“I Was Born in the Wrong Decade”. Not Me Mate, I’m Gen X

Everyone loves us, they say. We’re the Goldilocks generation. And I agree.

Generation X Goldilocks: old enough to know a time before technology, but young enough to use it

We were listening to the radio in the car - Absolute Radio 90s, to be exact - and they started playing Waterfall by The Stone Roses.

We both lunged at the stereo to turn the volume up.

After revelling in 4 minutes and 37 seconds of indie rock perfection, Out Of Space by The Prodigy came on. It was a moment where I actually wished I had kids that I could embarrass with my passenger seat “making boxes” techno dancing and us both singing along to the high-pitched, crazy lyrics. For a few minutes at least, we were deliriously happy in our little world of music-related nostalgia.

In other words, we were having a major nineties moment. With just those two songs I felt 20-something again, dressed in cargo pants and yellow-lensed glasses, without a smartphone to hunch over, jowl-free and devoid of back pain.

It was like we were on our way home to watch the latest episode of Friends in our (imagined) rented flat. We’d be making some sort of pasta meal with sundried tomatoes and enjoying it with a bottle of Sol. We’d be getting ready to go out clubbing at 11 pm. We’d be catching a night bus home at roughly 4 am trying not to think about work the next day before falling into our IKEA futon bed and indigo-dyed sheets.

Great times, great memories. But ones I’m glad happened then, in that decade. But here’s the thing: I don’t want to actually do any of those things now. Of course, I definitely don’t want to do that at age 52, but I also don’t want to do it in 2024 age 20-something either.

Born at the perfect time

My husband and I only met right at the tail end of the nineties, and we didn’t get together for a couple of years after that (at work, how nineties of us). But not sharing our lives during that decade didn’t matter: our experiences were similar. We’d listened to the same music, bought the same albums (there were SO many duplicates when we merged our CD collections), we’d been to the same places, drunk in the same pubs, experienced the same sort of events and culture.

The same is true for our childhoods. He and I were born in 1970 and 1972 respectively, experiencing the seventies as young kids and the eighties as teenagers. We grew up using soda streams, playing outside on our bikes, struggling with Rubik’s cubes and renting Spielberg films on video.

When we got back home (to our actual, real-life 21st-century mortgaged home) that day, I said to him, “You know what? Out of all the decades to choose from, I wouldn’t want to have been a 20-something in any decade other than the nineties”.

His response? “Yeah, same”.

You know how some people say “I was born in the wrong era…” because of their love for 1940s style or 1960s music? I’m not one of those people. I wouldn’t change a THING about when I was born, what era(s) I grew up in, what generation I’m part of.

Everybody loves Generation X

I’m finding that the demographic cohorts (Baby Boomers, Generation X, etc.) are talked about in the media more than ever before. Since Millennials grew up and became independent adults with mortgages and kids of their own, it seems that (and this is just my observation) we’re SO much more aware of the social generation groups that we’ve been pigeonholed into. Everyone and everything needs to be labelled these days.

I only found out I was Generation X (revelation!) a few years ago; till then I’d only ever heard of Baby Boomers. With the former being defined as people born between 1965 and 1980, it appears that - according to the internet powers that be - Gen Xers are the ones that everyone loves/the generation that doesn’t attract attention. There are countless memes about how we don’t piss anyone off (that’s Millennials), aren’t lazy or needy (Generation Z) and aren’t to blame for everything that’s shit in the world (hello Boomers).

PLEASE note I am simply quoting memes… I don’t buy into those tongue-in-cheek observations about the generations as of course it’s just generalisation. But the memes ARE quite funny, and I can’t say I’m not a teensy bit smug at being the generation that’s flying under the radar, the one that everyone supposedly likes.

Another oft-quoted fact about Gen X is that we’re old enough to remember a time before technology, but young enough to use and appreciate it. What other generation can say they were able to effortlessly set the VCR to record Top of the Pops on Thursday night at 7 pm? It put us in good stead for using smartphones and Excel spreadsheets. Being the original latchkey kids we were able to entertain ourselves. We’re the generation who are totally chill about everything. (Apparently.)

In other words, we’re the sweet spot. You could say we are the Goldilocks generation.

Plug it, play it, burn it, rip it… Technologic (Daft Punk)

The memes are now starting to shift towards how Gen X is ageing. Which, in a way, is a little depressing when we’re still referred to as the aforementioned latchkey kids, but hey – I’m just glad I spent a good proportion of my 20s without a mobile phone. I’d also rather be middle-aged now more than at any other period in history because I truly appreciate how much easier our lives are made by technology.

In about 1998 I can remember a friend showing me this new thing on my mobile called “sending a text”. At roughly the same time I had an opportunity to use the internet for the first time during a further education course I was taking (I was 26), and I can recall not knowing what on earth to use it for. I don’t know which came first for me - sending texts or using the internet(?), but I do know that by 2001 I was using internet cafés to research things like flats to rent and job vacancies as no one had home computers. Simple times.

As you can tell, I can date-stamp many of these personal tech milestones. And technology only got better and improved our lives in many ways.

That’s the thing: most Gen Xers are technology-savvy. Many of us use it every day for work, or at least on our phones or laptops at home. And that’s not to take away from how many Boomers – and older! – are also tech-savvy. But I think it’s a given that because Generation X grew up with VCRs and playing video games on their Commodore 64s, the transition into laptops and smartphones was a seamless one.

I’m glad my childhood was spent playing outside and watching classic 70s children’s TV like Bagpuss and The Muppet Show.

I’m glad my teenage years were spent at my friends’ houses, experimenting with clothes and makeup, living a life devoid of social media and not seeing our peers filter themselves to oblivion.

I’m glad my 20s were spent in the 90s at art college and then living and working in London, with Britpop and indie rock and movies like Reality Bites and Romeo + Juliet rocking my world.

I’m glad I could (just about) afford to buy a house in my 30s with my husband during the noughties before the 2007-2008 financial crisis made it practically impossible for young people to afford to fly the nest and buy a house of their own.

I’m glad my 40s and 50s have been spent enjoying technology, the good parts of social media and internet shopping. I don’t want to spend my weekends “doing a big shop” at the supermarket or physically going into a bank to pay in a cheque.

I appreciate ALL the timelines of my life and the generation into which I was born. I wouldn’t change one bit of it.

I’m happy in my Stone Roses-listening, Breakfast Club-watching, technology-appreciating life. I even bought some yellow-lensed sunglasses recently (just for fun) and played some actual CDs the other day.

I don’t MIND the fact that I’m too old to appreciate Taylor Swift’s music¹ or that Hey Duggee wasn’t on when I was a child.

I don’t MIND the fact that I didn’t get to talk to my school BFF via any sort of messaging service and that we talked on the landline for hours instead.

I don’t MIND the fact that we had to wait in a long queue in the cold to see Ghostbusters on its opening weekend in 1984 because there was no online ordering of tickets in those days (it was worth it).

My bowl of porridge is just right. And I enjoy eating it all up.

1. Joking of course… Anyone of any age can listen to whatever music they like (I am rather partial to a Harry Styles album or two). The Taylor Swift hype just seems to have to have somehow passed me by.