X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking

I guess I just don't have the generational team spirit required to despise other generations quite so thoroughly as Jeff Gordinier does. Nor do I feel nearly as superior to "the masses" -- there are frequent mentions of "the masses." Supposedly, Generation X is above all that. We don't conform, we cringe at the concept of changing the world, we idolize Kurt Cobain for all he represented while we hate Americal Idol, for the same reason. We like things called "indie" quite a bit. We are so outside of the mainstream. And so on.

Questions for the author: is the mainstream really so bad? And since when does one man's tastes define a whole generation?

I'm not sure where changing the world came into the picture. I think that was a good-sounding show more title that has little to do with the actual text of the book. I kind of hate-read after the first 20 or so pages, occasionally stopping to make scathing comments to the author in my head.

Read at your own peril. show less

This is a book that I want to share with my friends. Gordinier does a FANTASTIC job of capturing the thoughts, discussions, issues and music that I had all throughout my school days.

Gordinier does a good job of outlining the media's fascination with the tsunami that is the Baby Boomer generation and the lurid news fix on the youngest generation, the Millennials. Sandwiched between these two spotlight hogging masses is Generation X.

If you're looking for a strong call to action to save the world and a 10 bullet-point plan for starting a movement. This book isn't it (and you're probably a Boomer anyway). If you're looking for a book to outline a strategy to get your cause noticed and bring some media attention your way. This book isn't it show more (and you're probably a Millennial).

This book has all those things, but presents them in a much more REAL way. Not slacker. Not dumb. Not unmotivated. But data driven; experience driven; community driven. Real.

At 179 pages, it reads like a well-informed passionate op-ed piece and not much more. And the beauty of it, is that it doesn't try to be much more. Sure there are the rants and causes that come into play late in the book, but this is all just to show what's possible and what Generation X is grappling with now, in 2009.

At a minimum, the book will have you out renting Slacker, Googling Captain Beefheart and surfing eBay for Oblique Strategy Cards.

So if you're looking for something to help you build you case or start a movement, there are probably better books out there. But if you're interested in what's happened over the past 20 years, where it's all going and who is in charge, then this short cultural history is just the thing. show less

Pieces like this drive my Gen-Y boyfriend crazy, but I enjoyed it. The author is five years older than I am, but from the same music/fashion subculture. So it's mostly fun as a nostalgia trip. The sociological analysis is more tongue in cheek. Slamming the boomers is as easy as it is common. He did make some interesting new (to me) points on the dot-com era, however, particularly in regards to the angle of whether a person who got rich overnight could really have sold out, and how that can redefine success and ambition.

From Doc Martens and Nirvana to YouTube and Stephen Colbert this book is a fun ride through the X-scape. A little nostalgic, a little hopeful, a lot fun

3.25 stars

How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking - I don't know, can we? I'm all for the smaller movements, of course, playing on the edges and gently steering people toward new ideas and paths, but do we Gen Xes actually have the voice loud enough to be heard over the Tweets? This book left me with more questions than answers to be honest.

Surprisingly good, and made me feel rather more typical/normal than I thought I was.

To quote a short passage, which in turn is Gordiner quoting activist Cameron Sinclair, "'The problem with the boomer generation,' Sinclair says, 'is they really believed in utopia. And utopia is dead.' ... 'Most people of my generation understand crisis, right?' Sinclair goes on. 'So when Al Gore comes out with *An Inconvenient Truth*, most of us, we're like, "Yeah, tell us something we don't know." We were *born with this*. We were born with AIDS. We were born with climate issues. We understand crisis. So we're pissed off, and we understand that utopia doesn't work.'"

Sigh.

Also reminds us that Obama is a Gen Xer (which had escaped me) who has "found a show more way to reconcile his ironic wariness with an impulse to save the world."

But I might be too full of "ironic wariness" to think he can do it. show less

I expected a lot out of this book and was pretty disappointed. As an Gen Xer myself, I somehow thought this book would speak to me, but in the end the book was as self-indulgent as Gordinier claims the other generations to be. I guess I just don't want anyone praising our generational cadre -- it's part of what makes us interesting