John Scalzi: GEN X never stopped mocking Gen X. If you want to mock us, be prepared for us to be all, like, "You call THAT snark? Step aside, amateur" and then riff self-loathingly on ourselves for a solid hour

GEN X never stopped mocking Gen X. If you want to mock us, be prepared for us to be all, like, "You call THAT snark? Step aside, amateur" and then riff self-loathingly on ourselves for a solid hour

If it's any consolation, I never stopped mocking Gen X.

As someone coming right at the end of it, I do feel like Gen X has a lot of myths about itself that it tells and I am never entirely sure if it believes them or not.

Our childhood was afloat on a sea of lore and urban legend, we are cryptids unto ourselves.

Most of it's just joking. No one cares about drinking from the hose (newsflash: it tastes nasty). Millennials and GenZ will get their turn on the wheel just like the rest of us. Entropy comes for us all eventually. Whatever.

I didn’t buy it when they called us the slacker gen. I do buy that we’re the forgotten gen.

We were the slacker gen because many of us graduated into a recession. I still remember how we suddenly turned into an overworked generation leading up to the dot com days.

Stories make communities. They don’t have to be true to provide that function!

My favorite Gen X myth (as a younger member of the generation) is how Megan Jasper became a cultural hero by lying to Boomers. She was asked about what slang words her generation used, and she just made up some shit and they believed her. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge_...

Grunge speak - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

This seems pretty accurate. We don’t really believe anything.

It's hard to figure out what we really were like when many of our peers we looked up to did things ironically or constantly mocked themselves.

The cool ones don't, the myths are there to smoke out the too-serious and gullible 😏

Someone told me that Ian Curtis died by cutting his own throat and peeling his face off while bleeding out *spooky hands* AND WE HAD NO WAY TO CHECK THAT OBVIOUS BULLSHIT.

The lack of access to basic info was nuts! From harmless myths to life threatening shit, we just had to trust the randos in our neighborhood. Kids from out of town could make up whatever story they wanted about their city, we had no way to check.

Do we? I thought we were too apathetic to make up an entire narrative

I mean, the narrative that y'all're slackers who don't care and don't MEAN to be all heartless can buy some of y'all a lot more goodwill than is warranted.

Legit.

I always feel bad about laughing at this meme because Lawless is herself GenX and should be reclaimed as such

YES. This is one of my favorite memes!

The nose joke battle was the best part of the movie Roxanne.

"I've been braver since"

"I'd hate to see the grindstone." Classic.

The original is one of the best parts of Cyrano.

That's ok. Mocking us provides the attention we were denied as children.

Forever Mood

Please, try to mock a generation that adopted the word "whatever" as its rallying cry

Sarcasm and self-loathing are Gen X’s OG superpowers.

Along with invisibility.

You can’t outmock Gen X!

I would weigh in on this but it seems like effort. so whatever.

our official motto is 'whatever'

Our parents saying, "You're too sensitive," was our therapy.

No one can ever hate us more than we hate ourselves.

That was also always how I felt with interservice rivalry between service branches and members, such that sometimes I think the observers are stunned. You think that's bad? We can up the insults to any level you like!

Snark is an art form. The military has weaponized it.

That scene from Roxanne. Steve Martin going off on his nose.

…except Steve Martin is a Boomer…

It was a formative film for Gen-x. His films shaped gen-x as much as John Hughes’ films did.

Yeah. Every late genx/xennial couple I know's love language is benign insults, so we'll be fine. And it will make us only more amused that the children mocking us are wearing Nirvana & Friends t-shirts.

In order to mock us you have to notice us. The only people who notice GenX are GenXers.

No one taught us to hate ourselves and the insane world we live in as much as Carlin… I miss him every day

I'm just excited people finally know who we are!

"WE EXIST!"

If you can’t rely on absent parents to dunk on you, you gotta suck it up and learn doing it yourself.

I think this is how my husband and I communicate. Sheer mockery.

Pretty much the same here And if I start being only nice, I'm probably pissed off at you

We did everything ironically, so we EXPECTED mockery, mostly from ourselves. We were self-hindering.

exactly. I can't respect you if the snark isn't good. If you're going to call me a name, you better get me good. Steve Martin does this expertly (even tho he is not Gen X of course) in Roxanne.

Oh please, Brer Fox and Brer Bear, don’t throw me in the mocking patch.

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