did you know the term Generation X came from a novel in his 1991 debut Generation X tales for an accelerated culture author Douglas Copeland wanted to recontextualize Young members of the baby boomer generation or people born after the end of World War II he labeled the newer more disenfranchised group Generation X after reading a 1983 book titled class by Paul Fussell Fussell used X to refer to people who wanted to distance themselves from the social struggle for class status and professional Glory it was perfect for Copeland's cast of characters in search of their own identities hi I'm Erin McCarthy editor-in-chief of Mental Floss and this is the list show Copeland's book inadvertently created a label for those born between 1965 and 1980. reflecting on the moment Copeland said that buzzwords like slacker and grunge were hitting at around the same time and had many of the same connotations the book's initial printing wasn't a big success but Richard link later slacker and the new Seattle sound created something of a cultural movement as Copeland wrote two's nothing but three is a trend and thus Gen X stuck those are just two of many facts about Gen X we'll be covering on this installment of the list show we'll discuss the latchkey kid label analyze their confounding religious and political beliefs and even touch on why German gen xers are known as generation golf let's get started while Copeland made Generation X stick to a generation of people the term did pop up in other places before his book in the 1950s War photographer Robert Kappa titled a portfolio profiling young adult Generation X and though rock musician Billy Idol is a baby boomer he may have helped the Gen X term gain ground in pop culture when Idol was first starting out on the punk rock scene his london-based band was named Generation X after a 1964 book on what else sociology though to be clear that book was focused on the teenagers of 1960s England despite some assumptions Douglas Copeland said Idol did not Inspire the title of his book although maybe he wishes it had been idle getting all the credit in 1995 Copeland said he was tired of being stereotyped as a gen expert and had to repeatedly turn down invitations from politicians and consumer companies to advise them on how to reach the demographic considering some of these invites came with offers of ten thousand dollars just to talk and he still said no Copeland must really have been burned out on the topic I'll see if I can sympathize 97 facts from now before Copeland's term became entrenched pop culture pundits tried on a variety of different names to describe people in their 20s who wanted to break away from the boomer generation some of the ideas that were floated included the Forgotten generation the baby buster Generation The Lost Generation the doofus generation the 20 nothings numb and dumb the 13ers because some believe they're the 13th generation depending on when in American history you start counting and the MTV generation the latter may have been a bit of self-serving marketing on MTV's part though they claimed they didn't invent the phrase the music channel aired a documentary titled the MTV generation in 1991 that profiled young adults Copeland himself wasn't a fan saying that calling the group the MTV generation would be like going through life with a big product placement tattooed on your head in Russia they're referred to as the last Soviet children seeing as they were the last kids to come of age when the Soviet Union was still in attacked in Germany they're known as generation golf this name comes from author Florian Elias's book generation golf an inspection which used the Volkswagen Golf as a symbol for the age group Ilyas felt it was common for German children of generation golf to Define themselves through Brands Ilias considered them to be materialistic and superficial but that didn't stop the book from becoming popular with the age group another German nickname is the children of the mower fall or children of the wall coming down the wall of course being the Berlin Wall every generation plays favorites when it comes to names Boomers were fond of Gary's and Larry's while the silent generation preceding them preferred Dolores and Billy for Gen X future meme bro Chad was a popular choice becoming the 25th most popular baby name in 1972. historically most Chads are gen xers the group also included Tammy Tracy Tanya Todd and Scott but the most common names of the generation were Jennifer for girls and Michael for boys you may have noticed that a lot of movies and television shows are sequels remakes reboots continuations or otherwise related to something that was popular 30 to 40 years ago think Cobra Kai top gun Maverick and another 400 things we don't have time to list if you're tired of rehashes you can probably blame Gen X according to a survey of YouTube users conducted by Google 75 of gen xers like watching online videos that look back on culture or world events from their past they search for music videos movie scenes and even commercials that remind them of a simpler time Glenn Weldon of the pop culture Happy Hour podcast told NPR in 2017 that the Nostalgia Rush could be due to gen xers becoming Studio heads and network Executives looking to tap into their childhoods for fond memories that will appeal to people their age