49 Fun Facts About Gen X

Gen X is generally defined as people born between which years?

Pew's 1965-1980 range is the most widely used; the cohort numbered tens of millions of Americans in 2019.

Gen X sits between which two generations?

Gen X sits between the baby boomers (born 1946-1964) and millennials (born 1981-1996) in the Pew scheme, which places Gen X at 1965-1980.

Why were Gen X children nicknamed 'latchkey' kids?

Rising divorce rates and more working mothers, before widespread childcare, meant many let themselves in after school.

As teens and young adults, Xers were dubbed the what, after a cable music channel?

Gen X were dubbed the MTV Generation after the music channel that launched in August 1981, when the oldest Xers were in their mid-teens; they were also stereotyped as slackers.

What is the nationality of Douglas Coupland, author of the 1991 novel Generation X?

Douglas Coupland is Canadian: born on a Canadian air base in West Germany and raised in Vancouver, where he is also known as a visual artist.

Coupland took the 'X' from the final chapter of which book, not from Billy Idol's band?

Fussell's 'X' category were people who wanted off the merry-go-round of status and money.

Which photographer first used the phrase 'Gen X' in full as the title of a 1950s photo-essay?

Robert Capa titled a 1953 Magnum photo-essay 'Generation X', about young people coming of age just after World War II, the cohort now called the Silent Generation.

Authors Strauss and Howe split Gen X into two waves named after what?

In 13th Gen (1993) Strauss and Howe split their 1961-1981 cohort into an Atari wave (born 1961-1971) and a Nintendo wave (1972-1981), after the consoles each half grew up with.

Which nickname covers people born on the generational cusp, roughly 1977 to 1983?

Xennials, a blend of Gen X and millennials, covers those born roughly 1977-1983; Generation Jones is the name for late boomers of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

What was the first clip ever aired on MTV when it launched on 1 August 1981?

'Video Killed the Radio Star' by the Buggles went out at 12:01 a.m. on a channel launched by Warner-Amex and hosted by VJs.

How many teenagers from different cliques serve the Saturday detention in The Breakfast Club (1985)?

Five: a nerd, a jock, a loner, a popular girl and a delinquent, at Shermer High in Illinois.

Where was The Breakfast Club entirely filmed?

The Breakfast Club was shot entirely at the closed Maine North High School in Des Plaines, Illinois, in spring 1984; the library set was built inside the school's gymnasium.

Which of these was NOT directed by John Hughes?

Amy Heckerling directed Fast Times; Hughes did write Home Alone though.

Reality Bites, the 1994 Gen X touchstone, was the directing debut of whom?

Reality Bites was Ben Stiller's feature directing debut; he also plays the slick TV executive Michael, while Winona Ryder's Lelaina films a documentary about her disenchanted friends.

Nirvana's Nevermind knocked which album off the top of the US chart in January 1992?

Nevermind replaced Michael Jackson's Dangerous at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for the chart dated 11 January 1992, bringing grunge into the mainstream and hastening the end of hair metal.

What is on the cover of Nevermind?

The cover shows a naked baby, Spencer Elden, swimming toward a dollar bill on a fishhook; Cobain got the idea watching a TV programme about water births.

Which city's Sub Pop label was the centre of the early grunge scene?

Green River, the Melvins and Mudhoney came first; the term 'grunge' was used in a 1988 Sub Pop catalogue.

Kurt Cobain was born in which Washington town?

Kurt Cobain was born in Aberdeen, Washington, a logging town on Grays Harbor, on 20 February 1967; he died in Seattle in April 1994, aged 27.

Richard Linklater's 1990 film Slacker, which gave the era its label, was shot in which city?

Slacker was shot in Austin, Texas, Linklater's home city, for about $23,000; it drifts from one misfit to the next over a single day.

Which fictional grunge band does Matt Dillon front in Cameron Crowe's 1992 film Singles?

In Singles, Matt Dillon's Cliff Poncier fronts Citizen Dick, with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament as his bandmates; Stillwater is the band in Crowe's Almost Famous.

What was Atari's 1977 console originally called?

Atari's 1977 console launched as the Video Computer System (VCS) and was renamed the Atari 2600 in 1982; codenamed Stella, it shipped with joysticks, paddles and the game Combat.

The NES was released in Japan under what name?

In Japan the console launched in July 1983 as the Family Computer, or Famicom; the redesigned NES reached US test markets in October 1985, after the 1983 video game crash.

For Western markets the NES was redesigned to resemble what household object?

Designer Lance Barr styled the NES as a grey, front-loading box resembling a video cassette recorder, so retailers burned by the 1983 crash would see an entertainment appliance rather than a video game console.

Which company launched the Walkman portable cassette player in 1979?

Sony launched the Walkman (model TPS-L2) in Japan on 1 July 1979; it grew out of Sony's 'Pressman' recorder used by journalists, and 'Walkman' entered the OED in 1986.

The Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart how many seconds into its flight on 28 January 1986?

Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff on 28 January 1986; millions of schoolchildren watched live because teacher Christa McAuliffe was aboard.

What component failed and caused the Challenger disaster?

O-ring seals in the right solid rocket booster failed: record-low temperatures on launch morning had stiffened the rubber, letting hot gas burn through to the external tank.

On what date did the Berlin Wall fall?

