Gen-X aesthetic & legacy
Discussion
I was looking back at some of my stuff & remembering some of the things I did.
Obviously every generation has formative experiences & this guides attitudes & the way you live now.
I was born in 1977 and so the whole Gen-X thing is massively applicable to me, but when you look at the pop culture and legacy of there are some things that stand out to me.
Firstly the attitude of integrity. Being a ‘poseur’ was about the biggest insult. I remember being deeply suspicious of bands who sounded ‘too polished too soon’ for being somehow ‘industry plants’ and this informs the way I think about things today, be it cynicism about platform sharing in cars or over hyped fads in clothes or music.
Secondly the attitude around free speech & independence. I think this is one area where people my age rub up against younger attitudes is that I don’t care what you say, but don’t tell me what to say!
The right to offend & the ability to take offence In your stride was very much a thing. That’s different now!
Thirdly the attitude about self sufficiency. The whole ethos of integrity & independence ultimately mean a desire to be free of any constraints and that includes being beholden to manufacturers and ‘non user servicable’ equipment being seen as inherently suspicious.
Forthly the attitude towards the environment. As the first generation to start taking the environment seriously as a group (hole in the ozone layer, African famine…) it’s galling to be blamed for not for not doing enough, especially when the style of environmental concern we had was based around resource conservation & not buying your way to be green, but instead keep that old car & mend your stuff rather than buying a truck load of virtue signalling crap that makes you feel good but ultimately is futile.
Discuss.
Obviously every generation has formative experiences & this guides attitudes & the way you live now.
I was born in 1977 and so the whole Gen-X thing is massively applicable to me, but when you look at the pop culture and legacy of there are some things that stand out to me.
Firstly the attitude of integrity. Being a ‘poseur’ was about the biggest insult. I remember being deeply suspicious of bands who sounded ‘too polished too soon’ for being somehow ‘industry plants’ and this informs the way I think about things today, be it cynicism about platform sharing in cars or over hyped fads in clothes or music.
Secondly the attitude around free speech & independence. I think this is one area where people my age rub up against younger attitudes is that I don’t care what you say, but don’t tell me what to say!
The right to offend & the ability to take offence In your stride was very much a thing. That’s different now!
Thirdly the attitude about self sufficiency. The whole ethos of integrity & independence ultimately mean a desire to be free of any constraints and that includes being beholden to manufacturers and ‘non user servicable’ equipment being seen as inherently suspicious.
Forthly the attitude towards the environment. As the first generation to start taking the environment seriously as a group (hole in the ozone layer, African famine…) it’s galling to be blamed for not for not doing enough, especially when the style of environmental concern we had was based around resource conservation & not buying your way to be green, but instead keep that old car & mend your stuff rather than buying a truck load of virtue signalling crap that makes you feel good but ultimately is futile.
Discuss.
Terminator X said:
The irony is that the 70s is perhaps the most environmentally friendly decade through to today.
TX.
Being born late 60s and growing up through the 70s, I certainly remember milk being delivered by an electric float and the glass bottles being collected and recycled (i.e taken back and cleaned, then re-used).TX.
Same for drinks of fizzy pop - many had Corona, our's was Ben Shaws. Took the bottles back to the local post office to get the deposit back, and buy another bottle - usually dandelion and burdock.
Fruit and veg was bought from the local market, or even from a local bloke with a horse-drawn cart (Kenneth Briggs was his name). Weighed out and then put in brown paper bags.
Much fruit and veg would be seasonal - we only ever had strawberries in July/August, rather than available all year round and shipped in plastic packaging half way round the world.
Fish and chips from the local chippy - wrapped in old newspaper.
Many people grew some of their own food - we only had a small garden but had 2 apple trees that would keep us in apples from September to the following March. As kids we'd help with harvesting them - about the only time we were encouraged to climb a tree!
The neighbour at the end of the garden had a huge rhubarb patch, and I remember the regular disappointment seeing her come to the garden wall with a load of rhubarb wrapped in newspaper, as it meant we'd be eating stewed rhubarb and custard, or rhubarb crumble again. I used to really dislike the stuff, but possibly through being forced to eat it, really like it these days.
Kids would get the bus to school, or walk to save the bus fare. The "school run" getting dropped off in a car just didn't exist.
Having said that, many houses had coal fires, and the crap that came out of the exhaust pipes of most of the lorries wasn't exactly doing the environment many favours either!
C n C said:
Terminator X said:
The irony is that the 70s is perhaps the most environmentally friendly decade through to today.