JJ Abrams is on the older end of the age group and has expressed his nostalgia in films like Super 8 and the Star Wars reboot and also the Star Trek reboot writer Chuck Klosterman recently wrote a book called The 90s hardly his first foray into nostalgic cultural commentary the ringer is a multi-million dollar Media company founded by Bill Simmons a writer who came to fame partially with his liberal use of references to Gen X cultural touchstones like the movie Teen Wolf Simmons now hosts a podcast called the re-watchables which often covers films from the 80s and 90s Kevin Smith expanded the boundaries of success for low budget independent movies and John Singleton became the first black American filmmaker nominated for the best director Oscar John Hughes Classics like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off stargen X characters though Hughes is not a gen xer himself and for the record mentalfloss was founded by two members of Gen X Will Pearson and manga shatikiter Gen X has been called the slacker generation for the record the director of the indie film slacker is youngish Boomer Richard linklater arguably playing against that stereotype a large number of these supposed Slackers went to college the problem they came with a lot of debt according to Pew research 65 percent of college students were borrowing to pay for their education in the year 2000. just as younger Gen X members were finishing up that was up from one third of people borrowing in 1977 and while they've generally been earning more than Boomers it hasn't had a pause positive effect on their debt Pugh reported that 9 out of 10 Gen X respondents claimed to have debt the highest of any group in a CNBC survey conducted in the summer of 2022 different generational groups were asked about coping with inflation it appears Gen X is taking it extremely seriously one percent of gen xers said they were cutting discretionary spending like dining out compared to 37 percent of Millennials and 54 percent of Boomers 41 said they're trying to save on mandatory expenses like groceries compared to 26 percent of Millennials cutting back while the pandemic has shaken up virtually everyone's financial status it seems like Gen X has taken a hit more than other groups the TransAmerica Center for retirement studies found that 41 of gen xers were afraid their retirement funds would run out before they die while a different survey found that only a third of exers believed they were saving enough according to Business Insider one reason the group's retirement may be shaky is because they're a kind of middle generation caring not only for their children but for older adults in the family as well that leaves less time for work on the opposite end of the spectrum Generation X has more self-made billionaires than any other generation about a quarter of those billionaires made their money in the tech industry as the internet and Computing came to dominate the world economy towards the turn of the Millennium the founders of Google for example Larry Page and Sergey Brin are both from Generation X so is Elon Musk and though he's a naturalized American citizen he was born outside the United States which is not uncommon amongst wealthy members of the generation Gen X billionaires are more likely to be citizens of countries other than the United States compared to other age groups it's not just Gen X billionaires to feel secure in their jobs gen xers Neil Gorsuch Brett Kavanaugh Amy Coney Barrett and katanji brown Jackson represent more than a third of the sitting Supreme Court Justices stuffing people into predefined boxes never gets old and so gen xers have been further sliced up with alternative labels some nicknames for the quasi-generation at the cusp of Gen X and Millennials include the lucky ones the Oregon Trail generation and zenials zenials were born between 1977 and 1983 and were remarkable for having experience with both the clunkier technology of that era as well as the internet and social media while still in their Prime socializing years in their 20s this so-called micro generation failed to catch on though you may be familiar with its homophone zenials who are born near the dividing line between Millennials and gen Z many members of Gen X gave birth to kids who now comprise gen Z somewhere no doubt there's a zenial parent raising a zenial child Gen X was also actually more likely to have children later in life than any prior generation and many of them are so-called helicopter parents highly involved in their kids upbringing this could be a reaction against the relatively hands-off parenting style of gen X's parents every generation has its own lexicon if you're young and on social media you might find something based something could slap a song could be a banger or highly likely those terms are already extremely dated and I'm unaware of how the kids are talking today for Gen X their vocabulary was often fixated on how to best describe stuff they were watching on MTV that had a punk or grunge Focus where is the group popular or took on new meetings include chill pill gnarly headbanger trippin rock as in rock out and to the max you might have heard that last phrase in Frank Zappa's song valley girl his daughter moon is a member of Gen X and she actually recorded the song's famous monologue though it was meant