"People try to put us down...Talkin' 'bout my generation..."
This article, "Up With Grups", in last week's New York Magazine was a smug piece that labeled aging Gen X'ers as basically trying to resist getting older by wearing young clothes, having a lot of sneakers, putting rock tee-shirts on their kids, and listening to cool music...Just to sum it all up.
The term "grup", a contraction of the word, 'grownup' is an awful word, don't you think?! It sounds like some gross slug thing that you might find suctioned to your body when you've just waded through a river. If you're going to RE-LABEL a generation, specifically, MY generation...does it have to be so gauche sounding?
We were the generation thrown into the working world at the height of a recession, unable to find work, we were labeled as slackers, Generation X, also, ugh...grunge. We've been called lazy, and whiners, and were often "under-employed"...meaning magna cum laude chick with a degree in chemical engineering serving up fries at the local drive-thru cuz there was no job in her intended field...and now GRUPS??
The article itself, I felt, lacked focus and could have been cut down by 1/3rd in length...it sort of meandered back and forth between saying Grups were cool, to making the group out to be a bunch of inane, immature, anti-aging mongers...
So, what of it? Did it all add up to any important message? Not really...because singling out the entire age group as being this way could only come from the microcosmic view of one living in an urban dwelling, and let me tell you...there are very few people who look or act like that around these here parts. Most of the people my age that I have seen up here in eastbumblefuck dress more like dad than dude...I never see HotPops with messenger bags in Levi's and cool kicks jumping out of their shit-hot rides at the pick up line at school...I see polo shirts tucked waaaay into baggy 90's jeans, tightly belted mid-belly, with dorkReeboks and hairy arms climbing down from their minivans...that's what I see, I say! And the women? Well, they all look pretty much the same as the men, only their jeans are even higher waisted...CStink calls them, "momjeans", and boy is she right on with that one! I think she and I are two of the very few thong baring when we bend over to tie a shoe-jeans moms on campus...which are a dime a dozen in any shopping mall or urban setting...it's just not prevalent in our daily rotation....and, YES, I still wear my old rock tees...why just yesterday I wore my Quadrophenia tee-shirt...sure it's too short now, and rolled up over my big jelly bean belly, and the sleeves were cutting off the circulation in my porkchop arms...but I covered all the scary parts up with a sweater, all right?! Sheesh! Yeah, so I still wear it because I'm clinging onto my days when I was single and 113lbs., and attended rock shows and kissed cute boys and had no responsibilities whatsoever...NOT! I wore it because I love it...and by the way, I also had on a pair of the biggest maternity underwear you could possibly imagine because that's all that were left in my undie drawer because I need to do laundry... So, GRUP YOU!!!
PS -- CStink looked all yumma-mumma today at school in her cool jeans tucked into some kickass brown leather high heeled boots... She was probably making the dads in the school car pickup line drool puddles into the laps of their 90's jeans as she walked up to the building. She was with AFutureStinkMum, single and also stylin', so there was probably double the drool. I can just see it now...these dads get home from school and their wives look at them and say, "Honey, did you wet your pants?"
The term "grup", a contraction of the word, 'grownup' is an awful word, don't you think?! It sounds like some gross slug thing that you might find suctioned to your body when you've just waded through a river. If you're going to RE-LABEL a generation, specifically, MY generation...does it have to be so gauche sounding?
We were the generation thrown into the working world at the height of a recession, unable to find work, we were labeled as slackers, Generation X, also, ugh...grunge. We've been called lazy, and whiners, and were often "under-employed"...meaning magna cum laude chick with a degree in chemical engineering serving up fries at the local drive-thru cuz there was no job in her intended field...and now GRUPS??
The article itself, I felt, lacked focus and could have been cut down by 1/3rd in length...it sort of meandered back and forth between saying Grups were cool, to making the group out to be a bunch of inane, immature, anti-aging mongers...
So, what of it? Did it all add up to any important message? Not really...because singling out the entire age group as being this way could only come from the microcosmic view of one living in an urban dwelling, and let me tell you...there are very few people who look or act like that around these here parts. Most of the people my age that I have seen up here in eastbumblefuck dress more like dad than dude...I never see HotPops with messenger bags in Levi's and cool kicks jumping out of their shit-hot rides at the pick up line at school...I see polo shirts tucked waaaay into baggy 90's jeans, tightly belted mid-belly, with dorkReeboks and hairy arms climbing down from their minivans...that's what I see, I say! And the women? Well, they all look pretty much the same as the men, only their jeans are even higher waisted...CStink calls them, "momjeans", and boy is she right on with that one! I think she and I are two of the very few thong baring when we bend over to tie a shoe-jeans moms on campus...which are a dime a dozen in any shopping mall or urban setting...it's just not prevalent in our daily rotation....and, YES, I still wear my old rock tees...why just yesterday I wore my Quadrophenia tee-shirt...sure it's too short now, and rolled up over my big jelly bean belly, and the sleeves were cutting off the circulation in my porkchop arms...but I covered all the scary parts up with a sweater, all right?! Sheesh! Yeah, so I still wear it because I'm clinging onto my days when I was single and 113lbs., and attended rock shows and kissed cute boys and had no responsibilities whatsoever...NOT! I wore it because I love it...and by the way, I also had on a pair of the biggest maternity underwear you could possibly imagine because that's all that were left in my undie drawer because I need to do laundry... So, GRUP YOU!!!
PS -- CStink looked all yumma-mumma today at school in her cool jeans tucked into some kickass brown leather high heeled boots... She was probably making the dads in the school car pickup line drool puddles into the laps of their 90's jeans as she walked up to the building. She was with AFutureStinkMum, single and also stylin', so there was probably double the drool. I can just see it now...these dads get home from school and their wives look at them and say, "Honey, did you wet your pants?"
posted by AStinkmum at 8:35 AM
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