TX.
Being born late 60s and growing up through the 70s, I certainly remember milk being delivered by an electric float and the glass bottles being collected and recycled (i.e taken back and cleaned, then re-used).TX.
Same for drinks of fizzy pop - many had Corona, our's was Ben Shaws. Took the bottles back to the local post office to get the deposit back, and buy another bottle - usually dandelion and burdock.
Fruit and veg was bought from the local market, or even from a local bloke with a horse-drawn cart (Kenneth Briggs was his name). Weighed out and then put in brown paper bags.
Much fruit and veg would be seasonal - we only ever had strawberries in July/August, rather than available all year round and shipped in plastic packaging half way round the world.
Fish and chips from the local chippy - wrapped in old newspaper.
Many people grew some of their own food - we only had a small garden but had 2 apple trees that would keep us in apples from September to the following March. As kids we'd help with harvesting them - about the only time we were encouraged to climb a tree!
The neighbour at the end of the garden had a huge rhubarb patch, and I remember the regular disappointment seeing her come to the garden wall with a load of rhubarb wrapped in newspaper, as it meant we'd be eating stewed rhubarb and custard, or rhubarb crumble again. I used to really dislike the stuff, but possibly through being forced to eat it, really like it these days.
Kids would get the bus to school, or walk to save the bus fare. The "school run" getting dropped off in a car just didn't exist.
Having said that, many houses had coal fires, and the crap that came out of the exhaust pipes of most of the lorries wasn't exactly doing the environment many favours either!
Interestingly the UK’s carbon emissions peak about the early 2000’s.
They have been steadily downward & 2022 was as clean as 1890.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uks-co2-emiss...
They have been steadily downward & 2022 was as clean as 1890.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uks-co2-emiss...
Edited by Stick Legs on Tuesday 30th July 17:02
C n C said:
Terminator X said:
The irony is that the 70s is perhaps the most environmentally friendly decade through to today.
TX.
Being born late 60s and growing up through the 70s, I certainly remember milk being delivered by an electric float and the glass bottles being collected and recycled (i.e taken back and cleaned, then re-used).TX.
Same for drinks of fizzy pop - many had Corona, our's was Ben Shaws. Took the bottles back to the local post office to get the deposit back, and buy another bottle - usually dandelion and burdock.
Fruit and veg was bought from the local market, or even from a local bloke with a horse-drawn cart (Kenneth Briggs was his name). Weighed out and then put in brown paper bags.
Much fruit and veg would be seasonal - we only ever had strawberries in July/August, rather than available all year round and shipped in plastic packaging half way round the world.
Fish and chips from the local chippy - wrapped in old newspaper.
Many people grew some of their own food - we only had a small garden but had 2 apple trees that would keep us in apples from September to the following March. As kids we'd help with harvesting them - about the only time we were encouraged to climb a tree!
The neighbour at the end of the garden had a huge rhubarb patch, and I remember the regular disappointment seeing her come to the garden wall with a load of rhubarb wrapped in newspaper, as it meant we'd be eating stewed rhubarb and custard, or rhubarb crumble again. I used to really dislike the stuff, but possibly through being forced to eat it, really like it these days.
Kids would get the bus to school, or walk to save the bus fare. The "school run" getting dropped off in a car just didn't exist.
Having said that, many houses had coal fires, and the crap that came out of the exhaust pipes of most of the lorries wasn't exactly doing the environment many favours either!
The thing which surprises me is how much what I'd consider to be Gen X culture got squashed between the unstoppable juggernaut of baby boomer culture and later millennial culture, especially later Gen X (coming of age around 1988-1996).
All of the musical movements - C86, rave, slacker rock, early West Coast hip-hop, Britpop - you might occasionally hear one walking into a bar (especially if it targets Gen Z, who are musical omnivores) but 10 for 1 it'll be either Fleetwood Mac, Beatles, Floyd or alternatively something modern. Of the huge variety of 16-bit games, the only ones you'll see nostalgic accounts of are the ones which would have been played by millennials as very small children. (Or disparaged in one of those "when we were young we had books, and the hose, and putting the books in the hose" style memes) What should be classic TV has been displaced by reruns of the same '60s and '70s sitcoms that were being rerun back then.
