Gen-X went through exactly the same bullshit in the early 90s. Don’t believe me" Watch “Reality Bites” sometime. This was made as “the” Gen-X movie and essentially consists of an hour and a half of 20 somethings whining like children about how they don’t know what to do with their fancy liberal arts degree and how hard life is when your parents give you huge “gifts” every few months for no reason. The number of 90s movies with this precise theme are legion, ranging from painful-to-watch angst like reality bites through to comedies like “Tommy -Boy”
The only small point in our favour is that us Gen-Xers graduated in the middle of a recession and genuinely had a tough time finding jobs so a small amount of the whining was justifed. But it gave me the shots when I was your age just as it is giving you the shits now. But we were immersed in this self-obsessed, whiny, overprivileged shit 15+ years ago. Just listen to some *Nirvana *or Smashing Pumpkins to see just how bad it was.
This isn’t something new or unique to Gen-Y, and quite frankly I don’t think it’s going to end this generation or next. It’s a malaise caused by children being raised as to be shallow human beings. Once they stop being “entertained” constantly by teachers and parents they suddenly realise how pointless their lives are and start bitching about it.
The consensus is that anyone born before 1980 (age 0 to 28) is Generation Y or a “Millennial”. Anyone born from 1965 to 1980 (age 28 to 43) is Generation X.
The term “quarter life crisis” was coined some time ago. John Mayer references it in his lyrics to “Why Georgia”, although he didn’t invent the term. Basically, it’s just a fancy media created expression for “growing the fuck up”. Traditionally, young 20-somethings go through their QLC about the time they graduate college. It basically is a catch-all term for dealing with all the changes and angst of leaving the sheltered world of college, finding a job and a career, moving out of your parents house, and possibly finding love, raising a family and all that. Basically joining the adult world as a functioning adult.
While the transition from college kid to working adult has been around for awhile (ever see St Elmos Fire?), it became a bit more pronounced in the 90s with Generation X. A lot of us graduated college into a recession and had to come to terms with the realities of the world being very different from the expectations created during the affluent 80s. While Baby Boomers had found long term, well paying careers, Gen X had found themselves underemployed or unemployed in unfullfilling, low paying jobs that could be taken away at a moments notice. Partially because of a lack of direction and partially because for financial reasons, Gen X was taking longer to move out of their parents house, longer to find fullfilling jobs and longer to settle down and get married (if ever). This had the effect of creating a sort of long post-adolescent pre-adult transition period where we more or less continued to act like college sophomores. Basically characterized by living in group housing arangements, excessive drug and alchohol use, multiple short term commitmentless relationships, and underemployment
The angst of this period can be seen in movies like Singles, Reality Bites, Empire Records, High Fidelity hundreds of indie films and the TV show Friends.
Of course a lot of this changed in the late 90s with the Dot-com boom as tech jobs were once again plentiful. By the time 9/11 came around most of us were in out 30s and a bit more secure in life anyway.
I suspect Generation Y will also experience this, but it will be even more pronounced. They will have grown up during the dot com bubble, expecting to graduate and become Internet millionares. Instead they have graduated into the post 9/11 world and now there is the financial crisis which will likely last for at least a year or two. Most of them will have spent their childhoods being told how special they are by teachers and helicopter parents, very different from the “latchkey kids” of Gen X. So it will be interesting to see what happens in a few years.
Or we could just reinstitute the draft. That’ll thin out their ranks.
It’s interesting, my experience as a Gen Xer was very different from what is being described here. I graduated High School into a boom economy and got really good jobs simply because I knew how to use a computer at all. Didn’t even go to college, went straight into the job market in 1996.
Anyone entering the job market after 9/11 who still expected a dotcom boom job simply wasn’t paying attention. It was actually the introduction of all the Gen Y compsci majors that ruined the market for those of us without a degree.
Yes, but the phemomenon ante-dates the term. Astologers call it your Saturn Returns, 'cause it’s the time when Saturn returns to the place it was when you were born.
I’m not a believer in the causation theory of astrology, but damn it all if most people don’t have some sort of existential/work/marriage/home crisis between 27-30. The good news is that you can then settle down and life gets calmer.
The bad news is that there’s another Saturn Returns near 56. “Mid life” crisis, anyone? Get through that and you’re good to go until it comes around again in the neighborhood of 84, at which point it usually kills ya.
Since no thread is complete without some nitpicking I feel obliged to say the term is also inaccurate, just like “mid-life crisis.” For most people, mid-life is a little before 40, and the quarter post would be a bit before 20. Few people live to be 100, so 50 is not the middle of your life and 23-30 sure isn’t a quarter. That’s another reason the term is kind of annoying.
