Gen X Pop Culture -- a survey
We are a divided generation. And so are the biggest stars of our youth.
Are you a Gen X indie kid who now hates the left? If so, you may be entitled to compensation. Just kidding, you will get zero compensation. But you will get a whole lot of scorn from the pop culture idols of your youth.
I once heard a good point about today’s youth culture vs youth culture of the latter half of the 20th century. A large segment of youth culture today developed their in-group loyalties around political identity — especially, trans and queer identity. See also: eco-warrior identity, or anti-racist identity, hell, maybe even a clean-cut MAGA identity.
Most kids in the latter half of the 20th century, on the other hand, defined their in- and out-group affiliations around bands. We identified ourselves with to the bands we loved, and the looks and styles that went with them. I don’t remember who came up with this thesis— it was not me — but it’s very true. Today, devotion to bands seems to have somewhat subsided — megastar fanbases like Swifties and the Beyhive notwithstanding — and has been replaced by performative political gestures.
Political affiliation has infiltrated every aspect of life, from cradle to grave. It has become the most important social determinant in a huge number of personal relationships. Millions upon millions of people have, as the kids say, made politics their entire personality. In particular, it is utterly normal and taken for granted that people who did not get behind woke ideology, or are even slightly to the right, can be insulted, abused, called names and publicly shamed on public platforms by the culture industry.
As a result, a large part of the Gen X fan army is now at odds with the majority of Gen X stars. Because many of the beloved musical acts from our youth have been swept away in the mass acceptance of political identity as the new cool thing. And more often than not, they have displayed reflexive hatred of the populist movements of Trump and Brexit, and indulge in a generalised embrace of anything the Guardian or The New York Times stands for.
But, as Trump’s re-election showed, ours is divided generation. The men in women’s toilets and Ibram Kendi- loving folks made the most noise for a lot of years. But Gen X’ers are not actually that woke. So that puts a large percent of us in the uncomfortable position of still loving the pop culture that defined our youth, but knowing that it definitely does not love us back. We are alienated from our own halcyon days. Which at times is an uncomfortable, demoralising feeling — but only if you take it too seriously. Because let’s face it, nothing is more cringe than a middle aged celeb trying — and failing — to remain relevant by pretending to love the Boomer gerontocracy.
So I did a very unscientific survey, and while a lot of the mega stars of our youth have betrayed the outsider vibe of 1990’s indiedom in favour of the corporate sponsored narrative, it’s actually a mixed bag — just like the rest of our generation.
I’m quite proud to say I was never a huge Pearl Jam fan. It quickly dawned on me that the lead singer, especially, was a ponderous bore. Today Eddie Vedder is libtard of the highest order, droning on in that subterranean voice of his about how all the people, except him and his friends, are stupid and terrible, or something.
Similarly, I was not a Foo Fighters fan. But like every other kid in 1992, I loved Nirvana. The opening chords of Smells Like Teen Spirit still produce a deep stirring in me every time I hear them. I spent many hours at my local nightclub (having snuck in with my fake id), and every time that song dropped, I would hurry my Doc Marten clad feet — sticking slightly to the beer and cider drenched floor — to the mosh pit. Today, Dave Grohl (Nirvana’s drummer) bans Covid vaccine skeptics from his shows, and throws hissy fits because his song was used to by Trump to introduce Bobby Kennedy, Jr. Glossy-haired, vax-mandate loving Dave Grohl would rather not have his precious brand of rebel outsider be tainted by actual rebel outsiders. The pharmaceutical companies might not approve!
And what of Madonna? Ok, she was not an indie artist, but she was a ground-breaking iconoclast, and she released some of the boppiest bops of all time. She was a lithe and energetic dancer, and her embrace of The Church of High Gay turned all us girls into enthusiastic fag hags. Sadly, now she flaunts an elderly body that gyrates unsteadily against Satanic backdrops. She can no longer carry a tune, never mind pull off a high kick. But she occasionally takes time out of her busy schedule licking teenagers to lament the immorality of Trump. Off to the old folks home with you, you geriatric succubus!
The Pogues were and perhaps still are my favourite band. I was around 13 when I first heard them, and their sound just stopped me dead in my tracks. Unlike some of the music I listened to in the late 1980’s (Simply Red? Yikes!), I can still listen to every one of their albums in full. So finding out about Shane McGowan’s bromance with Gerry Adams was a real kick in the cooch. Although I have to say, not a huge surprise. You don’t expect moral clarity from a booze hound drug fiend. McGowan, as per this documentary, was a man who somehow managed to be both deeply unpleasant and lachrymosely sentimental at the same time, which also sums up the Irish republican movement.
And it’s not just the bands, it’s the actors too.
I mean, what teenage girl could have resisted the deeply beautiful bad boy Johnny Depp? Those cheekbones! Those jet black eyes and pouty lips! Sadly, now he resembles a lizard-like lounge act who makes sour jokes about assassinating Trump to crowds at Glastonbury — that cauldron of revolutionary ferment. He told the same adoring crowd that the president is need of help. Yes, yes! By all means, take mental health advice from Johnny Depp, he’s clearly the paragon of wellness!
