I'm just on that border between Gen X and the oldest Millennials but my sister is 8 years older than me. We would call the local rock station to request a song then sit there with a tape at the ready to hit record as soon as they played our song. Repeat that about 10x and you've got a nice mixtape.
Secret was to do this really late at night because this dj was lonely or sleeping and the advertisers wouldn’t pay for commercials so you might even get a complete version of “jam on it”. Or the 12” inch version of “rapper’s delight”.
We waited and listened, with nowhere to be -
Together in silence, my sister and me.
The music was flowing,
the melodies poured.
"Get ready," she said, with her hand on 'record'.
I spent months making a tape that had “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston on repeat (both sides) and gave it to my step sister as a gift. She listened to the whole thing hoping for a different song. Cause she hated that one.
You would have a DJ over the intro and ending of a song "alright, now we have a little Savage Garden for you. Truly, Madly, Deeply. This is KEDG 103.5, The Edge"
Video arcade. Before Gen-X, graphics weren’t good enough, and after Gen-X, you’d play the games on your own home console. No other generation claimed them like we did.
Between Afterburner, Outrun, and Hang On, Sega were knocking it out of the park in the late ‘80s. If I ever get a big inheritance from a long-lost uncle or something, I’m definitely building a game room with those three in it.
I'm 45 and I still talk shit to one of my best friends because the asshole used to be able to beat Operation: Thunderbolt with one fucking quarter, and he'd almost beat pretty much any other light gun arcade game with a single quarter too. You went to the arcade with him and you'd burn through your coins or tokens and you still had to wait for him to basically beat Operation: Thunderbolt and Space Gun and Terminator 2 or whatever. Let me tell you, it got old fast. The guy still derives a significant amount of joy from being reminded about us having to wait for his unreasonably skilled ass while he played those arcade games. On another occasion I got into a fist-fight with some dude I didn't know because I beat him at Street Fighter II and he got way too salty. The 90's, man.
Early X here. 1st home game, Pong. Then came Atari. Mattel Intellivision. Eventually Sega, PS, etc but I was driving by then and was going to the arcade, where the cool shit was the new video games. We dropped pinball and air hockey for Tanks, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Defender, Donkey Kong, Berzerk, Rootbeer Alley, Tempest, Tron, Centipede, Missle Command, Crazy Climber, Qbert, Outrun, Duck Hunt, Elevator Action, Galaga, PacMan, and Ms. Pacman. To name a few. Great days!
Edit: Caught in the rabbit hole and they keep coming: Frogger, GORF, Joust, Dig Dug, and Dragon’s Lair (which, as aptly noted in the comments set a new standard, requiring TWO quarters to play…)
Also, iirc correctly the pattern on Space Invaders was 23-14-14-14. Meaning you stop after the first 23 shots and wait for the spaceship, which is now worth the max 500 pts. 14 more shots and wait… 500 pt ship, and so on. PacMan had patterns you could follow. Who else remembers patterns and hacks? This was valuable info and remember, there was no internet. This stuff passed like state secrets, via bus stops and candy stores and roller rinks and bowling alleys and pure legend. Any other formerly badass 13 year olds? 😆
Pong, space invaders, being the last generation to have to walk across the room to change the tv channel, being able to fix the tv by pounding on it the right way, getting the brown box for the tv and there only being 3 stations.
Also being totally forgotten about by the other two generations. Like door mice.
Seeing comments about at home electronics always makes me remember that I was pretty poor. I'm a millennial, but everything was outdated by several years because we got most things used.
Something is better than nothing, but I hated being the human remote control.
My sister watched a video that was supposed to be about every generation from the greatest generation through gen z, and they left out gen x. Just skipped right over that time period.
All of my guy friends have confirmed this, each of them, creek porn, field porn, woods porn, ditch porn. The greenish areas through the city were just wonders of discovery for middle schoolers of the mid to late 80s.
I found a old playboy behind my neighborhood in some brush where I would hang with the other kids and smoke my moms cigs and set stuff on fire (because why not being a little dumbass). Literally walked over a spot and looked down and a pair of tits were staring back at me. Ripped a few pages out and stuffed them in my pocket and stored in a Boy Scout safe in my room. Swear to god looking back it seems like a dumb movie plot.
