Page 10 | Let's talk about gen X because no other bugger does.

Mach3 · 2025-03-14T21:12:28+00:00

Hail fellow X'ers. We are never mentioned. It's always Boomers, Millennials or gen Z. Why the fuck not? We definitely exist, we were very cool people. I have such good memories of my 70's childhood and teenage years in the 80's. And all the goodness of the late 80s and early 90s. It did happen didn't it?

Bollindger · 15/03/2025 08:13

Just had too laugh at my mum.
Me and my friends would grab a train to London, spend all day there and home by 11 at night. Happened once a month for 3 years.
Seems she was very proud of me, took 40 years for her to mention that fact.

PurplePi · 15/03/2025 08:14

libertineagain · 15/03/2025 07:01

I was born in late 1980 and have always thought I was Gen x (though my sociology studies and reading of Douglas Coupland). In fact when I first was studying sociology in the late 90s at A Level, I'm sure that Gen x went to 1983. Now it sometimes ends in 1979.

I am the child of very liberal hippies and had a very 'free' childhood. I went to a lot of festivals and saw a lot of live music (by myself from 14) so I really immersed myself in 90s culture. We didn't have a tv though.

I mentioned on another generation thread that I (as in me, not generally) didn't know anyone who had a phone until 1997. I was shot down for this as 'everyone' had a phone in 1995. I did some research and actually the Nokia 5110 came out in 1998. I see this as the start of mass mobile phones and I was 18 by this time.

I had this Nokia back in 1994. https://www.mobilephonehistory.co.uk/nokia/nokia_2140.php I still have it stored away somewhere. A classic of its time.

As GenX we had the perfect combination - a tech free childhood and adolescence (if you don’t count Pong on the telly, Space Invaders arcade games and the like) and then computerised offices making work much easier.

I remember the interview for my first job. He was smoking a cigar and actually asked if I was planning to get pregnant in the next couple of years!

Nokia 2140

When the Orange network launched in 1994, customers only had one choice of phone. Fortunately it was the phone of 1994.

https://www.mobilephonehistory.co.uk/nokia/nokia_2140.php

EnjoythemoneyJane · 15/03/2025 08:15

I feel like Gen X gets mentioned all the time, everywhere - but that may just be my SM algorithm. There’s always someone banging on about how we had semi-feral childhoods, no helicopter parents and no digital media, and are thus the most mentally robust, balanced & self-sufficient generation. We also benefited from the activism and individual freedoms of the 60s and the wealth boom of the 80s and have generally had a pretty good deal out of life (not to mention the best soundtrack).

I obviously agree we’re the most banging people of all the people, but I hardly feel like we’re the silent wallflowers who need to be talked about a bit more by everyone else!

coribells · 15/03/2025 08:16

True , but Gen z sons love 80s music , it’s retro now . I’m planning on having an 80s coming of age film fest in my house ,!
😂

littledawnkey · 15/03/2025 08:21

Sorry, couldn’t edit my post in time. Meant to clarify that I feel the same as my mum but the other way. She relates more to the younger people in her generation, and I relate more to the older ones.

medlow · 15/03/2025 08:24

Nobody can ever convince me that the 80's didn't have the best music. The crap they put out now is embarassing, with the odd exception. In the 80's you had to be able to sing and play a guitar , electric or otherwise and have a cracker of a drummer. Plus brilliant back up singers.
Now you have one guy or girl and a whole lot of auto tuning and computerised drumming whilst some poor women dance around with barely anything on and the man/woman ( doing the pretend singing) is fully dressed.
Bring back the 80's
The 50s were better than now.
And what happened to bands? It's always just some freak ( usully with a guitar) pretending that the rest of the music is magic.
Hate music since about 2000. Gosh I wish they would bring back the 80's.
And yes being born in 1970 was the absolute BEST

JedRambosteen · 15/03/2025 08:25

JaninaDuszejko · 14/03/2025 22:11

GenX here, definitely the best generation while the Boomers and Millenials fight it out. Hoping our Gen Z DC end up more like us since they are so obsessed with the 80s and 90s.

From what I’m seeing the Gen Zs in their mid teens have a more Gen X sensibility, i.e. more finely attuned bullshit detection ability and pragmatism. My older Gen Z DS skews more Millennial in his outlook, as do his friends.

