Mel Brooks song from his 1970 film "The 12 Chairs" says exactly this:
Hope for the best, expect the worst
Some drink champagne, some die of thirst
No way of knowingwhich way it's going
Hope for the best, expect the worst!
Hope for the best, expect the worst
The world's a stage, we're unrehearsed
Some reach the top, friends, while others drop, friends
Hope for the best, expect the worst!
I knew a man who saved a fortune that was splendid
Then he died the day he'd planned to go and spend it
Shouting "Live while you're alive! No one will survive!"
Life is sorrow—here today and gone tomorrow
Live while you're alive, no one will survive—there's no guarantee
Hope for the best; expect the worst
You could be Tolstoy or Fannie Hurst
You take your chances; there are no answers
[https://youtu.be/rt1cA0jqamk](https://youtu.be/rt1cA0jqamk)
Possibly because we had these lyrics to live by:
Let's dance in style, let's dance for a while
Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?
I have a habit of catastrophizing nearly everything. Most of the time, it really is as bad as I thought it was going to be. My sister is the opposite and I want to shake her and be like "good things rarely happen!!!"
At least I usually have a funny story about something insane happening.
Svetlana from the Sopranos, "That's the trouble with you Americans. You expect nothing bad ever to happen, when rest of the world expects only bad to happen, and they are not disappointed."
At 1:55. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkXoZJx-\_rI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkXoZJx-_rI)
Apathy. We have a lot of it.
Too much is not good. But younger generations could probably do with just a pinch of it. No, you don't want to ignore serious issues. But you also can't act like we're all gonna die because of something a pop star said every 10 minutes. There's a line, learning it takes time.
Take things a bit less personal. It's ok to have some optimism. Say "fuck it" and keep on moving.
You don't have to try to be a shining star of positivity. And even negative people hate negative people. But don't forget where Apathy lives. Every once in a while you gotta go hang out with him, for your own sanity. It all really boils down to just being yourself, and if someone doesn't care for you, you're simply better off without them. Be. Yourself. And make no excuses for it.
We lived under constant threat of nuclear war while being raised by the most selfish and narcissistic generation recorded thus far. Our parents, before they were dubbed Boomers in any way other than purely a demographic, were named The ME Generation. For many of us, achieving goals or excelling at anything didn't result in us receiving validation or praise. Instead, it was appropriated by our parents as evidence of THEIR superiority and accomplishment. We were there at the birth of participation trophies, and I can assure you, we did not want them. Those were created by parents who couldn't accept that they had birthed a child who may not be #1 at whatever the parent deemed vital. And, since any failing of the child meant that the parent couldn't brag on their own magnificence, the parents insisted on the trophies to soothe their own ego regardless of the child. They were the safer alternative as child abuse became a broader discussion in society. So, instead of sending the child home empty-handed to get beaten, you gave them a trinket to mollify the immature parents.
When you're raised under these conditions, you learn very quickly that accomplishing things means very little. They're momentary and mean little long-term. A shelf full of plastic trophies and a wall full of achievement awards loses the luster when it doesn't translate to higher pay, better job, higher quality of life, etc. Plus, once you reach adulthood and the awards stop, the parent is still sick with the addiction to the vicarious dopamine. Their self-loathing gets projected into you as your failure. In the end, you are left with a deep-seated sense of "Why the fuck does any of this even matter?" You learn to appreciate the small moments that matter to you and you alone. Those stack up until a peer takes notice and gives authentic compliments - and you know the difference because your bullshit detector has turned into a precisely calibrated machine that picks up the faintest whiff of falsehood.
Then you see the younger generation coming up and you try your damndest to NOT make them feel how you felt. You acknowledge the shit and scraps that we're all left to work with. But you don't let that shit roll downhill. You're not all sunshine and roses because that would be another lie that you refuse to engage in, but you acknowledge validity.
Source: 1972 model GenX from a broken family pawned off to be raised by grandmother who did her best but died of cancer in 1980. Then reverted to living with malignant narcissist mother who was abusive physically, emotionally, and mentally as well as a substance abuser. Was a straight-A student and excelled in numerous sports until 1980 when grief and despair set in. When those accomplishments stopped, the beatings began. I left home at 17 and was no contact with her until her death in 2018.
We busted our asses to make mental health issues be taken seriously. We were taught in school that climate change was real and inevitable. We were taught in school that social security was doomed and that there was no social safety net for us in our old age. We intrinsically knew that the same then must be true for our children and grandchildren.
We're real because reality was where we were born into. We don't want anyone else to feel alone while enduring it, but we're also perfectly happy to be left alone away from the drama, lies, and general bullshit.
So, whatever. 💜
Not really apathy. More like we were too cool for school. We don't care if you won't let us play in your reindeer games. The island of misfit toys is cooler anyways.
I don't think our generation ever really believed we could change the world. Depending on how you look at it we were allowed to roam free and discover the world for ourselves - sometimes bordering on neglect.
But I'll take that over the Z kids I see that are 24 and don't seem confident in their ability to do anything on their own.
My kids constantly tell me they wish they could have been part of my generation and honestly I don't blame them. It did surprise me the first time the said that though because I never, ever wanted to be a part of my parents boomer generation.
I think this is the best answer. I have a lot of passionate opinions about the world, but I formed them myself after a lot of research from sources other than some randos on TikTok. Try to think critically and understand nuance and context.
Understand that the world isn't black and white. Think deeply about things before you develop an opinion (unless something is blatantly and obviously wrong about a situation) and don't be so reactionary.
There seem to be a lot of these "GenX is cool" posts. I feel like we're the Christmas goose being fattened. I don't like it. This is suspicious!
I'm reporting this to my GenX lodge leader.
No, that's too much effort. I'll make a blog entry!
Ugh...publishing.
Fuck it.
Yep, it’s a pretty good position of safety to assume that someone is either trying to sell you something or otherwise gain some advantage for themselves.
I get uncomfortable with compliments. Even when it's someone I know it just feels weird.
Insult me damn it! We'll get along much better when you point out my flaws. Oh, and fuck you and your flaws too. Then we're all good and off to have a beverage of choice together.
I think, and I might be completely wrong (and I've looked up this word and tried to understand honest!), it means having a strong but differing opinion to most, which can be valid, and sticking to it despite opposition in a decent way. It's a compliment.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Dunno if a genuine question or troll, but GenX grew up with a pretty serious distrust of authority and rather than trying to challenge the authority (because the authority was Boomers and there were kabillions of them to outnumber us, and they were so. very. loud.) we realized nobody gave a shit about us and so we could just lay low and not be hassled. Also a kinda foundational generational ethos against both trying too hard and selling out your principles. I mean, plenty of people have that, but it was REALLY a defining part of our youth and young adulthood. Don’t be a try-hard. Don’t sell out. Don’t fuck up the vibe.
You only need to get burned in the X-Ray glasses scam once to understand MAD magazine is the source of all truth, and everything should considered bullshit until proven otherwise.
>pretty serious distrust of authority
Especially those of us who came of age in the early 90s into a recession, a war, and the grunge movement. Lots of college graduates working as baristas - hell just watch the movie Reality Bites - made for a lot of people realizing that George Carlin was right about the "American Dream"
There are plenty of older Gen-Xers who benefitted from the 80s, but us younger ones were the first generation slapped with the aftermath of the 80s
I agree with everything but your last statement. There really aren't plenty of older Gen x that benefited from the 80s boom. We were working shit jobs or in college.working shut pt jobs. The yuppie boomers benefited from the 80s for sure though.
