Don’t we have ‘80s and ‘90s pop culture?
Posted by ffs2050@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 85 comments
In another example of GenX erasure, according to this article (https://www.fastcompany.com/91185127/you-dont-need-to-be-a-90s-kid-to-know-millennial-nostalgia-is-now-driving-culture), millennial nostalgia for the ‘90s is driving contemporary culture. Among the millennial things they say are now back are: Beetlejuice, J Crew, Super Mario Brothers, Ghostbusters, and the Karate Kid.
I don’t care about generational warfare but we should at least get to lay a claim to our own childhood and adolescent memories.
EdwardBliss@reddit
Something dangerous, irreverent and authentic--to kick the music industry in the balls--would be nice. The last time something happened like this was grunge.
romulusnr@reddit
That's one thing millennials will never do. They love pop commercial shit. Why do you think the Internet got the way it is?
EdwardBliss@reddit
Music movements is like a pressure cooker until something gives. Here's what blows my mind...there's no backlash, no uprising or anything. All this shit should've crashed and burned a long time ago
romulusnr@reddit
Younger generation music is depressing as fuck. It should be blowing our minds and making us panic. Instead it's just sad. I'm seriously disappointed. I was fully looking forward to getting older and having my ears blown out with the insanity of the subsequent genres.
Millennials couldn't even frigging do youth rebellion and debauchery properly
marigolds6@reddit
Unfortunately we also get to lay claim to reality tv and the subsequent death of music on mtv. In my alternate timeline, Puck would have never been more than a bike courier.
romulusnr@reddit
Puck is a goddamn hero
MyriVerse2@reddit
90s is very Millennial.
ffs2050@reddit (OP)
I wouldn’t say that Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Green Day, and Smashing Pumpkins are millennial bands, not to mention many ‘90s movies like Pulp Fiction. The late ‘90s are more millennial though.
SoulfulFan53@reddit
So would that same logic apply to many boomer artists you GenXer try to claim as your generation then like Led Zeppelin, Bowie etc from the 70s or does that not fit your narrative at all?
Because this is where you guys show the hypocrisy side.
GenX-ModTeam@reddit
Trolling, rage farming, misinformation, disinformation, flame wars, or any other antagonistic commentary and/or behaviour is not tolerated.
ffs2050@reddit (OP)
It is true a lot of us have nostalgia for those bands, but they were part of our formative experiences too. At least where I grew up in the’80s, the only two rock stations mostly played ‘classic rock’ from the ‘60s and ‘70s. I don’t think I went to any dance that didn’t close with Stairway to Heaven. Personally I was glad when alt-rock and rap made by artists of our generation finally started to displace this music, as much as I love Pink Floyd.
SoulfulFan53@reddit
So that means Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Green Day, and Smashing Pumpkins are also nostalgic for Millennials during their formative years too right?
ffs2050@reddit (OP)
I’m not trying to gatekeep this culture. I’ve just been seeing a lot of articles on the ‘90s from a millennial perspective that don’t even acknowledge Gen X, even though the majority of us went to high school/college in the ‘90s. This one even did that for the ‘80s.
SoulfulFan53@reddit
So this is you basically admitting what i responded to not fitting your narrative then.
It's okay for this sub to claim artists from the baby boomers generation like the 70s but if I apply the same logic with Millennials and grunge bands, 90s rappers etc, it's a different story and you're clearly trying "gatekeep" culture.
GenX-ModTeam@reddit
Trolling, rage farming, misinformation, disinformation, flame wars, or any other antagonistic commentary and/or behaviour is not tolerated.
OccamsYoyo@reddit
No millennial could even watch Pulp Fiction in 1994 unless they snuck in or a parent took them.
Sumeriandawn@reddit
Nobody after 1977 watched Star Wars.
SoulfulFan53@reddit
Just like many GenXers couldn't watch The Exorcist in 1973 but nope, this won't fit your logic.
MissKhary@reddit
The oldest of them perhaps, they'd have been in high school in the later 90s. But the youngest millennials were in kindergarten for Y2K.
Dogzillas_Mom@reddit
My millennial friends were born in 87, 88, 89… they were under 10 for almost of the 90s.
viewering@reddit
a lot isn't
MyriVerse2@reddit
90s is very Millennial.
JeffTS@reddit
For us later Gen X, 80s and 90s are our pop culture. Particularly the 90s because that is when we were in high school and college.
OccamsYoyo@reddit
Not even late Gen X. I’m square in the middle (1973) and those were my eras. I liked the ‘70s but all I knew was the kid-oriented stuff.