Angelofmycoins · 15/03/2025 08:32

coribells · 15/03/2025 08:16

True , but Gen z sons love 80s music , it’s retro now . I’m planning on having an 80s coming of age film fest in my house ,!
😂

What are you going to show? Mine watched Ferris Bueller and love it... I cant rember what else

SwanOfThoseThings · 15/03/2025 08:56

Not just the automatic washing machine as an alternative TV but also the microwave - our dining chairs were lined up across the kitchen like a theatre when my Mom’s friend came around to watch a sponge pudding being cooked when we got our first microwave.

😄

I remember our first automatic washing machine. Before that, we had a twin tub and a very scary spin dryer. I remember sitting on the kitchen floor watching my mum poke around in the twin tub, and then leaving sharply when she started the spin dryer, which would migrate across the lino with the force of its spinning.

And getting a microwave! Never before or after did we have so much soup in one week just for the novelty of watching the bowl spinning round.

SwanOfThoseThings · 15/03/2025 09:00

Hhoudini · 15/03/2025 08:02

🤣🤣 I just told my tail end boomer husband about this thread and before I could finish, he went on a rant similar to yours, then was surprised that the mood had changed. I pointed out that this is exactly what he does when he gets with his friend and reminisces, then told him about your post and the response. He laughed and said fair enough, but the fact that you’re both tail end boomers made me chuckle. The bitterness is strong here 🤣🤣

Show quote history

@BigHeadBertha @Hhoudini 's husband and others born after 1960 might be amused by this thread. My husband who was born in 1961 was quite chuffed to join me, albeit somewhat dubiously, in Generation X!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5225257-bbc-have-deboomerised-me

Lovewine1975 · 15/03/2025 09:04

The 90s were the best, we knew how to party in those days - they are all lightweights now 🤣🤣

Gundogday · 15/03/2025 09:07

bumblebeessarecool · 15/03/2025 06:50

I'm going to realize my teenage dream. I am off to see Duran Duran. I missed out in the 80's but making up for that now. Can't wait.

Enjoy. That’s one band I’d like to see.

Hhoudini · 15/03/2025 09:12

SwanOfThoseThings · 15/03/2025 09:00

@BigHeadBertha @Hhoudini 's husband and others born after 1960 might be amused by this thread. My husband who was born in 1961 was quite chuffed to join me, albeit somewhat dubiously, in Generation X!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5225257-bbc-have-deboomerised-me

Show quote history

Unfortunately (for him) he’s still a boomer (so maybe he’s not a tail end one?) 🤣

SwanOfThoseThings · 15/03/2025 09:15

Hhoudini · 15/03/2025 09:12

Unfortunately (for him) he’s still a boomer (so maybe he’s not a tail end one?) 🤣

Show quote history

😂

Shoezembagsforever · 15/03/2025 09:22

GeorgeOrwellsTurningGrave · 15/03/2025 07:27

I think the real loss for those who came along later (apart from having an Internet free existence in their formative years) was missing out on tribal youth counter culture. That sense of belonging. Experimenting with bands and styles (mostly) without consequence. Plus we all had the same wider cultural touch points as there wasn't obscure corners of the web to get siloed into.

That’s an excellent point actually!!

LoisWilkersonslastnerve · 15/03/2025 09:25

I'm the younger end of Gen X, 70s baby, 80s childhood, 90s teen. Amazing times. I miss the 80s/90s so much.😫

turkeyboots · 15/03/2025 09:28

You need to spend time in countries with different demographics. No one talks about us, but we are everywhere and the music in pubs and supermarkets reflects it!!
Ireland and the US seems to have a higher proportion of Gen Xs. I very much enjoyed US airport bars as the music is all aimed at the middle aged - Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Sound garden! I've never been anywhere with a UK equivalent yet.

Shoezembagsforever · 15/03/2025 09:35

EricTheGardener · 15/03/2025 00:24

Space hoppers in the garden, Findus crispy pancakes for tea, Danger Mouse on the telly. Going to school in leg warmers, watching Fame and singing along to 'Starmaker'. Simon Le Bon or John Taylor? Ditching pop for The Smiths and The Cure, then being totally torn when it all went aciiiiiiied as how can you be in two 'tribes' at once? Fortunately Primal Scream and the Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses made it all ok, and indie/dance-y club nights became the melting pots that meshed us all together, along with a bag of mushrooms, some LSD and a few Es... are good, he's Ebeneezer Goode..

