X-plainer: Who are Generation X?

Explainer - You're probably familiar with Boomers and Millennials, but unless you fall into the age group in the middle, you probably haven't heard much about Generation X.

But with a major exhibition of work by Gen X artists about to open at Te Papa, this might be about to change.

Generation X, now aged between 44 and 59, grew up at a time of major societal and economic change.

Dr Lorena Gibson, a senior lecturer at Victoria University's School of Social and Cultural Studies (and herself a member of Generation X) explains what this means.

Who fits into Generation X?

Generation X is made up of people born between 1965 and 1980. The oldest Gen Xs are turning 60 next year, while the youngest ones are 44 this year.

What are the other generations?

There are a handful of generations defined by name. The label 'Baby Boomers' refers to those born between 1946-1964 and Millennials are those born between 1981-1996. Gen Z are those born between 1997-2012, and Gen Alpha currently make up our youngest generation; encompassing all those born between 2010-2024.

There are also micro-generations, which refer to groups of people born on the cusp of two major generations; Generation Jones (1954-1965), Xennials (1977-1983), and Zillennials (1990-2000). The current Covid Generation are young people whose lives have been significantly impacted by the pandemic.

Informally, groups have also been formed around major cultural events, Gibson says.

"There's the Star Wars generation, people who grew up when the original Star Wars trilogy was released between 1977 and 1983, or the old hip-hop generation, there's iGen, the first generation of people to go through adolescence with smartphones, and the YouTube generation."

Where do these labels come from?

Generations were first theorised by German sociologist Karl Mannheim and Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset in the 1920s and 1930s, but they really took off in popularity in the late 1940s following the great baby boom post-World War II.

"In the United States they started using the term 'Baby Boom' to describe the soaring birth rates that happened after WWII," Gibson says.

"Since then, all sorts of social scientists, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, as well as journalists and writers, often in the United States, have used the generations as a way to understand social change and cultural differences between people in different age groups; they'll use it to write about things like youth culture, the generation gap, generation tech, and the digital divide."

What are the tropes attached to Gen X?

These generational labels are used as a way of understanding and explaining a group of people who have a shared journey through major historical, social, economic, political and technological events. Some of the key tropes applied to Gen X include 'the middle children', the 'Slacker Generation', and the 'Forgotten Generation'.

"Gen Xs are assumed to have shared characteristics or personality traits because of the time we grew up in," Gibson says.

"Sarcasm, being slackers, there's quite a few tropes that float around on social media, one I've seen around lately is 'latchkey kids' - we're the generation who walked to and from school by ourselves and let ourselves in when we got home after school with our own latchkey, or it might've been left under the flower pot because no one else was home. We watched TV, we made our own food because our parents were out working.

"We also used to run around the streets at all hours and our parents didn't know where we were, because we didn't have cellphones, and no one could contact us. This apparently made us tough and resilient, although also perhaps left us feeling a little uncared for.

"The 'Forgotten Generation' label comes from feeling kind of squished in between the Baby Boomers and Millennials who can make quite a bit of noise."

Do these labels or tropes exist outside of Western culture?

Gibson says the labels aren't universal - and they aren't always helpful within Western concepts either.

"If we think of America, for example, someone born in July 1972 to a white family in San Francisco will have a different life experience to someone born on the same day to a Black family in rural Texas, and to someone born on the same day to a Kānaka Maoli family on the big island of Hawai'i.

"They're all Gen Xs and they all might have gone through those same big events, but differences in gender, ethnicity, class, where they live, how they came to be there, those kinds of things can make the kind of sweeping generalisations that go along with generations a bit meaningless."

What are the key events that have shaped Gen X?

Early to mid-Gen X were teens at the fall of the Berlin Wall and grew up under the shadow of AIDS and nuclear war. They were the last generation to grow up without the internet, and the first to experience music television channels like MTV.

Gibson says many of her memories growing up revolved around music.

"The Ethiopian famine of the early 1980s led to the Live Aid music concert and that hit song 'We Are The World' by USA for Africa, and there was the 40 Hour Famine I did at school, that was a major event that came home here to Aotearoa.

"Another moment for me was the move from analogue to digital, and all of those technological developments and the global flows of media and music and consumer goods; I remember getting my first Walkman cassette player, I remember listening to Casey Kasem and Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 on the radio, definitely watching MTV and Ready to Roll.

"Music was huge, it was a way we could find our people through a shared love for punk or grunge or hip-hop, as well as music festivals.

"Then there were big events like the Gulf War, the Cold War, the rise of the internet, the economic recessions of the 1980s and 1990s.

"Here in Aotearoa some key events that shaped us include Bastion Point, the Dawn Raids, the 1981 Springbok Tour, the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and calls for a nuclear-free New Zealand, so I guess if I was going to try and characterise us, I would maybe say we have a sense of activism, advocacy for social justice, and the idea that the world could be a better place than what it is.

"Student loans were also introduced for us, so I got saddled with a lot of debt very quickly which I am still paying off today. It's been a huge impact on Gen X, I would say."

What do Gen X get nostalgic about?

Gen X were one of the last generations to grow up without easy access to the Internet. Gibson remembers spending her childhood roaming freely without distractions - and later, the feeling of getting her first cellphone.

"I was in my early 20s and it was very exciting. I remember what it was like to grow up without a cellphone and internet at home, and how big it was when things like AOL instant messaging came along, the big decision you had to make about what you wanted your Hotmail email address to be, your username on Myspace, those kinds of things.

"I remember Olly Ohlson on the TV very clearly, there was also a question of who in your family was the remote control, because they would have to get up and change the channel on the TV. I remember shows like Fraggle Rock and Alf, they seemed to be big on puppets that era.

"And there were these public service announcements in the US throughout the whole Gen X era from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s; these ads would come on television or be read on the radio late in the evening, 'Do you know where your children are?' to prompt parents to take their parental responsibilities and to go and look for their children who would be out doing whatever."

Generation X: 50 Artworks from the Chartwell Collection opens at Te Papa on 27 July and runs until 20 October.