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Brian Erb's avatar

My Gen X wife (1971) and metal head got really upset that you said metal is dead and went on a long, and somewhat convincing, argument that you totally underestimate the enduring popularity of metal across age demographics.

DeepLeftAnalysis🔸's avatar

I don't think she has listened to any of the top 50 hits

TK-2042's avatar

Basically every genre of music is dead. Rap was the last holdout, it died with Kanye.

Brian Erb's avatar

You mean dead as in so fractured into micro-fandoms that none make a broad cultural impact? Yeah, I think there is a case for that.

TK-2042's avatar

Yeah, there's also just so much good old music that its harder every year to make something better. Like Black Sabbath and Metallica seem like they will be popular until the end of time.

DJ's avatar
17hEdited

As a Gen-Xer I endorse this message.

Also, i think Gen X starts in 1962 or 1963. If you were born in the sixties, don't remember the Kennedy assassination and didn't worry about getting drafted for Vietnam, you are Gen X.

Anthony Probst's avatar

The Strauss-Howe generation chart placed Gen-X birth years at 1961 - 1981; that would make Barrack Obama the first and so far only Gen-X president.

Strauss & Howe put Boomer birth years at 1943 - 1960. That would put Newt Gingrich (b. 1943) and George Lucas (b. 1944) right where they belong, culturally speaking.

William Gosline's avatar

This lengthy article just reasserts what we Gen X talk about when no other generation is around: how effing cool we are.

Strategy Pattern (Don’t Laugh)'s avatar

The Neverland Hypothesis:

We can divide life into blocks that are irrespective of age: childhood, ritual adulthood, working, family, post-family, elderly.

Each of these blocks allows for the accumulation of “power” that flows with time.

Childhood: Id-istic power

Ritual Adulthood: egoistic power

Working: super-egoistic power

Family: cultural power

Post-Family: political power

Elderly: religious power

A prolonged childhood would be associated with additional primitive, instinctual powers. Prolonged pre-work ritual adulthood leads to stronger senses of ego. Longer working periods lead to a greater sense of repressive powers. Culture, politics, and religion are self-explanatory.

As lifespans have increased, specific generations crowd out positions by making things “uncool” or unrepresentative. This leads to a longer time in each phase, resulting in larger accumulations from that phase of time. Gen X is not just a culturally dominant generation; it is the most culturally dominant generation in history owing to this increase in life expectancy.

The flip side of this is that the generations below them experience transitional angst. Gen X becomes deeply upset about their inability to break Boomer politics. Millennials feel culturally insufficient and have angst regarding family-making. Zoomers struggle with getting jobs and existing as a super-egoist group.

Every generation is stuck in its own Neverland, where it feels it can’t “grow up.”