Even the generational mores of rejecting the yuppie ideal, choosing the slacker path and being a radically different generation have all but disappeared - part of that is natural aging (painting your bedroom black as a statement feels less urgent at 50 than it does at 15) but it's stark how few people I know who kept true in some way to those ideals and didn't turn into slightly younger copies of their parents. In particular, it's noticeable how often the Facebook-style "you're a _ if you remember" memes straight-up cut/paste "baby boomer" for "gen-Xer" without changing any of the content and nobody even seems to notice or care.
Maybe some of that is just being a small generation squeezed between two baby booms, not helped by them carving away the edges of it into 4-year-long micro-generations, but it feels weird that the "seam" (and to some extent the battleground) of culture is between baby boomer culture and millennial culture. That's 10 years of things I remember enjoying and elder siblings enjoying that have just been near-completely erased, as if anyone born in the '70s simply didn't have any of their own culture for their teenage years and just inherited what had been created in the decades before.
All of the musical movements - C86, rave, slacker rock, early West Coast hip-hop, Britpop - you might occasionally hear one walking into a bar (especially if it targets Gen Z, who are musical omnivores) but 10 for 1 it'll be either Fleetwood Mac, Beatles, Floyd or alternatively something modern. Of the huge variety of 16-bit games, the only ones you'll see nostalgic accounts of are the ones which would have been played by millennials as very small children. (Or disparaged in one of those "when we were young we had books, and the hose, and putting the books in the hose" style memes) What should be classic TV has been displaced by reruns of the same '60s and '70s sitcoms that were being rerun back then.
Even the generational mores of rejecting the yuppie ideal, choosing the slacker path and being a radically different generation have all but disappeared - part of that is natural aging (painting your bedroom black as a statement feels less urgent at 50 than it does at 15) but it's stark how few people I know who kept true in some way to those ideals and didn't turn into slightly younger copies of their parents. In particular, it's noticeable how often the Facebook-style "you're a _ if you remember" memes straight-up cut/paste "baby boomer" for "gen-Xer" without changing any of the content and nobody even seems to notice or care.
Maybe some of that is just being a small generation squeezed between two baby booms, not helped by them carving away the edges of it into 4-year-long micro-generations, but it feels weird that the "seam" (and to some extent the battleground) of culture is between baby boomer culture and millennial culture. That's 10 years of things I remember enjoying and elder siblings enjoying that have just been near-completely erased, as if anyone born in the '70s simply didn't have any of their own culture for their teenage years and just inherited what had been created in the decades before.
Edited by Timberwolf on Tuesday 30th July 17:48
drmotorsport said:
Don't forget the jumpers for goalposts
It does sound a very rose tinted specs nostalgia fest!I often think back to the 80s, the main things that stand out.
1)Going to the local petrol station that hired videos on a Saturday and spending half an hour picking a film and a bag of M&Ms
2)Spending hours and hours playing games on my Commodore 64 that are utter rubbish looking back.
3)No shops being open on a Sunday other than a corner shop.
4)Sundays being boring as f
k, visiting my cousins and playing on their Atari 2600 on a tiny portable black and white TV.5)Watching Ski Sunday and Songs of Praise on a Sunday as there were only 4 channels and there was nothing better to watch.
6)Riding around with my friends on our BMXs looking for something to do.
7)Going to the cinema on a Saturday night, queueing to buy a ticket and having to go home as they sold out.
I would imagine that if I stepped back to the 1980s today it would be utterly, mind numbingly boring.
ThingsBehindTheSun said:
I would imagine that if I stepped back to the 1980s today it would be utterly, mind numbingly boring.
Perhaps? However I'd definitely enjoy the music though. 
I have really fond memories of riding my BMX wherever I could back then. Plus I spent many happy hours on my Spectrum 48k as well(granted it was boring waiting for the games to load though).
The 80's were the best time of my life, because I was hooked on arcade video games back then. I'd finish school and go straight to the arcade. Great times for me for sure.
cerb4.5lee said:
The 80's were the best time of my life, because I was hooked on arcade video games back then. I'd finish school and go straight to the arcade. Great times for me for sure.
Same, I remember we used to go to the local leisure centre for our swimming lessons once a week and we had to make our own way back to school. They had a Double Dragon arcade game there and me and my friend could complete it on one credit using the elbow move.I was always late for the next lesson which was religious studies.
This was the period when arcade games were so far in advance of what you had at home that you wanted to play them.
I consider myself so lucky to have been born in 1970. So much amazing music in the 70s and 80s, TV and films too.
Seeing the first Space Invaders games appear in the arcade (remember when arcades just had dozens of Space Invader machines?) then Pac Man, Defender, Scramble, Asteroids etc.; seeing skateboards and BMX appear. Digital Watches! Rich kids bringing SIMON and Big Trak to school at Christmas.