as a satirical take on the valley girl archetype the song may well have popularized the like Phil diction and up talking intonation that continued to influence American culture today sticking to the current definition of Gen X as anyone born between 1965 and 1980 there are roughly 65 million people in this category in the United States today that places Generation X at a slight population disadvantage baby boomers are thought to number around 75 million while Millennials clock in with about 83 million according to the Pew Research Center though it's possible exers could finally outnumber Boomers by 2028 as Boomers age out of um life perhaps because they're sandwiched between two generations the media likes to opine on Boomers and Millennials there seems to be a sentiment amongst Gen X that they're a bit overlooked they were only the largest demographic in the U.S Workforce
for a brief time before being overtaken by Millennials even gen X's own self-image is a bit hazy according to a Pew research survey from 2010 about 50 percent of respondents in that age group said their generation was unique compared to around 60 percent of Millennials and Boomers amongst the people who did say they felt their generation was unique exers had less agreement on what it was precisely that made them unique technology use was the top choice but that only represented about 12 percent of answers while 24 of Millennials agreed that their use of Technology made their age group stand out if there was one signature Gen X fragrance in the 90s it was ck1 the citrusy perfume was perceived as an antidote to the stronger sense of the 80s and it had a very particular segment of the popular regulation in mind Generation X in fact Calvin Klein which manufactured the fragrance commissioned Research into the group to see what would be most appealing the company decided that marketing it as a unisex or gender-free scent would be best a marketing campaign positioned it as a rebellious anti-authority musk and it worked upon its release ck1 sold an average of 20 bottles a minute and racked up sales of 90 million dollars annually a Google survey found that 75 percent of gen xers polled will call up a YouTube video to learn how to do something fix a faucet change oil anything that could be considered a DIY task this can-do attitude probably saves them money on repair bills not every member of Gen X would be considered a digital native but Computing definitely came to the fore during their lifetimes personal computers didn't make a big dent in the Home Market until the 1980s which means Gen X was the first generation in history to have any type of widespread ability to grow up with a PC lead is a heavy metal that used to be prevalent in daily life from paint to gasoline it's a no neurotoxicant and exposure can be seriously detrimental for your brain according to research conducted at Florida State University it's possible Gen X had exposure to a large amount of lead mostly due to leaded gasoline that spewed damaging Automotive exhaust use of leaded gas peaked between the late 1960s and early 1980s the key formative years for exers according to the study people born between 1966 and 1975 a group that includes a lot of gen xers lost around five IQ points on average now intelligence is hard to objectively measure but yeah inhaling lead is going to be a problem one of the defining characteristics of Gen X was having parents who were working hard and often that left Gen X kids to fend for themselves after coming home from school doing their homework alone and often making their own meals that led to another term for Gen X the latchkey generation because kids needed house keys to get back into their homes there's been debate over whether that lack of supervision may have affected education or other outcomes but no strong evidence has ever indicated latchkey kids were at a disadvantage it may be just the opposite there is a school of thought that says because latchkey kids aka gen xers were expected to be more independent at an earlier age they might be made of sturdier stuff as an adult being a latchkey kid defines Our Generation as being resilient as being self-starters in a way gen xer and president of the National Endowment for financial education Dr Billy Hensley told Forbes in 2019. we were the kids who came home made ourselves a grilled cheese or if we were not allowed to use the stove grabbed a popsicle out of the fridge we watched Saved by the Bell reruns and entertained ourselves it shaped Us in being resilient and being self-reliant if the silent generation and Baby Boomers were seen as can-do workers who helped the country Prosper after World War II Gen X was perceived as something else entirely it wasn't uncommon for people to characterize the group as being lazy and morose possibly owing to the grunge aesthetic of the 90s in 1990 Time Magazine described 20-somethings or as yet unnamed gen xers as lazy and passive speaking with columnist Bob Green in 1998 retail consultant Cynthia Cohen labeled gen xers as grumpy people who tend to be sarcastic and cynical they are just not hopeful people as a group they believe they have a very very sophisticated sense of humor and people who are not optimistic who are not happy with their lot in life do not like to listen to other people's problems for these reasons Cohen