Joke’s on them, I was never cool.
posted by gc at 1:27 PM on May 14 [17 favorites]

MetaFilter: now there was this whole wave of new people with no experience or credibility
posted by Lemkin at 1:27 PM on May 14 [6 favorites]

I am amused at how this kind of concludes with “cool comes from not giving a shit about being cool any more”. Bonus points for claiming that Generation Meh is now the absolute coolest, I may be biased here.
posted by egypturnash at 1:30 PM on May 14 [2 favorites]

Uh, Millennials became middle-aged and middle-aged people have never been cool. It's the eternal cycle.
posted by star gentle uterus at 1:31 PM on May 14 [25 favorites]

One millennial who doesn’t care and is – at least in the opinion of this millennial – effortlessly cool as a result is culture journalist and author Daisy Jones, 32. Jones, who studied at Goldsmiths (cool) and writes for Vogue (also cool), doesn’t have a single brunch selfie or cute dog picture on her Instagram grid, on which she has only posted 27 times since 2019 (extremely cool).

I don't even have an Instagram grid. So how much cooler am I than this Daisy Jones person?
posted by axiom at 1:31 PM on May 14 [7 favorites]

Generational warfare... simultaneously eternal and incredibly stupid at a moment where every difference is being used by the technological machine to divide us and pit us against each other instead of the tiny minority of humanity causing most of the problems.
posted by kokaku at 1:33 PM on May 14 [21 favorites]

WRT how generations see each other, I guess this is sort of on point: Xiaoma, the Millennial polyglot Youtuber, sort of embraced the cringe recently and had fun with it when, "invited to give a speech at a high school for Language Week ... he delivered the entire speech in Gen Alpha slang." H/t to one of the Mefites I follow on Bluesky, probably, but I can't find the post.
posted by Wobbuffet at 1:40 PM on May 14 [6 favorites]

Yes fine, but future generations owe us a debt for inventing irony in 2005.
posted by phunniemee at 1:43 PM on May 14 [4 favorites]

Cool is the opiate of the classes.
posted by clew at 1:44 PM on May 14 [2 favorites]

Yes fine, but future generations owe us a debt for inventing irony in 2005.

You fools! Irony died on 9/11!
posted by NoMich at 1:46 PM on May 14 [3 favorites]

But my mom says I'm cool
posted by General Malaise at 1:53 PM on May 14

Speaking from within Gen X, I will just say I was shocked we were mentioned at all.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:55 PM on May 14 [35 favorites]

Another Gen X'er here. Don't you kids make DirtyOldTown and me turn this Internet around.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 1:57 PM on May 14 [24 favorites]

OK millennial
posted by y2karl at 1:58 PM on May 14 [4 favorites]

Odds that Gen X will never have a president from our gen: 65% or higher, I'd say.

We're likely to go from this fucking Boomer to a Millennial and then stay with that gen or newer.

Not as big a deal as whether upcoming presidents will also be fascists, but it's not nothing, either.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:59 PM on May 14 [9 favorites]

Speaking of GenX, time for my usual declaration that I'm not a Boomer, but an OG X Boomer. (Scroll down to see generation-names going back all the way to 1755).
posted by Rash at 1:59 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

Odds that Gen X will never have a president from our gen: 65% or higher, I'd say.

Elon Musk was born in 1971.
posted by star gentle uterus at 2:00 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

“ Of course, generation bashing is nothing new – in fact, one could argue it’s yet another thing millennials invented, coining, in the late 2010s, the phrase “OK boomer” to dismiss attitudes associated with baby boomers”

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah.

(Deep breath)

Hahahahahahahahahahahah

If there’s a Pulitzer Prize for epic cluelessness, this article is definitely in the running.
posted by Galvanic at 2:01 PM on May 14 [6 favorites]

My kid says a generation becomes uncool when they start writing thinkpieces or making videos about "our gen vs. theirs." Which honestly, sounds very Gen X of him.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:01 PM on May 14 [10 favorites]

Maybe, but they've been talking about the Generation Gap since the 1960s.
posted by Rash at 2:04 PM on May 14

Okay, on the cool portion of social media, millenials have become uncool and Gen X are the new Boomers, so not just uncool but the class enemy, which is unfortunately born out by our being, apparently, the Trumpiest generation. Perhaps we should have been receiving some scrutiny all along.

