Yeah, bring back leaded gasoline! /s
Im supposed to be mad about it? Or are you mad about it? Is that you in the picture? I’m confused. Did I do it wrong?
I was born at the tail end of Gen X but we were definitely getting up to some crazy stuff.
It was a normal afternoon to take our bikes off the highest jumps we could build in the middle of the road, constructed from the neighborhood wood pile. When a car came speeding through we’d yell out “car” and quickly move our stuff to the side. We used skateboards on vertical ramps built from whatever, and roller skates on shoddy pavement. Our playgrounds were made of reflective metal hotter than lava attached to towers that seemed to reach 20 ft above the ground.
We built dangerous tree houses with rusty scrap in the ravine behind the neighborhood, next to place where the neighborhood’s older kids were surely taking all the drugs and hiding from their D.A.R.E. officers.
I used to load my sisters in the back of a red radio flyer wagon and we’d all ride down the neighborhood’s steepest hill, occasionally tipping at high speed and then sliding the rest of the way down likely removing several layers of skin and rolls of gauze from my mom’s medical kit in the process.
In primary school, I don’t think there was ever a moment without at least one kid on crutches or with a limb in a cast.
While it did harden us up, and provided some amazing memories, just about everyone I know who was a kid at that time knows of some kid who died while digging a tunnel, or got hit by a car, or spent half of his early teenage years in a cast, or who always seemed to have a finger splint.
Somehow through all of this we moved from thinking this is normal childhood stuff to blaming anyone and everyone by way of lawsuits.
There was nothing “safe” about that time. The debate seems to hinge on whether a dangerous childhood results in better adapted adults, perhaps by culling a few unlucky kids who hadn’t learned their own limits, and who know how to be creative in the absence of almost any artificial or algorithmic stimuli.
You can do all of that on Roblox from the safety of your toilet nowadays.
The future is now.
just mind all the pedophiles and human traffickers.
News TV in the 90s was non-stop filling people’s heads with images of paedophile kidnappers and serial killers lurking behind every hedge. In reality the chances of anything like that happening to your kid is ridiculously small; like nothing on if you sent them to an American school.
I am going to teach my kid how to traumatize an adult, so they can annoy the pedophiles back. Fight fire with nuclear bombs.
sounds like enablement of pedophiles and groomers.
where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Same situation, more or less … but I honestly don’t remember anyone meeting their grim fate the way you described … you’d see people with a cast here and there (I got mine in gym class, of all locations), but I think all kids in my extended social groups made it to adulthood without major, life-altering physical damage …
I wish he would iron his shirt while hes wearing it
Some days I interact with some people that make me bemoan all of the safety guides that have allowed the idiots to breed enough that I now have the misfortune to interact with them.
Then there are other days where a safety rule/guide/regulation has stopped me from doing something monumentally stupid and fatal that reminds me that those safety regulations are written in blood and that sometimes I’ll be that idiot in someone else’s mind. It’s humbling and comforting in an absurdist way.
“Claim to have done?” Lol
Leave Gen X out of your generational sputterings
Or what, you’ll act moody, disconnected, and do nothing? I’d add sit in the corner to the list but we all know your knees can’t take sitting on the floor anymore.
I’ve always thought the boomer/millennial whining was people of the exact same personality being insufferable to each other, just throwing down inane stereotypes while being emotionally immature and unable to be decent people.
Every age group has people like that, of course. I just get tired of having to watch it play out constantly online. So just shut the fuck up and do some good in the world. Instead of griping about people, show us something inspirational that you’ve done. Be the example of what you want other people to be.
So… don’t be like you then?
You have a great sentiment that I whole heartedly agree with.
There is just one problem I see: the word “do.”
Everyone wants to bitch, piss, and moan. But, very, very few are willing to “do” anything meaningful about the need for “do” in their community. It’s always someone else’s job or I don’t have time or I could never do that.
I’m an old boomer now. I’ve spent my time “doing” things for my community because those things needed to be done and no other people wanted to do them. I just want Millennials, GenX, and GenY or Z step into these things and bring their skills and perspectives to our community. We need them. And I just want to finish the remaining 10 years or so of my life and fade quietly away. But that hasn’t happened yet, I have a Township Board meeting this Thursday evening…
Pretty sure Daria was a millennial …
Not if she was a teenager in 1993 (her first on-screen appearance in Beavis and Butthead). There’s a surprising amount of discussion about it online I won’t recap here but there’s passion on both sides lol
“Could you possibly be referring to the harsh light of reality”
10/10 gottem
… maybe
I feel personally attacked by this!
As a result I’ll do nothing!
Yeah, but then you’ll complain that no one pays attention to you.
Ok, Boomer
No we won’t. Now git of mah lern
Stop acting like boomers.
as soon as the zoomers put away their swastikas and crypto scams.
Seriously this. We have too many boomers as-is. Knock that shit off. You’re ruining everything for future generations with your selfishness. (Hell, anyone younger than you has it harder, thanks to you and especially your parents constantly voting against their best interests.)
Edit: Yeah sure, just downvote and hide. Typical Gen X behavior.
Accept these downvotes with pride.
Genx has a deeply seated victim complex.
Someone was saying the generations slipped over politically but they actual hold 41% of house seats, that’s more than boomers and almost three times millennials at 15%.