asserted the Gen xers would fare poorly in customer service jobs specifically she thought they'd make lousy flight attendants on a potentially related note according to metlife's annual U.S employee benefit Trend study from 2019 gen xers were the least likely to say they felt a sense of purpose at work they were also the generation least likely to Define purpose as doing work that contributes meaning to your life working on or for something that you are passionate about or creating value for your company slash employer admittedly 2019 feels like a lifetime ago given how much the world has changed since then but the publish MetLife survey from more recent years hasn't presented data by generation in quite the same way I can share from metlife's 2022 report that 70 of Gen X respondents said they felt mentally healthy still those perceptions of Gen X workers and the crunch of being sandwiched between Boomers holding onto senior positions and Millennials pushing for career advancement May stymy Gen X success in the workplace well there's obviously a great deal of variation there does seem to be a discrepancy when it comes to promotion according to a 2018 study over a five-year period 66 percent of Gen X supervisors received one promotion or no promotion at all Millennials and Boomers were more likely to have received at least two promotions over the same same period of time we know the stereotype of Gen X being listless soft cry babies is an over generalization millions of them worked hard to get through college start families and give themselves Financial stability but that didn't stop Coca-Cola from buying into their emo profile in 1994 Coca-Cola introduced OK soda a soft drink packaged in somber gray cans with morose copy pick up a can and you could read a little not so inspiring message what's the point of okay well what's the point of anything or don't be fooled into thinking there has to be a reason for everything soda or canned therapy session consumers weren't sure and the soda was discontinued around a year later Gen X has a famously fraught relationship with consumerism and the concept of selling out one film that dramatized the tension between commercial success and I'm going to say kissing a smelly Ethan Hawke was Reality Bites and though the movie is now considered an Exemplar of its era at least one star was firmly against calling it a Gen X movie in a 1993 appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman Janine Garofalo said they're going to try probably to Market it as a Generation X story which is like the stupidest thing it's not which does sound like some thing a disaffected gen xer starring in a Gen X Studio film would say part of the generation's supposed distaste for materialism is probably a matter of simple economics thanks to our recession spanning 1990 and 1991 it's possible some young people decided they weren't interested in flashy brand names around the same time they realized they couldn't afford them by 2012 in fact American Express found that now older Generation X was spending 18 percent more on luxury goods than their baby boomer predecessors Gen X even has a favorite brand at least according to one 2021 poll Apple in some ways Gen X is like younger Generations in their attitudes towards sex unlike Boomers and Elders less than half of gen xers said sex was reuniting a man and a woman in marriage as glamor summarized a 2016 survey despite that overlap in attitudes there's some meaningful deviation between Gen X and their younger peers sexual promiscuity actually peaked with Gen X as subsequent Generations report having fewer sexual partners for what it's worth a higher percentage of gen xers self-reported having good sex lives compared to Millennials according to an international survey conducted by Viacom members of Gen X value sex more highly than friendship according to that same survey unlike their Millennial counterparts and for the record the country in which gen xers were clearest in that preference was Hungary those preferences are somewhat borne out in the fact that the average member of Generation X reported having an average of 36 friends which is 10 less than Millennials reported it may be a case of quality over quantity gen xers were 20 percent less likely to say they were lonely compared to Millennials Generation X was coming of age in the 80s as a possible consequence of MTV they were more interested in group fitness classes and enthusiastic and personable instructors classes that were part exercise and part entertainment the explosion of dance Pilates and in recycling classes can probably be traced to their Zeal for colorful Fitness not just machines and weights as the generation ages their Fitness habits may be changing according to the global health and fitness Association 33 percent of health club members fall into the Gen X category their favorite activities the elliptical bike free weights and other resistance machines they also tended to remain gym members for a full year longer than the national average that Fitness enthusiasm probably helps but it apparently wasn't enough to outweigh countervailing forces in the United States in fact a 2021 study published in the American Journal of epidemiology showed Generation X suffering worse Health outcomes than their baby boomer predecessors with mental health and