Livid-Detective-9318@reddit
Yup! Me too. Here in the US, for me it was Electric Company, Sesame Street, Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Rodgers. I remember being terrified of the Dr. Who theme music when it came on.
Flwrvintage@reddit
Yup, the '90s is a mostly Gen X decade.
CitizenChatt@reddit
Peeps born in 1980 didn't have the same Gen X experience as those born in 1970. While we were playing GI Joe they were watching Teletubbies.
But we can still all hang out.
DarkRazer22@reddit
Overall yes , until the late 90s. 90s cartoons are millennial though.
Flwrvintage@reddit
Agree. The '90s were a Millennial childhood decade, and the late '90s (probably from '97-99) were a Millennial teen era.
viewering@reddit
with 1961 - 1981 as gen x, we were 9 - 29 ish in the 1990
doesn't get more 90's generation ?
bkills1986@reddit
I thought gen x started in 1965
CitizenChatt@reddit
🤷
CitizenChatt@reddit
90s was our Swingers gig. We were so money 💰
SoulfulFan53@reddit
70s is not GenX pop culture. Can you list what was targeted towards kids please... I'll wait
Sumeriandawn@reddit
There is some overlap when it comes to generations.
Boomer Youth: 50s-80s
GenX Youth: 70s-2000s
Millenial Youth: 80s-2010s
Inamibles@reddit
Nah, I’m 1975. I barely remember have memories of the 70s. My childhood was 80s, my teens/coming-of-age were 90s.
Having said that, I’ve got more important things to worry about. Let the baby have its bottle.
Inamibles@reddit
Do we really care whether some company is targeting us for marketing purposes?!
Awellknownstick@reddit
Whut nah I was born 75 and the 90s were ours. They don't even get that Nevermind album was just corporate shit and never heard of Bleach. Let alone the end of rave IE the Braintre Barn.
Ye it's taking off again but don't let em forget we did it before em.
Fisher_mom@reddit
I was in single digits in the 70s, no real cultural memories at that age. My nostalgia would firmly rest in the 80s-90s.
Why-did-i-reas-this@reddit
I think a lot of our cultural kids memories were not saved. Kids shows and tv shows were not saved or replayed after the early 80s. That might be one of the reasons. But those songs and shows were burned into my memory
TheGreatOpoponax@reddit
The only thing the kids haven't reappropriated is the comeback of that 70s and the thankfully brief 1940s revival of the 90s and the same thankfully short flirtation with the 50s in the 80s. So that's probably what's coming next.
Oh, big hair. They'll bring that back anytime now.
GenX-Kid@reddit
The retro 50s thing was everywhere in the 80s. It pandered to the boomers. It was never for us and frankly that’s fine because I still can’t stand it.
TheGreatOpoponax@reddit
I remember the Stray Cats being a thing in '82-83, but not much else beyond that.
GenX-Kid@reddit
Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl, The Longest Time era. But in movies too, Back to the Future, The Outsiders, Dirty Dancing, Eddie and the Cruisers. There was a 50s undertone throughout 80s culture. It was the same thing with the 70s/90s culture
CitizenChatt@reddit
We didn't start the 🔥
GenX-Kid@reddit
It’s a song about boomer history. He phoned that one in. Lame chorus also. I think it was a hit because of the boomer word salad
CalmChestnut@reddit
and Happy Days
CitizenChatt@reddit
Peggy Sue Got Married.
Case closed.
Brxcqqq@reddit
CitizenChatt@reddit
Frack you
KlimpysExpress@reddit
Agreed. I was just talking to my teenager about how unbearable it was when I was young to constantly hear ex-hippie boomer teachers and other authority figures go on and on about their generation, how great it was, how much they cared about and changed the world, etc — and then to be on the receiving end of them trying to shove their politics & ideology down our throats. I still get the heebie-jeebies from stuff like The Big Chill, Thirtysomething, Haight Ashbury retrospectives and the like. I told my kid the last thing I’d ever want to do is subject people younger than me to that kind of insufferable, false nostalgia.
camelslikesand@reddit
They may take our music. They may take our movies. They may take our fashion. But they will never take our whatever.
CitizenChatt@reddit
United States of Whatever!
cheesecheeseonbread@reddit
Not according to Millennials. I've seen them lay claim to a vast range of our shit.
CitizenChatt@reddit
Who cares
nixtarx@reddit
Beetlejuice is from 1988.
jcgreen_72@reddit
Which would make its target audience, how old?
