The Cool Kids Got Screwed
Gen X in the Crosshairs of Capitalism: What Could Go Wrong?
Let’s get one thing straight: we were never supposed to be the center of attention. Generation X was born between headlines, raised on latchkey lunches, and taught by sitcoms and music videos to expect disappointment and act like we didn’t care. We made aloof into an art form. We plugged batteries into “Whatever” and made it shine like a beacon. But now, as we round the bend into our 50s and 60s, a funny thing is happening: people are finally noticing us. Not because we’re powerful. Not because we’re wealthy. It’s for the dumbest of reasons: because we’re broke, tired, still working, and somehow still cooler than everyone else.
We’re late bloomers, lately blooming.
Two recent pieces capture this bizarre duality: one from The Economist, which declares Gen X the "real loser generation,” and one from Vogue, which dares to ask, "What if Gen Xers are actually the cool ones?" Spoiler alert: both are right. And both are missing the point.
We are cool. We are losers. We are survivors. We are shapeshifters who never got the credit—or the capital—for holding the line during late-stage capitalism’s final act.
And now that final act seems to be upon us, and we’re barely keeping our heads above water, realizing that no one else seems to know what to do either.
So here we are, penciling in “plan revolution” onto our already overbooked to-do lists.
Economic Reality vs. Cultural Legacy
The Economist crunches the numbers: Gen X has earned less, saved less, and built less wealth than the Boomers who came before us. We bought homes later (if we bought them at all), took on more student debt, raised kids without affordable childcare, and got none of the pensions and lifelong employment perks our parents enjoyed.
Meanwhile, Vogue waxes poetic about our cultural residue. We made grunge, riot grrrl, and Tarantino. We wore flannel unironically. We invented slacker chic. Our vibe—chill, cynical, anti-corporate—has become the global aesthetic.
But here’s the catch: our cultural cachet didn’t come with equity. We defined the mood, but we didn’t monetize it. It wasn’t cool to monetize shit back when we were doing it, so we taught the world to reject the system, and the system responded by erasing us from its succession plans.
So yeah, we’re the coolest losers you’ll ever meet. We’re the leather-jacketed extras in capitalism’s closing credits. And we’ve been shape-shifting through every busted promise since.
While Boomers were building careers and Millennials were being studied like exotic bugs, we were just... figuring it out. No viral moments. No Time Magazine covers. We were busy surviving Reaganomics, AIDS, crack epidemics, Columbine, and the dot-com crash. And when the 2008 meltdown hit? We were in our 30s and 40s, halfway up the corporate ladder—and first on the chopping block.
That’s when we really got good at shape-shifting. Some of us leaned hard into hustle culture before it had a name. Others went freelance, gigged, started microbusinesses, or got lost in endless lateral moves. We became the generation of reinvention because the system kept resetting the board. But no matter how many times we adapted, it was never quite enough to break through.
Vogue now hails us as trendsetters in hindsight. But in the moment? We were underpaid and overlooked. So forgive us if we roll our eyes at nostalgic praise. We remember what it felt like to be treated as expendable.
The Economist points to Gen X’s institutional mistrust as a liability. But mistrust was always a survival tool, not a flaw. We saw what happened when you put faith in systems: Enron. WMDs. Housing bubbles. Healthcare tied to your job. Every time someone told us to "just play the game," the game turned out to be rigged. Every fucking time.
So we didn’t sell out. We didn’t lean in. We ghosted. We rolled our eyes and built side hustles. We kept a foot in and a foot out. And maybe that’s why we never truly "made it"—but it’s also why we still have our souls.
Because let’s be honest: late-stage capitalism isn’t just a disappointment. It is a con. A pyramid scheme dressed up as meritocracy. We were the last generation to believe that if we worked hard and played fair, we’d get ahead. And we were the first to find out that was total bullshit.
We got chewed up by the transition from analog to digital, from pensions to 401(k)s, from democracy to something... else. We have watched as capitalism morphed into oligarchy and autocracy. And we’re still here, holding the line.
What makes Gen X unique is our ability to pivot. We’ve done it so many times, it’s muscle memory now. We’ve gone from typewriters to TikTok. From dial-up to always-on. From mixtapes to AI playlists. From sitcoms to doomscrolls.
And despite everything—despite being sidelined, downsized, and disregarded—we kept adapting. We became the informal mentors to confused Millennials. The reality check for idealistic GenZ. The quiet backbone of businesses run by younger CEOs.
We’re the ones who knew how to keep going when things broke. Because we never believed they’d hold up in the first place.
Don’t mistake this for a pity party. This isn’t about whining. This is about calling it what it is: Gen X was the canary in the coal mine. We felt the walls closing in decades ago. We saw what unchecked capitalism would do. And we said so. We shouted it in zines, in punk songs, in independent films, and blog posts.
But nobody listens to the cool kids until it’s too late.
Now, the villain isn’t hard to spot. It’s the same force that’s been bleeding Gen X dry for decades: a capitalist system that rewards hoarding over humanity, and which increasingly hides its failures behind authoritarian bluster.
We didn’t fall behind. We were pushed.
But here’s the thing: maybe we’re not done yet. Maybe Gen X is just getting to the part of the story where we stop being the background noise and start becoming the signal. We’ve got decades of bullshit-detection, resilience that’s practically muscle memory, and zero patience left for authoritarian cosplay.
We know how to work inside the system without trusting it, and that might be exactly what democracy needs right now. We’re late bloomers, sure. But we’re still blooming. And if anyone’s going to throw a wrench in the gears of oligarchy while quietly fixing the damn thing, it’s probably going to be us.
Just don’t get in our way, because we really cannot even with all of that other bullshit right now.
Oh, one more thing: Tarantino is VASTLY overrated.
And I’m just so, so tired now.