99 Fun Facts About Gen X

Before the name Gen X stuck, what was the cohort born from 1965 commonly called?

Baby busters: births fell once the post-war boom ended in 1964, so the smaller cohort now dated 1965 to 1980 was named for the baby bust; 'Gen X' caught on only after Douglas Coupland's 1991 novel.

Which nickname did a 1985 New York magazine cover story give Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe and their young co-stars?

The Brat Pack was coined by writer David Blum, sent to profile Emilio Estevez alone; a night out with Estevez, Rob Lowe and Judd Nelson at the Hard Rock Cafe turned his article into a group portrait.

Why were Gen X children nicknamed 'latchkey' kids?

They came home to empty houses: with divorce rising and more mothers in paid work, many children let themselves in after school with a door key, often worn on a string round the neck.

As teens and young adults, Gen Xers were dubbed which generation, after a cable channel?

MTV Generation stuck as the channel grew up alongside them: its 1982 'I Want My MTV' adverts had rock stars such as Mick Jagger urge viewers to phone their cable companies and demand it.

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, he wrote a Vancouver Magazine article about his own age group that grew into the novel.

In 1995 Douglas Coupland said his novel's 'X' came from the final chapter of which book?

Class, by Paul Fussell, ends with 'category X': people who step off the treadmill of status and money. Coupland gave this origin in 1995, though in 1989 he had credited the name of Billy Idol's punk band.

Which photographer first used 'Generation X' 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.

Which 1982 film inspired the rushed Atari game whose unsold cartridges were buried in a New Mexico landfill?

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was turned into an Atari game in about five weeks for Christmas 1982; the burial of unsold copies was treated as an urban legend until a 2014 dig at Alamogordo found them.

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

Xennials, a blend of Gen X and millennials, are described as having had an analogue childhood and a digital adulthood; the name was coined in a 2014 magazine article.

What was the first clip aired by America's new 24-hour music channel on 1 August 1981?

'Video Killed the Radio Star' by the Buggles opened the channel at 12:01 a.m.; for all its later reach, the new service could at first be seen only in parts of New Jersey.

Which song closes The Breakfast Club?

'Don't You (Forget About Me)' was written for the film, but Simple Minds at first refused to record a song they hadn't written, and Bryan Ferry also turned it down; it then gave the band a US number one.

The Breakfast Club's library was a set built inside which part of a closed Illinois high school?

The gymnasium of Maine North High in Des Plaines housed the set: the school had closed in 1981, and its real library was judged too small, so the crew built a larger copy in the gym.

Which of these 1980s comedies was directed by Amy Heckerling rather than John Hughes?

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) was Amy Heckerling's first feature, from a script by Cameron Crowe, who had posed as a pupil at a San Diego high school for a year to research it.

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

Ben Stiller got the job after the producers saw the pilot of his TV sketch show; that series was cancelled, then won a writing Emmy in 1993, months before Reality Bites opened.

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 dated 11 January 1992; its label had hoped it might sell 250,000 copies, as Sonic Youth's Goo had.

What is pictured on the cover of Nirvana's album Nevermind?

A baby swimming toward a dollar bill on a fishhook fronts the album; the infant was Spencer Elden, and Cobain said the idea came to him while watching a TV programme about water births.

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

Seattle's Sub Pop, founded by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, released early Nirvana and Soundgarden records; in 1989 it flew a Melody Maker journalist over from Britain to write up the local scene.

Kurt Cobain was born in which Washington town?

Kurt Cobain was born in Aberdeen, Washington, a logging town on Grays Harbor, in 1967; in 2005 the town put up a sign reading 'Welcome to Aberdeen - Come As You Are' in tribute.

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

Slacker was shot around Austin, Texas, for about $23,000; Kevin Smith has said that seeing it on his 21st birthday made him decide to become a film-maker.

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

Citizen Dick is the band fronted by Matt Dillon's Cliff Poncier; his bandmates are played by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, and most of Dillon's wardrobe was borrowed from Ament.

What was Atari's 1977 console originally called?

Atari's console launched in 1977 as the Video Computer System and became the Atari 2600 only in 1982, when the Atari 5200 arrived; its prototype was codenamed Stella, after an engineer's bicycle.

