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by jedberg 110 days ago
Gen-X was making the popular new art at the time. It was a strong reflection of the feelings of our generation. We were (maybe still are?) known for not liking authority.
3 comments

> Gen-X was making the popular new art at the time. It was a strong reflection of the feelings of our generation.

I posted this in a thread about the 90's film 'Hackers'.....

In the 1990's and for us Gen-X'ers, the worst thing you could do was to sell out; to take the mans money instead of keeping your integrity. Calling people and bands 'sell outs' (sometimes without justification!) was to insult them.

With the rise of 'influencers' the opposite appears to be the case; people go out of their way to sell out and are praised for doing so. This is a massive change in the cultural landscape which perhaps many born in the 2000's aren't aware of. (Being aware of this helps give some perspective to Gen-X media and films like Hackers).

BTW: Remember the 'product scene' in the film Waynes World?

Ethics are easy when you can afford food.

Post 2000s there has been a pretty fundamental change in the US economy. Things like rent and food were far cheaper. There was also a lot of potential income to be made by individuals by connecting buyers and sellers. Typically if you wanted to sell something like a car, you either went to a dealer that screwed you, or you put and ad in the local paper. If you watched around you could quickly buy cheap cars and turn them quickly for more than enough profit to make it worth while.

The internet quickly flattened this. First by pulling all the buyers and sellers on one advertising site it quickly turned into the fastest with the most capital won. Then the sites themselves figured out they should be the middle man keeping buying up the stock and selling it.

There has also been a huge consolidation to just a few players in many markets. This consolidation and many times algorithmic collusion has lead to the general ratcheting of prices higher. When you start adding things in like 'too big to fail' the market becomes horrifically unbalanced to large protected capital with unlimited funds from the money printing machine.

It's no wonder we quickly dropped ethics, most of us would starve to death in the system we've created.

> Post 2000s there has been a pretty fundamental change in the US economy.

American centrism strikes again.

I'm not American.

Reality Bites captures the zeitgeist well.

I think the money craze that came with dot.com, War on Terror spending, housing bubble, really flipped people into money at all costs.

As Gen-Xer I fully agree, I don't get the way things are with obedience, the rediculous situation that American families can lose their kids by having them playing alone in the garden, how everyone sells out for money (Punk would not happen today), the always smile and say no negatives at work being rediculous false (this one really drives me crazy),....
And yet Gen X is the demographic that fell hardest for Trump.
I'm confused. The poll shows ages 45-64 had the highest percentage of Trump voters (54%).

Is that not confirming that Gen X (1965-1980, so ages 44-59 in 2024) was the most pro-Trump?

Was it? I am not on US.

If anything it is all about boomers, gen z and rednecks on YT and TikTok when going over MAGA and Project 2025 videos.

As far as I am aware, the people that didn't gave a damm to elections and ignored their right to vote, are the main reason.

this isn’t true either, 2024 election saw the highest number of people voting - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...
So what happened to those 34.7% voters that had better things to do than cast a vote?

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/2024-pre...

The exercised their rights not to vote. The “losing” side always thinks that higher turnout would have led to them “winning” which of course is a cry of a sore loser. The fact remains, 2024 election had the highest voter turnout ever and people have spoken (till the next one when we might get a chance to elect some adults to fix this shit)
Gen X is the demographic that doesn't believe that elections are anything else but a clown show.
Based only on lived experience.