko.
I think I’m missing something here (though not surprised by the fact that whenever generationalism rears its head, the originary dissing of Gen X is reinscribed each time). Maybe it’s because the experience of the 80s was very different in Australia (and the UK) than in America, and this even similar cultural themes and texts and musical forms were read through distinctive lenses.
I feel so sorry for Generation X. They grew up without a unifying enemy. They grew up constantly criticized as a do-nothing care-nothing generation. They started the Internet boom but would eventually lose out to the young upstarts from the next generation, the Googles and Facebooks of the world. They truly are The Lost Generation, sandwiched between the crisis of Nixon and the crisis of today. Now, my generation is the second-born prodigal son, the boy-king who snatched the crown of influence directly from his parents, bypassing the first-born’s rule entirely. We are fighting the War on Terror. We are innovators in tech and energy and media.
Err… whatevs. Anyone who runs around talking about themselves as the incarnation of Gen Y triumphalism might care to chew on one of the few sociologically sound distinctions between Gen X and Gen Y – the differing attitudes towards security, expectations and the labour market caused by the presence and absence of deep recessions respectively. But, bitchiness directed towards the author, David Mekelburg, aside, I’d like to point out that one defining 80s generational coming of age film, St Elmo’s Fire, had, years before “Greed is Good”, already pointed to the emptiness of the material world Madonna was later to ironise. Just sayin, you know. I think the 80s – in pop cultural terms – were a much more complex assemblage of themes and desires than this stuff recognises.
So I give you Jules:
hardly worth commenting on, except to observe, more succinctly than the post that the article was a crock of shit.
The only generations I feel sorry for are the fin de siècle youth that got slaughtered in the trenches, and all of the generations that are still in abject poverty around the world.
Very Georgian of you, wilful.
Even if I rarely agree with your conclusions, Mark, I adore reading your ideas.
7 days to the fin de siecle in America, one way or another.
I’ve always hated generationalism, being as how it’s basically an exercise in gross-generalisation-alism, even when it was all about selfish know-it-all boomers and amoral, fickle, ignorant Ys – contrasted with the insouciant cool of the ironic slacker X.
Now that Ys have growed up and learned to “write”, I hate it even more. You really want to claim ownership of the War on Tourism? Knock yourself out, chump. Just as long as you realise that puts you in common cause with the boomers who caused the problem (and the other ones).
They started the Internet boom but would eventually lose out to the young upstarts from the next generation, the Googles and Facebooks of the world.
No. Generations of web applications != generations of developers. Both Sergey Brin and Larry Page (the co-founders of Google) were born in the Generation X year of 1973. Epic fail.
Au contraire!
I was speaking recently with my mum about what the deal is with my generation (Gen Y), why are there all these Peter Pan’s (boys who won’t grow up) getting around? She noticed that in our late 20s, many of us are starting to get it together. I explained to her what it was like growing up in the 90s. We were promised everything. Capitalism had won. There were no enemies. Our future was secure. Then on 9/11, we realised that we’d been lied to. Then we just kept getting lied to by the boomers in charge. Now we sit here, realising that we aren’t just going to be giving everything, and that we are going to have to take charge and wrestle power from the boomers before they destroy everything. But it’s not really their fault. The 20th century can be explained by the first world war. A generation was killed. The next generation grew up without fathers, and then that generation was killed. The next generation (Boomers) grew up without fathers or grandfathers, and had to make the rules up themselves. They’re behaviour is what one would expect from a child that raised themselves.
I feel sorry for Gen X, they really were forgotten. But Gen Y isn’t the answer either, we are, by and large, a generation of self centred, selfish people (just like our boomer parents taught us to be!). The real salvation will come with Gen Z. The generation growing up with the connectedness of the internet and the existential threat of global warming. There is an empathy and understanding in this generation that is unprecedented in recent history.
Yes, I’m saying it: The Emo’s will save us.
TRF – Gen Z will only save us from anything if they eschew their X parents’ ironic detachment.
[Which I suppose, in the spirit of teen rebellion, they must necessarily do... okay maybe you're right... but they must break the chains of arseflangedom as well]
Why on earth would the author feel sorry for Gen X?
