A Generation X Call For Sanity In A Digital World
WHAT IS GENERATION X?
Generation X, a term coined by Douglas Coupland in a Vanity Fair article in 1987, are Americans born roughly between 1965 and 1980. We don’t have the shadow of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights struggle hanging over us like the Baby Boomers do. And we don’t have the wry, detached, Internet-fueled cynicism of Millennials. What we have is a belief in things that matter, a desire to make the world a better place, and a love of our fellow human beings.
We don’t think everything in life is a joke. We actually believe there’s a time to be serious, and we make no apologies for this. We grew up in the seventies and eighties. We lived through the decline of the nation’s great cities, Reagan’s musclebound imperialism, and trickle down economics. Which were actually trickle-up, BTW. We also suffered through Iran-Contra, the first Persian Gulf War, and Bill Clinton’s notorious infidelities.
We saw the fall of America’s great stars, like O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, and Bill Clinton himself. So we know that there’s a time for laughing, but there’s also a time for being serious. Because life is too important to be blase all the time.
Our generation witnessed the 80’s Wall Street frenzy, the Savings and Loan debacle, and Black Monday in 1987, when the stock market collapsed. We also saw the birth of the term Yuppie, and the rise of hip-hop as the dominant global art form.
We read books. Everything from Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye to Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club to Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero. It was a time of demographic change, rising diversity, and artful discovery among young people. All of which was reflected in the literature of the day.
And how did we read those books? We went to a library, one of which could be found in most neighborhoods throughout America’s cities and suburbs. You went to the library, you showed the librarian your library card, and you borrowed a book for a couple of weeks.
There were no screens, tablets, kindles, computers or smartphones in the library. The books were written in ink on printed paper, with a spine and a glossy cover photo. They were cozy, they were warm, and they were beautiful.
It was wholly unlike today’s reading experience, where libraries were lined with rows of screens, and Google replaced card catalogs as the search engine of choice.
Despite Reagan’s racial demagoguery and the spread of crack cocaine in the 80’s, we still managed to have a great time growing up.
Our era had some of the country’s best pop culture phenomenons ever in TV, film and music.
We had Sesame Street, the most progressive, racially diverse and socially conscious show ever, all wrapped lovingly in a children’s show.
We had Miami Vice, with Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas, who was one of the first African-American TV actors to have a fully realized persona.
We had great film directors, making great movies, such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg. We’d stack The Godfather, Goodfellas and Raiders of the Lost Ark up against the best that American cinema has ever produced.
The music of our era was diverse, rich, and meaningful, in contrast to the stereotype of 80’s music as cheesy synthesizer junk. I mean think of it. Some of the greatest pop legends to ever grace the stage debuted in the seventies and eighties, from Bruce Springsteen to Michael Jackson to Whitney Houston to Prince. RIP Michael, Whitney and Prince, gone but not forgotten. They left a musical legacy that reverberates to this day.
Our music was played on 33” or 45” records, with roughly ten songs per album. You put the record on, you played the whole thing, and you listened to it. That’s just the way it was done.
Tapes came next, and they were revolutionary. Along with Walkmans, they miniaturized the music listening experience, and the Rewind, Fast Forward, and Record functions were like manna from Heaven. Lastly, we had the CD player, which was great for its time. And if you were really lucky, you had a 6 CD shuffle player to mix up your songs.
MP3 players came next, and they were cool but short-lived, knocked out of the ring by Napster and streaming services.
Here’s the thing. If you stack a tape or CD player up against today’s smartphone with a Spotify app, the phone and app win hands down. But records, tapes and CD’s had a warmth to them that the coldness of the digital music world just can’t replicate. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still take the smartphone, but you do lose some authenticity in the process.
The modern environmental movement was born during our watch, ushered in with the first earth day on April 22, 1970. And as we tragically witness daily or weekly, the nation is besieged from coast to coast by global warming-induced hurricanes, biblical floods, and ravaging wildfires.
So the environmental movement and environmental consciousness is needed now more than ever to combat this plague.
As far as food goes, there was no UberEats, Grubhub, or DoorDash. There was also no array of diverse foods such as Vietnamese, Japanese, Brazilian or Thai. If you wanted to do take-out your options were basically pizza or Americanized Chinese food.
Other than those two, which were rare treats, you had to actually shop for and COOK your own food. You shopped at various stores in your neighborhood, from the butcher to the baker to the candlestick maker. And over time you built up relationships with the shopkeepers, stopping to chat and and shoot the sh** with them.
This is in stark contrast to Whole Paycheck, Trader Joe’s and the like. These are great stores, but the shopping experience there is cold and robotic. You get in and get out as quickly as possible.