Uni days, full grant. Student bedrooms with tie-dye wall hangings, the floor littered with club flyers, rizlas, last week's Melody Maker and empty cans of Special Brew. Getting ready to go out... Nirvana, Suede, Dinosaur Jr, Verve, New Order, Saint Etienne on the stereo... piling into a bar and necking back endless bottles of Two Dogs, quick scan of the room to see who you might try and pull, make eye contact with the one who looked a bit like Bernard Butler, ask him for a light while looking up at him from beneath heavily mascara'd eyes. A few more rounds, then you're snogging in the club, the lights come on and you realise you may have had your beer goggles on, but in for a penny in for a pound - the night bus home to one-night-stand-central is leaving in 5 minutes so you might as well. Key in the door, make a face at your flatmates before heading to your room and lighting some incense, rolling a joint, and hoping he has a condom.

Uni is done, it's real life, get a job time now. Crappy houseshares for a good few years, but it's the middle of the 90s and life is a-mazing. Pay £6.50 to go and see Oasis at the New Cross Venue, £32.50 for the 3-day Reading Festival. Britpop is in full swing, the Thatcher/Major era is finally on its last legs, there is something in the air. Feels a bit like optimism? The middle-decade passes in a haze of hedonism.

How the hell are we now in our late 20s? The century (the millennium, even) is drawing to a close and we're not sure if the world's about to spontaneously combust at the stroke of midnight. Feeling a bit tired of rooms in shared houses now, could do with my own space. Can't really afford it living in London, but what if I moved a bit further away and commuted in? Maybe by the sea? I mean I only earn £16k per year, but there are flats for less than £50k down there and I can get a mortgage for 3.5x my salary so I'm laughing. I'm in the new pad by the end of the decade, with enough left over for a Habitat sofa and one of those CD players where you can burn your own CD. Am I finally grown up now? I don't want to be, but it's the 2000s, I'm pushing 30, and - what the hell - some of my friends are talking babies. Definitely the end of an era. Sob.

Edited

So many have quoted this brilliant post for good reason - AMAZING summary of what it was actually like!!

I was talking to my DCs only yesterday about the seismic day (to us) some time in late spring 1989, when we turned up at our regular Sunday night indie club (yes everyone had jobs on a Monday too) and a new DJ was playing Acid House and all the indie boys were just staring dumb-founded, like their world had ended. By the following Sunday though they were all loving it (mad for it!) and by the Sunday after that were mostly wearing the baggy acid house uniform. Magic times…

marmaladeandpeanutbutter · 15/03/2025 09:49

I definitely think those of us who were born in the early 60s are in the wrong category. We were Bowie not the Beatles, and Smiths concert goers after that. Those even 5 years older than us had quite different influences.

SwanOfThoseThings · 15/03/2025 09:59

marmaladeandpeanutbutter · 15/03/2025 09:49

I definitely think those of us who were born in the early 60s are in the wrong category. We were Bowie not the Beatles, and Smiths concert goers after that. Those even 5 years older than us had quite different influences.

Yes, my tail-end boomer husband is all about Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd - the bands of his teenage years in the 70s, and then the metal of the 80s/90s such as Metallica. He's definitely no fan of early to mid 60s music.

coribells · 15/03/2025 10:41

Gundogday · 14/03/2025 21:39

Hello fellow Gen-Xers.

80s music was so scorned for so long, and now it’s being revered again. It was such a glamours decade, but also there was alot of ‘tribes’ - New Romantics, heavy metal etc. Today all the youth seem more similar.

It’s true , watching a music show on TV the other day , the commentator said the 80s was the most exiciting time in popular music history !

Neurodiversitydoctor · 15/03/2025 11:50

ShriekingTrespasser · 15/03/2025 07:39

My childhood was bikes, staying out all day, tv occasionally and lots of books. I easily got through the 6 books a week the library allowed. parents never knew where we were. Walked to primary school with neighbourhood kids.. I don’t think my mum ever walked me to school or knew where I was if I wasn’t at home.
We were independent and resilient. I’d love to know how other gen x’ers are raising their kids.
Are we raising cool gen z kids?

DC are 21 & 18
We tried very hard to give them freedon but perhaps a touch more support than our latchkey childhoods.
I let them get themselves to primary school in yr 4 but the head teacher wasn't happy.
Dd rode, we signed some disclaimer so from aged 9 she had free-range of 20 acres on horse back.
Similar sort of age I let them take themselves to the shop and cinema ( 10 minute walk). They had bikes and a tree house ( neighbour complained it was dangerous).

Dd says we were strict, screen time prepandemic was severly rationed (gave up a bit after that) Dd certainly has had her share of teenage kicks. I refused to track her, which bizzarely she begged for.

We are in Kent with DGPs in London they both made this journey independently from aged 12. DS took an aeroplane alone aged 14 ( sadly not possible for Dd due to Covid).

I'd like to think they are fairly resilient but it hasn't been easy swimming against the tide.