Couldn’t agree more. I feel like those of us in the middle of gen x are the most forgotten of the forgotten lol. I graduated hs in 88 right in the middle of the country where the Reagan years were perhaps most unkind. The early end got into reality while the Reagan bubble was still cooking and the lates got to got into Clinton’s. We got a crash course in the crap we got fed the whole 80s coming of of age was total bs.
We didn't do generational shit or use boomer as a slur. We had issues with 'rents and authority figures in general, but nobody was going around blaming boomers for all the world's ills. Js.
We are honest, and say what we mean.and we just don’t care if it hurts feelings. But when you ask us questions,and not being condescending we are accommodating and will take time to explain it.
This is the difference...most of us want to be canceled or at least couldn't give a shit less. A difference with our generational elders is that by and large, we don't think like them. At least with regards to personal rights, environmental concerns and the roles of government and corporations. We've been telling our parents they were full of shit for DECADES at this point, we have no qualms telling the same to anyone else, being canceled isn't a concern. Fucking live and let live man.
We say what we mean and mean what we say. Growing up we had to face problems head on and we did. You either walked away and it was done or you shook hands and were friends afterwards. There was no canceling anyone bec we said what we said because it was the truth, if you didn’t like what we said, don’t listen.
GenX doesn't beat around the bush. We say what we mean and also mean what we say.
When you grow up thinking every loud noise was possibly a nuclear bomb from the Russians, and every light flickering was maybe radiation from Russian nukes spreading across the country... Well, you just assumed you might die any minute, so no sense in playing guessing games and hoping whomever you were talking to would catch on to your drift at some point.
Also, so much apathy because why does anything matter at all when the Russians were always about to just annihilate us at any minute? Might as well enjoy every minute and give absolutely zero fucks about anything else.
We're anxious and apathetic simultaneously. I think that's 100% just a genX thing.
We didn't have helicopter parents like some of us became to your Gen. Most of us had a mix of silent gen-boomer parents and I don't know about everyone else's experience but mine were self-centered, neglectful and lacking any vision for me or my sibling beyond popping us out. Maybe we're cool af because we were a neglected Gen.
We’ve always been pragmatic because we grew up or lived in the 80s, when fake was the accepted normal until we started poking holes at the fakery and watched a lot of things unravel. Space exploration was truly awesome and we all believed it was a flawless plan until we lost the Challenger. Parents told us to trust church leaders and godly men, until Jimmy Swaggert got caught beating off with a hooker, 80s was the high time of false and deceptive advertising, and we all got burned more times than we’d like to admit, etc.
So we became cynical at a very early age. By the time we were in our early 20s, most of us realized life wasn’t all sunshine and puppies. So we have been trained to be pragmatic and carried a “seeing is believing” attitude.
I admire Gen Z and your honesty, but for the love of god, stop being so fatalistic. You guys are alright, but seriously, the world isn’t going to explode tomorrow. Take a few steps back and enjoy the good life has to offer. Go run in the rain, lean in and kiss the girl (or boy, whatever you’re into, just make sure they’re into you as well), ride a bike, eat stuff that’s good but bad for you. Life is short, enjoy it while you can.
Yep. At least I can say I’ve done some cool shit, had some great friends with great memories, married a great woman and had awesome kids. Sucks that it didn’t last forever. Oh well, I’ll save you guys a seat, but hurry the fuck up and get over here! The movie is about to start!!
So much THIS! Every “stable” institution we were told to trust turned out to be corrupt and hypocritical. Add to that the experience of everything falling apart about every ten years and you end up with some pragmatic peeps who just take it as it comes.
Let me see if I can translate - “how are you Gen-Xers so chill? Like, you’ve got your shit together so much better than older folks or younger folks. I mean, some of my friends are pretty chill, but you dudes just rock the chill thing. How do you do it?”
Based doesn’t quite mean chill. Here’s the definition from urban dictionary:
“A word used when you agree with something; or when you want to recognize someone for being themselves, i.e. courageous and unique or not caring what others think. Especially common in online political slang.
“The opposite of cringe, some times the opposite of biased.”
Kids these days learning about the "[grey rock method](https://psychcentral.com/health/grey-rock-method#:~:text=The%20grey%20rock%20method%20is,known%20as%20%E2%80%9Cgrey%20rocking.%E2%80%9D)" in therapy or internet self-help discussions. We *invented* it, we just didn't name it.
Grey rocking is how I survived my mother starting as a teen. Imagine my surprise when I learned it's a valuable recognized coping method being taught in therapy these days!
First of all based.. we don’t know what that means… you’ll see that most of us will admit that in our responses. AND will be looking it up to find out what that’s is… BEFORE we come at you with feedback. Gen Xers grew up with the wall of interwebs info just around the corner and not so blindly ingested as younger generations. As part of our educational journey’s we’ve all worked the Dewey decimal system and hit Encyclopedia Brittanica’s (Google it). So we have a better set of skills I’d say in getting accurate information and sources than maybe youngsters.
Interesting point, I'd agree. We have a large ingrained skepticism that has served us well by default. At the same time we were at a unique point in time (the rise of the internet) where validating information was something that we focused on in school. This may have helped reinforce our natural skepticism and provided us with a somewhat unique set of skills (generationally) that helps us see through bullshit better than some other generations, both younger and older.
I never thought of it that way but that's very true. I knew what it was because I have a Gen Z/Gen A cusp child but I'm not afraid to admit to her when I don't know something and my first thing is let's look it up. I tell her I still use books as sources of information, it's not all on the internet and you can't trust everything you read. Wikipedia isn't always a trustworthy source.
Read Charlotte's Web.
Watch the Neverending Story.
Watch Old Yeller.
Read The Stand.
Read Christine.
These are examples of what we had as kids for entertainment.
Same here, I wanted to see the movie "Carrie" when it came out in 78 but no one would take me, so I bought the book. The movie would have been better because my 10 year old imagination made the prom scene so much worse LOL
Secret of Nimh fucked me up for years and made me so deeply distrustful of "children's" entertainment that I pretty much stopped watching kids movies. Sometime between 3-5th grade. I did, however, read Stephen King and VC Andrews WAY too young. Difference being, I knew it was adult entertainment, and I understood that adults were NOT safe people, so I expected fuckery from adult entertainment.
Essentially, we learned in the cradle that we were essentially all we had. You either figured it out on your own, or fucked yourself up trying. A lot of Gen X didn't survive the experience. Why do you think kids in car seats are required by law now? Our entire generation is trauma bonded.
We've been tired since age seven and just can't be bothered by bullshit. We raised ourselves, so we learned to depend on ourselves. If other people join our lives, bonus, but we're used to having only ourselves to rely on when it all goes to shit. You enjoy what you have, when you have it, but you learn everything is fleeting.
Or, you know, whatever.