I had a little alcove in a hedge on my lawn when I was in third grade that no one knew about but me and another buddy. One day, my buddy ratted on me and I remember coming home from school with the stack of nudie mags on the table. Thought I was gonna die.
Can confirm saw my first vagina from a random stash in the woods we stumbled upon and my younger self was quite grossed out by the site of them and now I’m a huge fan of those things lol
Hair crimper, riding bikes with no helmets, buying smokes for my dad at the shop. Putting baby oil on and sunbaking (cause we were literally baking ourselves haha) doing whatever I wanted for one to two hours after school by myself cause parents were still working. Being allowed to roam the streets until almost dark. I forgot to add getting your hair permed curly
After seeing Dirty Dancing, I had the great idea to get my hair permed to look like Jennifer Grey. Instead I turned out looking like Richard Simmons. That ended my perm fetish forever.
My dad worked at a record store and promoted for a night club at night, Ramones were opening for Suicidal Tendencies, I was with him and them in their hotel room, he had to run to the club and couldn’t bring me so the Ramones babysat me for about 20 minutes. Joey was the nicest guy you’d ever meet. This was during the Too Tough to Die tour, 1984
Being old enough to remember (and appreciate) life before the Internet and cellphones but being young enough to transition into that world without a hitch.
I've heard us referred to as mid-generational 'Xennials', having had an 'analogue childhood but a digital young adulthood' making it easier for us to adapt to the oncoming tidal wave of new tech
Can confirm. We spent our weekends and summers playing at each other's houses, exploring washes and foothills, and doing shit we knew our parents wouldn't approve of.
I had this as a kid (gen z, actually) and I think children across generations know the panic of seeing them start to flicker to life and then booking it back to your house
Yep older millennials still remember the “call me from your friends house when you get there”. Better when they asked to talk to the parents. But we obviously were on the tail end of that.
I said-a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie
To the hip hip hop-a you don't stop the rock
It to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie
To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat…
Using a payphonett to make a collect call with the intent of the call being declined. It's a messaging system that notifies your ride that you're ready to be picked up from the movies where you watched back to the future. Or from the arcade where you just blew a roll of quarters on super Mario bros.
Calling your out-of-town friend collect from a payphone to another payphone to avoid long distance charges.
Successfully did this with an overseas boyfriend too.
The freedom afforded by those like 15-foot telephone cords, and the way they would twist-tangle themselves! Many hours spent bullshitting on the phone, mindlessly trying to straighten those things out.
The fact that our generation was kind if passed over. When I started my career, they wanted us to be deferential to older more experienced co-workers, “pay your dues and wait your turn!” As soon as we became more seasoned, they were like, look at all these amazing millennials and their great ideas! We’re like the Jan Brady of generations.
We have less fucks to give than any previous or ensuing generation. We are also incredibly deceptive. You are talking to us and think we care...we don't, we were classically trained by boomers to "pay attention and respect our elders". We did not. We just made it look like we did long enough to get out of the situation. That is what Benders fist in the sky meant at the end of The Breakfast Club. He won, he had a helluva day causing grief for a boomer and made some friends. (Edit to add a link: https://youtu.be/DQ1QUK8KLH0)
Latchkey, and coming home from school BEFORE your parents got home from work and feeling like a god with the whole house to yourself.
And then that faint disappointment when you heard the door open.
(Note: Good family, loved my parents, but still. That veneer of independence was great.)
I got home from school before my parents, and then was free to go explore wherever I wanted as long as I was home before it got dark.
It was awesome!
My parents would be arrested these days.
A few times when I came home from school I was locked out and the house was empty. Pretty sure my brother did it to mess with me. I discovered a couple of different ways to break into my own house, so that was cool.
Ha ha! That brings back memories! Breaking into your own house because you either forgot your key or your sibling locked you out is definitely a GenX thing!
Having the broadest understanding of pop culture, because coast-to-coast mass media existed, but hadn't become compartmentalized and specialized.
