Irish statesman Edmund Burke is famous for the quote “Those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it.” Progressive Insurance has made a fortune on commercials mocking how Gen Xers are slowly turning into their parents, i.e. Boomers. Kevin Costner and Tom Hanks, who were once heavyweights of the Silver Screen that many Gen Xers grew up watching are now making “dadporn” like Yellowstone, Greyhound, Horizons: An American Saga, Bridge of Spies, etc.
I even see Gen Xers on social media lamenting “The world they grew up in no longer exists” while showing images of shopping malls that were once busy and video arcades that were bustling. Yes, that always happens. I’m sure people who grew up during The Great Depression are glad they didn’t have to go through that again. A new biopic about Ronald Reagan just titled Reagan staring Dennis Quaid as the Gipper looks like it’s going to finally get released this summer after being on the shelf for about three years.
Of course, it’s strategic to release it less than three months from the Presidential Election. It’s mostly to appeal to the last remaining Baby Boomer voters who still want to romanticize that era in the 1980s where they think everything seemed great. In fact, it was a lot worse than what people have thought. One of the reasons we’re not seeing any Gen X or Millennial versions of American Graffiti or Dazed and Confused is because people born within the last 50 years don’t look through their pasts with the same rose-collared glasses as their elders.
I mean, American Graffiti was released in 1973 but set in 1962. Dazed was released in 1993 but set in 1976. Can you imagine movies looking back at 2013 or 2007? It’s one thing to reminisce. It’s another to want to stop things from moving forward even though it’s going to hurt more people. I’m pretty sure some of you are living in communities or nearby where an older school building is constantly being repaired and renovated at a bigger cost than tearing it down and building something new back up.
Why? Because a bunch of crotchety people who are in the 70s and 80s are still wanting their grandkids or great-grandkids to go to the same elementary school they went to. The elementary school, middle school and high school I went to are all gone. They’re rubble. Am I upset? Yes, because I wasn’t allowed to run the wrecking ball to knock the buildings down myself. I’m sure if the school board charged some money to have alumni knock the buildings down they may have turned a good profit to help pay for the constructions of the new buildings.
And that’s why I think Gen Xers are at a crossroads. Nostalgia is great for memory. But I definitely don’t want to live there. It seems Gen Xers are still too busy acting like they’re hardcore and all that. But bragging is the same thing that Boomers do. You know, talking about how difficult they had it growing up, which most of them actually didn’t. The post-WWII time was a era of economic prosperity that was part because the manufacturing industry in Europe was non-existent because of the war. But once wealthy businessmen realize they could cheat labor costs, the bottom dropped out.
In the 1970s, there was an energy and oil crisis and political turmoil. Most Gen Xers really didn’t experience a good grasp on how things were until the 1980s when it seemed a lot of things got worse. Reagan used the threat of nuclear war to get what he wanted. What little we knew was the Soviet Union was in such a bad shape during this decade, it was all a lot of talk. I mean, yes, it was constantly discussed but it never happened. However, 9/11 happened. And a lot of Millennials and even Gen Zers were watching the terrorism and violence on the news at their schools. Yes, people may have watched the Challenger explode in classrooms but imagine watching a terrorism act that killed hundreds. I mean, people literally would log on to see an American hostage decapitated. Faces of Death was mostly fake, but that shit on the Internet was real. (And how sick of a person are you to want to see that, anyway?!)
Then, there were concerns the military draft would start under George W. Bush. I was in my mid-20s when the Iraq War started. But imagine some Millennial 16 or 17 afraid that they were going to get drafted just because of when they were born. When my father was in high school, all the young men would go to hear the representatives from the armed services sell their branch. Now, it’s about encouraging people from lower income or those who are barely going to graduate to join. I was even duped into covering a story that I thought was going to be a survivor of the Bataan death match speaking. Instead, it was a bunch of vets from Rolling Thunder trying to get the kids at the alternative school into enlisting. The survivor didn’t even show up because of health reasons, something I could’ve been told before I left the office.
