Posted on 03/10/2019 4:51:50 PM PDT by LibWhacker
When actor Luke Perry, best known for portraying TV heartthrob Dylan McKay on the ’90s teen drama “Beverly Hills, 90210,” died Monday after suffering a massive stroke, there were the usual public displays of sadness when a public figure leaves us. But his passing was especially painful for people of a certain age.
As one fan expressed on Twitter: “I’m in mourning for Generation X today, for real.”
Perry died at just 52 years old. Which makes him the first Gen X icon to succumb to natural causes. That’s an unsettling reality check to those of us who identify as Gen Xers, the 65 million people born between 1965 and 1980. We’re used to death — we’ve lost plenty of heroes to drugs and suicide, everyone from Kurt Cobain to River Phoenix to Chris Cornell. But Perry is the first to die of something we only expect to happen to old people.
It doesn’t help that Perry’s death came on the heels of a pretty egregious generational slight. A CBS News story in January, which focused on millennials, included an infographic of every generation, from the silent generation (those born between 1925 and ’45) to baby boomers (born between ’46 and ’64) to the post-millennials (born between 1997 and the present). Generation X was conspicuously absent.
“Gen X is definitely having a midlife crisis,” says Matthew Hennessey, 45, author of “Zero Hour for Gen X: How the Last Adult Generation Can Save America from Millennials.”
“It’s not just about growing older. We have this creeping dread that we’re going to be displaced and forgotten.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
For boomers it was Elvis.
I thought when I read the headline that this would be about their drug use, his demise, and their fear the Grim Reaper is coming for all of them.
Gen X here. Barely. Missed the boom by two years. I’ve been aware of my own mortality long before Perry died. Sucks that he died ... from what I’ve read lately, seems like he was a good guy. But we’re all here on borrowed time.
Who was the first Baby Boomer celeb to die of natural causes?
Lol.
Or when so many who are dying are younger than us.
Honestly, I am not sure that cat is human. I think that he is an extraterrestrial who has been sent to observe us.
I remember when Michael Landon died of cancer at 54 years old that was pretty shocking.
You’re exponentially higher on the hero scale than any of those nitwits in this article.
I can’t believe people look up to these guys.
Oh, no, now you’re dragging me into philosophy. I don’t do philosophy. ;-)
Actually, I just looked it up. Partly cloudy and partly sunny mean exactly the same thing. But “partly cloudy” is preferred since at night time the sun isn’t up. Cheers!
Good to have that kind of faith. Roy Chapman Andrews who as the real Indiana Jones had something similar happen with his best friend in Wisconsin when he was around ten. To Andrews it was a watershed experience and he had no real beliefs afterward of anything spiritual and he saw the universe as random with no transcendental purpose.
Does his count as a natural death? I’m a Boomer and it was indeed big news when it happened, but I myself never thought, uh-oh that could happen to me any second here. But admittedly I’m no weather vane for Boomers, that’s for sure!
I think you've got the wrong Perry...for all intents and purposes Luke Perry was a family man and devoted father.
R.I.P.
“Kurt Cobain?? Hero??? River Phoenix?? Hero?? Chris Cornell?? Hero??”
I agree with your sentiments. I believe, too often, in this day and age, words like talent and hero get confused. There are plenty of people who have great talents but certainly don’t merit being idolized.
The false “hero” status we put on celebrities also encourages them to believe we care what they think.
My first wife died two weeks before what would have been her 42nd birthday.
I didn’t know he existed until “Jeremiah” aired. He seemed to be a good actor. Now I see that he played in a number of movies and TV shows I have viewed. I suppose I don’t care enough for the Hollywood crowd to notice either their names or repetition of their faces.
In my family we said the "little man" turns the light on and off, but he listens all the time and when you say you have a bit of extra cash he goes out and breaks something in your car.
Well hopefully its a good whack upside the head to get them to think where they might be going after!
Total B.S. article....
Hardly anyone from generation X mentioned him dying.
Luke is NOT Elvis, and faded out of TV superstar back in the early 1990s. Think he was done by 1995. Think his last big year was 1993.
The guy was clearly too old to look like he was in High School.
Oh, just realized... Elvis was no Boomer. Born in ‘35.
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