Generation X

In the early 1950s, Hungarian photographer Robert Capa first used Generation X as the title for a photo-essay about young men and women growing up immediately after World War II.

[12] Idol attributed his band's name to Jane Deverson's and Charles Hamblett's 1964 book Generation X, about British popular youth culture[13][14]—a copy of which his mother had owned.

[23][19]Author William Strauss noted that around the time Coupland's novel was published the symbol "X" was prominent in popular culture, as the film Malcolm X was released in 1992, and that the name "Generation X" stuck.

[43] George Masnick of the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies puts this generation in the time frame of 1965 to 1984 to satisfy the condition that boomers, Xers, and millennials "cover equal 20-year age spans".

[9] George Masnick of the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies puts this generation in the time frame of 1965 to 1984 to satisfy the condition that boomers, Xers, and millennials "cover equal 20-year age spans".

[44] Jon Miller at the Longitudinal Study of American Youth at the University of Michigan wrote that "Generation X refers to adults born between 1961 and 1981" and it "includes 84 million people".

[64] However, increased immigration during the same period of time helped to partially offset declining birth-rates and contributed to making Generation X an ethnically and culturally diverse demographic cohort.

[69] According to Christine Henseler in the 2012 book Generation X Goes Global: Mapping a Youth Culture in Motion, "We watched the decay and demise (of the family), and grew callous to the loss.

[73] The rapid influx of Boomer women into the labor force that began in the 1970s was marked by the confidence of many in their ability to successfully pursue a career while meeting the needs of their children.

[74][75][76] These children lacked adult supervision in the hours between the end of the school day and when a parent returned home from work in the evening, and for longer periods of time during the summer.

[77][78][79][80] McCrindle Research Centre described the cohort as "the first to grow up without a large adult presence, with both parents working", stating this led to Gen Xers being more peer-oriented than previous generations.

His policies included cuts in the growth of government spending, reduction in taxes for the higher echelon of society, legalization of stock buybacks, and deregulation of key industries.

Congressman David Durenberger criticized this political situation, stating that while programs for poor children and for young families were cut, the government provided "free health care to elderly millionaires".

[103] In the U.S., restrictive monetary policy to curb rising inflation and the collapse of a large number of savings and loan associations (private banks that specialized in home mortgages) impacted the welfare of many American households.

For those on the left of the political spectrum, the disappointments with the previous Boomer student mobilizations of the 1960s and the collapse of those movements towards a consumerist "greed is good" and "yuppie" culture during the 1980s felt, to a great extent, like hypocrisy if not outright betrayal.

[120] When the dot-com bubble eventually burst in 2000, early Gen Xers who had embarked as entrepreneurs in the IT industry while riding the Internet wave, as well as newly qualified programmers at the tail-end of the generation (who had grown up with AOL and the first Web browsers), were both caught in the crash.

The firefighters and police responding to the attacks were predominantly from Generation X. Additionally, the leaders of the passenger revolt on United Airlines Flight 93 were also, by majority, Gen Xers.

[130] The Jury Expert, a publication of The American Society of Trial Consultants, reported: "Gen X members responded to the terrorist attacks with bursts of patriotism and national fervor that surprised even themselves.

"[135] Furthermore, guides regarding managing multiple generations in the workforce describe Gen Xers as: independent, resilient, resourceful, self-managing, adaptable, cynical, pragmatic, skeptical of authority, and as seeking a work-life balance.

[45] Those that reached adulthood in the 1980s and grew up educated in the doctrines of Marxism and Leninism found themselves against a background of economic and social change, with the advent of Mikhail Gorbachev to power and Perestroika.

[168] The term "Generation X" is used to describe Irish people born between 1965 and 1985; they grew up during The Troubles and the 1980s economic recession, coming of age during the Celtic Tiger period of prosperity in the 1990s onward.

[186] A 2016 study of over 2,500 British office workers conducted by Workfront found that survey respondents of all ages selected those from Generation X as the hardest-working employees and members of the workforce (chosen by 60%).

[203] From 1974 to 1976, a new generation of rock bands arose, including the Ramones, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, and the Dictators in New York City; the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, and Buzzcocks in the United Kingdom; and the Saints in Brisbane, Australia.

The energy generated by the punk movement launched a subsequent proliferation of weird and eclectic post-punk sub cultures, spanning new wave, goth, etc., and influencing the New Romantics.

[216] Topics of grunge lyrics include homelessness, suicide, rape,[217] broken homes, drug addiction, self-loathing,[218] misogyny, domestic abuse, and finding "meaning in an indifferent universe".

& Rakim, De La Soul, Big Daddy Kane, EPMD, A Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang Clan, Slick Rick, Ultramagnetic MC's, and the Jungle Brothers.

[230] Lyrics from the era often draw attention to social issues, including afrocentric living, drug use, crime and violence, religion, culture, the state of the U.S. economy, and the modern man's struggle.

According to Rose Tricia, "In rap, relationships between black cultural practice, social and economic conditions, technology, sexual and racial politics, and the institution policing of the popular terrain are complex and in constant motion".

Although not Gen Xers themselves, Subway (1985), 37°2 le matin (English: Betty Blue; 1986), and Mauvais Sang (1986) sought to capture on screen the generation's malaise, sense of entrapment, and desire to escape.

[248] Other songs that gained popularity from being included Stranger Things include Metallica's song Master of Puppets,[249][250] The Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go, Limahl's Never Ending Story, The Police's Every Breath You Take, Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time, Madonna's Material Girl, Toto's Africa, REO Speedwagon's Can't Fight This Feeling, Corey Hart's Sunglasses at Night and Never Surrender, Peter Gabriel's cover of Heroes, Musical Youth's Pass the Dutchie and Journey's Separate Ways (Worlds Apart).