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It's funny- when I was young (I'm Generation Y I guess) I watched "Reality Bites" and read Coupland's "Generation X" and thought "how can they be so complacent

by ddw 15y ago

It's funny- when I was young (I'm Generation Y I guess) I watched "Reality Bites" and read Coupland's "Generation X" and thought "how can they be so complacent and moody? Isn't there more to life?" Maybe it's because of the internet but there's just so much to do and learn now that I'm never bored of everything like those characters were. Things were certainly dire in the Bush years, but even then I didn't feel like the cliche Xer. I think for the most part these Generation ___ binnings are arbitrary, but there's something to be said about how the Baby Boomers generation has shaped the U.S. since the 60s and will for decades to come as they retire and put a strain on the social security and healthcare systems.

jeffool 15y ago
haha, I envy you. My biggest passion is video games, yet every time a new game comes out I'm hesitant to play it, because I know I'll be disappointed. Sometimes I'm surprised when I pick up the right indie game, and there are a few designers whose work I typically like... But that's pretty much it. And it's the same with music, film, books, and anything else. I have this eternal boding sense of "it's just not going to be as good as it should be." Of course, there are some things that hit me in the right spot. I still remember when I first learned to play Dwarf Fortress, when I read Chinese Takeout over a weekend. They're just rare. At the same time, I sometimes think this discontent comes not from any kind of true hatred, but instead a longing for the ideal, or at least serious advancement toward it. It seems like our society is horribly slow to advance, and often that feels due to the size and control of older generations. (And my contemporaries who've bought into things as they are.)
- ddw 15y ago
  Oh no doubt there's new bands that come out now that won't resonate with me like they would in my college days and there's plenty of things that "the kids" are doing now that I don't understand or care about. But there's so much to learn about and do, especially in the tech field, that everyday I feel like it's a race against time to learn it all. I've got a whole stack of books at home that I wish I could just read all in one day (and thousands more due to Safari Online) that I'm afraid I'll never be able to get to no matter how important they are.
nhebb 15y ago
> I watched "Reality Bites" and read Coupland's "Generation X" and thought "how can they be so complacent and moody? Isn't there more to life?" I'm trying hard not to come off as acerbic, but maybe it's because you've taken two pieces of fiction and tried to cast them on an entire generation? I never read Coupland's book, but the characters from Reality Bites reminded me of exactly zero people I knew.
- ddw 15y ago
  You're right, but they also weren't created in a vacuum. There must have been something behind the idea that it got to the point that Hollywood would make a movie about it. And these aren't the only two cornerstones, for some reason David Cross (while hilarious) comes to mind as someone that embodied that smugness that everything sucked. He put out another album last year and I couldn't get through it because he was still doing the same thing.
  - hugh3 15y ago
    Sure, there was something behind the idea. But it was a combination of thinking: a) "Waah, life sucks, I can't get everything I want", and b) "This is somehow a problem unique to my generation" both of which are universal thoughts held by the more introspective and less thoughtful members of each generation. I've never actually seen Reality Bites -- too early for me. But I've seen "Fight Club". Wow, has that movie aged badly. "We have no great war, no great depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives." Awww freaking diddums, Mr Durden. We have four wars and a depression, wanna swap?
JonnieCache 15y ago
I recently read the Coupland book and I found it very hard to get through because the characters were so universally unlikable. I kept wanting to reach through the page and punch them in their smug, useless, self-absorbed, ignorant faces. Eventually I decided that was the point of the book, you weren't supposed to like them. I'm still not sure though. If anyone could enlighten me to what on earth the point of that book was, then I'd be appreciative. I guess it could be simply a portrait of a certain type of person at a certain time in history, but it doesn't seem to say anything about them. Maybe that was the point, Coupland was trying to show that these people were utterly irrelevant and pointless? As I say, enlighten me. Maybe I was just in a particularly philistinic mood when I read it. Thinking about it, my dislike for it may stem from the fact that myself and my friends are in an extremely comparable situation to the characters economically and with respect to our relationship to society (except my friends cant even get mcjobs), yet we take almost the opposite attitude to life. I recognise their problems, but am appalled by their solutions. (For reference, I'm in my twenties.)
protomyth 15y ago
I think I'm a Gen Xer and I thought the line "he thinks the world owes him a giant-sized Snicker Bar" is probably the most bs statement someone can make. My belief is this whole generation thing is not as telling as how you were raised. Economically, the Bush years weren't the worst. It has kept going into Obama and he hasn't done himself any favors by not attacking the problem. The energy on health care was a waste (no real input cost reduction) and the jobs bill has some pain in the butt flaws (yes, I read both - still wondering about some of the rule making). Look back at Nixon/Ford/Carter for some truly epic problems with government (particularly the Presidency and I mean economically not the scandal). Wage and price controls are very scary. Mostly we are more inline with 1920-30s and we don't have WWII to pull us out and change the landscape. We need to deal with the problems and unpaid liabilities that have accumulated by the Baby Boomers era. We also got to stop people from thinking a home is an investment. It isn't. In these times, its an anchor around your neck. ND has 15,000 open jobs in the oil fields alone. If your mobile, these are high paying and many are not physical labor. Heck, the McDonald's is paying $15/hour.

