The quick and dirty version is: Since the goddamn Boomers will never, ever retire — they’ll keep patting themselves on the back for Sticking It to the Man until they’re lowered into their tie-dyed, patchouli-reeking coffins, even though they’re all hedge fund managers and live in McMansions — the subsequent generations had to find a new area in which to compete for social status. Thus lifestyle striving for Gen X, and persona striving for the Millennials.
For Gen X, think of my personal candidate for “everything that’s wrong with the 90s, all in one place,” the 1994 movie Reality Bites. Don’t rent it unless you’re current on your blood pressure meds. It’s four of the 1990s’ most insufferable people (Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo) quipping about being slackers. Well, except Stiller (also the director), who plays the grasping, uptight, sold-his-soul-to-The-Man yuppie foil to the other three. Stiller is the Gen Xer who chose to compete in the oversaturated career arena; he’s cartoonishly evil. The rest of them hang out in coffee houses, polishing their image. They’re lifestyle competitors.
For Millennials, and whatever we’re calling the upcoming generation (“The Lobotomized Snowflake Posse” is my suggestion, brevity be damned), well, just look at social media. Even lounging-around-Starbucks lifestyle competition is out of reach for people who went $100K in the hole for a Gender Studies degree. The only currency they’ve got is effort — hey, didn’t Karl Marx say something about that? — so Twitter becomes their full time job. Xzhe with the most followers wins.
Severian, “Why So #Woke?”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2020-01-07.
December 23, 2022
QotD: Wokeness as a lifestyle
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