obesity to areas of concern that latter issue may be exacerbated by gen xers who don't spend much time in the kitchen according to flavor producer fona 73 of Gen X Shoppers are in the habit of grabbing pre-made or pre-prepared food they're especially interested in rotisserie chickens for what it's worth Gen X Men report doing more cooking than their fathers as far as taste goes Gen X likes meaty cheesy flavors with 10 percent fewer extras interested in sweet Foods than younger groups the AARP formerly known as the American Association for retired persons advocates for quality of life for those over 50. since an increasing number of gen xers are hitting that age AARP has turned their promotional skills to enticing them with mementos from their past a 2021 ad featured a middle-aged man skateboarding prior to that they circulated a newsletter with hot 90s takes like how to throw an adult slumber party former president Barack Obama was born in 1961. so is he the first and only Gen X president not really for one thing the time frame for a gen xer in 2008 when he was elected was between 1964 and 1982 technically making him a boomer Obama actually said he identifies with something called generation Jones that's a term coined by Jonathan pontel a social commentator who wanted a new Branch for people who were born late in the Boomer cycle and a little too early for the Gen X cycle the Jones refers to the relative anonymity of the group we imagine you probably haven't heard much about it the fact that the group was looking or jonesing for success to date there hasn't been a Gen X president let's see what happens with future candidates and if any of them can credibly claim to have jammed out on a Sony Walkman as an 80s teen there are 23 Gen X Senators as of early 2023 including Oklahoma's James Lankford and George's Raphael Warnock over a third of the House of Representatives is made up of gen xers spanning virtually the entire generation range from Alabama's Terry Sewell born January 1st 1965 to Colorado's yudira caraveo whose birth came in just under the generational wire on December 23 1980. in terms of the politics of Gen X
as a whole it's a bit tough to draw a hard and fast conclusions especially since political sentiments tend to shift with age but according to a 2022 Gallup poll 44 percent of gen xers identified as politically independent representing a higher rate of non-partisan identification than preceding Generations when it comes to voting habits in the U.S at least it does seem that the group moved to the right over time a Marist NPR poll from May 2022 revealed that Generation X had the lowest overall approval rating for President Joe Biden the head of a democratic data firm targetsmart concluded that Gen X was actually the most conservative generation surpassing the Boomers in their rightward tilt in the states many gen xers came of age during Republican Presidential administrations from Ronald Reagan to George H.W bush those political wins may have given rise to fictional characters like Family Ties Alex P Keaton the Federalist called the character played by Michael J fox the first Gen X conservative though Fox himself is actually a boomer his character was born in 1965. qualifying as an older member of Generation X in the United Kingdom a similar conservative Trend played out during gen X's formative years Margaret Thatcher was the country's prime minister throughout the entire 80s when Gen X would have been anywhere from infancy to their early 20s that's given rise to the name Thatcher's children rap music may have been invented by Boomers but early luminaries from the genre often came from Gen X krs-1 Lil Kim the queen bee all the original Wu-Tang Clan and the members of A Tribe Called Quest are part of the generation so are genre Crossing icons like Lauren Hill and Mary J Blige as Alex Williams pointed out in a piece for the New York Times the generation might have had an even larger cultural footprint if tragedy hadn't intervened gen xers who died early include Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G Jeff Buckley Brandon Lee Aaliyah River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain the characters on the sitcom Friends were all gen xers or at least that generally seems to be the case researching this script I learned that the friends writers room was pretty flexible with birthdays over the run of the show but the group's uncanny ability to spend countless hours at a coffee shop might seem like a Gen X trait specialty coffee shops like Starbucks certainly proliferated throughout the United States in the 1990s when many gen xers were young adults for what it's worth though the data isn't overwhelming and doesn't neatly fit into standard generational divides the National Coffee associations report from Fall 2022 pegged 40 to 59 year olds most of whom would be considered Gen X as the age group most likely to have consumed coffee in the past day if you're wondering how members of Gen X entertain themselves it turns out they're not too different from their younger counterparts a study from 2021 shows that about 60 percent of gen xers are Gamers this is compared to 77 of Millennials and 81 percent of gen Z the average amount of time playing video games a week for Gen X about four and a half hours this is nearly double the play time of baby