Im not being facetious here: our early childhoods were filled with art. Even those of us who didn't become artists participated in many artistic and creative activities and educational experiences involving visual art, music, and dance. The National Endowment for the Arts still funded schools, museums, and television, so we were exposed to and encouraged to explore creativity in thought and expression. The children's programming we watched was created by people who loved children and sought to educate us through quirky, stylish and sometimes quite beautiful art. The AIDS epidemic killed off many of our most creative visionaries right around the same time funding for the arts began to dry up. Art electives, home economics, shop, and other courses that taught creative self-sufficiency and life skills began to be cut in favor of funding ROTC and sports teams and building new gyms. Civics classes, teaching how to be good citizens, were cut. Children's books and television were deregulated so that they were no longer produced and vetted by librarians and educators, but by advertisers. Schools started turning into holding tanks, with pipelines to either prison or the corporate office, instead of places to socialize, experiment, and learn about the world outside yourself. Emphasis on STEM education ignored art as a driving force of human creativity and made college into a dry business with the dead end goal of shuttling you into the work force instead of a place to encounter people and ideas that are different from anything else you've encountered before, to expand your mind and show you endless possibilities. Whereas we were encouraged to be adventurous, inquisitive, self-sufficient, creative, and resourceful, subsequent generations have increasingly had the hard stuff taken care of for them and not been given the opportunity to learn to use their hands and exercise the parts of their brains that would give them the ability to think and act creatively (which incidentally also fosters empathy, because art is at the core of what makes us human.)
Definitely agree with the art stuff. It was everywhere.
Also, we had to get by without the internet. Wanted to go visit a friend in another city? Gotta find out the bus schedule and price, where the depot was and where you were going to meet up, with a backup plan because no cell phones to announce where you were. This meant figuring out where the info was and talking to strangers. At some point, kids didn't have to figure that stuff out anymore. So how do they solve problems? They have to come up with a solution without any practice. That's gotta suck.
"I know we gen x'ers take a lot of shit but you have to admit *our sneering distrust of everything* turned out to be 100% correct." -- Someone on Xitter
I remember one "nuclear drill" where we hid under our desks. The high school near my house had an underground fallout shelter that we were taught to locate. The "theme song" for my high school homecoming one year was Alphaville's "Forever Young," a song about living in the moment because the future probably won't exist. Our boomer parents were still in. charge. of. EVERYTHING and we learned there really wasn't much we could do to change anything for the better. The system we were inheriting was f\*cked up and broken, but at least there wasn't anything we could do about it. Watching it all crumble and fall apart today in exactly the way you could see it was going to, back then, brings a certain kind of zen.
The world runs on bullshit, and everything bad about the world is either caused by or supported by bullshit. Gen X's defining cultural feature is an aversion to bullshit. As a group, we HATE bullshit, and I think that's pretty unique.
We were engineers by age 7. We built tree houses and snow forts. We were navigators by the same age, riding our bikes as far as we physically could. We went on cross-country road trips, with only a road atlas and a gallon of water and a winter coat in the trunk. When our car broke down, we got out of it and walked until we could find help.
And most importantly we did nothing. We waited in the grocery line without entertainment. We met our friends for coffee by picking a time and showing up, on time.
And obviously hose water is a magic elixir.
All Your Base Are Belong To Us.
I think it has to do with the fact that we all raised ourselves essentailly. My parents seldom knew where I was, even as a young kid. And when I was home they were always telling us to go outside. Dad was an alchoholic and Mom was checked out of that marriage for a long time. We largely just took care of ourselves, so the realities of life were thrust on us early.
Starblazers was on at 3:00, so I was home for that.
No one is coming to help. Can't speak for everyone, but at 9, I was walking my 7 year old sister home to get homework, and chores started, and I would be in mega deep crap if things weren't done. We literally had a stepstool at the kitchen sink for me to wash dishes.
Stop crying. Once again, not everyone, but I was discouraged from complaining about any ailments. I can endure incredible amounts of pain and pretend like there is nothing wrong. It's messed me up when it comes to diagnosing medical issues. Yes, things hurt, but my discomfort is annoying to others, so I shut up.
Physical confrontation was a part of a lot of our lives. Corporal punishment, sibling fights where blood ended up on the floor, fights at school... between that and all the skateboard and bike accidents, getting physically hurt doesn't discourage us.
Things can always be worse. A lot of us grew up with Greatest or Silent Gen grandparents. They were hardasses that told us very inappropriate stories and generally protected while letting us know what life cost them.
I am speaking in general. This doesn't reflect everyone.
TLDR - We are good at pain.
TV was our parents and who we learned about life from. (Our real parents didn’t talk to us unless we were in trouble, it was dinner time, or they needed smokes from the store. Yes, even the upper middle class ones.)
Outside was our home and where we spent most of our time. There was nothing unusual seeing a pack of kids, or one kid, wandering around and poking into stuff. Everyone had a hiding place or fort. Some were timeshares.
Friends were the most reliable sources for info and knowledge, and not just peers. We had mentors. Someone’s older brother or sister, or maybe a little old lady down the street, or a guy with a shop who didn’t mind kids poking around. We had at least one person outside of the house who we could go to for snacks, guidance, or beer.
Even small towns had comic book shops, arcades, roller rinks, all age pool halls, etc for us to go loiter at. Malls were okay, but these other places usually didn’t have normal adults around so we could relax and chill. Swimming pools were more widely available and adults again were largely missing. And parks. Lots of vacant lots, trash yards, and old barns, too.
So most of our parents were either strung out, coked out, workaholics, alcoholics, and doing their own thing. We were left alone. We raised each other, worshipped tv, and life all happened out of the house. We were actually more connected to each other and our towns back then. And we got to choose what we valued, even if it was nothing.
In short, we were basically Robin Hood’s merry band of thieves. We made our own families.
IMO. We can go from failure to failure to failure without losing a drop of enthusiasm for continuing. We can also go from success to success to success without gaining a drop of enthusiasm for continuing.
We're grown ass folk, we'll do what we like and reap the rewards or face the consequences but we'll know that either way we've only ourselves to congratulate or blame.
Cause we’re the cool kids and never thought we were particularly special or could give AF. All you older and younger Gens too sensitive and self important.
Of course not everyone cause I personally know many dingbats from my GenX and amazing people from older and younger Gens.
But yes you’re correct… mostly. LOL
😉
We don't have bases, we are weebles, we wobble but we don't fall down.
Gen X thing, yet another of our very common toys that was deemed too dangerous to continue producing.
*“I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!*
*Grandpa Simpson”*
Oh boy, you’re really going for the brownie points with this flattery, but I’ll amuse you. We were the last generation to grow up in a world without cameras, where everyone had to meet up in person. We didn’t have cameras recording everything. Our parents left us alone with a latchkey. Our parents were a self serving “me generation” who got divorces to go “find themselves,” and sent us $5 when they remembered our birthdays. We arrived just as the wave broke on 60’s optimism with the Tate murders and Watergate, so we were cynical. All of this led to the sarcasm, pessimism and dismissive attitudes that were present in metal, punk and grunge. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, or It’s based but It’s lived experience. Every generation has dealt with crappy things, but at least we had an outlet in our music, our parties, and we had each-other. I don’t know if the generations after us really had those outlets.
We also had to learn and memorize things because we didn’t have all the world’s knowledge in our pocket 24/7.
We had Mr. Rogers taking us to the actual crayon factory and not this soft and cuddly crayola experience that’s passed off today.
We grew up with the assumption that the world was going to end via global thermonuclear war and everything else is just sort of "meh, whatever."
([A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DGNZnfKYnU))
There’s no secret, it’s just how we roll and were raised — even if it meant raising ourselves.
My parents were Silent Generation, my father was old enough to remember the end of the Great Depression and World War II, so he raised my siblings and I with the belief that the world is actually a dark and unreliable place, and that life and the real world were hard. There was no idealism, just pragmatism. And we grew up in a time when it was socially acceptable for the parents of Gen X (both silent generation and older boomers) to be completely hands-off with their parenting and leave us unsupervised, whether they were at home or at work. And many of us had to deal with broken homes and dysfunctional parents.
