X – The Lost Generation
Millennials are reading more than us. The Pew Research Center announced that “88% of Americans under 30 read a book in the past year, compared with 79% of those age 30 and older.” This shouldn’t be much of a surprise. This is the Harry Potter Generation. The Hunger Games Generation. The Millennials are a different breed from my brethren who grew up in shopping malls and arcades, pirating Skinemax, using tape recorders to record music off the radio and MTV. We were the first guinea pigs of the internet era. We watched the collapse of the Soviet Union as the world settled into the most peaceful era in human history.
No more great wars. Just a bunch of small, stupid ones. Though, I guess, the great ones were pretty stupid too.
It was and is an awkward thing to be in Generation X (born 1960′s-80′s). We started out ill-defined, hence the name, and our role never really took. The world changed too fast for us to ever settle in. I suppose that can be said of every generation since the industrial revolution, but we are the ones that straddled the dawn of the digital age. And poorly at that. The Millennials (born late 1980′s-2000′s) have the benefit of growing up in this revitalized world. They are The DIY, Small Business Owner Generation. The Great Recession Generation. The 911 Generation. The First Generation To Not Do As Well As Their Parents, but the deck was pretty stacked against them. We grew up spoiled in an ever-sprawling suburbia, they grew up amid ever-sprawling catastrophes. We are cynical about everything but still awed by the internet. They are cynical about the internet, but are voicing more optimism about their futures even as they attempt to join an under-paid workforce.
And they are reading more.
I don’t mean to condemn or condone Generation X, nor do I herald the Millennials as the saviors of Western Civilization and/or literature. Gen X was what we had to be. Raised to believe debt was a patriotic duty, reared during the conservative Morning in America, but awake for the explosion of Alternative everything in the 90′s. We accepted political correctness to be a necessary facet of civility, but still remember when dressing up as racial stereotypes for Halloween was no big deal. What a weird time to be alive.
The Boomers felt this alienation too, but they wore it like a brand. Owned it. Commercialized it.
Generation X seemed to have just shrugged our lives away. We went to war for a while, shrugged. Then wore flannel for a while, shrugged. Then listened to the Beastie Boys for a while, shrugged. Then downloaded everything on Napster for a while, shrugged.Then wore Tommy Hilfiger for a while, shrugged. Then went to war for a while longer, shrugged. Then watched our houses get foreclosed, shrugged.
Maybe that’s what it is, we never could figure out what the hell we were supposed to be. Some generations sweep in after sea changes and can get a clear read on what the world means. Some generations are there during the turmoil and just spin, spin, spin until the waves wash them back away. That’s not so bad, I suppose, being the unknowns, the lost. We made the mistakes. We are the older brothers of the Millennials, getting busted a few too many times for pot, rolling a few too many cars after a few too many drinks at a few too many bars. The Millennials see this, see how our priorities were just a damn mess and are determined to do it better. They’ve grown up in the digital age rather than just being adopted by it. They own it, but also don’t feel owned by it. That’s why they are abandoning the work force to go into business for themselves. That’s why they are leaving the suburbs and heading back downtown. That’s why they are in love with technology, but not hypnotized by it in the way that we are.
It helps that JK Rowling eased them to sleep every night when they were young, but it is more they feel comfortable in the chaos of the early 21st Century. We were stuck in the shadow of the Boomers who were stuck in the shadow of The Greatest Generation. But unlike our parents and grandparents, we were culturally open about the fact that we had no idea what the hell we were doing. An odd, jaded humility. Not much of a legacy, I suppose, but at least our kids are reading more.
