He was the most coveted demographic for advertisers, starred in fashion editorials and cult movies, inspired trends, and his musical expression, the grunge, monopolized the covers of music magazines, shop windows and the MTV channel. They are the inventors and first users of social networks: IRC chat, Friendster, MySpace. And yet, as a generation, they lack their own identity in all of them today, at least if we accept the meme as a measure of social relevance. Its digital footprint is conspicuous by its absence: you only have to walk through the networks to verify that the two sides of a fierce debate share it boomers and millennials, and in between there is a deep emptiness. has noticed it The Wall Street Journal, who a few days ago wondered: “How has Generation X eluded the memification? And he concluded that that was a generation so bland that it is not even laughable.
Take for example the popular Okay boomer! expression that jumped from the networks to the general media thanks to the young New Zealand politician Chlöe Swarbrick: after being interrupted by a member of the New Zealand parliament while giving a speech on the climate emergency, rebuked his rebuke with a succinct “okay boomer” (which we could freely translate as “okay, grandfather”). Since then, boomers became synonymous with anyone over the age of 30 with a condescending attitude towards the young, thus engulfing both Generation X and millennials (also known as Gen Y as they followed). taller and distorting its true meaning.
Let’s refresh concepts. The term boomers It comes from the birth boom that occurred after World War II. Its members are now over 60 years old, while the millennials or Generation Y are approximately between 25 and 40 and few and owe their name to the proximity of the turn of the millennium to their birth. Among them would be Generation X, which received that name from Douglas Coupland’s 1991 novel of the same name. It was not the first time that the term was used, but critics and readers saw in that story of three thirty-somethings who met in a Californian desert that the spirit of its time was beginning to reinvent itself as an orchard of technology. Together with Coupland, in the bookstores, lived Bret Easton Ellis and David Foster Wallace, who also spoke to a disenchanted youth and whose characters were brimming with apathy and cynicism.
In Spain its representatives were José Ángel Mañas, author of Stories of the Kronen (1994), Lucía Etxebarria with Love, curiosity, prozac and doubts (1997) and Ray Loriga with The worst of all (1992) and Heroes (1993). Musically, he defined them the grunge from Seattle with Nirvana in front; in Spain they were associated with the Xixón Sound, whose most popular group was Australian Blonde. They were authors of the unofficial anthem of the generation, the chup chupsoundtrack (precisely) of the film adaptation of Stories of the Kronen by Montxo Armendáriz in 1995.
There are more films that are part of his moral and aesthetic legacy —Everything is a lie (1994), singles (1992) either Clerks (1994)—, but it is Reality bites (1994) the one that offers the image dreamed of by any publicist for that generation. Ethan Hawke and Winona Ryder, at the peak of their appeal, star in a fashion editorial shot on 35mm. Him, with fake greasy hair and neatly unkempt clothes. She, with a haircut between bixie and capeado, and short flowered dresses. It was a simple and practical fashion. “Today much emphasis is placed on climate change, but it was in the nineties when concern for the ozone layer began, the degradation of which we hoped to combat simply by reducing the use of lacquer,” says Esperanza (48 years old), who in the mid-s ninety worked in a second-hand clothing store. “We also tried to stand up to the capitalism that the fashion industry represented by looking towards recycling, the streets were filled with fur coats rescued from grandparents’ chests or type dresses. la la la who have been sleeping since the sixties in our mothers’ closets. Brands looked askance at each other, only Martens or Converse were allowed and as long as they weren’t too shiny.”
It was also the time of unisex clothing and perfumes, a term that was as scary to some as words are now. gender fluid. Today Harry Styles or Timothy Chalamet puts on a boa or pearls and the nets go crazy; but 30 years ago the late Kurt Cobain came to his concerts in a skirt or dress and women had such unconventional femininity references as the singer Justine Frischmann from Elastica, whose relationships with musical and aesthetic icons such as Brett Anderson or Damon Albarn offered roles to those of us who were little used to: relaxed masculinities and strong femininities. Yes, the backroom of pop was the same redoubt of machismo and misogyny as any other music scene of any previous generation, but at least its images were groundbreaking.
“It is quite difficult to associate values to groups. I have many doubts that the concept of generation can be transplanted from one culture to another, just like that”, explains Francisco Nixon, singer-songwriter, member of Australian Blonde and La Costa Brava. “Even in the case of literary generations, which is a much narrower concept, it presents many problems. I always had the feeling that it was an invention of trend magazines to capture brand advertising. In plan: the kilo of millenial I have so much”. That as soon as Fox detected the virality of the ok boomer register it to develop a television program and someone bought the domain okboomer.com and valued it at $100,000 proves him right.