boomers who clocked in at about two and a half hours the main difference in gaming Tendencies seems to be the motivation behind playing a majority of Gen X Gamers play mobile games and many of them regard gaming simply as a method to fill Time Candy Crush you win again but there's still a fair number of people who consider themselves real gaming fans if not all-out Fanatics surprisingly research from Nielsen suggested that members of Gen X actually spend more time on social media each week than Millennials their favorite platform as a group is Facebook with YouTube coming in second an Instagram following close behind and third during the pandemic gen xers kept themselves occupied by watching dramas more than any other genre of television they watched animation the least they don't spend all their time looking at screens of course penguin Random House took the liberty of compiling a list of quintessential Gen X books here are some highlights American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis Palm Sunday by Kurt Vonnegut girl interrupted by Susanna Cason The Firm by John Grisham and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros if it wasn't already clear those books apparently appeal to Gen X readers but they weren't necessarily written by members of the generation Gen X is a generation most likely to spend at least one hour Outdoors per day with 39 reporting they did so in 2021 okay I know what question you're really here for do members of Gen X care about crypto the answer not really according to one study the vast majority of crypto buyers are young a whopping 94 of the crypto trading pie is made up of people aged 18 to 40. Gen X makes up
less than five percent of crypto buyers but oddly enough when a member of Gen X does buy crypto they spend on average more than any other generation their rough average is about nine and a half thousand dollars spent over 12 months compared to say the six thousand dollars spent by gen Z according to drizzly the top selling wine amongst Gen X consumers was a Cabernet Sauvignon from Josh sellers I'm sure the fine people at Josh make a lovely product but I personally am happy to finally know who is buying wine from the most oddly named beverage brand I've ever seen in the UK at least there's data suggesting that Gen X engages in more extreme drinking Behavior than overall Trends would suggest as author Bobby Duffy said in terms of risky drinking there's a really strong office for National statistics chart a bulge going through the age range that more or less tracks Generation X they also seem to use tobacco products more than other Generations according to a global data customer survey from 2021 Gen X respondents were the most likely to use tobacco products regularly and the least likely to have never tried them let's pray those unhealthy habits die off as the generation enters senior citizenship or we can leave the praying to Gen X itself more than half of them pray daily according to Pew research 84 of gen xers say they are fairly certain or absolutely certain that God exists but only about a third of them attend religious services at least once a week while Baby Boomers often tended towards religious disaffiliation that is being raised in a religious tradition but then abandoning it later in life a 2010 study found that gen xers who were raised with a specific religion were more likely to persist in that faith into adulthood because fewer of those adults were raised with religion to begin with though their overall religiosity is lower than their predecessors when it comes to the technology of the future Gen X differs a bit from their younger counterparts both gen Z and Millennials ranked virtual reality as one of the more exciting technological advances in the workplace while Gen X we're a little bit more grounded they're looking forward to utilizing new project management tools and in certain countries like Japan and Russia their enthusiasm spreads to cloud computing and e-learning programs as well Gen X was the first generation to have more women than men with bachelor's degrees by 2001 31 of Gen X women between the ages of 25 and 37 had completed a bachelor's degree program compared to 28 percent of Gen X Men Boomers and members of the silent generation had the opposite tendency with men outpacing women in college education in 2021 approximately 4.2 percent of Gen X adults identified as belonging to the lgbtq plus Community those gen xers along with Millennials and genzirs are also more likely to identify as bisexual than their older counterparts Gen X is more philanthropic than other generations of adults at least when it comes to their time in 2018 approximately 30 percent reported that they volunteered through an organization about 26 percent of Boomers reported volunteering in that same year and only 22 percent of Millennials did if you're a gen xer starting to feel the pinch of approaching old age this last fact isn't going to help in 2023 the Illinois State Museum has a temporary exhibition titled growing up X to quote the museum it explores the toys Technologies and cultural touchstones surrounding gen xers in their childhood now gen Z can stroll through a museum and regard Gen X as literal Museum fossils that's just great thanks for watching this episode of the list show we'll see you next time
2023-05-22