The NES was released in Japan under what name?

Family Computer (Famicom) was the console's Japanese name from July 1983; Nintendo recalled the first machines over a faulty chip, then saw the relaunched model become Japan's best-selling console by the end of 1984.

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

A video cassette recorder was the model: Nintendo of America's Lance Barr and Don James gave it a two-tone grey case, and a front slot hides the cartridge, to help it into shops wary of consoles after the 1983 crash.

Which company launched the Walkman portable cassette player in 1979?

Sony built the Walkman after co-founder Masaru Ibuka asked for something lighter to play music on long flights: engineers reworked the Pressman, a small recorder used by journalists, into a playback-only stereo player.

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; many American schools were showing the launch 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.

The Berlin Wall opened after an East German spokesman wrongly said new travel rules applied when?

Immediately: asked when the rules began, Günter Schabowski leafed through his notes and said they applied at once; they were meant for the next day, but crowds reached the checkpoints that night.

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

Hungary's Ernő Rubik built his 'Magic Cube' in 1974 and then needed about a month to solve his own puzzle; Ideal Toy renamed it Rubik's Cube for its worldwide launch 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 aired all ten seasons from 1990 to 2000 and built on the hit with the 1992 spin-off Melrose Place, whose first episode borrowed several of the original's regulars.

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

Puck Man became Pac-Man for the US for fear that vandals would change the P to an F; designer Toru Iwatani had set out to make a game that would draw women into arcades.

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

Coleco mass-produced a cheaper version of Xavier Roberts' hand-stitched 'Little People', dolls that buyers adopted with papers rather than bought; it still went bankrupt in 1988, and Hasbro took over the line.

Which children's channel grew out of Pinwheel, a 1977 test on an interactive cable system in Columbus, Ohio?

Nickelodeon began as Pinwheel on Warner's QUBE system; its trademark green slime came from an imported sketch show, You Can't Do That on Television, which poured it over its young cast.

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, which MECC bought in bulk and resold to schools; it re-imagined a text game that three student teachers wrote in 1971 for an eighth-grade history class.

Which franchise began in 1984 as a self-published comic book parodying Marvel's Daredevil?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began when Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird used a tax refund and a loan from Eastman's uncle to print their first issue; the cartoon followed in 1987 and the toys in 1988.

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

Hasbro licensed Takara's Diaclone and Micro Change robot toys, relaunched them in 1984 as Autobots and Decepticons, and hired Marvel Comics to invent their back-story.

Gen X was dubbed America's neglected what by Pew Research in 2014?

Middle child was Pew's 2014 label for Gen X: about 65 million Americans wedged between two bigger generations, a gap Pew put down partly to their parents' low birth rates.

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

Lollapalooza toured North America each summer until 1997 and again in 2003; after its 2004 tour was cancelled over weak ticket sales, it was reborn in 2005 as a fixed festival in Chicago's Grant Park.

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

Ronald Reagan was hit by a bullet that ricocheted off his limousine; John Hinckley Jr. had hoped the shooting would impress actress Jodie Foster. Before surgery Reagan joked that he hoped his doctors were Republicans.

Tetris, the falling-blocks puzzle game of the 1980s, was created by a programmer working in which country?

Soviet Union: Alexey Pajitnov wrote Tetris at a Moscow computing centre of the Academy of Sciences, and despite its worldwide success he earned no royalties until he co-founded The Tetris Company in 1996.

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

Butch Vig, later the drummer of Garbage, produced Nevermind in 1991; when Cobain balked at double-tracking his vocals, Vig won him over by pointing out that John Lennon had done it.

Nirvana recorded Nevermind at which Los Angeles studio, later the subject of a Dave Grohl documentary?

Sound City, in Van Nuys, stopped taking outside clients in 2011 and sold its gear; Dave Grohl bought the studio's Neve mixing desk and directed the 2013 documentary Sound City about the place.

Which of these original 90210 stars stayed in the main cast for all ten seasons?

Ian Ziering played Steve Sanders in all ten seasons, one of only four regulars to last the whole run; born in 1964, he was 26 when the series began with him playing a high-school student.