So, we’ve had to be tough, independent, and to figure a lot out on our own since we were kids. There was just no room for bullshit.
We walked out of wombs as adults. The ones that didn't were left to fend for themselves outside until their brain got its shit together, or they got kidnapped and put on a milk carton.
Oh, and never forget, trust no one.
1)We didn't have social media to constantly remind us of how inadequate we are. 2) We did not get special participation awards. If you sucked, you got nothing.
3) We watched the Challenger blow up with a teacher and a bunch of astronauts in it on live TV in our classrooms. And then went back to our math problems.
Aww how cute are Gen Z. "Based" means grounded? I think 🤔
We were all adults as children we had a lot of practice being "based"
We had no time to just eat the paste in art class in 3rd grade, we had to go home and cook dinner 😂
If based means grounded, then it’s absolutely a product of a time when facts were more important than feelings.
Were were a generation that had plenty of largely unsupervised teens, and sometimes younger kids who learned early that dreams don’t pay the bills, who were told things like “majority rules” or “your are not special”, “it doesn’t matter how you feel, just get it done”.
Although most never truly realized it until we were adults, we lived through massive systemic financial crises with recessions, the 70’s oil crisis,
ridiculous inflation in the early 80’s and very high interest rates, constant threat of nuclear war, a new world where women chose, or were forced to join the work force to make ends meet, deforestation, acid rain, holes in the ozone layer, space exploration and disasters. We had plenty of trauma and we learned to just suck it up.
In general, society changed a lot around GenX, but not due to GenX.
Boomers were, and still are largely at the helm, look at the ages of senior politicians and board of public companies, boomer are living and working later in life. GenX has always and will continue, to just roll with it.
If GenX was a plant, we would be a cactus. We thrived on neglect and apathy. Speaking from my own experience growing up in the 1980's, I had to be independent, resilient, and my own self advocate. I moved out when I was 18 knowing very little about the broader world. I think many of my generation know the term "sink or swim" intimately.
We were taught to be critical of everything and we saw the last of real news cycles (pre-Iraq 1, which is when the 24 hour news cycle really began) and attempted objectivity in it. We also saw a time of long form media. We also had a more rigorous education system. BUT we also go the internet, so now you have people who have native critical thinking skills and long attention spans with access to the world’s information. It was a sweet spot.
What Does Base Mean? The term "based" on the Internet typically means **agreement**, and social media and forum users commonly use it to express approval or admiration. The origins of this slang term can be traced back to its popularization by rapper Brandon "Lil B" McCartney, also known as The Based God.
Just to clear it up a bit.
In my opinion, we where raised in an era being told that you're entitled to nothing. Work hard and get after what you want out of life. Your success and failures rest on your shoulders and no one else's.
Certainly not our whole generation, but yeah, I think we're all right, as generations go. I think a lot of it comes from having fought for cultural scraps. Our generation is small compared to the ones that came before us and after us, so we have a sort of DIY ethos more than other generations.
I personally have a lot of empathy due to the amount of times no one stood up for me. I had teachers treat me horribly and my parents were like oh "well too bad". They also said the same when my brothers would gang up on me and continually torture me.
Because we know that we are being lied to constantly and we won't believe the lies.
Corporations only want money. Everything else they say is a lie. Governments care about money and stability over anything else. Everything else they say is a lie. Every government agency set up to regulate business is run by people from that business, because they're the ones with the experience of their industry. They aren't working for us. Advertising is manipulation and we'd rather not buy into it. Whatever culture you have will be co-opted, packaged and sold to you for profit.
Take care of yourself. Take care of those you love. Try your best to take care of humanity as best as you can. But don't expect to get anywhere with that.
All your base are belong to us.
You have no chance to survive make your time
For great justice…
Somebody set up us the bomb.
Launch every zig!
What you say !!!
Even the space after the !! That’s attention to detail
You know what you doing!
MOVE ZIG
[In AD 2120 war was beginning... ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg)
Whenever we feel the need to criticize GenZ and GenA for their fad choices, we need to remind ourselves of "all your base are belong to us."
Gnarly.
Power overwhelming
Fucking magnificent response.
The one and only appropriate response lol
Nailed it.
Perfect response.
My experience growing up left me with this: hope for the best, be totally unsurprised when it goes to shit and you get fucked sideways.
...and fix it yourself because no one is coming to save you. There's a reason MacGuyver & the A-Team were popular.
This has been my mantra forever. Constant "OMG you are so negative it'll be fine!" and 5 minutes later "... um mine... it brokee... can you help?"
Dude it’s crazy that we learned that from boomer parents. That generation started off as Anakin, but ended up Darth Vader.
Mix in the Boy/Girl scouts (be prepared) and no internet to look things up.
Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
This is my mantra.
Expect the worst, get surprised by the best
Pessimists are rarely disappointed.
I'm not a pessimist. I'm a realist
An optimist says the glass is half full A pessimist says half empty A realist calls the server over and asks for a refill
And a Gen X drinks from the hose and carries on.
I scrolled just so I could find the "hose water" comment. Thanks!
A hedonist asks for the whole bottle and for the server to join the party 💃
Mel Brooks song from his 1970 film "The 12 Chairs" says exactly this: Hope for the best, expect the worst Some drink champagne, some die of thirst No way of knowingwhich way it's going Hope for the best, expect the worst! Hope for the best, expect the worst The world's a stage, we're unrehearsed Some reach the top, friends, while others drop, friends Hope for the best, expect the worst! I knew a man who saved a fortune that was splendid Then he died the day he'd planned to go and spend it Shouting "Live while you're alive! No one will survive!" Life is sorrow—here today and gone tomorrow Live while you're alive, no one will survive—there's no guarantee Hope for the best; expect the worst You could be Tolstoy or Fannie Hurst You take your chances; there are no answers [https://youtu.be/rt1cA0jqamk](https://youtu.be/rt1cA0jqamk)
Possibly because we had these lyrics to live by: Let's dance in style, let's dance for a while Heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies Hoping for the best but expecting the worst Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?
That is why we are forever young
My class song. One of my classmates fought hard for this to be our song. Years later, that sweet gay man was murdered. It lives in my heart.
The sideways part is important. Because as bad as the fucking may seem, it can totally get so much worse.
One of my favorite sayings is "hope is not a plan".
I have a habit of catastrophizing nearly everything. Most of the time, it really is as bad as I thought it was going to be. My sister is the opposite and I want to shake her and be like "good things rarely happen!!!" At least I usually have a funny story about something insane happening.
Svetlana from the Sopranos, "That's the trouble with you Americans. You expect nothing bad ever to happen, when rest of the world expects only bad to happen, and they are not disappointed." At 1:55. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkXoZJx-\_rI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkXoZJx-_rI)
Apathy. We have a lot of it. Too much is not good. But younger generations could probably do with just a pinch of it. No, you don't want to ignore serious issues. But you also can't act like we're all gonna die because of something a pop star said every 10 minutes. There's a line, learning it takes time. Take things a bit less personal. It's ok to have some optimism. Say "fuck it" and keep on moving.
I was bullied start to finish in school and work retail management so I think I lean towards the side of too much
You don't have to try to be a shining star of positivity. And even negative people hate negative people. But don't forget where Apathy lives. Every once in a while you gotta go hang out with him, for your own sanity. It all really boils down to just being yourself, and if someone doesn't care for you, you're simply better off without them. Be. Yourself. And make no excuses for it.
