When it comes to generations of people, we usually group them into four catergories, the “greatest generation”, the “baby boomers”, the “millennials” and “Generation Z”. But we often forget about “Generation X”. Generation X is a generation that falls between the baby boomers and the millennials. Here are things I’ve noticed about this generation.
1.) The range: Most agree that those who belong to Generation X, were born between 1960 and 1980. The current age range of these people is between 38 and 58. As you can see, they are still fairly young.
2.) They are everywhere: No matter where you go, what shows or movies you watch, you’ll see people who belong to generation X. They can be your professors, co-workers, neighbors, local firefighters, police officers, your boss, favorite celebrities, public figures, your family and your friends. In other words they still play a major role in many aspects of society world wide and will continue to do so for the next 5-12 years before they pass the torch to us millennials.
3.) Diverse in politics: This generation is a port for ideas. Considering how this generation is chronologically between the older generations(Greatest gen, baby boomers) and newer generations(Millennials, gen Z). It’s not surprising that this generation has a little bit of it all. For example, It’s easy to find conservative, liberal, libertarian, independent, fascist or communist individuals among generation X.
4.) What kind of people are they? Just like how they are diverse in political ideologies, they are also diverse in personalities. They can be nice, rude, a little bit of both etc. They are diverse in religion and in overall lifestyle. However, I have noticed that liberal and conservative generation x’rs on average exibit different behaviors when interacting with millennials.
5.) *Many* but not all liberal generation Xers show condescension and aggression towards those they disagree with: Not trying to generalize but from what I’ve noticed from many generation X individuals online who hold liberal views, they tend to stoop down to ad honinems with those they disagree with, if they argue with a conservative generation X individual, they’ll call them ignorant and all sorts of names. When they argue with a millennial who doesn’t hold the same political views, they’ll resort to infantilization by saying things like “it’s just a teenage phase, you’ll grow out of it.” or “you are still immature, how about you wait till you are my age”. Not to mention they’ll usually write a long rant that can be a essay.
6.) So why do *many* but not all liberal Gen Xers act so aggressive? Well, it most likely has to do with their sense of entitlement and superiority. When it’s challenged, it can be a major blow to their ego. It’s just like how many taller people make a lot of excuses when a smaller person defeats a larger person in full contact sports. Seeing taller people lose against shorter people smashes their sense of superiority over shorter people. Nobody ever expects the underdog to win. So when the underdog wins, it’s a shocker. Same goes for the liberal generation Xer who loses a argument to a millennial, it’s shocking because nobody expects a young “naive” millennial to know much.
7.)Conservative generation Xers are usually more calm and polite with those they disagree with: When it comes to disagreeing, they’ll usually keep their cool and will politely disagree. I’ve noticed this in several debates between conservative generation Xers and other individuals who don’t hold the same views. Conservative generation Xers also tend to act like mentors towards younger generations.
8.)The skeptical and close minded generation: Alright enough with politics. Generation X is known as being a very skeptical group of people, not that it is a bad thing since it’s good to think critically. But there are also some individuals within this generation that are close minded and are unwilling to acknowledge when they are wrong.
9.) Parenting: Everyone likes to hate on us millennials due to generalizations. And I understand since many millennials should indeed work on self improvement but perhaps the obnoxious behavior and lack of discipline demonstrated by *many* but not all millennials is partly due to improper guidance. Note: I’m not saying every gen x parent is not doing a good job, I know there are gen X parents who are doing a great job and are proud parents of disciplined and innovative millennials.
10.)Contributions: I’m not writing this take to trash talk generation X, far from it. So let’s go over some contributions from this generation.
Entertainment: Here’s the most obvious one. Many video games we play are made by generation X developers while many movies and tv shows we watch are centered on Generation X actors and actresses. JCVD’s martial arts films, Mark Calaway’s contributions to professional wrestling, Todd Howard’s contributions to the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series, the movies of actors like Matt Damon, Mark Dacascos, Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves are all cherished by many. But of course these are only few examples of the many contributions made to the entertainment industries by generation X.
Sports: Gen Xers also made a great impact in sports. Guys like Masakatsu Funaki, Kazushi Sakuraba, Yuki Nakai and Fedor Emilianenko have all contributed greatly to the sport of MMA, guys like Tom Brady made a impact in Football, while Shaquille O’neal and Yao Ming both made names for themselves in basketball and so on.
11.) summary: Again, I’m not hating on Gen X I’m just explaining things I noticed about this generation that we often forget about since we often lump then together with the baby boomers. It has it’s pros and cons. They have contributed a lot to society but some individuals of this generation may need to work on self improvement, while others are doing just fine.
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