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

Fairchild Channel F reached shops in November 1976 with swappable ROM cartridges called Videocarts; Atari, short of money to finish its own cartridge console, was sold to Warner Communications that same year.

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

Clerks was shot at the New Jersey convenience store where Kevin Smith worked, at night after closing, which is why its shutters are jammed shut in the story; he sold his comic collection to help fund it.

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.

Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' took its title from graffiti that referred to what kind of product?

A deodorant: Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill wrote 'Kurt smells like Teen Spirit' on Cobain's wall, meaning the brand his girlfriend wore; he took it for a rebel slogan and learned the truth only after the single came out.

Which 1985 benefit concert was staged on one day in both London and Philadelphia for Ethiopian famine relief?

Live Aid filled Wembley Stadium and Philadelphia's JFK Stadium on 13 July 1985; Phil Collins played both, crossing the Atlantic by Concorde between sets.

Before the DeLorean was chosen, early drafts of Back to the Future made the time machine out of what?

A refrigerator carried Marty in the first draft, strapped to a truck and driven into a Nevada atomic test; the DeLorean replaced it partly so a 1950s family could mistake it for a UFO.

Nirvana's breakthrough single Smells Like Teen Spirit took its title from a brand of which everyday product?

Deodorant inspired the title: Kathleen Hanna wrote on Kurt Cobain's wall that he smelled of Teen Spirit, and he mistook the brand name for a revolutionary slogan.

Which candy lures the alien in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, a role that the makers of M&M's had turned down?

Reese's Pieces sales soared after the 1982 release, though Hershey paid nothing for the scene: it agreed to promote the film with $1 million of advertising instead.

Which reformulated cola did Coca-Cola launch in April 1985, only to bring back the original recipe 79 days later?

New Coke had beaten the old recipe in taste tests, but the company took more than 40,000 angry calls and letters before the original returned as Coca-Cola Classic.

Which band's 1981 hit Start Me Up did Microsoft use to launch Windows 95, in a nod to the Start button?

The Rolling Stones soundtracked a launch so hyped that the Empire State Building in New York was lit up in the colours of the Windows logo.

Which 1975 Queen single climbed to number two in the US in 1992 after a head-banging car scene in Wayne's World?

Bohemian Rhapsody had stalled at number nine in America in 1976, so a comedy about two public-access metalheads took it seven places higher.

Which drummer played Live Aid in both London and Philadelphia on one day in 1985 by flying Concorde?

Phil Collins sang at Wembley, flew from Heathrow to New York, then drummed in Philadelphia for Eric Clapton and the surviving members of Led Zeppelin.

Which movie-rental chain, founded in Dallas in 1985, turned down a chance to buy Netflix for $50 million in 2000?

Blockbuster ran more than 9,000 stores at its 2004 peak, yet it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010 as the mail-order upstart it had declined kept growing.

Tetris, the falling-block puzzle that hooked Gen X, was created in the mid-1980s by a researcher in which country?

Soviet Union researcher Alexey Pajitnov built Tetris in his spare time at an Academy of Sciences computing centre, naming it after 'tetra' and his favourite sport, tennis.

In June 1994, around 95 million viewers watched police slowly pursue O.J. Simpson in which white vehicle?

Ford Bronco footage pulled TV stations away from a game of the NBA Finals, as Al Cowlings drove Simpson back to his Brentwood estate.

Which 1975 craze, dreamed up in a bar by ad man Gary Dahl, came in a ventilated box with straw bedding?

Pet Rock buyers got nothing but an ordinary stone, yet Dahl sold nearly 1.5 million of them at just under $4 each and became a millionaire.

Douglas Coupland's novel Generation X popularised which slang word for low-paid, dead-end service work?

McJob made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, and in 2007 the UK arm of McDonald's planned a public petition to get the unflattering definition changed.

Which sitcom gave the 1990s 'The Rachel', a layered haircut that stylist Chris McMillan created for one of its leads?

Friends actress Jennifer Aniston debuted the cut in the first season, yet she has said she dislikes it because it was so hard to maintain without her stylist.

The Simpsons began in 1987 as a run of animated shorts on which sketch comedy series?

The Tracey Ullman Show carried 48 Simpsons shorts over three seasons before the characters were given a half-hour prime-time series of their own.

