meirwen_1988

...started with a thunder bumper and the exit of the Bartlett administration.

I find myself missing the rain--the grey wet is depressing--the rain was like a wonderful blanket insulating me from the world.

Soon it is to grade papers I go, let the puppies run for a few hours before they go to the kennel, then pack for Pax.

Apropos of nothing, this morning I saw a headline that claimed that the two celebrity deaths yesterday marked "A Sad Day for Generation X." The headline puzzled me then, as it does now. I have lived for almost 2 decades in a house where the birth years are separated by 7--the elder from the tail end of the Baby Boom, the younger from the beginning of the Gen X era. Actually, more of my friends are Gen X than BB. And I have a hefty group that are Gen Y (but don't tell my students--it would ruin my old-foggy cred). And I've talked to them about art, and pop culture, and and and...

Michael and Farrah were Boomers, so I'm not sure why this is particularly a Gen X loss. Maybe it's the whole "older sib" thing. Maybe. But frankly, I'm at a loss to understand it. And yes, I listened compulsively to MJ's Off the Wall and Thriller, and loved Farrah's seasons of Angels. Yes, in Michael we lost a talent of amazing ability (flaws and all), and it shakes the foundations of certainty any time an iconic figure (oh, go ahead, tell me that Farrah wasn't iconic) dies, let alone two in one day. But I'm really having trouble with that headline.

Of course, all the ruminating could just be trying to avoid grading. *Sigh*

Yeah, yeah, I'm going.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mmmm, I think I see. It's not "particularly a Gen X loss" in terms of us loosing one of our own, but in terms of the death of faces that were displayed around us for our whole lifetimes. Icons are not people, they are more like brands. It is very different from how the murder of President Kennedy affected his own generation. It's not how the death of Madonna would affect Gen X if it happened at this time.

"Farrah Fawcett" and "Michael Jackson" are not names that represent people to Gen X, they are names that represent specific images and markets. One represented a cultural standard of beauty and fashion marketing, the other represented a standard of music and performance marketing. These were brands that were created and displayed to us and their loss does not represent the loss of a human soul, but a rather firm signal that what was once perceived passively as an everlasting constant is just as ephemeral as a carnival goldfish.

I could be completely wrong about this, but it's what I'm thinking after reading up on this article:
http://www.abanet.org/lpm/lpt/articles/mgt08044.html

You grade some more papers, I'll keep studying on this issue. You can give me an informal quiz tomorrow.

I think they are counting on the basis of the age of the people whose formative years were shaped by the two. MJ and FF had a powerful effect on the youth of the 70's and 80's--They all wanted to dance like Michael and the girls wanted to look like Farrah(and the boys wanted to be seen with a girl who looked like Farrah).

You had every high school and junior high school full of kids talking about Michael Jackson. He got played at dances. When I got to BYU, he was considered acceptable for play by school standards--wasn't potty mouthed and vulgar.

So yeah, I think everyone is going to feel this loss. I don't think that he belongs to a single generation, tho.

I agree with Keastree, I was 12 when Thriller was released, and I listened to it on my Sony Walkman on the bus home from school. MJ and Toni Basil were the dance gods. I remember Charlie's Angels, of course,but at 7 I think was a little too young to "get" it.

Why yes, I was conceived on Valentines Day, 1969 and born 9 months and 3 days later. I reckon that makes me about as Gen X as they come but strangely, even with the loss of both on the same day, I'm not devastated.

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Today

people try to put us down (talkin' 'bout my generation)

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