I am obsessed with Gen X angst. I believe that no generation of angsty young adults did it better than those post-Reagan/post-Thatcher 20-somethings in the early 1990s. This week, I watched two angsty British Gen Xer movies: Trainspotting and Naked. The former is much funnier than the latter, but they both convey that sense of aimlessness that many Gen Xers were experiencing at the time. I might stay on my side of the Atlantic and watch Clerks next. 

In some ways, Gen Z and Gen X have that hopelessness for the future in common. While Johnny was predicting the world would end on August 18, 1999, in Naked, we Gen Zers feel some certainty about our future being riddled with natural disasters and even more pandemics.  It’s a bleak way to look at the world, but if you’re Gen X, you luckily don’t have to live through it. You can look back on your childhood and young adulthood with these hilarious Gen X memes. Too dark? Maybe so.