As my physical therapist stretched my hip the other day, we talked about being Gen Xers.
Parenting as Gen Xers, specifically — as the children of baby boomers and the parents of whatever generation we're raising now (Yoomers? Zoomers? Post-zoomers?) We talked with nostalgia about those weird and wonderful '90s, the Gen X glory days, before the weight of the internet had pressed us into diamonds, but after the democratization of music and art and culture.
As the therapist pushed and massaged, we talked about the crop tops fashionable these days, shirts that look as if they've been shrunk in the wash, and laughed at what was "in" when we were teenagers.
"Flannel," she said, laughing.
"Choker necklaces," I lamented.
Our shoes were industrial, with workman-like chunky heels. Our hair was indifferently styled and infrequently washed. If it was dyed, it was dyed black or highlighted in two long, skunk-like stripes at the front. We wore barn coats over dresses and babydoll dresses over pants.
In the '90s, the cool kids dressed like Depression-era farmers in town on a feed run, like someone forced to clothe themselves from the random contents of a long-abandoned suitcase.
(I have the feeling some of those clothes are back in style, which is great because I can finally buy them without having to get my mom to approve the purchase. I'm amassing enough Doc Marten boots, Nine Inch Nails T-shirts and Birkenstocks to make 16-year-old me jealous.)
In the '90s, there was plenty of flash — on Versace runways and in MC Hammer music videos — but if it weren't properly stripped-down and imperfect, it would forever be tainted with the filth of effort. One must never be suspected of having tried too hard. Any glamour, any attention, any wealth had to have been achieved while disdaining it.
The only way to be a rock star was to be a rock star who hated being a rock star. The only way to be a supermodel was to look like someone had woken you up in a gulag, slapped some black lipstick on you and pushed you down the runway.
In the '90s, we had something called "selling out," and selling out was (try to imagine if you can) to be avoided at all costs, whether the loss of money or fame or accolades. It's like a badge of honor in 2023 — "girlboss" and "global branding" and "social media strategy" and all other manner of euphemisms for what we used to call selling out, the trading of authenticity for popularity.
In the '90s, we had to be told to "Rock the Vote" because adults thought we didn't vote because we thought it wasn't cool. But the truth was we didn't vote because we didn't see a point.
We didn't believe what anyone was telling us.
In the '90s, we loved the 1960s but edited out the hippies' joy. We liked Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, but didn't care for folk music — it wasn't cynical enough for us.
There was something naive, almost sweet, about all that negativity, that hostility to anything approaching happiness.
We Gen Xers aren't the first generation to be shocked by the fact that we got older and lamer. We aren't the only ones who've woken up 20 years later to find that we are no longer cool.
The nostalgia isn't new, either.
But what's new is being a member of the last unrecorded generation, the last generation not raised on the internet, the last generation who didn't have an email address until college, who met our spouses somewhere other than online. We're the last generation whose stupid thoughts weren't immortalized in tweets, the last generation whose youthful flaws and flubs weren't broadcast to anyone with a smartphone and a Wi-Fi connection.
And in that way, I'm glad of being a child of the 1990s. I have pity for everyone else.
Because we might have been losers, slackers and greasy-haired bums.
But there's no screenshots of it, so, really, you can't prove anything.
To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.
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