We have all the best teen movies…
A fresh load of nonsense about generations! Do you think that these dead dads serviced their wives in ghostly form?
Boomers were called Boomers because their dads survived WWII and fathered many, many children.
I was doing a postgrad degree for most of the 80s, so I missed them. Probably a good thing, too, as I’m still recovering from the 70s and the 60s.
btw Gen X was born with Pluto in Scorpio (well, most of them). Astrologers tell me that is NOT good.
For better or worse, the people who will be in charge when the world has to deal with the serious implications of climate change, peak oil etc will be Generation X. This has nothing to do with any special abilities of Gen X. It’s just timing.
The Baby Boomers are starting to retire. Gen Xers are in their 30s and 40s, and are now beginning to reach the upper escheleons of industry, politics etc. Gen Yers, still in their 20s, are in the process of developing their knowledge and skills. Like every generation, they will start reaching positions of control once they have sufficient experience (There are always a few prodigious exceptions, of course).
The Baby Boomers made a lot of noise in the 60s, but they didn’t start reaching positions of influence until the 80s. The first Boomer President of the US was Bill Clinton. The first Boomer Prime Minister is Kevin Rudd.
This is a process driven by growth, aging and death. The rest is just BS.
I’m always very confused. Can someone tell me who the hell are the x,y, z’s and etc etc?
The semi-recent elucidation in book form is Generations by Strauss and Howe, Francis.
A few after volumes have come out.
Gross reductionism, shoe-horning and confirmation bias are “elucidation” now?
Some of the anti-BB comments on the Web verge on eliminationalism, too, FDB. It’s very ugly.
I always get rather irritated when my generation (boomers) gets blamed for all the world’s problems. Some of us are selfish arseholes, some of us have been trying to make the world a better place for the last 40 years, and most of us occupy a middle ground between those extremes. Just like, I’m sure, gens X and Y.
Mark, a crush on Demi back in the day?
I thought Paul Keating was a Baby Boomer? (1944)
@16 – back in the day indeed, AK!
As a cusp born boomer/generation X (well, Barak Obama was born the same year as I was and he is being dubbed ‘the first generation X president) I reckon the Xers have really got the worst post war deal.
Their older sister and brothers has the 1960’s with political and social change and great music and a booming economy.
The Xers has double digit inflation and double digit unemployment. And the main stuff played on the radio was disco, the Eagles and Chicago. How bad is that.
@ FDB #13
Hey, telling you about one generational naming tool, since you said you were confused.
Elucidation in the literal meaning, only shedding some light on the subject.
Shoe horns optional and if the shoe fits….wear it. Or not.
Paul, technically ‘44 is pre-boomer (they started in ‘45), but you’re right in a sense. PJK came of age in the ’60s, and his set of experiences are more or less classic Boomer (Vietnam war era, Whitlam etc). It just goes to show how arbitrary the categories are, really.
Yes, sorry AK, I went off a little half-cocked there.
Hey, FDB, no problem.
What hit a nerve, if I may ask you?
I’ll avoid that in future.
Generation Y are a bunch of fucking wankers.
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They have no idea (how to spell their own names) and keep taking credit for things that don’t belong to them. Larry Page and Sergey Brin who started Google were born in 1973. The dude who reportedly started Facebook is a Y’er. But if I hear one more Gansta wannabe tell me his generation invented Hip-Hop I’m gonna bust a cap.
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Personally given the fact that every sub-culture/style line these people pursue was effectively established in the 80s, if not before, I call bullshit on their claim to being a separate generation at all. That is except my revulsion at being part of a club that’d have them for members.
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The difference of course is that people my age being slightly less stupid, vacuous and ill-educated have established supply for the various nonsensical style items that fuel the subcultures. Ye dinnae have to dye your clothes black or staple on bits of weirdness. You can buy it from some 40 year old teenage goth.
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The 80s over. Good riddance. They sucked the first time and if I hear Jon bloody Bovi or Bryan fuckin’ Adams one more time I’m gonna bust another cap.
