Thread by @SpectrumPulse

Is it time for the Gen X digression... yeah, it's time.

It's funny how the memes generally show boomers and millennials at each other's throats while you're Gen X and get to sit on the sidelines being all disaffected and ironic...

When in reality you're the worst.

Congrats for riding out stable economies and and being able to actually own shit, comfortably assimilating and following most of the gains the boomers left in their wake. That's a nice privilege you have and man, you get sensitive when asked about it.

Which really is what enables Gen X to be 'above it all', the same privilege and detachment that prevents any confrontation with actual reality. You embraced irony not because it was cool, but because it was a security blanket.

You all highlight how grunge was the 'last great movement' and it's been associated with your generation... and yet fail to realize how let it get corporatized, and when the survivors tried to get political, you turned to the empty late 90s of nu metal. Because nothing matters!

That was the thing about 90s 'cool' culture, it was all about being meta and self-referential, your icons with Kevin Smith and Tarantino and edgy with your postmodern POV, you even got the second wave of punk to boot...

Shame you did so little with it.

See, that's the horrifying parallel that y'all don't like to talk about, especially in times of social unrest: if you were so well-informed and enlightened, why didn't you DO anything?

The slacker generation apparently applies to whatever feint at ideals you might have.

And that's the thing: when it came to actually driving change and breaking down systemic barriers that were spoken on at the time - be it racism, homophobia, sexism, classism - there was a lot more lipservice than actually fighting, because a lot of white folks never had to.

Your big, era-defining movie on class was 'Titanic'.

You claimed to be 'enlightened' on feminism, but then when Liz Phair and Fiona Apple called all the systemic abuses out, you branded them as just 'provocateurs'.

And how many of you still defend 'Reality Bites', where you probably found more to love in the privileged shittiness of everyone involved without realizing it's a terrible film that basically lets everyone off the hook because... it's the 90s, and that's a privilege they had!

But what truly disgusts me is that at the end of the day, you gave up. The 2000s happened and all of that detached idealism went out the window for... well, fuck it, we're tired, we're just going to coast and let someone else sort it out.

Empty nihilism leads to empty promises.

You had years of unrestrained opportunity and knowledge and the privilege and space to do something - multiple prime years of relative peace and stability and even an economic floor - and how much really changed?

It's easy to rip on the Millennial generation: overly earnest, often just as privileged, branded as 'entitled' for asking for the changes you never bothered to try for, and they're just nowhere near as cool or detached as you are.

But here's the secret truth...

Whenever someone DOES question or challenge your privilege, the backlash is different than the entitlement of boomers... because you're supposed to be better, you had ideals, and now someone dares question your comfort?

In truth, you became the Karens you now mock. /end

Postscript: There are few things more telling that how 'Fight Club' became one of the most celebrated films among Gen X guys... and yet I'd struggle to say that most grasped the satire.

Postscript #2: I've already gotten folks showing up in my mentions saying, 'well, we raised Gen Z, and now we've got time to fix things'.

First off, I have no reason to believe that (evidence is a funny thing), but about Gen Z...

I've said this before but I do have high hopes for Gen Z - very online, very driven, more often than not WAY more progressive than their parents, and seemingly galvanized to drive change.

But I don't put that on parenting: I put that on necessity of today's climate.

Literally.

See how many kids legit care about climate change, which is the sort of sweeping cause that drives folks to collective action.

But otherwise, the same ironic detachment that drives meme culture can lead Gen Z to the same hole of non-action that was Gen X. Let's avoid that.