Seeing the birth of home computing with the ZX81 and Spectrum and learning BASIC. Living through the two-stroke golden era in the 80s with bikes like the RD350LC, then the YPVS models, then the TZR, TDR, NSR 250 and KR1. Seeing my first Golf GTi with my dad, the XR2, XR3i, Capri 2.8i, Celica, The Cossie, the rise of the mad turbocharged cars like the R5GTT, RS Turbo...
The rise of punk, new wave, 2 tone, the Mod Revival, New Romantics, electronic music, metal, Madchester, House Music, Hip-Hop. Dance Music, Walkmans appearing..
Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Close Encounters.... so many great films!
Wouldn't change it for anything.
Seeing the first Space Invaders games appear in the arcade (remember when arcades just had dozens of Space Invader machines?) then Pac Man, Defender, Scramble, Asteroids etc.; seeing skateboards and BMX appear. Digital Watches! Rich kids bringing SIMON and Big Trak to school at Christmas.
Seeing the birth of home computing with the ZX81 and Spectrum and learning BASIC. Living through the two-stroke golden era in the 80s with bikes like the RD350LC, then the YPVS models, then the TZR, TDR, NSR 250 and KR1. Seeing my first Golf GTi with my dad, the XR2, XR3i, Capri 2.8i, Celica, The Cossie, the rise of the mad turbocharged cars like the R5GTT, RS Turbo...
The rise of punk, new wave, 2 tone, the Mod Revival, New Romantics, electronic music, metal, Madchester, House Music, Hip-Hop. Dance Music, Walkmans appearing..
Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Close Encounters.... so many great films!
Wouldn't change it for anything.
ThingsBehindTheSun said:
cerb4.5lee said:
The 80's were the best time of my life, because I was hooked on arcade video games back then. I'd finish school and go straight to the arcade. Great times for me for sure.
Same, I remember we used to go to the local leisure centre for our swimming lessons once a week and we had to make our own way back to school. They had a Double Dragon arcade game there and me and my friend could complete it on one credit using the elbow move.I was always late for the next lesson which was religious studies.
This was the period when arcade games were so far in advance of what you had at home that you wanted to play them.
As you say the standard of the arcade games stood out head and shoulders over the home computers for definite. Such fond memories.
I'm a bit younger but that gave the arcades added excitement as you knew from seeing the older machines that what you saw there would be the standard of home computer games in a couple of years. Not entirely sure that held up renting the Mega Drive version of Virtua Racing from Blockbuster (definitely not buying - £70, are you mad??) with half the frame rate and decidedly wobblier graphics but it did seem to spur on the arcade manufacturers to do something more than just the standard cabinet with twin joysticks or maybe a steering wheel if you were lucky.
The pinnacle of that for me was Ridge Racer Full Scale. Being down in Portsmouth and seeing the full setup with the stage, projector and complete MX-5 in the Clarence Pier arcade for the first time was an absolute, "wow, this is the future" moment. The attendant was so proud of it too, talking over all the technical details and showing all the bits in the car which were rigged up to respond to the game such as air blowing through the vents when you drove fast.
The pinnacle of that for me was Ridge Racer Full Scale. Being down in Portsmouth and seeing the full setup with the stage, projector and complete MX-5 in the Clarence Pier arcade for the first time was an absolute, "wow, this is the future" moment. The attendant was so proud of it too, talking over all the technical details and showing all the bits in the car which were rigged up to respond to the game such as air blowing through the vents when you drove fast.
Timberwolf said:
The pinnacle of that for me was Ridge Racer Full Scale. Being down in Portsmouth and seeing the full setup with the stage, projector and complete MX-5 in the Clarence Pier arcade for the first time was an absolute, "wow, this is the future" moment. The attendant was so proud of it too, talking over all the technical details and showing all the bits in the car which were rigged up to respond to the game such as air blowing through the vents when you drove fast.
I played on that version a few times at Meadowhall in Sheffield years back. I also remember playing Virtua Fighter for the first time there as well(I think it was 1993), and the graphics on that were amazing for the time I thought in comparison to other fighting games(crap now though!). robsa said:
I consider myself so lucky to have been born in 1970. So much amazing music in the 70s and 80s, TV and films too.
Seeing the first Space Invaders games appear in the arcade (remember when arcades just had dozens of Space Invader machines?) then Pac Man, Defender, Scramble, Asteroids etc.; seeing skateboards and BMX appear. Digital Watches! Rich kids bringing SIMON and Big Trak to school at Christmas.
