Bastards Of Young

While I noted early that the media swirl over the whipping boys (and girls) known as Generation X began in earnest in 1991, there were antecedants. Thanks to a brief Meredith Bagby reference, I hit the back stacks of Penfield and emerged with an article called "Proceed With Caution" from the July 16, 1990, edition of Time. It preceded the first wave of GenX watching, but it used the same generalities in its lead:

They have trouble making decisions. They would rather hike in the Himalayas than climb a corporate ladder. They have few heroes, no anthems, no style to call their own. They crave entertainment, but their attention span is as short as one zap of a TV dial. ... This is the twentysomething generation, those 48 million young Americans ages 18 to 29 who fall between the famous baby boomers and the boomlet of children the baby boomers are producing. ... By and large the 18-to-29 group scornfully rejects the habits and values of the baby boomers, viewing that group as self-centered, fickle and impractical.

Those words could be used as a perfect backstory to the characters in Douglas Coupland's novel Generation X which (unfortunately) would eventually hang its name on our cohort. The main authors of the Time piece were members of this generation -- Sophronia Scott, 23, and David Gross, 24 -- and thus treated their subjects with a bit more kindness than those who would come later. But they also began locking in the stereotype of the cynics, noting that 65 percent of those polled thought it would be harder to live as comfortably as their forebears -- but, again, remember this could just as easily reflect the sentiments of the economic downturn of that time. They shone their flashlights on our curious mating rituals: "Finding a date on a Saturday night, let alone a mate, is a challenge for a generation that has elevated casual commitment to an art form." They explained how we had no heroes: "Young adults need role models and leaders, but the twentysomething generation has almost no one to look up to." They marveled at our strange priorities and inability to develop that killer instinct, quoting college student Suzanne Lahl: "I'd like to be an overachiever, but I decided I'd rather have friends than grades."

Perhaps most notably, Scott and Gross laid some foundation for what the media eventually painted as our slacker culture. "Companies are discovering that to win the best talent, they must cater to a young work force that is considered overly sensitive at best and lazy at worst," the article noted. "Welcome to the era of hedged bets and lowered expectations. Young people increasingly claim they are willing to leave careers in middle gear, without making that final climb to the top. The leitmotiv of the new age: second place seems just fine. But young adults are flighty if they find their workplace harsh or inflexible."

All the recipes were there, in that 1990 article, that would later become staples in the Xer-infatuated media diet of future years. Just add one mediocre novel, one weird movie, one angst-ridden musical trend, and serve undercooked assumptions to feed a one bountiful stereotype to hungry media consumers.