SerafinasGoose · 15/03/2025 12:13

Switcher · 14/03/2025 22:59

Shhh! The 1st rule of genx is you don't talk about genx! We're the ones that can't be arsed with any of this shit and quite happy to keep being forgotten about. The 90s were the best decade.

Yes, indeedy. Only one thing worse than not being talked about, and that's being talked about!

I'm a one-time goth and rock chick - still a sporadic Downloader as opposed to frequent attendee - parents boomers, kid (just) generation Alpha.

The women's rights post resonated with me. My granny (the Greatest Generation) was a first-wave feminist and suffragist, the second-wavers were the Boomers (my mum's generation), and both made such progress that today women would be really stuffed without their intervention even allowing for the fact that we've gone back 50 years since 2000. Thanks for nothing, Third Wave.

I also view my teenage years through a rose-tinted haze of nostalgia. Sisters of Mercy, John Hughes moves, The Lost Boys, terrible style aesthetics that were so bad they were cool, terrible dramas on the BBC (Triangle, that one with the creepy dolls in the house on the island) that everyone laughed at the next day. Fast foward to the mid 90s and the first Whitby Goth weekend, the Indie era, Oasis at Maine Road in around 98 when they were still fresh, new and semi-interesting. ...

Easy to forget the bad stuff (Thatcher, miners' strikes, breaking of the unions, terrible job prospects and impoverishment of the younger generations, Clare Grogan ...).

I want to go back to the 80s and stay there!

SorrelForbes · 15/03/2025 12:15

@EricTheGardener you've described my childhood, adolescence, teens and 20s perfectly. Thank you. Off for a little nostalgic sob.

SerafinasGoose · 15/03/2025 12:23

EricTheGardener · 15/03/2025 00:24

Space hoppers in the garden, Findus crispy pancakes for tea, Danger Mouse on the telly. Going to school in leg warmers, watching Fame and singing along to 'Starmaker'. Simon Le Bon or John Taylor? Ditching pop for The Smiths and The Cure, then being totally torn when it all went aciiiiiiied as how can you be in two 'tribes' at once? Fortunately Primal Scream and the Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses made it all ok, and indie/dance-y club nights became the melting pots that meshed us all together, along with a bag of mushrooms, some LSD and a few Es... are good, he's Ebeneezer Goode..

Uni days, full grant. Student bedrooms with tie-dye wall hangings, the floor littered with club flyers, rizlas, last week's Melody Maker and empty cans of Special Brew. Getting ready to go out... Nirvana, Suede, Dinosaur Jr, Verve, New Order, Saint Etienne on the stereo... piling into a bar and necking back endless bottles of Two Dogs, quick scan of the room to see who you might try and pull, make eye contact with the one who looked a bit like Bernard Butler, ask him for a light while looking up at him from beneath heavily mascara'd eyes. A few more rounds, then you're snogging in the club, the lights come on and you realise you may have had your beer goggles on, but in for a penny in for a pound - the night bus home to one-night-stand-central is leaving in 5 minutes so you might as well. Key in the door, make a face at your flatmates before heading to your room and lighting some incense, rolling a joint, and hoping he has a condom.

Uni is done, it's real life, get a job time now. Crappy houseshares for a good few years, but it's the middle of the 90s and life is a-mazing. Pay £6.50 to go and see Oasis at the New Cross Venue, £32.50 for the 3-day Reading Festival. Britpop is in full swing, the Thatcher/Major era is finally on its last legs, there is something in the air. Feels a bit like optimism? The middle-decade passes in a haze of hedonism.

How the hell are we now in our late 20s? The century (the millennium, even) is drawing to a close and we're not sure if the world's about to spontaneously combust at the stroke of midnight. Feeling a bit tired of rooms in shared houses now, could do with my own space. Can't really afford it living in London, but what if I moved a bit further away and commuted in? Maybe by the sea? I mean I only earn £16k per year, but there are flats for less than £50k down there and I can get a mortgage for 3.5x my salary so I'm laughing. I'm in the new pad by the end of the decade, with enough left over for a Habitat sofa and one of those CD players where you can burn your own CD. Am I finally grown up now? I don't want to be, but it's the 2000s, I'm pushing 30, and - what the hell - some of my friends are talking babies. Definitely the end of an era. Sob.

Edited

Not forgetting the good old slasher-movie. I think I've just been borne off on a tidal wave of nostalgia ...

Don't tell me I've become one of those older people who lives in the happier aura of the 'good old days', like the blokes from my dad's generation in the Grateful Dead T-shirts?

When/how in the hell did this happen! 😱