Generation X

" Generation X " since the early 1950s serves as a slogan-like term for a number of different generations and population cohorts, each of which different characterizations are attributed by their respective authors. In current parlance, the term refers Generation X, also known as Gen X abbreviated, usually on the the Baby Boomers next generation. It is used mainly in the Anglo -American language area for a generation that was born from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. The term specifically published by the 1991 novel Generation X by Douglas Coupland was well known.

Conceptual history

The term " Generation X " was coined in the early 1950s by the American photographer Robert Capa. He used the slogan as the title for a photo report on young people who have grown up after the end of World War II. The report first appeared in 1953 in the prestigious British magazine " Picture Post ".

Also in the early 50s, published by the U.S. Holiday Magazine a series of articles under the heading " Generation X " on the American youth of that time. The mid-1960s led the two British sociologists Charles Hamblett and Jane Deverson by a study in which it came to the mods and rockers in the UK and was published under the title "Generation X". In 1976, the British punk band Generation X was founded.

According to Coupland's assessment, who wrote the novel " Generation X ", is characteristic of this generation, that they must first be satisfied without the effects of war with less wealth and economic security than the older generations, but then lost for their economic and ecological sins. Originally, the term Generation X should imply that this generation has been successfully removed from the Benennungswut of advertising industry and journalistic trade. Coupland's book reached the bestseller lists and the title became the slogan for the hitherto unnamed generation. Coupland coined in his book and the term McJob, defined in the novel as " a low doped job in the service sector with little prestige, little dignity, of little use and no future. Often referred to as a satisfying career by people who have never made ​​one. " Coupland provides the ingrained way of life from social and economic pressures against a " Lessness " called philosophy, which does not measure the value of life to the accumulation of status symbols. The ' new ' value system is also referred to ironically as " Exhibitionist modesty ". Due to this lifestyle of consumerism Coupland's Generation X would be called (for example, from the Seattle Times ) according to Gertrude Stein as the " Lost Generation of the Nineties ". Coupland bases his observations at the end of the book with some statistics and quotes from different magazines.

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