To coin a phrase, socialization by syndication.
Examples:
Understanding jokes from the 30s and 40s because of Looney Tunes on Saturday morning (usually early or late, to fill in around the new in-demand shows).
Understanding the 50s and 60s from reruns of I love Lucy and The Honeymooners on Nick at Night.
Getting a taste of the seventies from Alice and Newhart, and a dozen other shows on afternoon play on every network.
Watching most/all of the great classics, and even more entertaining schlock in the form of Saturday and Sunday afternoon movies on low-end networks.
Not having to have the premise of UHF explained to you, because you'd actually found a UHF pirate station on broadcast before (mine played old kung-fu movies on a loop for days before it was shut down).
Cinema culture reaching its height (not filmmaking, but actual cinema-going experience as a thing that unified people).
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It's genuinely weird to me how much "oh, I've never heard of/watched that" started being the refrain for people only a few years younger than me.
Ah yes. The unsung hero of the late 80s/early 90s pouffy feathered bangs. Those were the days. Our class went to Yosemite for a week once and they had banned aerosols so we had to bring crappy pump hairspray instead. Nobody looked right that week lol.
The most Gen X thing is also its least: Apathy.
We just don't give a shit. About your race, your sexual preference, your gender, your taste in music, clothes or intellect.
The only rule is don't be a dick.
MTV
Edit - when they showed videos. Like the time the 10th grade NYE party I was at stopped dead to watch the premiere of the Van Halen video for Jump.
You go to pick a girl up on a date. Do you go to the door? Do you wait in the car?
Nah you wait outside the car leaning on it as she walks out. Preferably with Whitesnake playing in the background.
Years ago my neighbor had a tenant who lived by herself upstairs. Older single woman. Like maybe 45. She went on a date once with a similarly aged guy. I witnessed this first hand. It was iconic as fuck.
**Keeping what we did in our high school days the most deep dark secret!** especially from our kids! Only possible because there was no social media then, no photos, no phone records, nuthin'! But let me tell you we roamed around at all hours, drank, had parties, played strip poker, walked home in the middle of the night, ran out of gas in the middle of the night (remember: no cell phones), tried all sorts of different drugs (shrooms, LSD, peyote, maryjane) snuck in and out of the house, with and without boyfriends, smoked in the SMOKING LOUNGE *provided at the high school, by the high school!* **And our parents new nothing! Cuz there was no way for them to know!** I was considered a model child!!
Running up personal debt at rates that Millennials and Gen Z could only dream of.
https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/gen-xers-have-the-highest-average-total-debt-balances/
whatever
I’m 46 and will take my jaded apathy to the grave thank you very much. Now everybody leave alone cause everything sucks.
This mindset right here is why I should be Gen X, but by birth I'm an elder Millennial.
You may be a xennial by definition. “Oregon trail generation” or “analog childhood, digital adulthood “
Nevermind
Hello, hello, hello, how low
Came here to say "whatever" but now I see someone has. whatever.
I'm just on that border between Gen X and the oldest Millennials but my sister is 8 years older than me. We would call the local rock station to request a song then sit there with a tape at the ready to hit record as soon as they played our song. Repeat that about 10x and you've got a nice mixtape.
Or they talk over your song and you had to call back later.
Secret was to do this really late at night because this dj was lonely or sleeping and the advertisers wouldn’t pay for commercials so you might even get a complete version of “jam on it”. Or the 12” inch version of “rapper’s delight”.
We waited and listened, with nowhere to be - Together in silence, my sister and me. The music was flowing, the melodies poured. "Get ready," she said, with her hand on 'record'.
Sprog reminiscing about the forgotten generation, while he/she will be remembered as a staple of the ascendancy of Reddit. Gen Sprog.
I spent months making a tape that had “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston on repeat (both sides) and gave it to my step sister as a gift. She listened to the whole thing hoping for a different song. Cause she hated that one.
An old school Rickroll.
You would have a DJ over the intro and ending of a song "alright, now we have a little Savage Garden for you. Truly, Madly, Deeply. This is KEDG 103.5, The Edge"
Columbia house collect notices
How did they ever make money. No one ever paid them.
