Can’t comment on the boobies, but did anyone ever tell you that you look like that girl from the 70’s show * Three’s Company*?
Yeah. Her and Meg Tilly. Unless I’ve just gotten out of bed, when I bear a frieghtening resemblence to Marty Feldman.
No, he said to add ten years. He thinks GenXers were born in 1962. Which is still wrong. That would make them 29 for “SLTS”. I think not.
I dont’t know where you get 1982 from. I said s/he should add ten years, i.e. 1962. Cobain was born in '67 and while Nirvana rougly coincided with the Book that named the whole thing, by Douglas Coupland, born in '61.
A person born with baby boomer parents can’t be a GenX. To be that, you need to be too young to be drafted for Vietnam (i.e. born 1957 at the earliest), yet not old enough to be part of the hippie/anti-war/movement of choice that plagued the late 60’s and early 70’s. GenerationX is those in between, forever hindered by those damn BB and being taken over by the BB kids. So 1957-1970.
Rilchiam, The Gaspode: You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. I must have misread the post or something.
I was born of Baby Boomer parents (meaning, my dad was a WWII vet). I was a “late in life child.” My parents married when they were “older” and I was their youngest. I was too young for VietNam, too young for Beatles (who is Ed Sullivan?), for the anti-war movement, and so forth. But yet my dad was a WWII vet.
These things are too difficult to measure, I think. Of course, I don’t really identify with GenX either. Though to be honest, the music that I am most fond of (if you don’t count my obsession for Classical music) is '80s music. I consider that the music of my era. But my dad was a WWII vet. Go figure.
You mean 374 days. Live Aid was July 13, 1985.
TeaElle, Live Aid attendee, 3rd row, RFK stadium.
Do generations mean much at all?
Considering that my parents are both ‘baby boomer’ generation, and I was too young for Vietnam (by quite a bit), and I saw Pulp Fiction in its original theatrical release, I’m guessing I’d fit into that rough guidline, but just barely.
As would many of the people I grew up with. I’m at the upper end in terms of the years, but also for some odd reason remember things like MTV’s first video.
My sister’s also, according to the year definition a Gen-Xer, but is younger than me and has no meaningful memory of the early 80s. Seems that mostly, generations by term are a lot less cohesive than the media would like.
I was born in 1975, and at the time I remember considering myself to be at the very tail end of Generation X. (I was a senior in high school when Kurt Cobain shot himself.) I’ve never really heard anyone define the term with dates, though.
Not exactly. I said I didn’t need to hear any more about Elvis Presley.
I must be from some Lost Generation. I’m just wandering through this barren desert in search of truth.
And some pointy boots.
And a few snack crackers.*
*Southern Culture On The Skids, Camel Walk.
**There’s an article in today’s New York Times magazine on child-rearing techniques among “Gen Xers”, also referred to by the writer as “slackers” - surely the most hilariously moronic tag for a generation ever devised.
I was never that impressed with the so-called influence of the BBs.
Although born in 1958, I was brought up in a very Edwardian manner and didn’t really get my chance to develop independently until later than most of my peers.
I also think that very many around my age were similar, they have somehow extended their social awareness to a time before they had any self determination, so now we get folk born 1955-60 somehow believing they were part of the 60’s generation when the reality is that their late teens and early adulthood were really in the 70’s.
The influence of the BBs is actually only just now beginning to happen, BBs are just about reaching the positions where they have political and economic power in terms of national and company policy.
You simply do not see many truly influential folk this side of 50, and the majority are still around 60, its almost as if the BBs would like to muscle them out of the way, todays current crop of leaders are still products of WWII, all around the world and some are somewhat older.
I was brought up with a keen awareness of WWI -told you my upbringing was Edwardian, and I do remember plenty of tv documentaries about that subject, kids comics were full of the stuff and as years went on the documentaries turned to WWII.
The thing that has effectively created the idea of the 60’s to me was the massive expansion and reach of the media, the free love stuff was always hype to most folk, along with the hippy era, it was just something that sold papers and looked good on tv.
I remember when Generation X was fronted by Billy Idol, might still have some vinyl around.
You had such coherent thoughts when you were born? 
Read the book and think about what time it was written.
It’s actually pretty good, even though Coupland’s work has matured and gotten steadily better over the years.
Move to Western Pennsylvania and you can, if you wish, hear all the Buddy Holly, Platters, Shirelles, Supremes and Everly Brother’s you want!
Late "GenX"er here. I don’t mind the looking-back shows. Some can be fun. I would just like to ask the producers of these shows one favor - can the commentators please be old enough to remember the time period?
Oh, and just who is that Michael Ian Black guy? (I think that’s his name.)
Even as a boomer I can sympathize. I hate it when I’m walking past the television set, minding my own business, and all of a sudden — WHAM! It grabs me by the temples and pins me down while setting itself onto a Woodstock marathon. Same thing with those damn magazines, flying into my face as I’m moseying down the sidewalk boogying to Nick Lache.
TeaElle – It was JFK stadium. Philadelphia.
Oh, go suck an egg. There’s no one here who doesn’t know that you don’t have to watch or read anything you don’t want to watch or read. What’s aggravating is that there the amount of time and space in the media devoted to stroking the BBs leaves so much less for other subjects.
Just wait until our body parts start wearing out, and we come after your paired organs.
You forget that us BBs are the kids of the Greatest Generation (complain to Tom Brokaw if you don’t like it). We got big heads because our parents indulged us way beyond even their own expectations. The results of that indulgence are the whiny brats like you.
Call me when you grow up. We’ll talk then. Oh, wait, you’re 32. Deal with it. That’s what adults do.
Uh…not to get pissy and anal about media outlets, but they aren’t a finite resource being hogged unfairly by…them. An equally compelling case could be made for movies targeted toward young males. Gotta have them explosions, car chases, cartoon chases and giddy first love.
Or just walk through malls, with clothing options firmly skewed toward the youthful, lissome and trendy.
Choose yer paranoia already, but get over it. Markets focus on what will support them, nothing more. They shift and respond, so get used to it.
Apologies for a little Boomer Humor here, but as a native Cincinnatian I always relished the pilot of WKRP in Cincinnati because it was based in fact–and this was when FM radio was a tentative, radical new outlet. (WCPO instead of WKRC, but both were numbingly stodgy in fomat.) They switched format mid-day, only slightly exaggerated in the tv show’s commerical for a nursing home: “Who will feed me when I can no longer feed myself?”, followed by ripping rock. Of course it was followed shortly by several excellent alternative FM stations, including a jazz station based on a river barge.
Speaking only for myself, I’d be happy if I never heard another “oldies” station again, because most of 'em seem to replay the most banal, horrendous schlock, over and over and over again. The truly edgy, quirky, individual stuff has gotten lost in the shuffle. And that’s marketing idiocy too.
It just isn’t limited by generations.
Veb