Paul Fussel is the man responsible for bringing the term “Generation X” to life when he first used it in his book titled ‘Class’, a book that touches on American class structure with wit and humour. ‘X’, generally being used to refer to the unknown or undefined, Fussel coined the term “Generation X” to refer to “an X category of people who wanted to hop off the merry-go-round of status, money, and social climbing that so often frames modern existence” (GX, par. 2) but the term was popularized by postmodern writer Douglas Coupland when he published his first novel, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. His novel tells of three friends who set out to find alternative identities away from the consumer-capitalist culture of the Boomer generation.
With this novel, his young readers seemed to be convinced that Coupland had aptly and sensitively captured the essence of their dilemmas and existential crises. Thus, Coupland’s Generation X seems to be the quintessential literary anthem for GenXers.
These post baby-boomers have been the focus of much hype and criticism alike for many generations after it. An interesting generation, accused of being a mass of clueless and wasted youths whose life purpose is to ‘escape reality’ and worship the ‘gods of MTV’, GenXers have been called “DUMB. They can’t find Chicago on a map. They don’t know when the Civil War was fought. They watch too much TV, spend too much time shopping, seldom vote ( and vote for shallow reasons when they do), cheat on tests, don’t read newspapers, and care way too much about cars, clothes , shoes and (especially) money” (“13th Generation”, 18). SAT scores kept declining year after year and this sparked off some panic as it came at an importune time; “when information and knowledge are playing a crucial role in determining the rise and fall of nations.” Wirtz Commission looked into the cause of this upsetting trend and the government attributed it to something inevitable. They were the ‘after-effects’ of the “social turbulence of the ‘60s and ‘70s”. Schools lacked funding, teachers were underpaid, discipline was unmanageable and standards were deteriorating. Students were neglected and became victims of “experimental curricula”. They were “disappointing” and “depressing” and “Kids graduating in the 1980s were, as one Boomer college president put it, “junky”’.
“An unprecedented proportion of today’s youth lack commitment to core mental values like honesty, personal responsibility, respect for others and civic duty.”
Josephson Institute for the Advancement of Ethics, “The Ethics of American Youth” (report)
GenXers have their own defense though. For the other side of the coin, GenXer Douglas Rushkoff, a journalist and pop culture writer, defends his generation as “a culture, a demographic, an outlook, a style, an economy, a scene, a political ideology, an aesthetic, an age, a decade, and a literature” who has been unfairly singled out and labeled. I tend to agree with his view. They seem to be more of victims rather than perpetrators. Victims of labels and slogans. Almost as though they had been branded. But GenXers are a strong bunch. They see their future. They see a bleak future. But they are aware….they are hard and resilient. Even though they are plagued by all the angst, distress and frustrations “of late twentieth-century America”, they bring hope with them for they have strength and they are realistic. “As a group, they aren’t what older people wish they were, but rather what they themselves know they need to be: street smart survivalists clued into the game of life the way it really gets played, searching for simple things that work in a cumbersome society that offers little to them”(13th Generation, pg 31). They have been children of divorced parents, they have beenvictims of neglect, they have been left to fend for themselves. And for whatever accusations they have received, GenXers survived!
“We are clueless yet wizened, too unopinionated to voice concern, purposefully enigmatic and indecisive.”
Bret Easton Ellis, “The Twentysomethings: Adrift in a Pop Landscape, “ in the New York Times