FocalorLucifuge@reddit
I don't know what J Crew is.
But every other thing you listed (Super Mario, Ghostbusters) originated in the 80s. Our generation's touchpoints.
Beetlejuice, too, even though I never really got into it other than a single viewing from a VHS tape (in itself an extremely GenX thing). That was late 80s.
SusannaG1@reddit
J. Crew was huge in the 80s. Very, very preppy. Very Ralph Lauren.
FocalorLucifuge@reddit
I was never into fashion.
waaaghboyz@reddit
“Gen X erasure” is something Gen X doesn’t worry about
661064@reddit
My personal ethos is all about disappearing into the dark corners.
zoot_boy@reddit
We have all the pop culture. What are you talking about?
Sumeriandawn@reddit
Yes, there was no pop culture before 1975 and after 1999.
throw123454321purple@reddit
Hey, when I was in high school in the ‘80s they had ‘50s dress-up day each year. It’s all cyclical. Forty years from now the 2020s will be super trendy.
SusannaG1@reddit
At mine it was "1950s day" every day. It was the half of current trends for girls that the school was OK with, so we all wore skirts under the knee, button down shirts, Fair Isle sweaters, knee socks, and penny loafers. The school was not OK with the other half: jeans, micro mini skirts, ripped sweatshirts, "unnatural" hair colors (generally courtesy of a KoolAid package), safety pins worn as earrings, goth makeup, and New Wave anything. Headbands were in a kind of grey area - you could probably get away with a metallic one at a dance.
Much-Chef6275@reddit
Are they saying Kamala Harris is a millennial?!
HPIndifferenceCraft@reddit
The most GenX thing we have, which they will never be able to claim, is our lack of “give a shit” about them trying to claim our nostalgia and culture.
The oldest millennials were like ten when we were wearing J Crew. It was not created for or marketed to them. If they want to lay claim to it, that’s their mental disorder.
itsasnowconemachine@reddit
As one of the oldest millennials (1981), I'd just like to say assure you that I still don't know what a "J Crew" is.
A lot of the cultural shit the article references were from the 80s. I saw it. On VHS. A little later. I know "of" the cultural shit, but stake no claim.
I love Stranger Things, but I assumed Gen-X would be the primary target.
Inamibles@reddit
Meh, we should take it as a compliment that our 80s and 90s pop-culture was so awesome, that in 2024, people are still trying to claim it as their own.
Whatever.
TotallyNotABot_Shhhh@reddit
Just saw an article on psychology today that completely skipped over us too. Apparently millenials were raised by boomers. Article written by an actual boomer.
Inamibles@reddit
Do we really care whether some company is targeting us for marketing purposes?!
Cryptosmasher86@reddit
Who gives a flying f*ck about a fast company article
Seriously, could be pick something less relevant than that, what's next business insider
Turn in your GenX card
You want pop culture
go to
Steel City Con and Galaxy Con - they firmly cater to GenX as it should be
https://www.steelcitycon.com/
https://galaxycon.com/pages/live-events
There are conventions like this around the country and ones for Horror, Sci-Fi, comics, toys, etc
The majority of the crowds at this are GenX some younger
ffs2050@reddit (OP)
I read this in the voice of The Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.
Ok_Television9820@reddit
Let the poor bastards have their fun memories.
ffs2050@reddit (OP)
I guess my point is that these are our memories. The oldest millennials weren’t even in elementary school when Karate Kid or Ghostbusters came out.
stenmark@reddit
1-who cares
2-Video tapes and cable exist. Plenty of my fond memories are of "boomer" things.
c_dawg694x2@reddit
Exactly. My millennial wife is a big Karate Kid fan because she saw all the movies on VHS as a kid. I became a huge Star Wars fan as a kid, despite the first one coming out before I was born. Whatever.
Ok_Television9820@reddit
They’re still our memories, though. We don’t lose them because of some dumb listicle or marketing thing.
StupidOldAndFat@reddit
J Crew. I so desperately and secretly wanted to look like the guys in J Crew catalogs.
nutmegtell@reddit
Good for them. Or not. Dont care.
KlimpysExpress@reddit
Who cares?
CycleBetter4672@reddit
Who gives a fuck
HatlessDuck@reddit
The music in the stores are 80s because we're running the place. That's it.
UsherOfDestruction@reddit
They were little kids, we were older. We both had it as part of our childhood, just at different stages. As a young Gen X I kinda feel this about late 70s stuff.