"Well, here is another Gen X thought of the day…We invented the playlist."
The inherited world in the 21st Century is partly the result of what the Baby Boomers did to create the existential threat to the earth that Douglas Coupland named Generation X.
McAddicted to debt as the consequences of vapid consumerism, higher education, and credit card survival; the blowback of imperial wars; eugenics-based health care; organized abandonment of human rights; plastic waste of a LEGO-imagination; vegetables of nuclear radiation and apocalypse; prisons as economic development; the profits of disaster capitalism; celebrated misogyny; emotionless relationships; arcade romances; and popular culture as a panacea and drug are all examples of the simulacra and monetized austerity of the 1980s.
Oh, and the mixtape. Generation X created the mixtape.
In veneration of the "accelerated culture" of this generation, Slim Sherri offers her "Gen X thoughts of the day," and the origins of the mixtape.
"Kids today have all these emojis to help them express themselves. Every emotion possible trapped inside a little digital icon. When we were growing up, we did not have emojis. They weren't invented yet. We weren't even allowed to have emojis. Wait, that's emotions. Sorry. If we wanted to express ourselves. We did it through our music. We made mixtapes. And if you don't know what a mixtape is, it's an analog version of a digital playlist. Trapped inside this plastic container with a very delicate ribbon."
Click here for more "Gen X Thoughts of the day."
Check out this 2017 interview with Doug Coupland.