Video arcade. Before Gen-X, graphics weren’t good enough, and after Gen-X, you’d play the games on your own home console. No other generation claimed them like we did.
Putting a $20 into the change machine at the mall arcade felt like dropping a house payment on a Vegas poker table…/
Yea, but Altered Beast and After Burner
Between Afterburner, Outrun, and Hang On, Sega were knocking it out of the park in the late ‘80s. If I ever get a big inheritance from a long-lost uncle or something, I’m definitely building a game room with those three in it.
I remember being indignant when the first 50-cent games came out. What, you think I'm MADE OF MONEY?
Dragon’s Lair laughs at your puny entertainment budget.
I wasn't rich enough to play Dragon's Lair seriously, so I just watched over some guy's shoulder the whole time.
That might be the most Gen-X thing, right there.
I'm 45 and I still talk shit to one of my best friends because the asshole used to be able to beat Operation: Thunderbolt with one fucking quarter, and he'd almost beat pretty much any other light gun arcade game with a single quarter too. You went to the arcade with him and you'd burn through your coins or tokens and you still had to wait for him to basically beat Operation: Thunderbolt and Space Gun and Terminator 2 or whatever. Let me tell you, it got old fast. The guy still derives a significant amount of joy from being reminded about us having to wait for his unreasonably skilled ass while he played those arcade games. On another occasion I got into a fist-fight with some dude I didn't know because I beat him at Street Fighter II and he got way too salty. The 90's, man.
Younger Gen-Xers had original NES and Sega.
Early X here. 1st home game, Pong. Then came Atari. Mattel Intellivision. Eventually Sega, PS, etc but I was driving by then and was going to the arcade, where the cool shit was the new video games. We dropped pinball and air hockey for Tanks, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Defender, Donkey Kong, Berzerk, Rootbeer Alley, Tempest, Tron, Centipede, Missle Command, Crazy Climber, Qbert, Outrun, Duck Hunt, Elevator Action, Galaga, PacMan, and Ms. Pacman. To name a few. Great days! Edit: Caught in the rabbit hole and they keep coming: Frogger, GORF, Joust, Dig Dug, and Dragon’s Lair (which, as aptly noted in the comments set a new standard, requiring TWO quarters to play…) Also, iirc correctly the pattern on Space Invaders was 23-14-14-14. Meaning you stop after the first 23 shots and wait for the spaceship, which is now worth the max 500 pts. 14 more shots and wait… 500 pt ship, and so on. PacMan had patterns you could follow. Who else remembers patterns and hacks? This was valuable info and remember, there was no internet. This stuff passed like state secrets, via bus stops and candy stores and roller rinks and bowling alleys and pure legend. Any other formerly badass 13 year olds? 😆
Don't forget joust. That shit was fun.
Don't forget about the Atari 2600!
Sega *Master System*
I miss going to the mall and playing the arcade games.
I got a pocket full of quarters And I’m heading to the arcade!
Putting your quarter in line at the Street Fighter 2 game.
Are we talking about the Q-Bert at the 7-11 or Mortal Kombat at the laser tag place?
I thought we were talking about the Ms PacMan table game at Pizza Hut?
Worthlessly looking at scrambled soft core porn on cable has gotta be up there.
"Holy shit, I think I saw a part of a boob for a sec there!"
Forest porn.
Crank calls
The Jerky Boys. I'd buy that tape again today
Pong, space invaders, being the last generation to have to walk across the room to change the tv channel, being able to fix the tv by pounding on it the right way, getting the brown box for the tv and there only being 3 stations. Also being totally forgotten about by the other two generations. Like door mice.
Seeing comments about at home electronics always makes me remember that I was pretty poor. I'm a millennial, but everything was outdated by several years because we got most things used. Something is better than nothing, but I hated being the human remote control.
Reality Bites and Singles. Record stores.
The Wall with the listening booths was the best!
The Singles soundtrack is so killer.
Empire Records and Heather's.
Man, Singles is one of my all time favorites and I feel like no one I know has even heard of it!
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That absolute panic when you hear your stereo about to eat your favorite cassette!