Needless to say this is all pretty dumb, and I don't think I know anyone who, like, actually talks about it in person, even though I regularly chat idly with young people. It's just one of those things people like to talk about on the internet.

One of the great things about living in a provincial city is that I see zoomers wearing ankle socks and skinny jeans all the time. I will never be sad when wide leg pants are in, although I am having some trouble with the shoe situation - I hate wearing trainers and feel weird in them, but I feel like chunky loafers are kind of played out, non-chunky loafers don't work, oxfords feel stodgy and a bit 2012, Converse don't fit my feet well and are rather long and narrow for wide-legs, etc. You really need a big shoe, but I don't like any of the big shoes on offer currently.
posted by Frowner at 2:05 PM on May 14 [2 favorites]

Also even way back when I was cool - and I was kind of cool between about 1993 and 1998 - I really didn't like having my jeans long enough for the hem to drag. I live in a city, there's yuck on the ground.
posted by Frowner at 2:07 PM on May 14 [4 favorites]

Okay, just asked my kid what the version of "OK, Boomer" was for Gen Xers.

He said "It's still 'OK, Boomer,' because pretending your generation doesn't really exist is what drives them crazy."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:08 PM on May 14 [36 favorites]

DOT, fair!

I was born in 1976, so more or less at the tail end of what is considered Gen X (YMMV) but it's always interesting to see how each successive generation thinks being seen as uncool will absolutely most definitely not happen to them. My Gen Z nieces are convinced that they will always be on trend and never cool, but hell, I probably thought the same at 15!
posted by Kitteh at 2:10 PM on May 14

And a third observation: people do at times become cool again when they are old, or relatively old. You have to be comfortable with people you view as sort of like peers referring to you as "a queer elder" and people asking you for your reminiscences of the scenes of your youth, of course, but basically once you seem Older Than Someone's Parents you can be cool again. Old. Old as dirt.
posted by Frowner at 2:11 PM on May 14 [8 favorites]

My ambition for my old age is to learn to play the drums.
posted by Frowner at 2:12 PM on May 14 [4 favorites]

Gen X: The Marcia Brady generation. Our older siblings got all the breaks while our younger siblings are annoyingly cute and perky, so we're just left over here feeling invisible and fuming about our goddamn glasses.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:14 PM on May 14 [2 favorites]

Jan Brady, you mean. Do not misquote sacred Gen X texts.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:18 PM on May 14 [11 favorites]

Good lord, as usual... all the narcissistic gens fighting about who is cool... and completely forgetting that it's the act of not caring that determines the coolness.
posted by stormyteal at 2:25 PM on May 14 [3 favorites]

the rather nondescript generation X

I'm not happy about the adjective but man, am I shocked to be mentioned at all.
posted by doctornemo at 2:27 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

Jan Brady, you mean. Do not misquote sacred Gen X texts.

God damn it. I knew the difference, obviously, but my fingers stupidly typed the wrong name. I blame Trump, because why not?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:31 PM on May 14 [3 favorites]

It will happen to YOU!
posted by I-Write-Essays at 2:34 PM on May 14 [2 favorites]

"But, I’ll confess, being part of a generation that felt so progressive compared with its predecessors, bridging the gap between analogue and digital, felt significant, essential, and yes, bloody cool, actually. It’s a shock, then, to wake up one morning and realise you’ve been usurped."

Yeah, this article truly is cringe. Except for the word "digital", this could have been written by any generation going back to the 40s, probably further. This is an almost universal experience. There is no universe where generation bashing was "invented" within living memory. And articles like these (about sock length or whatever?) only serve to flatten a huge, rich, and diverse world.

My simple word of warning is this (zero irony): if you are punching up at the previous generation, you are hilarious and cool, if you are punching down at the new generation you are turning into your parents. (This is why "Ok, Boomer" is devastating.)

I'll be over here in the corner being "nondescript".

(On preview: Frowner, I get the disappointment, but the trend setters and visible representatives of a generation never turn out to be the majority. A lot of good stuff came from the 60s counter culture but then, like, Reagan.)
posted by Horkus at 2:34 PM on May 14 [2 favorites]

Okay, just asked my kid what the version of "OK, Boomer" was for Gen Xers.

He said "It's still 'OK, Boomer,' because pretending your generation doesn't really exist is what drives them crazy."