So what happens in a Quarter-Life crisis? You trade in your stodgy old Camaro for a Mustang? You dump your 28 year old girlfriend so you can hook up with a 27 year old? You stop shopping at the Gap and head over to Old Navy instead? You start going out to the bars every Friday and Saturday an hour later in the evening?
Mid-life crisis is where it’s at, boys and girls. And I don’t even have to comb-over yet.
It’s a little different. Watch some of the movies mentioned (add Garden State to that list as well). Where a mid-life crisis is driven by feelings of lost youth and regret over where your life is, a QLC is driven by fear or anxiety of where your life is going. A guy in a MLC might buy a sports car or date a much younger woman. A guy in a QLC probably just hangs out in bars and coffee shops just being miserable because he can’t afford a sports car or trophy girl.
Marley23, I don’t think it has to mean the literal chronological point in your life. I mean how much do you remember of the first ten years or so anyway?
I think that the quarter-life crisis is something that most young adults *don’t *experience. By the time I turned 26, I had a master’s degree, a husband and a mortgage. And that was pretty typical for the other people I knew, too. Most folks graduate from college and just get on with their lives. But that doesn’t make interesting fodder for “lifestyle” pieces in magazines.
Exactly. I only know one person who went through an honest to god “quarter life crisis” of the whole whining, crying, why me?, why me?, ohhh! money from mom and dad thing.
Other people may be underemployed, but the whole “crisis” jag is what gets on my nerves.
I know, I know. Just had to make the point. Similarly:
So is it the name “quarter-life crisis” that bothers you, or is the problem the idea of people at that point in life having a crisis? It certainly doesn’t rise to the level of crisis for everybody - it didn’t for me - but I saw a bunch of people the same age go through some issues that were generally similar because they were all related to the transition they were going through in life. Not everybody goes through a mid-life “crisis” at 50 either. For most people, the term seems to get applied to any minor change they make in their appearance or vehicle. That does not a crisis make. But the cliche acknowledges that a lot of people face the same issues at that period in their lives. Is one of those more valid than the other, to you?
*So you’ve been to school for a year or two
and you know you’ve seen it all.
In daddy’s car thinking you’ll go far,
back East your type don’t crawl.
Playing ethnic-y jazz to parade your snazz
on your five grand stereo.
Braggin’ how you know how the niggers feel cold
and the slums got so much soul.
It’s time to face what you most fear.
Right Guard will not help you here.
Brace yourself, my dear.
Brace yourself, my deeeear.
It’s a holiday in Cambodia
It’s tough, kid, but it’s life
It’s a holiday in Cambodia
Don’t forget to pack a wife.*[right]Dead Kennedys, Holiday In Cambodia[/right]
Technology and modern advantages for many youths I feel has made them expect more for less. If my generation is bad (I’m 26, I went through a quarter crisis…but through it I kept my job and didn’t complain publicly) I don’t think the next will be any better. Once China dominates North America economically and times become tough over here, maybe then we will begin to buck up and work hard.
It’ easy to categorize people as whiners, but many of my friends come from a higher economic bracket. When I’m teaching in shitsville while my friends are partying and having fun in the big city, it makes it tough on me. I’m over it now. It’s all about persepective, I now know I am more fortunate than most.
I think the QLC is driven by a lot of different things. I think the chief problem cause of the QLC is the belief that once you get started down the road to adulthood then you’re set for life. That’s the scary thing about it. I think it’s because most kids with QLC are used to seeing parents who essentially did the same thing since they started working.
I used to have those feelings of anxiety about having missed the boat somehow. I didn’t go to a particularly good school and got your bland liberal arts degree. I didn’t really have high expectations either. However, I later realized that the whole concept of the QLC is bullshit. Being an adult means you can do whatever the hell you want. If you want to change careers when you’re 30 then you can damn well do that.
If you’re not inclined to get stuck in a rut, there’s no reason for you to get stuck in a rut. I always felt that somehow I was going to be sucked into a world where I’d have kids and such at a young age, but it’s not necessary.
So that’s what the QLC is in my opinion. The unfounded fear that you have to become your parents the minute you get a real job and a career.
I agree. I’ve met only one person who resembles the OP’s stereotype. He had just graduated from Dartmouth and had found himself in existential angst because he was no longer special (he was at the bottom of the totem pole at his job) and he wanted to have more fun (he felt he was too special to need to work like the rest of us). But most of the young people I’ve encountered are not like this, though.
Similarly: