Okay, let’s give ourselves up, Gen X. We do this ALL of the time.
Me: “Shirley you must be kidding, and don’t call me Shirley.”
My Daughter: “What are you talking about?”
Me: “You know – Airplane! The 1980 movie starring Robert Hayes?”
My Daughter: “No Dad, I have never seen that movie.”
Me: “Why not? Well, we’re gonna watch it this weekend.”
My Daughter: “UGH!!!”
One of the toxic traits we Gen Xers possess is the need to spread our idea of what is a great movie, band, or television show to anyone who will stand still long enough for us to grill them. And we are legion. From harassing the kid in our class with a Def Leppard shirt to name three songs to showing actual physical exasperation when a Gen Z has not seen Total Recall we love to be shocked and then make it our mission to educate this neophyte on the cultural importance of the 1990 Rom-Com Kindergarten cop starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pamela Reed. I mean, “boys have penises and girls have vaginas” is a line that is canon and must be passed on to future generations like the Magna Carta.
And I can tell you from the front lines of youth culture – we annoy them to no end. Here is the deal since the beginning of time, there have been over 500,000 movies released. 455 of them starring white-toothed heartthrob Eric Roberts alone. Over time nearly 13 million albums and millions of books have been released. Hell, in 2022 alone, there were 599 separate-scripted television series released in the United States. Every year provides an endless fountain of pop culture and actual art to consume, but yet we are aghast when some random 22-year-old can’t quote Back to the Future 3.
My own kid has yet to see a movie featuring the character Indiana Jones, and she has only seen one Star Wars movie “It was the one with Jabba, and Princess Leia was a prisoner or something.” So, it does not exactly have a huge impact.
I call this forced nostalgia. The idea is that somehow there is a shame in not knowing or consuming the culture of one generation by the next generation. And it’s annoying. Whenever a friend of mine complains that their kid has no idea what Knight Rider is or hasn’t listened to TLC’s Waterfalls, I often ask how many episodes of Insecure they have watched, do they know who Girl in Red or Don Tolliver is, or if they are into the Fault in our Stars, or which Hogwarts House they are a member of. I am usually met with a gruff.
Culture is informed by those making and experiencing it and has a shelf life. The older we get, the less relevant culture is to modern consumers. Take on this exercise. Start with the decade you turned 13 in (in my case, the 1980s) and list out the following; name 10 movies, 10 Actors or Actresses, 10 Bands or solo artists that began or had their top album that decade. Now do that for every decade before and since your 13th year decade. I guess you will do fine for two decades before and after. Beyond that, it starts to get fuzzy. That is because nostalgia works both ways. I know fewer and fewer new artists, and honestly, anything before the 1960s is lost on me. I can get a few in the 50s but the 40s and 30s? Forget it.
Look, nostalgia is great, and sometimes it will stick. My own daughter and I love the movie Young Sherlock Holmes, she listens to The Beatles (not exactly Gen X, but . . .), and she does her best. But I love that she has her own pop culture and connects with that. I learn a lot about her and find much of the stuff she loves is pretty great. So let’s give the kids a break and maybe let them discover what they think is excellent, and leave the nostalgia to all of us olds attending a Culture Club concert and going early to beat the traffic.
Considering Outloud 