Oof.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:39 PM on May 14 [4 favorites]

Ironic porn

I.. just don't get how anyone could think that would work. An insincere erection is just a sloppy chubb, innit?
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 2:41 PM on May 14

I view most generation wars content as easy rage bait that increases divisiveness. It's not typically useful at all (that I can see) and lately it's been leaning heavily into ageism, especially wrt women. Why do adults suddenly care so much about what teenagers think about them, and if they consider them "cool"? And why are teenagers generating so much content shitting on older women? That's really weird. I don't know about you guys, but I don't recall ever thinking much about older people as a teenager or young adult - I certainly wasn't concerned with what kind of socks they were wearing.
posted by Stoof at 2:44 PM on May 14 [3 favorites]

uncool? maybe, but if anything they are boring
posted by robbyrobs at 2:46 PM on May 14

I will never forget being in high school in 1995-ish and having an acquaintance, three years younger than me, tell me excitedly, "They've named our generation. We're not 'generation Y.' People born after 1980 are 'millennials'."

I thought

• I was born in 1979. You and I are in the same drama class. You are the same age as my younger sister. We are not in different generations.
• That's the stupidest name I have ever heard.

I stand by both of those opinions.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 2:55 PM on May 14 [3 favorites]

Horkus I agree and would generalize to

if you are punching up at the previous generation, you are hilarious and cool, if you are punching down at the new generation you are turning into your parents.
posted by crime online at 2:55 PM on May 14

fantabulous timewaster: "I stand by both of those opinions."

Aw babygirl, you're doing it!
posted by phunniemee at 2:57 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

I align more with Millenials even though I'm possibly tail-end of Gen X (I was born in 1980). As much as there's all that jokes about how we can't afford houses because of Starbucks and avocado toast, we are a bunch who had a ton of student debt and entered the work force around the great recession (I was already in the work force but underpaid). Yes, I think a lot of us took a long time to get started but it did feel like the deck was stacked against us.

But I imagine every generation can say that to some extent.

I seriously don't care what a Gen Zer thinks about me. I'm irrelevant to them and they're basically irrelevant to me. I don't mean that in a bad way -- they should live their lives and I should live mine. But I get why some Millenials are upset by all of this. I think a lot of us took so long to feel like our lives were stable and now we're being told we're over. I mean, weren't we just teenagers like ... 5 years ago? Or something?

(I think there's also something to be said about the slowing of culture and how the Internet and streaming gives us access to things that would have otherwise faded away over time. We're 30 years out from Friends and that feels more recent now than something like, say, The Dick Van Dyke Show felt in 1994. Only love to The Dick Van Dyke Show, mind you).

Anyway, after briefly going back to the middle part (which I had as a teenager, thank you very much), I went back to the side part because I think it looks better on me. I'm turning 45 this year. I'm OK with not looking like I'm a 20-year-old.
posted by edencosmic at 3:01 PM on May 14 [3 favorites]

> Is this a joke? This is a joke, right?

animal, animal

My ambition for my old age is to learn to play the drums

animal
posted by HearHere at 3:02 PM on May 14

I thought Lester Young invented cool.
posted by clawsoon at 3:05 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

because pretending your generation doesn't really exist is what drives them crazy

omg DOT... my kiddo pulled this with me for years and it totally did drive me up a wall
posted by kokaku at 3:19 PM on May 14

Wait, you’re saying my kids don’t think I’m cool?
posted by q*ben at 3:20 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

Millenials are about 29 to 44. Many are parents of teenagers. Our uncoolness is inevitable.
posted by lookoutbelow at 3:20 PM on May 14 [2 favorites]

Ormond, a millennial, simply cannot – will not – get her head around gen Z’s fondness for a crew sock

I always find the sock debate the funniest because I, millennial, could never stand ankle socks and have never worn them. Now crew socks have cycled back into being cool, lmfao

Our uncoolness is inevitable.

And, frankly, reassuring. I'd start to worry that reality- or at least society- was breaking down if millennials somehow maintained their grip on coolness.
posted by BungaDunga at 3:25 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

I'll never forget a dental appointment when I was about 38, where I began to stammer out excuses for the state of my teeth to a supremely disinterested dental assistant in her twenties whose first language was not English. As I rambled, saying something like, "I brush every day, I don't know how -- " she simply said, "You are old."

What could I say? She was right.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:26 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

What's the point of being cool if you can't wear a sombrero?

