Hair Dividing Line
Posted by lurk3141592653589793@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 54 comments
I just came across a highschool yearbook from just before the mid-90's.
The difference between true Gen Xers and Xennials is so obvious just by looking at the hairstyles on the girls back then.
The Seniors had the big hair left over from the late 80's.
The underclass girls didn't do the big hair thing, with the exception of bangs.
More proof Xennials and Gen X are distinct.
switheld@reddit
'78ers had a lot of 'wings' - we'd hairspray our hair out on either side using a blow dryer and let the rest of it fall down straight past our shoulders. I'd curl my bangs back in a little rainbow above my head using a curling iron, and hairspray that too. not very tall though. Plus we had a lot of perms! all that until about '94. at my high school most of that stopped by the time I graduated in 96.
DCpurpleTart33@reddit
I had HUGE bangs in middle school and then I think I started the hair iron thing in highschool. I also had a very distinct hair COLOR I refer to as "blorange". It was a very special mix of semi permanent herbal essances hair dye from CVS or SUN IN. If you know about the Sun in look... then we friends. It was the wanna-be blonde but we didn't know what toner was so it was was literally orange. I was so cool.
pantheroux@reddit
I wanted a spiral perm like my mom’s soooo bad. I sixth grade, she agreed to it for my birthday which was at the end of the school year. My hair was long and thick, and I was in that chair forever. I cried at the end of it because I thought I looked like a sheep. Over the summer, grunge suddenly happened. Suddenly, my natural poker straight hair was fashionable and the spiral perm I had begged for for so long made me look like someone’s aunt.
lumberjackname@reddit
I went from big bangs to the Elaine Benes style puff plus perm in 1992.
faithcollapsing@reddit
That’s EXACTLY what I did! In about 93 the vibe suddenly shifted to “having bangs = bad.” I wasn’t sure how to hide mine while I grew them back out, so I copied Elaine’s hairdo on Seinfeld and just did a little clipped up poof in the front. To this day that style is still my go-to when the front of my hair isn’t cooperating and the back still looks presentable. 😁
jaymzx0@reddit
"Betty (Page) bangs" came into style around the middle of the 90s and were cool for a bit before it seemed to just become a rockabilly thing.
karebearjedi@reddit
In my school district, the dividing line between X and Xen was the giant bang wave. The girls in the classes above me would hairspray their bangs straight up and just curl the ends in a bit of a slant so it looked like a wave crashing off their forehead. My class was obsessed with middle parts and bucket hats.
jaymzx0@reddit
The "wall of hair" versus the floofy "mall hair".
During the 90s there was a suburb here that was known to hold onto the wall of bangs until the bitter end lol.
Pookarina@reddit
Aquanet hairspray changed their formula in 1992/3. Hair got flat but hey, we fixed the hole in the ozone layer right?
Wrenegade42@reddit
When i entered high school in '91 it was full of GenXers, when I graduated and left in '96 it was full of Millenials. It was noticeable at the Time, I thought it was normal. Didn't realize until much later I was witness to generational change
evinrudejustin@reddit
You spend 5 years in high school?
aenflex@reddit
I saw this divide clearly in my high school. The juniors and seniors were still super into big hair. Farrah Fawcett type looks. Lots of hairspray in the bangs. Biker jackets and super tight jeans and tall black boots.
The freshman and sophomores were into more of the typical 90s style hair. Long. Straight. The use of lots of different hair clips. Far fewer bangs.
LimeSalty4092@reddit
If you look at yearbooks, the transition from big hair to flat hair happened abruptly in 1993
Practical_Big_7887@reddit
Right around when people were blaming CFCs for the ozone hole
helikophis@reddit
(accurately blaming them)
Loocha@reddit
Even though 1993 was before her, I refer to the change as the Alanis effect.
musical_shares@reddit
I remember coming back to school after summer of ‘95 and being surprised that literally half the school was sporting The Rachel, younger teachers included.
It was around that time that I started to notice that most of my classmates didn’t actually seem to like or prefer anything except what the TV told them to like and prefer. It only got worse from there with music, clothing, hobbies, etc. Everyone was suddenly buying magazines and deciding what was cool or uncool based on advertisements 🥴
Liking uncool hobbies, uncool sports or uncool music was suddenly branded as “so immature” and being a damned clone was the only cool path.
FMArroway@reddit
Whoa. I never thought of that before, but I think it might be true. My sister graduated in 1992, and I remember her getting up early every morning to take the time to make her hair all big before school. I started high school in 1994, and I don't think any of the girls were doing that by then.
CloseButNoChicory@reddit
My mum blowdried my hair flat after every wash. It took about 40 minutes and it really hurt, the hairdryer so close to my scalp. But if I cried out in pain and she went more gently then the whole procedure would take twice as long.
God I wish I were born earlier!
Apart-Consequence881@reddit
Clothing got baggier seemingly overnight around 1993 as well.
amopdx@reddit
Dude I literally was talking about this the other day. The vibe at my school definitely shifted after the seniors my freshman year graduate (1993-94). Big hair was one of the things I brought up, totally agree and remember the relatively quick shift
lindseyamiller28@reddit
This is so accurate! I had a perm and bangs 4th-6th grade. Then in 1994, I wore it straight for 7th grade, and forever onward. Someone else said Alanis Effect. 1994 was the year I got into grunge music, so I’m betting that is why I stoped with all the big hair maintenance.
jen_esse@reddit
Yup! I had big hair in middle school. But high school, I was ironing it flat.