Life isn’t a pissing contest between generations. We’re not better than people younger than us. When I was in my last year at college, people would bitch at the first and second year students bringing glow sticks to the clubs. Really? Bitching and griping about how someone dances at a nightclub while you’re buzzing doesn’t affect the price of tea in China. Considering how when I was a first year student, most of the dancing at nightclubs looked nothing more than dry-humping, you really don’t have a reason to criticize anyone else’s dancing.
It just seems to me, this bragging isn’t necessary. We should all work together to make the world a better place. The irony is people don’t understand Richard Linklater was making fun of the people he was going to high school with. Wooderson, played by Matthew McConaughey, was that loser 20-something who would often hang around the teenagers trying to date someone in their teens. I mean, there was always a few and the only reason he was around was to buy booze for the high schoolers. All these seniors who thought their shit didn’t stink was what he was mocking. My friend and I had a discussion that Linklater was a lot more like the geeky students played by Anthony Rapp and Adam Goldberg. The rest of them, especially those played by Ben Affleck and Cole Hauser, were the losers who peaked and wouldn’t ever amount to much.
I think this is why high school reunions have dropped in popularity. My class had one in 2007. I didn’t attend. A lot of people didn’t. Then, they tried to do one with a 90s theme around 2017 or 2018 getting the Classes of 1995 to 1999 but it kept getting delayed. I never heard a whole story. But why spend a lot of money to go to some community center building and listen to 1990s music when you can do that at your house listening to Spotify and YouTube? Music, movies and TV are one thing but some people don’t have happy memories of their youth.
I remember seeing a post about five years ago that went something like, “You’re always going to be the villain in at least one person’s life story.” Yes. I try to be a nice person but I know people don’t like me. From my years in journalism, I know I made people who didn’t like me. But just because someone had the greatest time growing up, it doesn’t mean everyone else did. A lot of people don’t want to relive those days.
Yes, shopping malls are closing down. Your favorite movie theater closed down. Your restaurant that was a hotspot closed down. It happens. A lot of businesses close down over time. Things change with time. We shouldn’t be expecting them to stay the same just for our own enjoyment, especially when they’re are other people whose opinions and tastes are just as important. And that’s my problem with Boomers. Everything has to be for them and them only. I’m not talking about senior citizens. At least they are accepting the fact they’re getting older.
Boomers want to live in the same world where everything cost a nickel. What they don’t realize is they benefitted the most from the inflation era of the 1980s. They also made it harder for younger people to get their footing in adulthood. I find it funny a lot of Boomers are critical of people in their late 20s or even early 30s in certain big positions. Yet, a lot of them were buying homes and boats by their mid-20s because they were getting such a good salary and benefit.
The moment we think a younger person should suffer for the only reason that we had to suffer is the moment we’ve lost any sense of humanity. The people who lived through the Great Depression tried to keep it from happening again. Instead, people who had more advantages and privileges didn’t see that. In such a shorter lifetime, a lot of people, now hopefully registered voters have had to live through 9/11, the Great Recession and the Covid-19 pandemic. All of these could’ve been prevented if we had the right people running things to keep them from having as badly. From my home state, Jon Ossoff is only in his 30s when he was elected to the U.S. Senate and people said he was too young. No, he’s the right age. The problem is we have people in Congress who are too old. That’s because Boomers act like they’re the only ones who can do something. Yet, their performance record isn’t the best.
Just like that high school reunion that never happened, people said it was because a few people didn’t want to let others in to help. People who are saying Make America Great Again don’t realize what someone thought was great might have been a difficult time for others. We need younger ideas. We need younger fresher eyes on something. I can read over something I’ve wrote and not notice anything wrong. Yet, I hand it to someone else and they can spot a few things. I don’t complain. I just change them and thank them.
To all my Gen Xers out there, I implore you don’t go down the same road. Take some criticism especially if it’s warranted. You’re not perfect. Your shit does stink. You just think it doesn’t. We don’t need Ok, Boomer to be Ok, Xer.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 