Forgotten by whom, exactly?

As for being forgotten, Generation X is talked about everywhere. Hundreds of books have been written about us. Countless blog, micro-blogs, podcasts, and online groups and communities with a collective fanbase in the millions pay daily homage to all things Gen X. And the media cannot stop writing about us whether they know what they’re talking about or not.

Case in point: If you have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, search for Is Gen X Nostalgia Just Trauma Bonding? (August 8, 2025 by Adam Kirsch.) This article, by the way, was published two months after I wrote Dear Nostalgia: Please Stop Texting Me. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. Also, if you have a subscription to the New York Times, check out Don’t Be A Loser, Gen X Baby (August 17, 2025). 

If you used Google today, you tapped into Gen X innovation. If you streamed on Netflix, shopped on Amazon, or watched YouTube, you used platforms built by Gen X. We gave the world grunge, hip hop, indie film, and a television culture that went from three networks to hundreds of channels. Our adolescence played out in iconic films, on MTV, and inside sitcom living rooms. America’s cultural bloodstream flows with Gen X DNA. Forgotten by whom, exactly?

Baloney

I admit that when I started blogging about Generation X in 2007, I opined about being part of the forgotten generation myself. I wrote hundreds of posts on this topic and our small numbers for years. Poor little Gen X, just a piece of rubber baloney between two mammoth pieces of bread: Boomers with their sermons of exceptionalism and Millennials with their manifestos of victimhood.

I embraced the small-and-forgotten narrative for nearly two decades, fancying myself as some kind of evangelist for Generation X. I would set the world straight. I would stop “the world forgetting by the world forgot.”

And you know what? I frittered away the days. According to Kurt Vonnegut, the number one rule for writing is this: “Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.”

Hindsight is 20/20

My failures as a Gen X thought leader (huh) are glaring. My lack of courage, noteworthy. My ability to smile while eating a bullsh*t sandwich, impressive.

Mmmm. Yummy. Please don’t fire me for saying your PowerPoint is ugly. 

Come hell or high water my kids will not endure what I endured. They refuse. 

In hindsight, I should have written about the real problems Generation X was facing. The Great War and Great Depression Chuck Palahniuk clocked as our very lives. Instead, I flashed our little “we’re small and forgotten” badge with the same frequency MTV played Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love. If I never hear it again it will be too soon.

Sadly, between 85,000 and 115,000 Baby Boomers die every month. And, I say sadly because I have Boomer sisters and Boomer friends. Their share of the population shrinks every day. Still, the lazy framing of Generation X persists despite the fact Gen Xers are in their prime leadership years and have already stepped in place.

Juvenile

The narrative that Gen X is small or forgotten is inaccurate, and honestly, juvenile. We built the digital world and carried culture from analog to streaming. We have quietly become the dominant force in American leadership. Our cohort controls the purse strings of the largest economy in the world through a mjority in U.S. Senate. Forty percent of governors are Gen-Xers. Every day, Generation X is shaping federal legislation, which flows to the states, impacting every American. Also, in the electorate, Gen X voters form the backbone of today’s voting bloc. Our desperation and pragmatism, in fact, define the nation’s current direction.

Finally, in both the private and nonprofit sectors, we run many of the nation’s most influential companies and organizations. We are driving economic direction, community, meaning.

Generation X is massive, influential and very much in charge. Imagine what we might accomplish if we stop bragging about being small and forgotten.

Wait a second. Oh well, whatever, nevermind.