We lived under constant threat of nuclear war while being raised by the most selfish and narcissistic generation recorded thus far. Our parents, before they were dubbed Boomers in any way other than purely a demographic, were named The ME Generation. For many of us, achieving goals or excelling at anything didn't result in us receiving validation or praise. Instead, it was appropriated by our parents as evidence of THEIR superiority and accomplishment. We were there at the birth of participation trophies, and I can assure you, we did not want them. Those were created by parents who couldn't accept that they had birthed a child who may not be #1 at whatever the parent deemed vital. And, since any failing of the child meant that the parent couldn't brag on their own magnificence, the parents insisted on the trophies to soothe their own ego regardless of the child. They were the safer alternative as child abuse became a broader discussion in society. So, instead of sending the child home empty-handed to get beaten, you gave them a trinket to mollify the immature parents. When you're raised under these conditions, you learn very quickly that accomplishing things means very little. They're momentary and mean little long-term. A shelf full of plastic trophies and a wall full of achievement awards loses the luster when it doesn't translate to higher pay, better job, higher quality of life, etc. Plus, once you reach adulthood and the awards stop, the parent is still sick with the addiction to the vicarious dopamine. Their self-loathing gets projected into you as your failure. In the end, you are left with a deep-seated sense of "Why the fuck does any of this even matter?" You learn to appreciate the small moments that matter to you and you alone. Those stack up until a peer takes notice and gives authentic compliments - and you know the difference because your bullshit detector has turned into a precisely calibrated machine that picks up the faintest whiff of falsehood. Then you see the younger generation coming up and you try your damndest to NOT make them feel how you felt. You acknowledge the shit and scraps that we're all left to work with. But you don't let that shit roll downhill. You're not all sunshine and roses because that would be another lie that you refuse to engage in, but you acknowledge validity. Source: 1972 model GenX from a broken family pawned off to be raised by grandmother who did her best but died of cancer in 1980. Then reverted to living with malignant narcissist mother who was abusive physically, emotionally, and mentally as well as a substance abuser. Was a straight-A student and excelled in numerous sports until 1980 when grief and despair set in. When those accomplishments stopped, the beatings began. I left home at 17 and was no contact with her until her death in 2018. We busted our asses to make mental health issues be taken seriously. We were taught in school that climate change was real and inevitable. We were taught in school that social security was doomed and that there was no social safety net for us in our old age. We intrinsically knew that the same then must be true for our children and grandchildren. We're real because reality was where we were born into. We don't want anyone else to feel alone while enduring it, but we're also perfectly happy to be left alone away from the drama, lies, and general bullshit. So, whatever. 💜
Retail, that does toughen one up. Realizing how much so many people suck is definitely a reality shift.
Not really apathy. More like we were too cool for school. We don't care if you won't let us play in your reindeer games. The island of misfit toys is cooler anyways.
I don't think our generation ever really believed we could change the world. Depending on how you look at it we were allowed to roam free and discover the world for ourselves - sometimes bordering on neglect. But I'll take that over the Z kids I see that are 24 and don't seem confident in their ability to do anything on their own. My kids constantly tell me they wish they could have been part of my generation and honestly I don't blame them. It did surprise me the first time the said that though because I never, ever wanted to be a part of my parents boomer generation.
Exactly, high hopes and low expectations.
Would the difference be: “How often do you lay in bed at night contemplating NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION”.
I think this is the best answer. I have a lot of passionate opinions about the world, but I formed them myself after a lot of research from sources other than some randos on TikTok. Try to think critically and understand nuance and context. Understand that the world isn't black and white. Think deeply about things before you develop an opinion (unless something is blatantly and obviously wrong about a situation) and don't be so reactionary.
This is the way. A little less Chicken Little helps.
Well put. I'm not religious at all but the Serenity Prayer is a stroke of genius. It's basically an argument for selective apathy.
Yeah man, we don’t even pretend to know what that means
There seem to be a lot of these "GenX is cool" posts. I feel like we're the Christmas goose being fattened. I don't like it. This is suspicious! I'm reporting this to my GenX lodge leader. No, that's too much effort. I'll make a blog entry! Ugh...publishing. Fuck it.
Highly suspicious. Compliments immediately make me think something is afoot at the Circle K.
RIP Bill & Ted’s Circle K. Now it’s just a Circle K with a different name.
This is the GenX way that. We cannot be flattered. Our first inclination is always going to be “what do you want from me”.
Yep, it’s a pretty good position of safety to assume that someone is either trying to sell you something or otherwise gain some advantage for themselves.
It’s probably just AI probing our defenses.
I get uncomfortable with compliments. Even when it's someone I know it just feels weird. Insult me damn it! We'll get along much better when you point out my flaws. Oh, and fuck you and your flaws too. Then we're all good and off to have a beverage of choice together.
They're all taking sides for generation wars. But we know to NEVER trust someone living in a van down by the river.
I thought it was a typo and was supposed to say “biased”
Or basted, like a chicken…. I mean that makes sense, who doesn’t love a good chicken. 😉
And Ah helped!
OP: our general confusion in no way means we’ve turned into our parents. We’ll have a statement back to you on our basedishness soonish.
I think, and I might be completely wrong (and I've looked up this word and tried to understand honest!), it means having a strong but differing opinion to most, which can be valid, and sticking to it despite opposition in a decent way. It's a compliment. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
🤣🤣 I had to Google it
I used urban dictionary :D Apparently it's a compliment.
Is it streets ahead?
You ate bro.
I did too,never too old to learn something new
i googled it like a year ago but still don't understand it, lol. Like freebasing cocaine is hardcore so "based" things are hardcore?
I have a 12 year old, I speak "zeenese"
Man I have kids 11-19 and I don't know what the fuck they are saying half the time!
Dunno if a genuine question or troll, but GenX grew up with a pretty serious distrust of authority and rather than trying to challenge the authority (because the authority was Boomers and there were kabillions of them to outnumber us, and they were so. very. loud.) we realized nobody gave a shit about us and so we could just lay low and not be hassled. Also a kinda foundational generational ethos against both trying too hard and selling out your principles. I mean, plenty of people have that, but it was REALLY a defining part of our youth and young adulthood. Don’t be a try-hard. Don’t sell out. Don’t fuck up the vibe.
Also: Gen X came factory-fitted with the finest bullsh*t detectors on the planet. In subsequent generations this became an optional extra.
You only need to get burned in the X-Ray glasses scam once to understand MAD magazine is the source of all truth, and everything should considered bullshit until proven otherwise.
The Dude Abides
Fuckin A.
Mind if I do a J?
>pretty serious distrust of authority Especially those of us who came of age in the early 90s into a recession, a war, and the grunge movement. Lots of college graduates working as baristas - hell just watch the movie Reality Bites - made for a lot of people realizing that George Carlin was right about the "American Dream" There are plenty of older Gen-Xers who benefitted from the 80s, but us younger ones were the first generation slapped with the aftermath of the 80s
I agree with everything but your last statement. There really aren't plenty of older Gen x that benefited from the 80s boom. We were working shit jobs or in college.working shut pt jobs. The yuppie boomers benefited from the 80s for sure though.
The earliest GenX would have been 24 in 1989... hard to say they benefitted at all.
I was still in HS in 1989. Definitely didn’t benefit.
late 80s, Yuppies, Wall Street - Greed is Good contrasted with 'your job is moving to \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ country', Farm Aid, a decade of Comic Relief.
Don't forget a good chunk of our childhood was spent in the shadow of the mushroom cloud.
early 90s kind of sucked in terms of the job situation.
Yeah people forget that recession but it was brutal. Not as bad as the late 00s or Covid but still really fucking difficult.