I considered linking to the relevant C&H strip but apparently the gocomics website is broken on mobile so *shrug*
posted by Wretch729 at 3:28 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

people do at times become cool again when they are old, or relatively old

When conclusions like this are drawn I'm reminded of a comic in the April 1961 MAD Magazine called Tomorrow's Parents; I can't find it online but you can see the first page in the Facebook MAD Magazine Fan Club and the last panel here (scroll down). You'll get the idea; beautiful Wally Wood artwork.
posted by Rash at 3:29 PM on May 14

Birth of Cool was 1957 fwiw.
posted by djseafood at 3:32 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

Can I use this opportunity to point out my pet peeve about generations?

COMPARE
- Lost Generation: 1883-1900, 17 years
- Greatest Generation: 1901-1927, 26 years
- Silent Generation: 1928-1945, 17 years.
- Baby Boomers: 1946-1964, 18 years.

VS
- Gen X: 1965-1980, 15 years
- Millenials: 1981-1996, 15 years
- Gen Z: 1997-2012, 15 years
- Gen Alpha: 2013 to nowish - 15? years

Who decided that the age at which you start a new generation should be lowered to 15? In the US, the teen birth rate has been plummeting. It makes no sense. There's no way that there are three generations of kids born since I was! *Shakes fist at clouds.*
posted by Popular Ethics at 3:42 PM on May 14 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: Lots of Gen X with opinions! Also other people. 🐸
posted by Glinn at 3:42 PM on May 14 [4 favorites]

Xiaoma, the Millennial polyglot Youtuber, sort of embraced the cringe recently and had fun with it when, "invited to give a speech at a high school for Language Week ... he delivered the entire speech in Gen Alpha slang."

This is pretty good! But my first thought was where the hell is there a high school with such a nice looking auditorium??? Ours was already crumbling when I went to high school in the 90s .

My second thought which is duh I know is how US language development grows out of Black and queer and specifically queer Black communities.
posted by latkes at 3:54 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

he delivered the entire speech in Gen Alpha slang."

I thought Gen Alpha kids were just born recently. How can they have slang?
posted by Liquidwolf at 3:59 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

The weird thing about Gen Z is that being digital natives didn't make them programmers, it made them computer illiterate

And regular illiterate
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:03 PM on May 14 [7 favorites]

How does Lena Dunham fit into all this?
posted by Lemkin at 4:04 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

I thought Gen Alpha kids were just born recently. How can they have slang?

55 Gen Alpha Slang Words You Need To Know To Keep from Being ‘Beta’
posted by Lemkin at 4:06 PM on May 14

i still think of myself as part of the slacker generation. with pride. thank you richard linklater. that's irony.
posted by buffalo at 4:11 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

The dividing line between Gen Z and Millennials is the Internet Age, the dawn of technofeudalism. Millennials are the last cohort to have lived a period of life during which social relations were largely unmediated by digital capital. Even animal species, like elephants, depend on a social fabric for sustenance, and when that fabric is permanently disrupted, society unravels. In humans we see unprecedented levels of mental health, loneliness, and so forth. There's nothing cool about this.
posted by polymodus at 4:19 PM on May 14 [2 favorites]

Millennials are uncool now? Whatever. With love, they and the Zoomers can all get off my lawn.

Also never forget so many of Gen X & Boomer survivors are Trump supporters because so many of those generations' cool members died early from AIDS or lack of health care. This will also happen to Millennials and Zoomers in due time. Especially the unvaccinated ones.

My 89-year-old father-in-law used to go out with some older men (most of whom are gone now) for coffee every week. The Greatest Gen men used to complain to him about the Boomers and he (Silent) told them they should have raised the Boomers better. Generational sniping is eternal.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 4:27 PM on May 14 [6 favorites]

How does Lena Dunham fit into all this?

LOL this wins the thread.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 4:33 PM on May 14 [2 favorites]

There is still no way to resign from the Church of Generation, and they hold a forced mass baptisms every 15 years now? This is all kinds of not okay.
posted by Ashenmote at 4:38 PM on May 14

Why do adults suddenly care so much about what teenagers think about them, and if they consider them "cool"? And why are teenagers generating so much content shitting on older women? That's really weird.

I blame the context collapse of being on the same mass social media platforms. When I was a teen, most teens' social networks (in the original sense) didn't include people in their 30s and 40s. Mine kind of did, but that was internet fandom stuff where the standards for "cool" centered on that common frame of reference. But, like, teens, 20-somethings, and 30-somethings each had their own set of fashion magazines and the same trends didn't necessarily pervade all of them at the same time. But if instead of selling a magazine to a narrow demographic, you're making style content that you want eyeballs on, any human eyeballs, the 15-year-old and the 35-year-old could more easily be in the same audience or directly competing as content creators.