The Wall opened on the night of 9 November 1989 after Günter Schabowski's botched press conference implied new travel rules applied immediately; 3 October 1990 is reunification day.

The Rubik's Cube was invented in 1974 by an architecture professor from which country?

Hungary's Ernő Rubik called it the Magic Cube; it went international in 1980.

Beverly Hills, 90210 followed twins Brandon and Brenda Walsh, who had moved from which city?

Brandon and Brenda Walsh moved with their parents from Minneapolis to Beverly Hills; Darren Star's series premiered in October 1990 and only took off during a special summer run in 1991.

Which network aired Beverly Hills, 90210?

Fox ran it for ten seasons; producer Aaron Spelling's daughter Tori was one of only four cast members to last the whole run.

What was Pac-Man called on its original 1980 Japanese release?

Pac-Man debuted in Japan as Puck Man (from 'paku-paku', the sound of munching); Midway renamed it for the US in case vandals altered the P. Designer Toru Iwatani wanted a game that appealed to women too.

Which company mass-produced Cabbage Patch Kids from 1983, sparking Christmas store frenzies?

Coleco licensed the dolls in 1982 and mass-produced them from 1983, sparking that Christmas's store riots; they grew out of Xavier Roberts' hand-made Little People, sold at Babyland General Hospital in Cleveland, Georgia.

Nickelodeon launched nationally on 1 April 1979 as what?

Nickelodeon launched on 1 April 1979 as the first cable channel for kids; it had begun as Pinwheel, a December 1977 test on Warner's QUBE cable system in Columbus, Ohio.

The 1985 version of The Oregon Trail, the classroom game, was made for which computer?

MECC's 1985 The Oregon Trail was written for the Apple II, the computer that dominated US classrooms; it re-imagined a text game written in 1971 for an eighth-grade history class.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began in 1984 as what?

The Turtles began as a 1984 comic book, a parody of Daredevil and Frank Miller's Ronin; Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird published the first issue through their own Mirage Studios.

The 1984 Transformers toy line was rebranded from which Japanese company's toys?

Hasbro licensed Takara's Diaclone and Micro Change toys in 1984 and rebranded them as Autobots and Decepticons for Western markets, with Marvel supplying the back-story.

What was the population of Gen X in the United States in 2019, by Census projections?

Census Bureau projections put Gen X at 65.2 million Americans in 2019, behind millennials (72.1 million) and boomers (71.6 million), the year millennials overtook boomers as the largest adult generation.

Which touring festival did Perry Farrell launch in 1991 as a Jane's Addiction farewell tour?

Lollapalooza began in 1991 as a farewell tour for Perry Farrell's Jane's Addiction and toured annually through 1997, mixing alternative rock, hip-hop and industrial acts; Warped Tour and Ozzfest followed in 1995 and 1996.

Which US president was shot outside the Washington Hilton on 30 March 1981?

Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr. outside the Washington Hilton on 30 March 1981, 69 days into his presidency, and recovered after surgery at George Washington University Hospital.

When did the NES get its full nationwide US launch?

After a New York test market in October 1985 and Los Angeles in early 1986, the NES went on sale nationwide in September 1986; the Super NES reached the US in August 1991.

Who produced Nevermind, giving Nirvana its polished, radio-friendly sound?

Butch Vig produced Nevermind at Sound City in Van Nuys in spring 1991, with Andy Wallace mixing; it was Dave Grohl's first Nirvana release, and Steve Albini produced the rawer In Utero.

What was the budget for recording Nevermind?

Nevermind was recorded on a budget of about $65,000 in May 1991; the band played Seattle's OK Hotel in April to earn gas money for the drive to Los Angeles.

Which of these was one of the four founding cast members to appear in every season of 90210?

Ian Ziering (Steve Sanders) stayed for all ten seasons, 1990-2000, alongside Jennie Garth, Tori Spelling and Brian Austin Green; Doherty left in 1994, Perry in 1995 and Priestley in 1998.

The Atari 2600's swappable cartridge format had first been used by which 1976 console?

The Fairchild Channel F, released in November 1976, was the first home console with swappable ROM cartridges; Atari's console followed in 1977, also sold by Sears as the Tele-Games Video Arcade.

Which 1994 Kevin Smith debut was made for about $27,000, financed partly on credit cards?

Clerks, Kevin Smith's 1994 debut, was shot in black and white at the Quick Stop in Leonardo, New Jersey, where he worked, for $27,575, partly funded by maxed-out credit cards.

In 1999 The New York Times dubbed entrepreneurial Gen Xers 'Generation' what?

Generation 1099: the Times' 1999 tag referred to IRS Form 1099, which reports self-employed income, rather than the W-2 wage form of salaried employees.

In which magazine did the phrase 'Generation X' first appear in print, in December 1952?

Holiday's December 1952 issue announced the coming photo-essay on youth growing up just after the Second World War that gave the phrase its first print appearance; the essay itself ran in 1953.

In 2019, Pew projected that Gen X would outnumber US baby boomers in which year?

2028 was Pew's projection: Gen X, born 1965 to 1980, was still smaller than the boomer cohort in 2019 but closing the gap as boomers aged, while millennials had already overtaken boomers that year.

Who wrote the 1964 book Generation X about British youth culture?

Jane Deverson's 1964 interviews with British teenagers, co-written with Charles Hamblett, became the book Generation X; Billy Idol later took its title for his punk band, and Coupland's 1991 novel revived it.