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(Oh my God!! Mt brain blew up.)
You mean Ronnie and Maggie were lying about the evil empire, whaddya know!
Jo – No-one gave a tinkers about Ronnie and Maggie way back when. The political philsohy of an entire generation can be summed up thus:
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Who cares if the Europeans are socialists? They could be fascist-anarchists for all I care. It still wouldn’t change the fact that I don’t have a car.
I love a thread with a quote from FBDO
It’s what Gen X have instead of religion.
I miss the 80’s cause thats when I used to get erections
Scuse moi, no-one gave a tinkers…
Subjected to endless one minute to midnight doomsday scenarios – about half the population had a couple of images of nuclear explosions on their fridges – (you could identify above the ground explosion pics) deployment of the neutron bomb – lets draw a nuclear winter kids – which city had what size nuclear warhead pointed at them – the whole of Europe covered in military bases – is that Soviet dead a la weekend at Bernie’s – Brezhnev, Andropov. Frigging peace marches every frigging wahtevers.
US inner cities melting down, and a new pandemic cutting swathes through whole communities. And all the ugliness of cold war played out in the developing world.
The most popular Oz rock band in the burbs was Midnight Oil.
John Hughes movies were coming-of-age movies for the US teen market.
Like the bloke who wrote the piece above – he was 15 y.o. when 9/11 occurred – and now his generation ‘has been at war’ unlike the people who were 15 years older when 9/11 happened. FFS.
Most of the legislation enacted in the 70’s – anti-discrimination, free universities, universal health was put in place by men born during WW1 and the 1920’s and these govts were voted in by people the majority born before 1945. The fcuking hippies. It’s all crapola.
Yeah Jo, I was there. Most people just pretended it wasn’t happening. And it wasn’t really.
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In fact everything following the Kennedy assassination was just Pam Ewing’s bad dream. When she wakes up we’ll all find that we’re still 16 and haven’t gotten tired of Frankie Goes To Hollywood yet.
The titles are, ultimately meaningless, as there are good and bad people in all generations. I will say this though, all those younger viewers who self identify as “Gen Y” and who think they’re going to get to run everything before their time – I’ve got some bad news for ya:- like every generation before you you’re going to have to pay your dues. Its no accident that the first “Gen X” world leaders (Rudd and Obama) are now coming to the fore – now is their time.
I finished high school in 1981 – and I’ll give you a guess what we all thought then – same as you guys now actually – we thought we’d be running the world in no time!
Adrien wrote:
Oh no way. Not that again.
…but I deeply disagree with the “no unifying enemy” thing. That old rascal Sting and his execrable Russians loving children tooooo schtick kinda summed it up: old buggers playing poker with nukes was no way to run a world.
The writer of the article seems just as ignorant as everyone else in Gen Y! And Gen X had great music, apart from the American stuff. Lastly, we did have a common enemy. No teenagers outside the US worshipped Ronnie; we feared his senile hand on the red button. Remember?
If Gen X were truly so ironic and detached, would Band Aid and Live Aid have happened? Remember the euphoria when Hawke was elected in 1983? And how we all believe in the importance of the dole because we were all on it during the recession 10 years later?
Though I must say that ironic detachment is a great help in raising children…
No generation has a monopoly on making foolish comments about other generations foolishness, as has been hinted at on this thread and in just about every other forum where such matters are discussed.
I think I’ll follow Juliet Mitchell and stake a claim on the significance of sibling birth order. I’m also going to try to forget the word ‘generation’ even exists because it has been so thoroughly weighed down with stupidity that even the best attempts to critique that stupidity tend to get sucked under with it.
On these great issues of our time, we must turn to the world of men’s cricket. Here are the 10 best-ever Australian batsmen and bowlers, according to the International Cricket Council’s rankings.