Seeing the birth of home computing with the ZX81 and Spectrum and learning BASIC. Living through the two-stroke golden era in the 80s with bikes like the RD350LC, then the YPVS models, then the TZR, TDR, NSR 250 and KR1. Seeing my first Golf GTi with my dad, the XR2, XR3i, Capri 2.8i, Celica, The Cossie, the rise of the mad turbocharged cars like the R5GTT, RS Turbo...
The rise of punk, new wave, 2 tone, the Mod Revival, New Romantics, electronic music, metal, Madchester, House Music, Hip-Hop. Dance Music, Walkmans appearing..
Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Close Encounters.... so many great films!
Wouldn't change it for anything.
remember all of that, it was a fun time everything seemed possible, then came the internet, and the world changed, Pandora's box well and truly opened.Seeing the first Space Invaders games appear in the arcade (remember when arcades just had dozens of Space Invader machines?) then Pac Man, Defender, Scramble, Asteroids etc.; seeing skateboards and BMX appear. Digital Watches! Rich kids bringing SIMON and Big Trak to school at Christmas.
Seeing the birth of home computing with the ZX81 and Spectrum and learning BASIC. Living through the two-stroke golden era in the 80s with bikes like the RD350LC, then the YPVS models, then the TZR, TDR, NSR 250 and KR1. Seeing my first Golf GTi with my dad, the XR2, XR3i, Capri 2.8i, Celica, The Cossie, the rise of the mad turbocharged cars like the R5GTT, RS Turbo...
The rise of punk, new wave, 2 tone, the Mod Revival, New Romantics, electronic music, metal, Madchester, House Music, Hip-Hop. Dance Music, Walkmans appearing..
Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Close Encounters.... so many great films!
Wouldn't change it for anything.
Stick Legs said:
I was born in 1977
Firstly the attitude of integrity.
Thirdly the attitude about self sufficiency. The whole ethos of integrity & independence ultimately mean a desire to be free of any constraints and that includes being beholden to manufacturers and ‘non user servicable’ equipment being seen as inherently suspicious.
Forthly the attitude towards the environment. As the first generation to start taking the environment seriously as a group (hole in the ozone layer, African famine…) it’s galling to be blamed for not for not doing enough, especially when the style of environmental concern we had was based around resource conservation & not buying your way to be green, but instead keep that old car & mend your stuff rather than buying a truck load of virtue signalling crap that makes you feel good but ultimately is futile.
Discuss.
I'm a similar age, sorry about the cut it was just to shorten post a bit, but I agree with all your points. Ultimately I think it comes down to the integrity thing, you look back and politicians, bankers, those in charge in the world back then and while there were definitely bad apples, and greed is good was a thing, it was done in a different way, it was an open greed, making money directly, through selling something, or exploiting people's stupidity with "schemes" that always found their way on to watchdog or similar programs..what exists now is much more subtle yet far more harmful and you've hit the nail on the head, buying virtue signalling crap. We are told constantly that consumerism is bad. In the next breath, buy this new widget, it will reduce your co2 emissions which means you are saving the planet. It's sickening to watch from the outside as hordes of idiots fall for it, because it's not saving the planet, if we truly cared about the planet we would be focussing on not buying disposable crap we throw away after one use, ten uses, a year and ends up in landfill or the sea. We would stop deforestation that is eradicating whole continents worth of trees to produce cheap food. We would look at ways to survive without having to always grow, whether that's businesses having to get bigger or they aren't working, GDP having to grow or the countries going down the pan or populations growing otherwise we can't afford to pay pensions when people retire. Firstly the attitude of integrity.
Thirdly the attitude about self sufficiency. The whole ethos of integrity & independence ultimately mean a desire to be free of any constraints and that includes being beholden to manufacturers and ‘non user servicable’ equipment being seen as inherently suspicious.
Forthly the attitude towards the environment. As the first generation to start taking the environment seriously as a group (hole in the ozone layer, African famine…) it’s galling to be blamed for not for not doing enough, especially when the style of environmental concern we had was based around resource conservation & not buying your way to be green, but instead keep that old car & mend your stuff rather than buying a truck load of virtue signalling crap that makes you feel good but ultimately is futile.
Discuss.
Stop damaging the planet. Stop wasting stuff. Stop putting so much strain on it. But we won't ever do that. Why? Because it's not profitable.
Co2 is though.
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