Which gull-winged sports car, built in Northern Ireland, became Doc Brown's time machine in Back to the Future?

DeLorean panels were left as unpainted brushed stainless steel, a choice made mainly to get round a problem with painting the body.

KITT, the talking car David Hasselhoff drove in Knight Rider, was a modified 1982 model of which car?

Pontiac Trans Am bodywork gave KITT its sleek black look, and the name was short for Knight Industries Two Thousand.

Which rock band teamed up with Run-DMC to remake its own 1975 song Walk This Way as a rap crossover hit?

Aerosmith's singer and lead guitarist both performed on the remake, which reached number four and outcharted the original's peak of number ten.

Which 1983 cartoon about Prince Adam of Eternia did Mattel commission to promote a toy line it already sold?

He-Man reached television only after US regulators relaxed a ban on toy-based children's programming, and it became the first syndicated show based on a toy.

Which director proposed the PG-13 rating after his 1984 adventure Temple of Doom drew complaints about violence?

Steven Spielberg was also executive producer of Gremlins that summer, and the first film released with the new in-between rating was the war drama Red Dawn.

Which actress fuelled the 1980s aerobics craze with a best-selling Workout tape and her ballet-style leg warmers?

Jane Fonda's 1982 tape was the first non-theatrical home release to top sales charts, and her exercise series went on to sell 17 million copies.

Which company unveiled Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 as a speedy mascot to rival Mario?

Sega held an in-house contest to find its mascot, and programmer Yuji Naka, a Super Mario Bros. fan, built the game around speed because he wanted something faster.

Which pop duo had their 1990 Best New Artist Grammy revoked after it emerged that they never sang on their records?

Milli Vanilli were the faces for studio singers hired by producer Frank Farian, whose earlier act Boney M also had a frontman miming to another voice.

Which Saturday-morning series of animated musical shorts taught American kids grammar, maths and civics from 1973?

Schoolhouse Rock! began when an advertising executive noticed that his son could memorise pop lyrics but struggled with his multiplication tables.

Which Sesame Street shopkeeper's death was explained to Big Bird in a landmark episode shown on Thanksgiving Day 1983?

Mr. Hooper actor Will Lee had died in 1982, and the producers took expert advice on telling young viewers instead of dropping the character without explanation.

Which Beatles recording returned to the US chart in 1986 after Ferris Bueller mimed it on a Chicago parade float?

Twist and Shout climbed to number 23 on the Hot 100, helped by a second comedy, Back to School, in which Rodney Dangerfield sang it as well.

Whose song In Your Eyes plays from the boombox John Cusack holds above his head in Say Anything...?

Peter Gabriel's ballad was a late replacement for a Fishbone track, and Cusack at first refused to film the pose because he found it too theatrical.

Which nickname did a 1985 magazine cover story give young film actors such as Emilio Estevez and Rob Lowe?

Brat Pack headlined a story by writer David Blum, who set out to profile Emilio Estevez alone and widened the piece after a night out with him and other young actors.

Which painkiller brand was recalled in 1982 after cyanide-laced capsules fatally poisoned seven people near Chicago?

Tylenol's poisoning scare ended powder-filled capsules for over-the-counter medicines and led to packaging reforms and federal anti-tampering laws.

Which fantasy role-playing game, created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, was linked to Satanism in a 1980s moral panic?

Dungeons & Dragons was accused of encouraging devil worship and suicide, and its fans faced social ostracism regardless of their actual beliefs.

Which skateboarder landed the first documented 900, two and a half mid-air spins, at the 1999 X Games?

Tony Hawk landed it after the contest's regulation time had already run out, and he pulled the trick off again in 2016 at the age of 48.

Which company sold the DynaTAC 8000X, the 1983 'brick' that was the first commercial handheld mobile phone?

Motorola's Martin Cooper led the team behind the handset, and in 1973 he made the first public handheld call from a Manhattan sidewalk to his rival at Bell Labs.

Britain's Generation X has been dubbed the 'children' of which prime minister, in office from 1979 to 1990?

Margaret Thatcher was the 20th century's longest-serving British prime minister, and a UK research council used the label for a cohort raised amid social flux.