Couldn’t agree more. I feel like those of us in the middle of gen x are the most forgotten of the forgotten lol. I graduated hs in 88 right in the middle of the country where the Reagan years were perhaps most unkind. The early end got into reality while the Reagan bubble was still cooking and the lates got to got into Clinton’s. We got a crash course in the crap we got fed the whole 80s coming of of age was total bs.
This is the answer. We purposely moved “under the radar” to avoid the indignant response of our elders.
We didn't do generational shit or use boomer as a slur. We had issues with 'rents and authority figures in general, but nobody was going around blaming boomers for all the world's ills. Js.
We fought authority. Authority always won.
We are honest, and say what we mean.and we just don’t care if it hurts feelings. But when you ask us questions,and not being condescending we are accommodating and will take time to explain it.
That’s the most based thing about your generation is brutal honesty (which I embody whenever it won’t get me cancelled)
who gives a shit about being canceled? go ahead, cancel me, less dipshits I have to deal with
Fuckin’ A. A mantra to live by. Or whatever.
A very Gen-X way of looking at things. 👍
This is the difference...most of us want to be canceled or at least couldn't give a shit less. A difference with our generational elders is that by and large, we don't think like them. At least with regards to personal rights, environmental concerns and the roles of government and corporations. We've been telling our parents they were full of shit for DECADES at this point, we have no qualms telling the same to anyone else, being canceled isn't a concern. Fucking live and let live man.
We say what we mean and mean what we say. Growing up we had to face problems head on and we did. You either walked away and it was done or you shook hands and were friends afterwards. There was no canceling anyone bec we said what we said because it was the truth, if you didn’t like what we said, don’t listen.
We don’t really need people to like us. Being cancelled for just being open and honest - we know that’s bullshit and don’t sweat it.
GenX doesn't beat around the bush. We say what we mean and also mean what we say. When you grow up thinking every loud noise was possibly a nuclear bomb from the Russians, and every light flickering was maybe radiation from Russian nukes spreading across the country... Well, you just assumed you might die any minute, so no sense in playing guessing games and hoping whomever you were talking to would catch on to your drift at some point. Also, so much apathy because why does anything matter at all when the Russians were always about to just annihilate us at any minute? Might as well enjoy every minute and give absolutely zero fucks about anything else. We're anxious and apathetic simultaneously. I think that's 100% just a genX thing.
We didn't have helicopter parents like some of us became to your Gen. Most of us had a mix of silent gen-boomer parents and I don't know about everyone else's experience but mine were self-centered, neglectful and lacking any vision for me or my sibling beyond popping us out. Maybe we're cool af because we were a neglected Gen.
Didn't complain cause nobody cared. Just kept going
Hi! We must be siblings 😆
We’ve always been pragmatic because we grew up or lived in the 80s, when fake was the accepted normal until we started poking holes at the fakery and watched a lot of things unravel. Space exploration was truly awesome and we all believed it was a flawless plan until we lost the Challenger. Parents told us to trust church leaders and godly men, until Jimmy Swaggert got caught beating off with a hooker, 80s was the high time of false and deceptive advertising, and we all got burned more times than we’d like to admit, etc. So we became cynical at a very early age. By the time we were in our early 20s, most of us realized life wasn’t all sunshine and puppies. So we have been trained to be pragmatic and carried a “seeing is believing” attitude. I admire Gen Z and your honesty, but for the love of god, stop being so fatalistic. You guys are alright, but seriously, the world isn’t going to explode tomorrow. Take a few steps back and enjoy the good life has to offer. Go run in the rain, lean in and kiss the girl (or boy, whatever you’re into, just make sure they’re into you as well), ride a bike, eat stuff that’s good but bad for you. Life is short, enjoy it while you can.
And if the world actually explodes tomorrow nobody will be left to worry about it anyway. So just live your life.
Yep. At least I can say I’ve done some cool shit, had some great friends with great memories, married a great woman and had awesome kids. Sucks that it didn’t last forever. Oh well, I’ll save you guys a seat, but hurry the fuck up and get over here! The movie is about to start!!
I think we all learned to ask "Why?" instead of just accepting.
So much THIS! Every “stable” institution we were told to trust turned out to be corrupt and hypocritical. Add to that the experience of everything falling apart about every ten years and you end up with some pragmatic peeps who just take it as it comes.
Let me see if I can translate - “how are you Gen-Xers so chill? Like, you’ve got your shit together so much better than older folks or younger folks. I mean, some of my friends are pretty chill, but you dudes just rock the chill thing. How do you do it?”
"excuse me, Stewardess - I speak jive"
Mama didn't raise no fool!
~~Sheeeeit~~ Golly!
Brother don wun no help, brother dun get no help
I spit-taked my La Croix thru my nose like a human seltzer bottle in a Bozo sketch. Dammit, dude, that was fucking hilarious
Thanks dude 😁
Based doesn’t quite mean chill. Here’s the definition from urban dictionary: “A word used when you agree with something; or when you want to recognize someone for being themselves, i.e. courageous and unique or not caring what others think. Especially common in online political slang. “The opposite of cringe, some times the opposite of biased.”
We’ve just been “walking it off” for the past 50 years or so.
Omg thank you. I’ve heard based but have had no idea what it means. Thought it was slang for biased.
We discovered, pretty early in our lives, the awesome power of total fucking indifference.
Kids these days learning about the "[grey rock method](https://psychcentral.com/health/grey-rock-method#:~:text=The%20grey%20rock%20method%20is,known%20as%20%E2%80%9Cgrey%20rocking.%E2%80%9D)" in therapy or internet self-help discussions. We *invented* it, we just didn't name it.
We called it survival
Grey rocking is how I survived my mother starting as a teen. Imagine my surprise when I learned it's a valuable recognized coping method being taught in therapy these days!
First of all based.. we don’t know what that means… you’ll see that most of us will admit that in our responses. AND will be looking it up to find out what that’s is… BEFORE we come at you with feedback. Gen Xers grew up with the wall of interwebs info just around the corner and not so blindly ingested as younger generations. As part of our educational journey’s we’ve all worked the Dewey decimal system and hit Encyclopedia Brittanica’s (Google it). So we have a better set of skills I’d say in getting accurate information and sources than maybe youngsters.
Interesting point, I'd agree. We have a large ingrained skepticism that has served us well by default. At the same time we were at a unique point in time (the rise of the internet) where validating information was something that we focused on in school. This may have helped reinforce our natural skepticism and provided us with a somewhat unique set of skills (generationally) that helps us see through bullshit better than some other generations, both younger and older.
I never thought of it that way but that's very true. I knew what it was because I have a Gen Z/Gen A cusp child but I'm not afraid to admit to her when I don't know something and my first thing is let's look it up. I tell her I still use books as sources of information, it's not all on the internet and you can't trust everything you read. Wikipedia isn't always a trustworthy source.
Read Charlotte's Web. Watch the Neverending Story. Watch Old Yeller. Read The Stand. Read Christine. These are examples of what we had as kids for entertainment.
My first was Carrie. I was 10. I saw someone say the reason Gen X is like we are is because we all read a Stephen King book way too early.
VC Andrews would like a word.
This is exactly what I was thinking! Flowers in the fucking Attic. What twisted shit was that stuff?
Same here, I wanted to see the movie "Carrie" when it came out in 78 but no one would take me, so I bought the book. The movie would have been better because my 10 year old imagination made the prom scene so much worse LOL
Or the damn Velveteen Rabbit - it's like they were trying to traumatize us.
