Gen Xers differ from each other. That is the reason there are many Gen X manifestos. So listen up baby boomers and those who wish to know more about Gen X.
Baby boomers started as a group by events that seemed to come from up on high. The end of World War II is the beginning of their lives
The media liked to follow the lead baby boomers. ‘They’re in the nurseries’, ‘they’re in school’, ‘they’ve started work’, etc.
Because there was no agreed upon beginning of Gen X, the media couldn’t do the same for my generation. In fact the media has almost completely ignored Gen X because of this. So I choose to declare the beginning of Gen X to be 1967, coincidentally, my birth year. But I don’t want the media to hound me, so I’m picking a leader all Gen X might agree to. That leader is Kurt Cobain, also born in 1967.
Why him, you may ask, and shouldn’t Gen Xers choose different leaders? Well firstly he is dead, which is a good state for any leader. So he can unite the “Question authority” crowd and the “Defer to authority” crowd at the same time. Can any live leader do that?
Plus the media already hounded him, some say to death. And his death is one of the few facts about him that most agree with. Gen X with all their varying ideas and conspiracy theories about his life and times might accept him as worth following, because of his death.
Now that we have established a leader maybe the media can pretend to care about Gen X by following him lavishly. There are updates we all want to know.
Was he secretly buried in Viretta Park and if so are the worms going in and out?
Were his ashes scattered in McLane Creek of Olympia or the Wishkah River in Washington or were his ashes stolen in 2008? And can we clone a new Kurt from ashes?
Was he cryogenically frozen so that 3011 can enjoy that grunge sound?
Or were his remains sent into space? If so, what planet should his remains be passing about now?
Rest in peace wherever you are Kurt and Gen X will produce as many conspiracy theories about you as there are Gen Xers. We’re going to make our leader proud. Or ashamed. We can’t really tell because he is gone.
