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The Xers -- The Quiet Generation
American Thinker.com ^ | August 8, 2020 | Jay Treiber

Posted on 08/08/2020 7:18:45 AM PDT by Kaslin

Nobody ever talks about them. Having arrived roughly between 1965 and 1980, these children seem to have slipped through the cracks of popular culture, their legacy being a few dumb movies and some aging icons, none of whom any millennial today could name. Born into households averaging 1.75 children, this tiny cohort sneaked through its small temporal window like an Army Special Ops unit. They landed on the scene just in time to rescue head-scratching parents from VCRs and DVD players, and even more miraculous, they could operate those wrist watches with the tiny buttons on the side.

And they were the first generation who at a tender and formative age were plopped down in front of a computer screen. This was not a mere toy but something they would grow up side-by-side with -- microchip to monitor -- like a childhood friend with whom they would rise inch by inch and year by year. Their plastic twelve-year-old brains stretched, absorbed, adapted. They drew in this techno evolution -- from WordStar to Windows, from Pong to Super Mario Brothers, from floppy disc to Google Docs -- like breathing air. By the time they were in college they could traverse from PC to Mac and back again as deftly as any Baby Boomer changed lovers.

They were ever more fleet and effective for having inherited no political ideology. By the time they began contemplating what democracy was, Reaganomics and Margaret Thatcher were locked in, capitalism and the free market simply the way of things. They participated in no protest picket parties, no marches on Washington, they carved out no itinerant confederacies, no Woodstock Nation, no Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: generationx; genx
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1 posted on 08/08/2020 7:18:45 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

I come here now to read AT articles. Their controlled comment section is unmanageable.


2 posted on 08/08/2020 7:24:04 AM PDT by mmercier0921 (hear the wheels, rumbling beneath the floor..?)
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To: Tax-chick
And they were the first generation who at a tender and formative age were plopped down in front of a computer screen.

Not if they were born in the first decade of the period. I was born in 1966, and the first time I used a computer was as a senior in high school in 1984.

3 posted on 08/08/2020 7:26:58 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("These transfer payments are fiscally unsustainable." ~Wall Street Journal)
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To: Kaslin

I’m glad I’m an Xer. Boomers began the destruction of the country. Millennials will finish it off. Two of the worst self absorbed groups ever.


4 posted on 08/08/2020 7:41:34 AM PDT by napscoordinator (Trump/Hunter, jr for President/Vice President 2016)
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To: Kaslin

The wife and I joke about this frequently. Neither of us gives a s@#$, we don’t panic, we tell other people off when needed, take care of our own s@#$, don’t take handouts, and for the most part societal criticisms leave us unscathed (other than straight-white-male-isms).


5 posted on 08/08/2020 7:41:36 AM PDT by TheZMan (I am a secessionist.)
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To: Kaslin

I’m a little too old to be in Gen X. But I like Gen X better than the Baby Boomers, on the whole.


6 posted on 08/08/2020 7:45:56 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (If White Privilege is real, why did Elizabeth Warren lie about being an Indian?)
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To: napscoordinator

Xer myself. Can’t say it any better than that.


7 posted on 08/08/2020 7:45:59 AM PDT by ground_fog ( My God this was from today!S)
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To: Kaslin

They were also known as latch-key kids and MTV was decent during their youth.


8 posted on 08/08/2020 7:47:24 AM PDT by windcliff
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To: Kaslin

“But if we want advice on saving world, I think there are some people we forgot to ask. The “In Between” generation. Maybe because their label has been so obscured, none of us were paying attention when they pressed those wicked little buttons, when they fired up the machine and took the levers of control, when they put the Millennium Falcon into hyperdrive and blasted through the universe. We need to visit their tucked-away offices and take counsel with the people really running things. They are old enough to know what’s right and still young enough to fight for it. But walk softly and beware the silent partner. She is always smart — and always dangerous.”

This.


9 posted on 08/08/2020 7:49:24 AM PDT by TheZMan (I am a secessionist.)
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To: Tax-chick

I was born in the early sixties and I feel like I have some things more Gen X, and some things more Baby Boomer. I feel I have less in common with older Baby Boomers, whose defining things seem to be the war in Vietnam, anxiety about the possibility of a nuclear war, and Woodstock. My defining things seem to be Watergate, anxiety about the economy (stagflation, high interest rates, unemployment), the Space Race, and the beginning of the tech boom (those happy days when PC meant personal computer, not politically correct).


10 posted on 08/08/2020 7:50:35 AM PDT by Wilhelm Tell (True or False? This is not a tag line.)
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To: Kaslin

Quiet perhaps livid for certain


11 posted on 08/08/2020 7:50:46 AM PDT by datricker (the war of 2024 will be fought at 2.4Ghz stock up on aluminium foil now!)
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To: Kaslin

All four of our kids are Gen X-ers. The article is spot on.


12 posted on 08/08/2020 7:54:02 AM PDT by Laslo Fripp (The Sybil of Free Republic)
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To: Kaslin

As a Generation Xer, I can sit down, relax, and watch the Boomers, Millenials, and Generation Z tear each other apart.


13 posted on 08/08/2020 7:55:13 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: Kaslin
Having arrived roughly between 1965 and 1980, these children seem to have slipped through the cracks of popular culture, their legacy being a few dumb movies and some aging icons

No. Our legacy is we were the ones to grow up in the last period in which America was America. We played outside as kids (unsupervised), the popular culture was not saturated with political correctness (there was some but it wasn't the pervasive norm), a work ethic was still a thing of value and we didn't have the insidious poison of social media.
14 posted on 08/08/2020 7:57:48 AM PDT by LostInBayport (When there are more people riding in the cart than there are pulling it, the cart stops moving...)
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To: Kaslin

Older Gen X-er here. I thought we had it better than any other generation. Went to high school in the Reagan years. Young enough to savor the best decade of the post-WW2 era. Old enough to remember the tough times of the 1970s, so we didn’t let the 1980s spoil us. I honestly think my peers were the most balanced, level-headed people I’ve ever known.


15 posted on 08/08/2020 7:58:57 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("We're human beings ... we're not f#%&ing animals." -- Dennis Rodman, 6/1/2020)
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To: datricker






Quiet perhaps livid for certain

... or maybe not so quiet









And critically aclaimed and romantically brutal (N)
Black Book







WRWY



16 posted on 08/08/2020 8:01:02 AM PDT by foldspace (Hillary is still not a >convicted< criminal...)
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To: Kaslin

I am a boomer and my wife is an Xer. She is an educated professional and she hates Trump with a passion.


17 posted on 08/08/2020 8:01:58 AM PDT by HChampagne (I am ready to crawl over broken glass to get to the polling place for Nov. 2020.)
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To: Tax-chick
I was born in 1966, and the first time I used a computer was as a senior in high school in 1984.

b. 1963, coding in Basic (punch cards) at age 12, and by age 17 I had about 5 or 6 computers programming mostly in basic and machine code.

18 posted on 08/08/2020 8:02:09 AM PDT by palmer (Democracy Dies Six Ways from Sunday)
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To: LostInBayport
Our legacy is we were the ones to grow up in the last period in which America was America.

^^^THIS^^^

'67 Xer

19 posted on 08/08/2020 8:02:23 AM PDT by workerbee (==)
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To: Tax-chick

The edges tend to blur. For example, Baby Boomers were initially defined as born 1942 - 55. Over the years that got pushed to 1960. The 42 did not change b/c of the clear demarcation line of WWII.


20 posted on 08/08/2020 8:02:44 AM PDT by freedumb2003 ("Do not mistake activity for achievement." - John Wooden)
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