“We're Going to Put Janeane Garofalo or Eddie Vedder in the White House”: The Legacy and Future of Generation X

Inside the Hive

Vanity Fair

News

4.2 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2022

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this special episode of Inside the Hive, three guests—Vanity Fair editor in chief Radhika Jones, writer and podcaster Molly Jong-Fast, and standup comic Patton Oswalt—discuss the cultural and political legacy of Generation X. Asks Hive cohost Joe Hagan: How has the slacker generation, once known for irony and ambivalence, weathered the 21st Century? The promise of ironic detachment may not have lasted, but Gen X-ers have become the last skeptics of the digital age. The generations that followed "introduced this 24/7 grind mentality,” says Oswalt, "where the people that wanted to live like little lives on the fringe, doing creative stuff, and making enough money to survive—those people are being pushed out…It's like if you're not grinding all the time, you should be wiped off the map. And that, to me, is really, really scary.” “We are skeptical of effort for effort's sake,” observes Jones. "So there's a way in which we're motivated by substance, and we're skeptical of anything that is not substantive.” Thirty years ago, Generation X celebrated what’s now being called “quiet quitting," but as some recent polling has shown, a large chunk of Americans born between 1965 and 1980 also leaned toward Donald Trump in recent elections—a perplexing data point. “We had this sort of belief that we were entitled to certain things,” surmises Jong-Fast. "And if you feel entitled to something, and mad and convinced that someone else has it, that can lead to Trumpism.” If nothing else, Gen X have always been superb at spitballing from the sidelines: “We are good critics,” says Jones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Inside the Hive. This is your co-host, Joe Hagan. Today, I have a very special
0:09.3	episode about a subject near and dear to my heart. Generation X. I say near and dear, but
0:15.9	I actually feel a little bit ambivalent about even calling myself Gen X because of course
0:20.1	that's what it means to be Gen X. It comes with air quotes, maybe an eye roll, at the
0:25.8	very idea of something as crass as being a part of a generational club that we didn't
0:31.0	ask to be a part of. But that is Generation X. So here we are, Generation X in the year
0:35.8	2022 at Mid-Life. It's been decades since the cliche of the slacker generation was invented.
0:43.9	So I wanted to talk about what happened to us, where we fit into these weird dimes we're
0:48.8	in. And to do that, I have three fantastic guests here to talk with me today and make me
0:54.7	feel at home with who I am. And that is Radika Jones, Editor-in-Chief of Vanity Fair.
1:01.6	I think this is your first time on this podcast, isn't that true? That might be the case,
1:06.7	Joe. I'm here for our generation. Thank you so much for coming on. We've got Molly
1:12.3	Jong Fast, a writer at Atlantic Magazine, and host of a brand new politics podcast, Fast
1:17.6	Politics Hello Molly. Hi, thanks for having me. This is very exciting and last, but certainly
1:23.8	not least Patton Oswald, actor, stand-up comedian. Hello. Thanks for having me on.
1:30.2	You're on right on the very day. We tape today on the day of your latest stand-up special
1:36.8	on Netflix. We all scream. Did I talk over you when you were giving my credits out? Oh
1:41.5	my God. Sorry. I jumped the gun. Yeah. Now we're erasing the entire part where we mention
1:46.7	your Netflix special. So forget it. It's okay. Gen X is not promotional.
1:53.5	Yeah, man. Hey, it's either word of mouth or nothing. That's right. That's right. We're
1:59.6	trying to be authentic here and bring the real deal. So the reason I wanted to talk about
2:06.1	Generation X was something I saw the novelist Gabe Hudson write on Twitter. He's always tweeting
	...

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