Switching gears, the fifty-year long Cold War ended on our watch, brought about by Reagan and Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika, along with a healthy dose of Soviet Union command-economy implosion. While it’s true that freedom and democracy triumphed, let’s not forget that free market capitalism also played a major role.
The modern LGBTQ movement began during Gen X’s time. And the AIDS crisis — which Reagan shamefully refused to acknowledge or help address — galvanized a new generation of gay activists and brought the beautiful colors of the rainbow together.
We didn’t have the Internet. When we started out in the 70’s, the only screen in the house was a 12” black and white TV, and you only got 13 channels. That’s if you were lucky. Then came color TV’s, and eventually cable TV, which was a revelation. 57 channels? Wow, what a bonanza!
Generation X also had a reverence for things that came before us. World War II, Vietnam and Watergate meant something to us, and we wanted to know about these wars because they informed our lives and our parents’ lives. We understood that there was a whole world that lived, breathed, worked, created, laughed, cried, and loved before we were ever born.
We wanted to know about history, and to learn from our elders. If you can’t learn from those who have more life experience than you, either your priorities are out of whack, or you’re just an ***hole.
The other night I listened to jazz on my Google Home. It’s a pretty cool gadget. You can play music, listen to the news, or look up anything you want just by talking to it.
The music I listened to sounded great. First I listened to John Coltrane, a jazz legend. Because I was born in 1974, and Coltrane died in 1967, I really didn’t know his work well. He sounded great on the Sax. Languid, slow, passionate, and supremely confident as he belted out the notes.
While I love Coltrane, I know more about Miles Davis, another jazz legend. They were both born in 1926, but Coltrane died at 40 and Davis lived until 65. So Miles has the dominant oeuvre, and his music absolutely rocks. It was great to learn about a new artist, one who came before my time and who I knew little about.
I believe it’s important to absorb history from the past. Younger generations have many great attributes, but also too little understanding of history, and too little respect for their elders.
Generation X has a reverence for those who came before us. That’s what’s lacking from too many Millenials and Gen Z. I believe they mean well, but it’s just not in their DNA to investigate the past after growing up with screens instead of friends.
I’m making a broad statement, and there are many, many exceptions. But my point is that Generation X wanted to learn from history, and to use that knowledge to make our lives and the world better.
Millennials and Generation Z far too often ignore history in favor of Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and social media more broadly. While superficially energizing, social media is in reality completely and utterly cold. After spending time on social media, the user almost always ends up feeling bad about themselves while not knowing why.
The Internet can do many great things. It’s changed the world in lots of positive ways. But it’s also a frigid, icy, heartless place where you can watch murder videos on Facebook, engage in cyberbullying on Twitter, and partake in body shaming on Instagram. It’s not a place you really want to spend a lot of time on, especially if you’re young and impressionable.
Generation X is a serious generation. But although we’re serious, what we do has humor, wit and grace. We believe our voices have been neglected for far too long, and it’s time to let the Gen X lions roar.
There are over 80 million Baby Boomers and 80 million Millennials in America, but only 60 million Gen X’ers. Part of that has to do with fluctuations in birth rates, part is due to socio-historical and economic reasons, and part of it is just the luck of the draw.
But that doesn’t make us less important. In fact, it makes us more important, because there are so few of us to speak up and tell the world how we feel. And now more than ever it’s time we speak up loudly. Because social media is turning the world into one dumbed-down emoji chat room after another. Generation X wants to tell stories that matter, just like our time growing up mattered, and the life experiences we had made us who we are.
If you feel the same way I do, if you believe in something, then why not take just a few minutes break from your screen every day, put on some jazz, R & B or whatever you like, and enjoy the utter chill and majesty of a soul legend like Marvin Gaye. While you’re at it, maybe you can even read a book or the newspaper.
If that doesn’t grab you, call a friend on your smartphone, or as I like to call it the dumbphone, and have an actual conversation instead of a text exchange. Get involved in community events. Join an offline club. Help save the planet. Because in a few more decades there may be no planet left to save.
Most important, do something that matters, offline and offscreen. Love your sisters. Love your brothers. Love your parents and children. Love your friends. Get involved in the world. To quote a popular Generation X 1970’s hit song from The Doobie Brothers:
Without love,
Where would you be now?
About the author:
Charles Tanzer is the publisher of genxchronicle.com. He’s a writer and consultant based in New York City. Charles grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, went to college at Oberlin in Ohio, and on to graduate school at Columbia. He also lived abroad in Japan and Indonesia.
Charles is also a huge music fan, amateur chef, photographer, guitar player, and sports junkie. Last but not least, he’s the proud papa to his beautiful adopted cat Copper.