DickWhittingtonsCat@reddit
That sounds about right actually but very regionally dependent. There is a pretty stark divide around 1973/1974 born. Kids graduating in 1980s were out there. It goes from Boomer-lite to Proto-millennials in a blink of an eye
Semi-related, crime started to plummet right in 1994 in the US and that’s before Gingrich-Clinton.
knitty_kitty_knitz@reddit
Maybe I was ahead of my time, but no big hair for me. I’m ‘born in 73 so even though I’m not a xennial I find a lot of things here still to be true for me. Sure the tech thing happened to me in college instead of high school, but I was still pretty young and it was still pretty memorable. I’d argue that there’s still some overlap in our experiences. I do think similarities kind of fade as Gen X gets older. I don’t identify as much with older Gen X, even five years older so in that way, I see what you mean by feeling different. Maybe the generations just need to be shorter like ten years instead of fifteen or even 5-7 years. But then we could end up in a category of ‘73-‘78 lol.
lurk3141592653589793@reddit (OP)
You were ahead of your time at least as far as my school district was concerned. Lol
knitty_kitty_knitz@reddit
We started with big hair and in 1991 ended with smooth hair. I’m sure there were exceptions though. Maybe I was ahead of my time!
KellyAnn3106@reddit
I'm 1977. I did the giant floofy bangs but not the rest of the big hair. You may be on to something.
desertdweller2011@reddit
my 1980 sister was exactly the same lol. perfected her bang floof/swoop in our shared bathroom for what felt like wayyy too long to me 😂
KellyAnn3106@reddit
I had it down to an art. I had a tiny barreled curling iron. You did a horizontal split in the bangs so you had a top layer and a bottom layer. Curl each very tightly. Then get a brush and floof them until you have a big hair explosion on your forehead. Spray until you create a hole in the ozone layer.
desertdweller2011@reddit
i know they say the hole in the ozone layer was reversed bc of CFC legislation but…. i can’t help but think the change in bang style was a contributing factor 😂
TheIadyAmalthea@reddit
My mom floofed up my bangs. I hated it! I was finally able to grow my bangs out so she would stop doing it to me. The year was 1996 when I finally had a good school picture!
snn1326j@reddit
I spent hours of the very early morning before school for years during freshman and sophomore year trying to get the floofy bangs but my hair simply would not cooperate. No matter what styling tool or product I used or how long I teased them they always fell flat and to the side within a few hours.
Starbreiz@reddit
Only half my class had big hair. I graduated in 96. I was not into big hair bc I had curls I was trying to tame.
lurk3141592653589793@reddit (OP)
It is, but Xennials are the younger Xers, and older Millennials. So if you have a yearbook from your Freshman or Sophomore year, check your class against the Seniors. You might see the difference between elder, & middle Xers, and Xennials in the hair.*
*Depending on the diversity of your student body, as someone helpfully pointed out.
Starbreiz@reddit
Sadly my yearbooks are 3000 miles away but I believe you. I've just felt a lot closer to GenXers than Millennials my whole life
lurk3141592653589793@reddit (OP)
I have a bit of both. Since my siblings are older Xers, I got to see a lot of X culture as a kid. But with tech, and the economic state in which I entered adulthood, I'm probably more in line with the Millennials.
Substantial-Play5201@reddit
To me, older GenX looked like bonafide adults in their senior pics. Xennials looked like teenagers.
Traditional_Entry183@reddit
I think it also depended on where you grew up. There was a notable minority in my school who were absolutely doing the 80s hair band/metal head thing, and girls who made themselves up like Kelly Bundy.
lurk3141592653589793@reddit (OP)
Good point. Also, student body diversity probably plays into it.
Traditional_Entry183@reddit
In my area's case, the lack of. 95%+ white and working class or poor.
Fickle_Wrangler_7439@reddit
I have curly mixed-race hair so exactly none of that applied to people like me. Just pulled it back into a bun until my 30 when I shaved it into a pixie.
lurk3141592653589793@reddit (OP)
Yeah, probably not relevant in a school with actual diversity.
Reasonable-Wave8093@reddit
you have the dream hair👀
FionaGoodeEnough@reddit
Unless you went to my midwestern high school…
wyc1inc@reddit
I believe everyone I went to high school with was an Xennial as defined by this sub except for the freshmen when I was a senior.
Having said that, when I was a freshman the juniors and seniors were "textbook" Gen Xers, and I remember their overall look fitting more of the stereotypical turn of the century boy bandish look that Millennials are associated with. Frosted tips and all that jazz.
Us "textbook" millennials were quite a bit more reserved and dare I say boring in the way we dressed and our physical appearance. No idea why.
Reasonable-Wave8093@reddit
We wanted volume, but didn’t rat anything
thelaineybelle@reddit
You ever have your drunk dad rake his fine-tooth comb thru back-combed ratted & Aqua Netted hair (bc it looked bad to him & wanted it out) and screaming to shut up or he'll actually give me something to cry about?
TheLaineyBelle remembers 😭😱
Reasonable-Wave8093@reddit
Screaming shut up or ill give you something to cry about is our genX side😆
MisRandomness@reddit
In 3rd grade in 1990, I remember seeing the 8th grade girls hanging their heads upside down and blow drying with hair spray so their hair would be big and thick. That was when I saw the true difference between me and the Gen X girls.
Kennikend@reddit
I do this to this day just for a half inch of volume hahah
blablahblehbl@reddit
Mall bangs!
Hatecookie@reddit
I was in 3rd grade in 1993, and I remember trying to make my hair look flat with a few small curls around my face like the girl a few years older than me who lived next door. By 5th grade, She and I both were trying to get it as smooth and straight as possible.
yinchanvo@reddit
I am surrounded by bangs when I go to Japan and Korea, and wish they made a U.S. comeback. Should be mandatory lol