![There are few things more Generation X than Kurt Cobain.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/-tUurAoTxfTB1ewtugaUNKyunro=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/AOORVTI56VOXTGGG3S7MU75L3U.jpg)
reality bites, with a budget of 11 million, it grossed almost 40. It had stars and an omnipresent soundtrack, but it was not a mass phenomenon. Perhaps few felt represented in it. Trending magazines created a monetizable monster, but cast Generation X as lazy, cynical, and reclusive. While the boomers vindicated hard work and millennials care about activism and diversity, what exactly did Gen X vindicate? “Talking about the moral values of an entire generation without having the data seems gratuitous to me,” says Nixon. “In general, people adapt to their circumstances and I don’t think the differences between one generation and another are significant. The proof is that we can read today The Iliad and it is understood. The people of 3,000 years ago are basically the same as today, the accessories change. Skinny pants, elephant leg. With a hat, without a hat.
The X escaped en masse from the label with which the media tried to pigeonhole them. The boomers they do boast with pride of belonging to their generation, according to a poll from Pew Research Center. A feeling of belonging that would never have occurred to those who answer for Generation X. “For dignity,” says Francisco Nixon. Esperanza is of the same opinion: “It was a ridiculous label, we were only united by age. But it is not the same to have had 20 years in Madrid in the nineties than in Mansilla de las Mulas or in Botswana. At that time I lived with my sister, who is only a year older, and we had nothing in common. I listened to Spiritualized and she listened to El Último de la Fila, I aspired to live in fashion and she studied Economics. Neither aesthetically nor culturally nor politically we had nothing to do with it. Feeling identified with the traits that the media associates with a generation is as absurd as saying: ‘I am a Taurus’.
The reluctance of the generation that came of age at the end of the eighties to allow itself to be pigeonholed either goes unnoticed for Forbes, who still does not understand why the relevance of Generation X at the time is not in line with its current media presence. “As the smallest generation, caught between the baby boomers and millennials, we’re used to being overlooked. But here is a serious question: why the marketing focused on Generation X is still failing so much?” asks journalist Danielle Wiley. Perhaps because of that cynicism that stood out among his attributes. The X were the first to grow up in front of televisions that broadcast advertising indiscriminately and they learned to realize very quickly what a product is. It does have a kryptonite: nostalgia, perhaps because they are the first generation whose childhood was spent in peace and with an acceptable level of well-being, which made it a safe haven.
![Francisco Nixon, right, accompanied by writer-director David Trueba.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/-EV_xJx71wfsrmVYtm7mIH6AprE=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/NJLHMHU2DJOOT4ROPQZYWBHO5E.jpg)
“Working in the media, I would go to regular meetings with ad agencies where they were completely obsessed with these two groups: the boomers with steady jobs and good pensions, who are rich in both time and cash, and eager millennials, who are less financially secure but tech-savvy.” explained to BBC Culture Tiffanie Darke, author of Now We Are 40: What Happened to Generation X? (Now that we’ve turned 40: what happened to generation X?). “After a while, I started thinking, ‘Wait, what about me? What about the middle generation?’ Douglas Coupland believes the answer is that they are paying their children’s school bills and their parents’ care and they don’t have a lot of time to be for or against the system,” he adds. Francisco Nixon also sees the hand of social networks in this. “The networks do not deal with realities, but with discourses, which compete with each other. In this context, the positions are simplified to the point where everything is reduced to an antagonism between two positions: us and them. Friend and enemy. The truth and the lie. There are two positions because there can’t be three”.
It is pointed out that Generation X began to erode after the 1993 Perry Ellis show, in which Marc Jacobs transformed the basics grunge like the wide flannel shirts in luxury objects. “Marc sent me and Kurt his collection grunge by Perry Ellis. Do you know what we did with her? We burn it. We were punks, we didn’t like that kind of thing.” declared in an interview Courtney Love, leader of Hole and widow of the Nirvana singer. The official death certificate came when, at the end of the nineties, Douglas Coupland came across a billboard in Paris announcing a Citroën model named Generation X. The writer was certain that the publicity had misinterpreted his novel. He might have realized it first if he had gone to Spain in the mid-nineties. With reality bites still on the bill, a car brand was selling, following its aesthetics and using its soundtrack without shame, a slogan that became an instant joke: “Young, but well prepared”.
If, as Don Draper said, advertisers invented love to sell nylon stockings, generations were invented to sell cars. When Coupland was asked what he believed to be the future of the generation he named, the writer was clear: “A good bottle of Pinot Gris, a comfortable bed, good Wi-Fi and no one around to bother you.” Not even The Wall Street Journal.
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