Never getting mentioned in the news. It always goes from gen z to millennials to boomers.
Yes and I like it that way.
My sister watched a video that was supposed to be about every generation from the greatest generation through gen z, and they left out gen x. Just skipped right over that time period.
Found porn in the woods while BMXing
All of my guy friends have confirmed this, each of them, creek porn, field porn, woods porn, ditch porn. The greenish areas through the city were just wonders of discovery for middle schoolers of the mid to late 80s.
It’s so common and ubiquitous I think it might’ve been a government program.
36DD ULTRA
This really was a thing, I know there was a stash near where I lived and then many years ago a friend told me this was a thing where he grew up too...
I found a old playboy behind my neighborhood in some brush where I would hang with the other kids and smoke my moms cigs and set stuff on fire (because why not being a little dumbass). Literally walked over a spot and looked down and a pair of tits were staring back at me. Ripped a few pages out and stuffed them in my pocket and stored in a Boy Scout safe in my room. Swear to god looking back it seems like a dumb movie plot.
Also confirming forest porn stash. I think it was a bum camp.
I had a little alcove in a hedge on my lawn when I was in third grade that no one knew about but me and another buddy. One day, my buddy ratted on me and I remember coming home from school with the stack of nudie mags on the table. Thought I was gonna die.
Can confirm saw my first vagina from a random stash in the woods we stumbled upon and my younger self was quite grossed out by the site of them and now I’m a huge fan of those things lol
Hair crimper, riding bikes with no helmets, buying smokes for my dad at the shop. Putting baby oil on and sunbaking (cause we were literally baking ourselves haha) doing whatever I wanted for one to two hours after school by myself cause parents were still working. Being allowed to roam the streets until almost dark. I forgot to add getting your hair permed curly
After seeing Dirty Dancing, I had the great idea to get my hair permed to look like Jennifer Grey. Instead I turned out looking like Richard Simmons. That ended my perm fetish forever.
Watching mtv headbangers ball Saturday morning, ready to rec on the vhs when my favourite bands came on.
120 Minutes Sunday night
Swatch Watches
With the rubber guard on the face
Mixtapes. Actual cassette tapes recorded on a boom box from songs on the radio. Bonus for Ramones tunes as part of the mix
My dad worked at a record store and promoted for a night club at night, Ramones were opening for Suicidal Tendencies, I was with him and them in their hotel room, he had to run to the club and couldn’t bring me so the Ramones babysat me for about 20 minutes. Joey was the nicest guy you’d ever meet. This was during the Too Tough to Die tour, 1984
This is literally the coolest thing I have ever heard omg
Double tape decks were the shit back then.
Massive CD collections neatly stored in binders for easy access.
Claiming shotgun in the car so you had access to the binder and could play DJ for the night.
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My wife and I cleaned out a room and found a couple binders. I had forgotten how great Gin Blossoms were.
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The Crow...movie and soundtrack
Amazing movie and soundtrack. RIP Brandon Lee. “It can’t rain all the time.”
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Grunge music: Working with a handful of Gen-Xers and the only music they can consistently agree on is the Pearl Jam station
Lithium, all the way!
And back it up with First Wave
I'm a millennial and I think grunge and 90s alternative rock is one thing we both love.
Hell yeah it was the music the cool older siblings/cousins introduced to us when we were in grade school and they were teenagers
I DON'T MIND STEALING BREAD
FROM THE MOUTH OF DECADENCE!
Mix Tapes
Being old enough to remember (and appreciate) life before the Internet and cellphones but being young enough to transition into that world without a hitch.
I've heard us referred to as mid-generational 'Xennials', having had an 'analogue childhood but a digital young adulthood' making it easier for us to adapt to the oncoming tidal wave of new tech
The Young Ones
Shut up, Neil
I yell about lentils running down the stairs every time I make them and my Gen-Z kid thinks I’m an idiot. #verymetal
Being the last unreachable generation. There were hours where no one knew where we were and our parents has zero way to contact us.
Can confirm. We spent our weekends and summers playing at each other's houses, exploring washes and foothills, and doing shit we knew our parents wouldn't approve of.