Less represented on the senate (28%) but still second place behind boomers (61%).
It was clear over a decade ago that genx would not be better than the boomers.
That’s nice. How do I get a house seat - my knees are killing me?
As a GenX (xennial actually), no… GenX needs to start being held accountable for the all the shit going on in this world. They are not above reproach, and it’s high time we all call them out on their narcissistic bullshit.
“Narcissistic bullshit” is intergenerational. In fact, it has nothing to do with age. So you’re going to hold Gen X “accountable”…? Geezus fuck off. Go hold the pre-WWII generation accountable, or 19nth Century people, or the Roman Empire era folks… This whole generational gripe-fest that some of you espouse is just aimless trendy nonsense. I don’t respect it.
It’s exact opposite of a trend. The younger generations criticizing the older ones for not living up to their responsibilities has been just as much a constant throughout human history as the older generations criticizing the younger ones for being lazy by their parents’ definition.
The world sucks, as usual, and by now Gen X are old enough to be in charge. It’s sensible to call them out, just like in a decade or two it’ll be sensible to call out the Millennials for the same thing.
“Old enough to be in charge” is not the same as “in charge.”
Clinton, Bush 2, Obama and Trump are all Boomers. Biden is Silent Generation.
Gen X is smaller than Boomers and Millennials. We have always known we were going to be passed over in governmental power dynamics.
There are more gen x in congress than millenials, so good job just proving the victim complex…
First paragraph: yeah!
Second paragraph negates the first. You want change? Go for it. Yelling at old people ain’t gonna get you any changes. You gotta do it yourself. I remember in college, a long time ago, people in my age group lobbing the exact same complaints how grandma and grandpa didn’t make the world better for them. They complained, yet didn’t put much effort to changing anything, particularly in voter turnout. But if you look at the creeping tide of history, you’ll find things ever so slowly getting better in a bunch of different ways. The newer generations are never handed a utopia, but are certainly welcome to work at creating one.Oh, I am aware that this dynamic doesn’t quite work. Both sides of the equation get it almost, but not entirely, right. Because getting it right is challenging.
The older generations do get lazy as soon as their own needs are met, especially those of them who wield power. And that doesn’t just mean politicians but also CEOs, large investors, etc. Working for the common good is difficult and most people follow the path of least resistance, leading to the dynamics young people complain about.
But young people fall prey to the very same dynamic. It’s easier to get disillusioned and complain on the internet than to consistently go out and exert pressure. Sure, maybe they go on a protest march or two but few have the energy to consistently go on marches, be active in politics, stay on top of which companies are toxic, openly defy the law, and do a myriad other things that don’t directly benefit them in order to fight for a better world. You can do that if you’re rich and isolated from consequence but in that case your life is cushy already so you’d be fighting for abstract principles.
There are few people of the caliber of Bernie Sanders or Greta Thunberg because it’s really hard and carries a real risk of ruining their own life. Most people who do try end up like the people who glue themselves to highways: They get ridiculed and fined and effect no change whatsoever.
So for most people all that remains is resignation. Gen X said “whatever” when they weren’t listened to because they weren’t willing to sacrifice their personal future to escalate things until change is inevitable. Millennials say “OK Boomer” as they find themselves in the same situation for the same reason.
(I’ll gloss over the “young people are lazy” part but it boils down to young people actually being lazy in terms of failing to apply themselves in ways the older people did, with the caveat that some of those ways no longer apply and young people are applying themselves in new ways the older people don’t realize are necessary now. This perception dynamic is at least as old as recorded history.)
Blaming old people is a defining trait of the young. When young, I remember blaming my parents for bringing me into this world that didn’t give me the things I wanted easily.
Maturing as an adult means taking responsibility for yourself, and doing the things you can do to improve your situation.
Of course one can keep blaming old people for everything until you’re old enough to be blamed, if that’s your jam.
Get some class and material analysis. This neoliberal, metaphysical (that’s just the way the world is) bullshit is so tiring. Older generations are not the cause of your problems, the ruling class is and you are doing free labor for them right now.
Call out people sure, but pretending like this is the eternal cycle of society and that older people just suck is wild.
That’s just whataboutism.
👍
I don’t know a single GenX who disagrees with the first statement. (I an on then Millennial edge, though, so could be bias)
But THEY did. And they are all that matters.
deleted by creator
Lol ageism is great because we all eventually get some.
The good old survivorship bias.
“Back in the day we got beat by our father’s and thats how you knew he loved you, kids these days, smh”
Posting this in between my angry rants about “Breeders” ruining society over in /r/ChildFree.
gonna guess that OP is gen z because they’re attacking gen x.
as a gen x resident, I’d like to tell you to fuck off but I just don’t care about you enough to do anything more than this comment.
🤷
So you don’t care enough to tell them to fuck off but do care enough to tell them you would like to tell them to fuck off and you’ve decided that this is somehow a lesser amount of caring. Sundowning already?
My charitable interpretation of their comment is that if they were going to tell them to fuck off, it wouldn’t just be the words “fuck off”, but rather an essay-length diatribe listing their failings and personality flaws at length. Therefore a comment saying they’re not going to do that is caring less…?
Oh, that’s so much worse.
I don’t care, but lemmy tell you what I would’ve said if I did care anyways.
All the rules are written in blood.
