Inclusive, Curious, Quasi Intellectualism
More thoughts on generational digital socializing, obsolete sounds, Chomsky, and a great comic.
Last week, I wrote about Millennial Pause and Gen Z Shake, and asked if there was an equivalent for Gen X. For TikTok, it’s not possible, because a core pillar of Generation X’s entire deal is being exasperated about documentation.
Since last week, I found this piece by W. David Marx, “The X of Generation X.” Unsurprisingly, he also references Klosterman’s excellent The Nineties, and connects the “X” dots all the way to notable curmudgeon Paul Fussell’s 1983 book Class, in which Fussell describes a “Category X” as “well-educated, Bohemian-like consumers who construct obscure lifestyles in order to transcend traditional status symbols.”
Read the whole piece, but here’s a bit that has me thinking more about what Millennials and Gen Z have inherited (and remixed) from Gen X.
This brings us to today, where the loudest complaints about “cultural stasis” tend to come from Gen X adults whose cultural interests have long been anchored in obscure and openly-artistic cultural forms. From their perspective, today's cultural capital does feel very tame. Being "with it" requires listening to top-charting albums, watching blockbuster movies, and being well-versed in internet memes. Compared to Gen X, Millennials who grew up on the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC would have fewer qualms about a pop culture centered around Harry Styles fandom, Harry Styles albums, and Harry Styles cinema gossip. Meanwhile Gen Z, in its rebellion against Millennials, appears to appreciate obscurity as a virtue again, but this is a new obscurity, not based in artistic complexity and historical knowledge but the discovery of amateur videos lurking at the edges of the internet.
Fundamentally, safety in obscurity has always been sort of bullshit, but I came up in the 90s and I totally recognize and accept it. It’s super strange, then, that Gen X is responsible for creating much of what we call social media (and perhaps more importantly, the creative web) today.
It feels absolutely antithetical that a generation known for being slackers obsessed with never selling out would have invented today’s performance platforms, but Marx helps make some sense of it. “Generation X wasn’t simply describing a birth cohort but a broader movement in American society to redefine cultural capital from high-society manners and high art to a more inclusive, ever-curious collection of intellectual and quasi-intellectual ideas.”
That inclusive, curious, quasi-intellectualism is exactly what drove all the creative outlets—everything from blogs to TikTok—to the world. And that desire to create places for cultural and subcultural capital in opposition to economic capital is why Gen X remains, despite being pretty old, engaged with and interested in internet culture of all types. Ask any Gen Xer what side of TikTok they’re on, that shit is wildly diverse. Tweet at me: What side of TikTok is your Gen Xer on?
Not enough energy to get into the Twitter stuff this week, maybe next!
🔖 Related, Extended
Vice: Banning TikTok is Unconstitutional, Ludicrous, and a National Embarrassment
Obsolete Sounds: The world’s biggest collection of disappearing sounds and sounds that have become extinct
Architectural Digest: Shangri-La Explores Just What Makes Rick Rubin’s Recording Studio So Conducive to Creativity
New York Times: Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPT
Futurism: Noam Chomsky: AI Isn’t Coming for Us All, You Idiots
🖌️ A Great Comic
💭 Stupid Design Shit
People are concerned that product design is overtaking UX and I swear I have no idea what the hell is going on in our industry anymore.
📓 A Good Read
Ryan Broderick / Garbage Day on the fake podcast TikTok psyop … which is bizarre but amazing and absolutely related to all this other Gen internet stuff. People just record content with microphones even though there’s not a show or podcast.