Best-Ever Australian Batsmen (Tests)
(1) D G Bradman (b 1908) – pre-Baby Boomer
(2) R T Ponting (b 1974) – Gen X
(3) M L Hayden (b 1971) – Gen X
(4) K D Walters (b 1945) – Baby Boomer
(5) R N Harvey (b 1928) – pre-Baby Boomer
(6) M E K Hussey (b 1975) – Gen X
(7) S R Waugh (b 1965) – Baby Boomer/Gen X
(8) C C McDonald (b 1928) – pre-Baby Boomer
(9) C Hill (b 1877) – pre-Baby Boomer
(10) G S Chappell (b 1948) – Baby Boomer
Best-Ever Australian Bowlers (Tests)
(1) G D McGrath (b 1970) – Gen X
(2) A K Davidson (b 1929) – pre-Baby Boomer
(3) S K Warne (b 1969) – Gen X
(4) W J O’Reilly (b 1905) – pre-Baby Boomer
(5) C V Grimmett (b 1891) – pre-Baby Boomer
(6) W A Johnston (b 1922) – pre-Baby Boomer
(7) R R Lindwall (b 1921) – pre-Baby Boomer
(8) H Trumble (b 1867) – pre-Baby Boomer
(9) D K Lillee (b 1949) – Baby Boomer
(10) S R Clark (b 1975) – Gen X
It’s obvious that Generation X (as well as pre-Baby Boomers) dominate these rankings. Baby Boomers are worse cricketers than Generation Xers and Generation Yers are nowhere to be found…
QED
I have been intrigued for some time about how most of the people my own age that I get on well with are Gen-Xers with pre-Boomer parents. We’re in professions that we enjoy (even though most of us aren’t high-flyers), tend to the bleeding-heart lefty, think it takes some effort to bring children up (as opposed to expecting life and the universe to do it for us), and none of us live in McMansions. (Caveat: Many of my friends are Christians and this obviously has an impact on how we run our lives — but some of my agnostic/atheist friends live similarly.) Anyway: am I correct to assume that those 4WDs and McMansions belong to Gen-Xers with Boomer parents? Or just to younger siblings?
According to M. Devine in todays SMH whatever the outcome of the US election the Boomers will have failed, totally and utterly forever and ever Amen. Hooray! Of course I’m still in the dark as to what it was they were up to in the first place. In fact maybe she was talking about our national mens basketball team, they’ve always had problems with the Americans. Bit of a tenuous hook for an op-ed piece though.
What were/are Baby-Boomers up to? Making money after we’d had a riotous yoof.And now we’re into spending the kids’ inheritance and thanking Gaia we’ll probably be dead before the worst of climate change hits.
Shorter Miranda: My head has exploded.
Any analysis that claims to talk sense while asserting that Clinton and Bush have anything in common except for the accident of some reasonably contiguous birthdates doesn’t deserve to wrap fish.
If baby boomers have achieved noting else they can at least go to their graves content that they have driven Miranda Devine mad.
Why is there this constant need to put people into appropriately labelled baskets? boomers, Gen-X, leftys, RWDBs, Greenies, bogans….. whatever.
Reminds me of that classic Life of Brian scene….
Brian: ‘you are all individuals’
Crowd in unison: ‘yes we are all individuals’
lone voice: ‘I’m not’
I’ll be linking to this post. I agree – it is a more complex assemblage of themes. Great post.
Now I’m really confused, the SMH leads with
“Boomers bust: Election ends Gen X, Miranda Devine says”
but Mandy commences with
“Either way next week, the US presidential election is the kiss of death to the short, unhappy rise to power of the baby-boomer generation.”
Her waters run so deep that not even the subs at the SMH can fathom them.
That old rascal Sting and his execrable Russians loving children tooooo schtick kinda summed it up: old buggers playing poker with nukes was no way to run a world.
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Indeed the best thing Sting ever
ripped off from Prokofievwrote..
It’s much better these days. Instead of playing poker with nukes. We’ve got people playing Russian Roulette with ‘em. Vast improvement.
Paul Burns – What were/are Baby-Boomers up to? Making money after we’d had a riotous yoof.And now we’re into spending the kids’ inheritance and thanking Gaia we’ll probably be dead before the worst of climate change hits.
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More boomer sanctimonious triumphalism. Well not so fast buddy. We’ve got plans for you lot.