I'm not sure how that fits with the microtargeting and algorithmic stuff in social media... Except that the generational conflict stuff turns out to be popular with both generations. So they run into each other's content & fashion sense just enough to hate it, and then discover that hating it is lucrative for all involved. Whereas 25 years ago you'd just pick up the magazine for your age group and never see the other's sock preferences.

Also, people should wear whatever socks feel good on their feet.
posted by actuallyquite at 4:41 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

I admire Genzie kids. Not because they are cool or because I like them or anything like that. They are annoying as hell like all young people are to older people but I have to give them mad props for finding an entirely unexpected cultural avenue to shock me just when I thought all the ways to shock older adults had been exhausted by having already been done.

Young people dressing in full senior-core like they are doing a remake of Cocoon is the funniest and most shockingly rebellious shit I have seen in my life.

I did not see that coming at all.
posted by srboisvert at 5:01 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

A friend of mine classifies generations by memories of notable events rather than birthdates. He says basically "the difference between a Millennial and Gen X is that both of them remember 9/11, but only the Gen Xer remembers the Challenger Disaster."

I assume "Boomer" implies remembering the Kennedy assassination.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 5:10 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

One of my friends said (although I don't know if she originally came up with this) that all Millennial women just want to be the best version of who they wanted to be at 17-19 and ... true. I'm going to NYC tomorrow to see Cabaret and then on Saturday, I'm likely going to a Eurovision watch party & then to Rocky Horror Picture Show (Friday I'm probably going to The Cloisters). This is kind of dream weekend for my little late '90s arty goth heart but I didn't get to do something like this then (nor was I old enough or had enough money - I mean, with the money, this was an indulgence, but whatever).

I have nothing to prove to actual teenagers. I do want to make my former teenage self happy, though. She deserves it.
posted by edencosmic at 5:10 PM on May 14 [1 favorite]

I went back to grad school finally last year, and got called an "elder Millennial" by someone less than half my age. That's commitment to the GenX-erasure bit, and no mistake.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 5:14 PM on May 14

I assume "Boomer" implies remembering the Kennedy assassination.

Yes - just as the US Silents remembered Pearl Harbor, and the Lost Generation, the Great War.
posted by Rash at 5:18 PM on May 14

I assume "Boomer" implies remembering the Kennedy assassination.

Though classified as a boomer, my only genuine memory of the Kennedy assassination (assuming you mean JFK) is being sent home from kindergarten early, and finding my mom crying uncontrollably for some reason when I got home. So, yeah, 5-year-old me “remembers” JFK’s assassination, but not really.

Now, RFK’s and MLK’s assassinations, you bet.

I’ve never felt kinship with what is traditionally considered “boomers.” For me, being a “boomer” (as a male) means you were in danger of being drafted to fight in Vietnam. I wasn’t. The war was over before I turned 18. Hell, I never had to register for the draft.

My personal definition of generations has a lot to do with the music of your formative, coming-of-age years. For me, that was mid-to-late 70s into the 80s. Way out of boomer range. I honestly have no idea who my generation is.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:30 PM on May 14

Being Cool is a Schrodinger's state of being. Once you are widely recognized as cool, that manner of coolness now being popular becomes suddenly uncool. It's a rabbit that the greyhounds can only catch in their teeth for a fleeting moment before it leaps ahead .
posted by CynicalKnight at 5:49 PM on May 14

Also even way back when I was cool - and I was kind of cool between about 1993 and 1998 - I really didn't like having my jeans long enough for the hem to drag. I live in a city, there's yuck on the ground.

yeah I was kind of cool* in 1998 in a city that gets lots of snow and uhhhhhhhhh those things were disgusting

have I told the story yet on the blue of how my friend who sewed her pants EXTRA big with EXTRA huge pockets went to retrieve a deep dish pizza slice she'd smuggled into the diner we always hung out on & pulled out an empty slice box absolutely dripping with grease

* or I thought I was cool but actually the cool people just liked having me around so they could exploit my autism, I figured out 20 years later

on topic, freeing up the slots in my brain that care about whether people think I'm cool has been a real game changer
posted by taquito sunrise at 6:02 PM on May 14

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