Generation X
Question: Popular culture has dubbed you and your contemporaries Generation X. Respond to this label and describe any feelings brought about by this.
My main objective in writing this essay was to articulate my feelings on a topic which should matter to those of us who don't want to be percieved in such a general manner. At the same time I tried to draw comparisons to misunderstood generations of the past. I drew the analogy about algebra because it provides a strong backbone for an essay which could become too abstract .
X. It is the consummate variable. It has an infinite number of possibilities. Basic algebra teaches us that in order to find out what X is, we would have to take the time to solve for X. The generation which I have been born into has been labeled Generation X, as if to say that we as a generation are considered impossible to classify, and like the letter X, we are an entire generation of variables. This is partially true, only because my peers and I don't have a specific issue which brings us together. We have no war to oppose, no music calling for us to unite, nothing cohesive which binds us as a generation. We are instead like the molecules of some unknown gas: spread out, each floating in its own way, occasionally colliding, but as a whole not really traveling in any particular direction.
It is my perception that the label of Generation X has come to be almost exclusively condescending. I consider myself an avid reader of news periodicals, Time, Newsweek, etc., which often deal with the generation gap that exists today from the point of view of older generations. It is my opinion that any time the term Generation X is mentioned in these magazines, it is done in a way that makes us all seem like apathetic Beavis and Butt-Head followers, who play too many video games and spend too much time at the mall.
When reading these articles, I can't help but think about Bob Dylan, 30 years ago, singing to the parents of his generation; "Don't criticize...
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