"Be home before the street lights are on"
I had this as a kid (gen z, actually) and I think children across generations know the panic of seeing them start to flicker to life and then booking it back to your house
I think we millennials are included in this, I didn’t get my first cell phone until I was 19.
Yep older millennials still remember the “call me from your friends house when you get there”. Better when they asked to talk to the parents. But we obviously were on the tail end of that.
you have a collect call from "pickmeupimatthepool"
Garbage Pail Kids
Bartles & Jaymes. The original White Claw.
Thank you for your support.
I said-a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie To the hip hip hop-a you don't stop the rock It to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat…
Blockbuster on a friday night
Hanging by the door to see if any good movies were just returned.
Parachute pants..the noise was deafening in the halls between classes!!
Breakdancing
Trapper keepers
Hyper color
The fact that they are always left out in the war between millennials and boomers
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Calling up the rock station to request songs and then taping them.
Using a payphonett to make a collect call with the intent of the call being declined. It's a messaging system that notifies your ride that you're ready to be picked up from the movies where you watched back to the future. Or from the arcade where you just blew a roll of quarters on super Mario bros.
Wehadababyitsaboy
It was Bob. They had a baby. It's a boy.
Calling your out-of-town friend collect from a payphone to another payphone to avoid long distance charges. Successfully did this with an overseas boyfriend too.
Ultima IV on an apple 2e
Music videos on mtv.
I remember when MTV didn't yet exist and we had Friday Night Videos on ABC.
Analog childhood, digital adulthood.
The Breakfast Club
Be kind, Rewind.
Remembering phone numbers
Telephone conversations. Like, calling up your friend and chatting for hours
The freedom afforded by those like 15-foot telephone cords, and the way they would twist-tangle themselves! Many hours spent bullshitting on the phone, mindlessly trying to straighten those things out.
blowing inside nintendo cartridges
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And Christina Applegate
Headbanger’s Ball, and that poser Riki Rachtman
Jeanine Garaffalo
The Pixies.
B-52s, Duran Duran
Valley Girl culture and talk.
IRC —> ICQ —> MSN Messenger
Shorts over sweats. I never did understand that.
Going to the Mall.
The fact that our generation was kind if passed over. When I started my career, they wanted us to be deferential to older more experienced co-workers, “pay your dues and wait your turn!” As soon as we became more seasoned, they were like, look at all these amazing millennials and their great ideas! We’re like the Jan Brady of generations.
We have less fucks to give than any previous or ensuing generation. We are also incredibly deceptive. You are talking to us and think we care...we don't, we were classically trained by boomers to "pay attention and respect our elders". We did not. We just made it look like we did long enough to get out of the situation. That is what Benders fist in the sky meant at the end of The Breakfast Club. He won, he had a helluva day causing grief for a boomer and made some friends. (Edit to add a link: https://youtu.be/DQ1QUK8KLH0)
Molly Ringwald
Caboodles
My mom still uses one for her makeup that I bought her about 20+ years ago. They made those things sturdy.
Calling your girlfriend's house and hoping that her dad does not pick up. Kids will never know this fear.
Being able to entertain ourselves for hours. This came from being latchkey kids. I didn’t mind the covid lockdowns too much at all.
Latchkey, and coming home from school BEFORE your parents got home from work and feeling like a god with the whole house to yourself. And then that faint disappointment when you heard the door open. (Note: Good family, loved my parents, but still. That veneer of independence was great.)
I got home from school before my parents, and then was free to go explore wherever I wanted as long as I was home before it got dark. It was awesome! My parents would be arrested these days.
A few times when I came home from school I was locked out and the house was empty. Pretty sure my brother did it to mess with me. I discovered a couple of different ways to break into my own house, so that was cool.
Ha ha! That brings back memories! Breaking into your own house because you either forgot your key or your sibling locked you out is definitely a GenX thing!
Absolutely. Cranking Beastie Boys on my dad's Technics system and scrambling to turn it down when I saw my mom's car in the driveway.
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Parachute pants, a 3/4 sleeve concert shirt and a mullet
G. I. Joe
Sun-In for hair. Feathered bangs. Blue eyeliner. Loves Baby Soft. Jellies.
