![]() In his final chapter, Fussell named an 'X' category of people who wanted to hop off the merry-go-round of status, money, and social climbing that so often frames modern existence. ![]() The book's title came not from Billy Idol's band, as many supposed, but from the final chapter of a funny sociological book on American class structure titled Class, by Paul Fussell. However, in 1995 Coupland denied the term's connection to the band, stating that: In the book proposal for his novel, Coupland writes that Generation X is "taken from the name of Billy Idol’s long-defunct punk band of the late 1970s". Coupland referenced Billy Idol's band Generation X in the 1987 article and again in 1989 in Vista magazine. In 1987, Coupland had written a piece in Vancouver Magazine titled "Generation X" which was "the seed of what went on to become the book". The term acquired its contemporary application after the release of Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, a 1991 novel written by Canadian author Douglas Coupland. These uses of the term appear to have no connection to Robert Capa's photo-essay. Idol had attributed the name of his band to the book Generation X, a 1964 book on British popular youth culture written by journalists Jane Deverson and Charles Hamblett - a copy of which had been owned by Idol's mother. From 1976 to 1981, English musician Billy Idol used the moniker as the name for his punk rock band. The term first appeared in print in a December 1952 issue of Holiday magazine announcing their upcoming publication of Capa's photo-essay. ![]() In the early 1950s, Hungarian photographer Robert Capa first used Generation X as the title for a photo-essay about young men and women growing up immediately following World War II. The term Generation X has been used at various times to describe alienated youth. The cohort has also been credited as entrepreneurial and productive in the workplace more broadly.ĭouglas Coupland popularized the term Generation X in his 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. In midlife during the early 21st century, research describes them as active, happy, and achieving a work–life balance. In much of the western world, a similar time period was defined by a dominance of conservatism and free market economics. Politically, in many Eastern Bloc countries, Generation X experienced the last days of communism and transition to capitalism as part of its youth. Video games both in amusement parlours and in devices in western homes were also a major part of juvenile entertainment for the first time. Film, both the birth of franchise mega-sequels and a proliferation of independent film (enabled in part by video) was also a notable cultural influence. ![]() Some of the many cultural influences on Gen X youth included a proliferation of musical genres with strong social-tribal identity such as punk, post-punk, and heavy metal, in addition to later forms developed by Gen Xers themselves (e.g., grunge, grindcore and related genres). This was a result of increasing divorce rates and increased maternal participation in the workforce prior to widespread availability of childcare options outside the home.Īs adolescents and young adults in the 1980s and 1990s, Xers were dubbed the " MTV Generation" (a reference to the music video channel), sometimes being characterized as slackers, cynical, and disaffected. Īs children in the 1970s and 1980s, a time of shifting societal values, Gen Xers were sometimes called the "latchkey generation," which stems from their returning as children to an empty home and needing to use the door key, due to reduced adult supervision compared to previous generations. Most members of Generation X are the children of the Silent Generation and early boomers Xers are also often the parents of millennials and Generation Z. Census data, there are 65.2 million Gen Xers in the United States as of 2019. Researchers and popular media use the mid-to-late 1960s as starting birth years and the late 1970s to early 1980s as ending birth years, with the generation being generally defined as people born from 1965 to 1980. Generation X (often shortened to Gen X) is the demographic cohort following the baby boomers and preceding the millennials.
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