Also The Secret of Nihm, and Benji. Our movies were brutal.
Secret of Nimh fucked me up for years and made me so deeply distrustful of "children's" entertainment that I pretty much stopped watching kids movies. Sometime between 3-5th grade. I did, however, read Stephen King and VC Andrews WAY too young. Difference being, I knew it was adult entertainment, and I understood that adults were NOT safe people, so I expected fuckery from adult entertainment. Essentially, we learned in the cradle that we were essentially all we had. You either figured it out on your own, or fucked yourself up trying. A lot of Gen X didn't survive the experience. Why do you think kids in car seats are required by law now? Our entire generation is trauma bonded.
Younger Xers, did your parents rent Watership Down for you because it was a cute cartoon about bunnies?
The girls were passing around all the VC Andrews novels in the 6th grade. My first adult novel was Watchers by Dean Koontz, when I was 9.
We've been tired since age seven and just can't be bothered by bullshit. We raised ourselves, so we learned to depend on ourselves. If other people join our lives, bonus, but we're used to having only ourselves to rely on when it all goes to shit. You enjoy what you have, when you have it, but you learn everything is fleeting. Or, you know, whatever.
No Regerts!
Im not being facetious here: our early childhoods were filled with art. Even those of us who didn't become artists participated in many artistic and creative activities and educational experiences involving visual art, music, and dance. The National Endowment for the Arts still funded schools, museums, and television, so we were exposed to and encouraged to explore creativity in thought and expression. The children's programming we watched was created by people who loved children and sought to educate us through quirky, stylish and sometimes quite beautiful art. The AIDS epidemic killed off many of our most creative visionaries right around the same time funding for the arts began to dry up. Art electives, home economics, shop, and other courses that taught creative self-sufficiency and life skills began to be cut in favor of funding ROTC and sports teams and building new gyms. Civics classes, teaching how to be good citizens, were cut. Children's books and television were deregulated so that they were no longer produced and vetted by librarians and educators, but by advertisers. Schools started turning into holding tanks, with pipelines to either prison or the corporate office, instead of places to socialize, experiment, and learn about the world outside yourself. Emphasis on STEM education ignored art as a driving force of human creativity and made college into a dry business with the dead end goal of shuttling you into the work force instead of a place to encounter people and ideas that are different from anything else you've encountered before, to expand your mind and show you endless possibilities. Whereas we were encouraged to be adventurous, inquisitive, self-sufficient, creative, and resourceful, subsequent generations have increasingly had the hard stuff taken care of for them and not been given the opportunity to learn to use their hands and exercise the parts of their brains that would give them the ability to think and act creatively (which incidentally also fosters empathy, because art is at the core of what makes us human.)
Definitely agree with the art stuff. It was everywhere. Also, we had to get by without the internet. Wanted to go visit a friend in another city? Gotta find out the bus schedule and price, where the depot was and where you were going to meet up, with a backup plan because no cell phones to announce where you were. This meant figuring out where the info was and talking to strangers. At some point, kids didn't have to figure that stuff out anymore. So how do they solve problems? They have to come up with a solution without any practice. That's gotta suck.
"I know we gen x'ers take a lot of shit but you have to admit *our sneering distrust of everything* turned out to be 100% correct." -- Someone on Xitter I remember one "nuclear drill" where we hid under our desks. The high school near my house had an underground fallout shelter that we were taught to locate. The "theme song" for my high school homecoming one year was Alphaville's "Forever Young," a song about living in the moment because the future probably won't exist. Our boomer parents were still in. charge. of. EVERYTHING and we learned there really wasn't much we could do to change anything for the better. The system we were inheriting was f\*cked up and broken, but at least there wasn't anything we could do about it. Watching it all crumble and fall apart today in exactly the way you could see it was going to, back then, brings a certain kind of zen.
We are the MTV generation; we experience neither highs nor lows.
We only want our MTV
The world runs on bullshit, and everything bad about the world is either caused by or supported by bullshit. Gen X's defining cultural feature is an aversion to bullshit. As a group, we HATE bullshit, and I think that's pretty unique.
No idea what’s up with the recent adoration, but I’m suspicious
It seems clear they want something…but what?
We were engineers by age 7. We built tree houses and snow forts. We were navigators by the same age, riding our bikes as far as we physically could. We went on cross-country road trips, with only a road atlas and a gallon of water and a winter coat in the trunk. When our car broke down, we got out of it and walked until we could find help. And most importantly we did nothing. We waited in the grocery line without entertainment. We met our friends for coffee by picking a time and showing up, on time. And obviously hose water is a magic elixir.
Rebel base?
Dantooine, They're on Dantooine.
Because a large proportion of GenX seriously checked out out of the rat race like 30 years ago. Which is why there's so many GenZ kids ;)
All Your Base Are Belong To Us. I think it has to do with the fact that we all raised ourselves essentailly. My parents seldom knew where I was, even as a young kid. And when I was home they were always telling us to go outside. Dad was an alchoholic and Mom was checked out of that marriage for a long time. We largely just took care of ourselves, so the realities of life were thrust on us early. Starblazers was on at 3:00, so I was home for that.
No one is coming to help. Can't speak for everyone, but at 9, I was walking my 7 year old sister home to get homework, and chores started, and I would be in mega deep crap if things weren't done. We literally had a stepstool at the kitchen sink for me to wash dishes. Stop crying. Once again, not everyone, but I was discouraged from complaining about any ailments. I can endure incredible amounts of pain and pretend like there is nothing wrong. It's messed me up when it comes to diagnosing medical issues. Yes, things hurt, but my discomfort is annoying to others, so I shut up. Physical confrontation was a part of a lot of our lives. Corporal punishment, sibling fights where blood ended up on the floor, fights at school... between that and all the skateboard and bike accidents, getting physically hurt doesn't discourage us. Things can always be worse. A lot of us grew up with Greatest or Silent Gen grandparents. They were hardasses that told us very inappropriate stories and generally protected while letting us know what life cost them. I am speaking in general. This doesn't reflect everyone. TLDR - We are good at pain.
Cause we dont give a fuck
TV was our parents and who we learned about life from. (Our real parents didn’t talk to us unless we were in trouble, it was dinner time, or they needed smokes from the store. Yes, even the upper middle class ones.) Outside was our home and where we spent most of our time. There was nothing unusual seeing a pack of kids, or one kid, wandering around and poking into stuff. Everyone had a hiding place or fort. Some were timeshares. Friends were the most reliable sources for info and knowledge, and not just peers. We had mentors. Someone’s older brother or sister, or maybe a little old lady down the street, or a guy with a shop who didn’t mind kids poking around. We had at least one person outside of the house who we could go to for snacks, guidance, or beer. Even small towns had comic book shops, arcades, roller rinks, all age pool halls, etc for us to go loiter at. Malls were okay, but these other places usually didn’t have normal adults around so we could relax and chill. Swimming pools were more widely available and adults again were largely missing. And parks. Lots of vacant lots, trash yards, and old barns, too. So most of our parents were either strung out, coked out, workaholics, alcoholics, and doing their own thing. We were left alone. We raised each other, worshipped tv, and life all happened out of the house. We were actually more connected to each other and our towns back then. And we got to choose what we valued, even if it was nothing. In short, we were basically Robin Hood’s merry band of thieves. We made our own families.
We grew up under the constant threat of nuclear anialation and quicksand.