And this one really hurts: John Cusack. I was completely in love with him, swooning over his performance in Say Anything when I was a 15 year old girl. How I longed for a tall, cute, dark-eyed, slightly off kilter boy who did kickboxing to come along and adore me, protect me, and call me his own. That never happened, which is fine because I think it toughened me up. And also because if Cusack had come along and married me, today I’d be stuck with the incredibly annoying, ill-tempered, hectoring version of him. Not the guy who charmingly held his own with the pompous bourgeois family of his beloved — the guy who unironically calls Trump a Nazi. How mortifying would that be?
On the other side of the coin, Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers went on Joe Rogan, which for your average Park Slope or North London 50 year old, is one step away from joining the Einsatzgruppen. And Johnny Lydon from the Sex Pistols openly admitted to voting for Trump. Not in 2024, when the Overton Window had been flung open, but in 2020, when it was like admitting you fancied animals. So the punk spirit lived on in him, at least. Ian Brown from the Stone Roses went full anti-lockdown, and was pilloried for it.
And of course we will always have Morrissey. While his Meat Is Murder era was annoying, to say the least, he is forgiven because he is also the man who co-wrote my favourite song lyric:
“Punctured bicycle, on a hill top desolate.
Will nature make a man of me yet?”
Watching old Smiths videos, in particular the video for the 1987 song Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before, I think I have an inkling of why it is that we as a generation are so split. Seeing the the young men and women all dressed up like Morrissey, riding around on bikes on run-down Salford streets, I am struck by the similarities, in looks, between the young then and the young now. They could be kids at an Extinction Rebellion protest. Genderless, deliberately making themselves un-beautiful, aggressively plain. That was the essence of Gen X indie style. It’s easy to see how my still-leftie peers interpret this as a sign that the youth cultures of today are just as benign and fun as those we participated in. There is a reluctance to grow sober and wise among now middle-aged indie kids, a desire to stay edgy and cool like they were back then. This makes them inclined to overlook the darker forces that kids today are being subjected to. Many go so far as to embrace and celebrate those far darker elements — like cutting off your tits or balls — so that they don’t sound like disapproving old fogeys. It also makes them extra touchy when the rest of us — the ones who don’t try to curry favour with teenagers by going along with their stupid ideas — refuse to toe the line.
I remember reading an interview with John Lydon back in the mid-80s when he was making strange music as Public Image Ltd. (I loved "World Destruction," and the lyrics are still extremely relevant today). Anyway, he was talking about originality and not getting sucked into groupthink, and said "My advice is to not do things in groups!" which has always sort of stuck with me.
In more recent years, I've seen him denounced as a sell-out MAGA fascist; while no one seems to be willing to acknowledge that he selflessly took care of his wife, who had Alzheimer's, until her death. And they were married for 44 years - that's quite an anomaly for a rock star!
I don't know why so many of my generation - I am core GenX, born in 1968 - have embraced censorship and heavy-handed government. Weren't we the ones protesting Tipper Gore and the PMRC back in the day? But now we are happy for the government to censor our news, our social media, anything that might lead to wrongthink...I really don't know what happened to us.
I’m a late Gen Xer, born in 1976, and I’ve noticed that so many in my cohort who used to be edgy and punk are so libtarded out that it’s hard to relate to them anymore. Many are a bit frazzled at having kids in their late thirties and trying to raise them while they’re in their 40s, so I try to give them a pass. Still, it’s annoying.
For example, I was talking with a college friend late last year about one of our favorite early 90s bands, Steve Albini’s Big Black. The first thing my friend said, kind of in memoriam to Albini (RIP), was, “You know, I admire that he acknowledged his white privilege late in life and the harm that he’s done.” Sure, fine, but it’s just so predictable to say that! It was almost like someone pulled a string from the side of his body and those words just came out as if he were a speak-and-spell. What happened to my once-alive friends? I was deeply immersed in the 90s “college radio” / punk set, and most of the people I knew from it have fall into liberal identitarian cliches. Facebook can attest to this. I keep waiting for the spell to break. But I suppose there is no going back…
This is to say that your post really spoke to me.
Also, Morrissey: I was late to Morrissey, being too young for the Smiths in the 80s. But I do remember at my small liberal arts college in the mid-90s the “cool kids” loved him (and the Smiths) and I became a convert very quickly after listening to "This Charming Man." Watching that “Stop Me” video again after many years, I am reminded that androgyny could be beautiful, sensual, seductive. Think Elastica. Think Trinity from the Matrix. And of course, all the androgynes of the 1970s.
In the Morrissey video, the young people are at least lithe, agile, filled with movement (though a bit pasty—but it’s England!). I’ve been teaching college literature since 2004, mostly at an art school in the Midwest, and especially at this art school, the dominant aesthetic is rolly-polly, squishy, squat—a toddler-like featureless, undifferentiated mass. No sensuality, the opposite of erotic. (It’s a bit different at Catholic university I also teach at, where “normie-core” is dominant.)
Even if Morrissey is asexual or something like it, he still acknowledges hierarchies, that some things are more beautiful than other things. I saw him perform near Chicago this past November, and it was glorious. He’s a beautiful 65 year old, filled with energy and life.