Where Gen X comes from

Matthew Alice: I was told “Gen. X” meant the 10th generation since the USA began. Others say no. What is its meaning? .. — B.J. Nobles, San Diego

You’ve been hangin’ out with discount know-it-alls, B.J. “Generation X,” generally applied to those born between 1965 and ’76, designates a group of disillusioned youth, perhaps also directionless and devoid of vision or ambition. See Richard Linklater’s movie Slacker. A generation is usually defined as a group united by some shared identity. Only secondarily is it defined as a period of roughly 20 years. So the X in Gen. X refers to, well — nothing, a void, and not to the number 10. Unlike their predecessors (the Beat/Silent/Me Generations, hippies, boomers, yuppies, war babies, etc.), Xers are somewhat undefinable. But that’s their shared identity. The term was popularized by the 1991 novel of the same name by Canadian sculptor/author Douglas Coupland, who now disavows the term and its popular definitions, saying he actually adapted it from a book by a social scientist; and besides, we all misunderstood what he meant by it anyway, so he’d just as soon we’d drop it and maybe buy his newest novel instead.