• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    37 months ago

    Lol, like the 60s counterculture movement (primarily boomers since Xers weren’t even born til '65) never happened. You had real communes forming in major cities and an organized rejection of work and capitalism that Gen Xers never even came close to putting together. Show me one GenX movement that truly threatened capitalism the way that Haight-Ashbury did in the 60s.

    Instead, GenX allowed capitalism to subsume anticapitalism itself. Wannabe hippies bought their tie-dye from all the old spots, bought their folk and psych music from the old labels, and made the movement into an aesthetic that the old guard profited from. Don’t “greatest generation” that BS.

    And obviously don’t idolize boomers either. Not like their efforts or outlook were perfect or they didn’t fuel the downfall of anticapitalism either, but you just can’t say that X did anything more significant or novel than the cultural revolution of the 60s.

    • ronalicious
      link
      English
      5
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      the effects and reach of the hippie movement are greatly exaggerated for effect, and most of those folks rejoined society and put on their suit and tie once the acid wore off.

      and genX never allowed shit, and neither did we get shit done. we are always as a group outnumbered and outgunned by the generation before us, and the generation after us.

      so yeah, we’ve been unable to effect change, and that’s why we are jaded af, and are just tired of giving a shit.

      I do what I can in the community I’m in, and that’s that

      edit. grammer

    • @mojo_raisin
      link
      English
      47 months ago

      I wasn’t talking about threatening capitalism exactly, but ya you got a point. Some past generations had their cool ones too.

      The lack of impact from GenX is mostly due to it’s relative size. For us to have the impact of other generations we’d have to be 5x more radical then them.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        67 months ago

        There were ~71 million boomers.

        There were ~65 million Gen X.

        There are ~72 million millennials.

    • @Eldritch
      link
      English
      37 months ago

      Yeah tail end Xer here. I was into punk postpunk and goth. Industrial and every genera that diverged from them. And while they were a product of gen X. You’re right that every generation had similar in recent history. And I remembered always being outside the mainstream for liking those genera. I remember people scoffing when punkers pointed out the fact that Reagan/Thatcher were fascist or at least proto fascist. But the punks were right.

      There’s a reason young prepy Reaganite fash were a huge pop culture genx trope back then. Gen x has always largely been disengaged from politics outside of the Reaganite fash. Not saying that there weren’t others outside the fash. But they were very much outliers and exceptions. Millennials and gen Z generally dwarf Gen X on political activism and engagement.