The Original Generation X (1)
In a recent Hilobrow.com post, I casually asserted that the Baby Boomers were born from 1944-53. I’m aware, of course, that America’s postwar “baby boom” began in 1946 and ended in 1957; and I realize that the influential pop demographers William Strauss and Neil Howe lumped everyone born from 1943-60 into the Boom Generation. But I stand by my half-serious, purposely eccentric (too strict, too regular) generational periodization; despite its kookiness, I think it’s more accurate, more revealing, than any other that’s been proposed yet.
Repo Man, directed by Alex Cox (born 1954) and starring Emilio Estevez (1962), is a key work of the Original Generation X.
If you’re curious to learn more, here’s my generational periodization scheme, with links to the various blogs (Brainiac, io9, Radium-Age Science Fiction) where I’ve written about this before. Because we’ve been encouraged to believe in such fictions as the Lost Generation, the Greatest Generation, Generation X, and so forth, I’ve indicated those absurdities where appropriate.
1844-53: The Prometheans
1854-63: The Plutonians
1864-73: The Anarcho-Symbolists
1874-83: The Psychonauts
1884-93: The Lost Generation The New Kids
1894-1903: The Lost Generation The Hardboiled Generation
1904-13: The Greatest Generation The Partisans
1914-23: The Greatest Generation The New Gods
1924-33: The Silent Generation The Postmoderns
1934-43: The Silent Generation The Anti-Anti-Utopians
1944-53: The Boom Generation
1954-63: The Boom Generation, or Post-Boomers The OGXers (Original Generation X)
1964-73: Generation X The PC Generation
1974-83: Generations X/Y The Net Generation
1984-93: The Millennials
1994-2003: The Millennials TBA
