The thing I only realized about GenX this weekend is that our small numbers really influenced what we think of as cultural touchstones. Everything from Ghostbusters to D&D to Pearl Jam to TMNT took the world by storm partially because it was a smaller world.
@Leucrotta Huh. Peg and I were talking about the 80s indie comics boom and, quote "Turtles Money" the other day and now you've got me thinking about it in that context. Interesting...
"The underground becomes the establishment."
@xinjinmeng yeah but this was never really underground and does a batch of vague nerdy sacred cows count as cultural hegemony?
Things like D&D started small, but then got big. These days, there's a lot of effort spent to convince people that nothing new need be made.
By sheer chance I noticed this about when a friend was cranky about Ready Player One emphasizing *our* childhood shit. There’s nothing more sacred about it than my Grampa’s ERB and Dashiell Hammett pulp stories, my Dad’s surf movies and L Sprague Decamp/Lin Carter rereleases of REH, or how 5e and the MCU are huge now. You can’t live in nostalgia, that of itself gives you nothing.