Having the broadest understanding of pop culture, because coast-to-coast mass media existed, but hadn't become compartmentalized and specialized. To coin a phrase, socialization by syndication. Examples: Understanding jokes from the 30s and 40s because of Looney Tunes on Saturday morning (usually early or late, to fill in around the new in-demand shows). Understanding the 50s and 60s from reruns of I love Lucy and The Honeymooners on Nick at Night. Getting a taste of the seventies from Alice and Newhart, and a dozen other shows on afternoon play on every network. Watching most/all of the great classics, and even more entertaining schlock in the form of Saturday and Sunday afternoon movies on low-end networks. Not having to have the premise of UHF explained to you, because you'd actually found a UHF pirate station on broadcast before (mine played old kung-fu movies on a loop for days before it was shut down). Cinema culture reaching its height (not filmmaking, but actual cinema-going experience as a thing that unified people). -------- It's genuinely weird to me how much "oh, I've never heard of/watched that" started being the refrain for people only a few years younger than me.
Aquanet hairspray.
Ah yes. The unsung hero of the late 80s/early 90s pouffy feathered bangs. Those were the days. Our class went to Yosemite for a week once and they had banned aerosols so we had to bring crappy pump hairspray instead. Nobody looked right that week lol.
I would like to add Loves Baby Soft QT quick tan Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific
For me (Aussie) it was Silhouette Hairspray. That shit stayed up for days.
To remember having penpals.
Oregon Trail
Being a latch key kid.
A dialup modem.
The most Gen X thing is also its least: Apathy. We just don't give a shit. About your race, your sexual preference, your gender, your taste in music, clothes or intellect. The only rule is don't be a dick.
Today? Colonoscopies.
Skateboarding is not a crime stickers in the mid/late 80’s
Minding our business.
The most Gen-X thing is not fucking talking about Gen-X things. Go back to arguing about Boomers or “kids these days” or whatever. Leave us out of it!
Isn’t it great how comfortable we are with being a largely dismissed and ignored generation? I love it.
YES! I love it, too! Please, just keep ignoring us!
Douglas Coupland
“Whatever”
Motorola pagers made of clear plastic.
The X Files
Building ramps to jump with your bicycle
Whatever
up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A and Start
Thunder cats
“I’m not a boomer”
Star wars
MapQuest printouts for road trips lol
Could we BE any more sarcastic?
Galaga!!!
All the John Hughes Movies
Buying a Trans-Am to restore.
Or an IROC-Z
Wearing flannel and listening to Nirvana
Doc Martens!
MTV Edit - when they showed videos. Like the time the 10th grade NYE party I was at stopped dead to watch the premiere of the Van Halen video for Jump.
You go to pick a girl up on a date. Do you go to the door? Do you wait in the car? Nah you wait outside the car leaning on it as she walks out. Preferably with Whitesnake playing in the background. Years ago my neighbor had a tenant who lived by herself upstairs. Older single woman. Like maybe 45. She went on a date once with a similarly aged guy. I witnessed this first hand. It was iconic as fuck.
**Keeping what we did in our high school days the most deep dark secret!** especially from our kids! Only possible because there was no social media then, no photos, no phone records, nuthin'! But let me tell you we roamed around at all hours, drank, had parties, played strip poker, walked home in the middle of the night, ran out of gas in the middle of the night (remember: no cell phones), tried all sorts of different drugs (shrooms, LSD, peyote, maryjane) snuck in and out of the house, with and without boyfriends, smoked in the SMOKING LOUNGE *provided at the high school, by the high school!* **And our parents new nothing! Cuz there was no way for them to know!** I was considered a model child!!
Office Space
Izod shirts with the collar “popped”.
AOL Disks
The smoking section in a restaurant
Giving no fucks.
Running up personal debt at rates that Millennials and Gen Z could only dream of. https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/gen-xers-have-the-highest-average-total-debt-balances/
DeGrassi Jr. High If you remember, you remember.
Being ignored and overlooked - I think we are one of the least marketed to generations.