Germany's Gen X is sometimes called Generation Golf, after a bestseller named for which carmaker's hatchback?

Volkswagen built the Golf that this cohort was expected to buy model after model, and author Florian Illies cast them as apolitical, brand-conscious consumers.

Which label did commentator Jonathan Pontell coin for the in-between cohort born just ahead of Gen X?

Generation Jones plays on keeping up with the Joneses and on the slang 'jonesing', a craving, for a cohort raised on big expectations that soured in the 1970s.

Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe gave Gen X which numbered name, counting generations since American independence?

13th Generation was shortened to '13ers' in the pair's 1993 book about the cohort, whose members were then teenagers and young adults.

Which US state passed the first no-fault divorce law in 1969, just as Gen X children were being born?

California's new law took effect on New Year's Day 1970, and Gen X grew up as American divorce rates kept climbing toward a peak.

Complaining that pollsters overlook Generation X, a 2014 Pew Research report called it America's neglected what?

Middle child fitted, Pew argued, because Gen X is bookended by two much larger cohorts and forms a low-key bridge between them on most measures.

At which European physics laboratory was Tim Berners-Lee working when he invented the World Wide Web?

CERN drew physicists from around the world who needed to share data without common machines or software, the problem the web was built to solve.

Which trading-card company launched Garbage Pail Kids in 1985 as a gross-out send-up of Cabbage Patch Kids?

Topps consultant Art Spiegelman, the cartoonist, dreamed up the stickers, and the owners of the dolls sued for trademark infringement in 1986.

Which toy company, caught short by Star Wars in 1977, sold mail-in certificates for action figures at Christmas instead?

Kenner signed its licence too late to stock shelves, so its Early Bird Certificate Package could be mailed in and redeemed for four figures.

France's early Gen Xers are nicknamed Génération Bof, after a French interjection that roughly means what in English?

Whatever is the usual translation of the shrugging 'bof', and in France the label Generation X itself is not as widely known or used.

Which senator's wife co-founded the Parents Music Resource Center, whose 1985 campaign put warning labels on albums?

Tipper Gore and three other 'Washington Wives' founded the group, and Frank Zappa, Dee Snider and John Denver all testified at the Senate hearing it prompted.

Which band's 1985 album Brothers in Arms was the first to sell a million copies on compact disc?

Dire Straits made it as a full digital recording when most pop was still taped on analogue gear, and its CD went on to outsell its LP version.

In the Dallas cliffhanger resolved in front of 83 million American viewers, who was revealed to have shot J.R. Ewing?

Kristin Shepard, his sister-in-law and mistress, pulled the trigger, and about three in four American televisions in use that night were tuned to the reveal.

Which 1983 TV film showing a nuclear strike on Kansas drew roughly 100 million American viewers on its first broadcast?

The Day After reached nearly 39 million households on ABC, a record audience for a made-for-TV movie, with much of its action set in the college town of Lawrence.

Which short-lived 1994 soft drink did Coca-Cola aim at a cynical Generation X with deliberately downbeat advertising?

OK Soda courted the cohort with neo-noir can designs, chain letters and deliberately negative publicity, but the drink was soon discontinued.

Pearl Jam first performed under the name of which NBA point guard, before being forced to change it?

Mookie Blaylock stayed part of the band's story after the rename, because the debut album Ten was titled after his jersey number.

Douglas Coupland's novel Generation X follows three young storytellers living in which desert resort city?

Palm Springs sits in the Coachella Valley, where narrator Andy lives alongside Dag and Claire and tends bar for a living.

Which singer's Reality Bites soundtrack hit Stay made her the first artist to top the US chart without a record deal?

Lisa Loeb got her break because her neighbour, the actor Ethan Hawke, passed a tape of the song to the director while the film was being made.

Which author's debut novel Less than Zero, about jaded Los Angeles rich kids, is named after an Elvis Costello song?

Bret Easton Ellis published it as a 21-year-old student at Bennington College, and its narrator Clay is home from college for the winter break.

Which company did Gen Xers Larry Page and Sergey Brin incorporate in a rented Menlo Park garage in 1998?

Google paid $1,700 a month for the garage, whose owner Susan Wojcicki went on to become chief executive of YouTube.