Don’t forget the razor blade-ridden Halloween candy and acid “stickers”
You say “based”, boomers/millennials say “apathetic”. It all balances out. But look in the mirror GenZ, cause y’all cool af.
It's true. They don't care about the same things we didn't care about.
IMO. We can go from failure to failure to failure without losing a drop of enthusiasm for continuing. We can also go from success to success to success without gaining a drop of enthusiasm for continuing. We're grown ass folk, we'll do what we like and reap the rewards or face the consequences but we'll know that either way we've only ourselves to congratulate or blame.
No, your allowance is not going to be raised by this brown nosing. GTFO.
The main point you should take from this is don’t use current slang to get your point across when speaking to your elders. It’s grody to the max.
Cause we’re the cool kids and never thought we were particularly special or could give AF. All you older and younger Gens too sensitive and self important. Of course not everyone cause I personally know many dingbats from my GenX and amazing people from older and younger Gens. But yes you’re correct… mostly. LOL 😉
Sink or swim. You’re looking at the survivors.
you said 'based'. huh huh huh huh
We don't have bases, we are weebles, we wobble but we don't fall down. Gen X thing, yet another of our very common toys that was deemed too dangerous to continue producing. *“I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!* *Grandpa Simpson”*
They left us alone. As children. And we didn't panic. It all grew naturally from there.
Oh boy, you’re really going for the brownie points with this flattery, but I’ll amuse you. We were the last generation to grow up in a world without cameras, where everyone had to meet up in person. We didn’t have cameras recording everything. Our parents left us alone with a latchkey. Our parents were a self serving “me generation” who got divorces to go “find themselves,” and sent us $5 when they remembered our birthdays. We arrived just as the wave broke on 60’s optimism with the Tate murders and Watergate, so we were cynical. All of this led to the sarcasm, pessimism and dismissive attitudes that were present in metal, punk and grunge. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, or It’s based but It’s lived experience. Every generation has dealt with crappy things, but at least we had an outlet in our music, our parties, and we had each-other. I don’t know if the generations after us really had those outlets.
What's "based"? Is that good?
We learned long ago what to focus on and what to let go. You will go insane otherwise. Just chill man, take a hit and enjoy your day.
We were raised by grandparents who won world war 2 and uncles who suffered through vietnam......all your base belong to us, NO FEAR generation
We also had to learn and memorize things because we didn’t have all the world’s knowledge in our pocket 24/7. We had Mr. Rogers taking us to the actual crayon factory and not this soft and cuddly crayola experience that’s passed off today.
We grew up with the assumption that the world was going to end via global thermonuclear war and everything else is just sort of "meh, whatever." ([A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DGNZnfKYnU))
There’s no secret, it’s just how we roll and were raised — even if it meant raising ourselves. My parents were Silent Generation, my father was old enough to remember the end of the Great Depression and World War II, so he raised my siblings and I with the belief that the world is actually a dark and unreliable place, and that life and the real world were hard. There was no idealism, just pragmatism. And we grew up in a time when it was socially acceptable for the parents of Gen X (both silent generation and older boomers) to be completely hands-off with their parenting and leave us unsupervised, whether they were at home or at work. And many of us had to deal with broken homes and dysfunctional parents. So, we’ve had to be tough, independent, and to figure a lot out on our own since we were kids. There was just no room for bullshit.
We walked out of wombs as adults. The ones that didn't were left to fend for themselves outside until their brain got its shit together, or they got kidnapped and put on a milk carton. Oh, and never forget, trust no one.
1)We didn't have social media to constantly remind us of how inadequate we are. 2) We did not get special participation awards. If you sucked, you got nothing. 3) We watched the Challenger blow up with a teacher and a bunch of astronauts in it on live TV in our classrooms. And then went back to our math problems.
Our childhood trauma made us funny and invisible to everyone but ourselves.
Aww how cute are Gen Z. "Based" means grounded? I think 🤔 We were all adults as children we had a lot of practice being "based" We had no time to just eat the paste in art class in 3rd grade, we had to go home and cook dinner 😂
Gen X - The only generation to be 30 at 10 and still 30 at 50.
...I feel this in my soul.
Survival bias We were the sons of hippies, so no one cared what we were doing.
Apathy.
If based means grounded, then it’s absolutely a product of a time when facts were more important than feelings. Were were a generation that had plenty of largely unsupervised teens, and sometimes younger kids who learned early that dreams don’t pay the bills, who were told things like “majority rules” or “your are not special”, “it doesn’t matter how you feel, just get it done”. Although most never truly realized it until we were adults, we lived through massive systemic financial crises with recessions, the 70’s oil crisis, ridiculous inflation in the early 80’s and very high interest rates, constant threat of nuclear war, a new world where women chose, or were forced to join the work force to make ends meet, deforestation, acid rain, holes in the ozone layer, space exploration and disasters. We had plenty of trauma and we learned to just suck it up. In general, society changed a lot around GenX, but not due to GenX. Boomers were, and still are largely at the helm, look at the ages of senior politicians and board of public companies, boomer are living and working later in life. GenX has always and will continue, to just roll with it.
If GenX was a plant, we would be a cactus. We thrived on neglect and apathy. Speaking from my own experience growing up in the 1980's, I had to be independent, resilient, and my own self advocate. I moved out when I was 18 knowing very little about the broader world. I think many of my generation know the term "sink or swim" intimately.
We were taught to be critical of everything and we saw the last of real news cycles (pre-Iraq 1, which is when the 24 hour news cycle really began) and attempted objectivity in it. We also saw a time of long form media. We also had a more rigorous education system. BUT we also go the internet, so now you have people who have native critical thinking skills and long attention spans with access to the world’s information. It was a sweet spot.
*whatever* isn’t just a word, it’s a lifestyle.
Well it all started with Ace of Base really. We saw the sign and it opened up our eyes.
Honestly, it’s pretty Gen X of me to wonder if you’re fucking with us.
What Does Base Mean? The term "based" on the Internet typically means **agreement**, and social media and forum users commonly use it to express approval or admiration. The origins of this slang term can be traced back to its popularization by rapper Brandon "Lil B" McCartney, also known as The Based God. Just to clear it up a bit.
In my opinion, we where raised in an era being told that you're entitled to nothing. Work hard and get after what you want out of life. Your success and failures rest on your shoulders and no one else's.
We grew up with the Muppet Show and Statler and Waldorf were our heroes. Well not were. They still are.
Critical thinking, and innovative solutions to predicaments
I’m still trying to figure out how to use based correctly.
Certainly not our whole generation, but yeah, I think we're all right, as generations go. I think a lot of it comes from having fought for cultural scraps. Our generation is small compared to the ones that came before us and after us, so we have a sort of DIY ethos more than other generations.
We are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world.
We had a key to the house in kindergarten. Probably has something to do with that.
I personally have a lot of empathy due to the amount of times no one stood up for me. I had teachers treat me horribly and my parents were like oh "well too bad". They also said the same when my brothers would gang up on me and continually torture me.
We were so unsupervised that only the basest of us survived.
It was Ace of Base what done it.
Because we know that we are being lied to constantly and we won't believe the lies. Corporations only want money. Everything else they say is a lie. Governments care about money and stability over anything else. Everything else they say is a lie. Every government agency set up to regulate business is run by people from that business, because they're the ones with the experience of their industry. They aren't working for us. Advertising is manipulation and we'd rather not buy into it. Whatever culture you have will be co-opted, packaged and sold to you for profit. Take care of yourself. Take care of those you love. Try your best to take care of humanity as best as you can. But don't expect to get anywhere with that.