by ddw 15y ago

jeffool 15y ago

haha, I envy you. My biggest passion is video games, yet every time a new game comes out I'm hesitant to play it, because I know I'll be disappointed. Sometimes I'm surprised when I pick up the right indie game, and there are a few designers whose work I typically like... But that's pretty much it. And it's the same with music, film, books, and anything else. I have this eternal boding sense of "it's just not going to be as good as it should be." Of course, there are some things that hit me in the right spot. I still remember when I first learned to play Dwarf Fortress, when I read Chinese Takeout over a weekend. They're just rare. At the same time, I sometimes think this discontent comes not from any kind of true hatred, but instead a longing for the ideal, or at least serious advancement toward it. It seems like our society is horribly slow to advance, and often that feels due to the size and control of older generations. (And my contemporaries who've bought into things as they are.)

ddw 15y ago
Oh no doubt there's new bands that come out now that won't resonate with me like they would in my college days and there's plenty of things that "the kids" are doing now that I don't understand or care about. But there's so much to learn about and do, especially in the tech field, that everyday I feel like it's a race against time to learn it all. I've got a whole stack of books at home that I wish I could just read all in one day (and thousands more due to Safari Online) that I'm afraid I'll never be able to get to no matter how important they are.

nhebb 15y ago

> I watched "Reality Bites" and read Coupland's "Generation X" and thought "how can they be so complacent and moody? Isn't there more to life?" I'm trying hard not to come off as acerbic, but maybe it's because you've taken two pieces of fiction and tried to cast them on an entire generation? I never read Coupland's book, but the characters from Reality Bites reminded me of exactly zero people I knew.

ddw 15y ago
You're right, but they also weren't created in a vacuum. There must have been something behind the idea that it got to the point that Hollywood would make a movie about it. And these aren't the only two cornerstones, for some reason David Cross (while hilarious) comes to mind as someone that embodied that smugness that everything sucked. He put out another album last year and I couldn't get through it because he was still doing the same thing.
- hugh3 15y ago
  Sure, there was something behind the idea. But it was a combination of thinking: a) "Waah, life sucks, I can't get everything I want", and b) "This is somehow a problem unique to my generation" both of which are universal thoughts held by the more introspective and less thoughtful members of each generation. I've never actually seen Reality Bites -- too early for me. But I've seen "Fight Club". Wow, has that movie aged badly. "We have no great war, no great depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives." Awww freaking diddums, Mr Durden. We have four wars and a depression, wanna swap?

JonnieCache 15y ago

I recently read the Coupland book and I found it very hard to get through because the characters were so universally unlikable. I kept wanting to reach through the page and punch them in their smug, useless, self-absorbed, ignorant faces. Eventually I decided that was the point of the book, you weren't supposed to like them. I'm still not sure though. If anyone could enlighten me to what on earth the point of that book was, then I'd be appreciative. I guess it could be simply a portrait of a certain type of person at a certain time in history, but it doesn't seem to say anything about them. Maybe that was the point, Coupland was trying to show that these people were utterly irrelevant and pointless? As I say, enlighten me. Maybe I was just in a particularly philistinic mood when I read it. Thinking about it, my dislike for it may stem from the fact that myself and my friends are in an extremely comparable situation to the characters economically and with respect to our relationship to society (except my friends cant even get mcjobs), yet we take almost the opposite attitude to life. I recognise their problems, but am appalled by their solutions. (For reference, I'm in my twenties.)

protomyth 15y ago

I think I'm a Gen Xer and I thought the line "he thinks the world owes him a giant-sized Snicker Bar" is probably the most bs statement someone can make. My belief is this whole generation thing is not as telling as how you were raised. Economically, the Bush years weren't the worst. It has kept going into Obama and he hasn't done himself any favors by not attacking the problem. The energy on health care was a waste (no real input cost reduction) and the jobs bill has some pain in the butt flaws (yes, I read both - still wondering about some of the rule making). Look back at Nixon/Ford/Carter for some truly epic problems with government (particularly the Presidency and I mean economically not the scandal). Wage and price controls are very scary. Mostly we are more inline with 1920-30s and we don't have WWII to pull us out and change the landscape. We need to deal with the problems and unpaid liabilities that have accumulated by the Baby Boomers era. We also got to stop people from thinking a home is an investment. It isn't. In these times, its an anchor around your neck. ND has 15,000 open jobs in the oil fields alone. If your mobile, these are high paying and many are not physical labor. Heck, the McDonald's is paying $15/hour.