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Woman describes how Gen X did Halloween in the 80s and it’s so accurate

"Every single member of Gen X can smell this photo."

Photo credit: ~ tOkKa/Flickr

Halloween costumes in the 80s were terrifyingly terrible.

Halloween has come a long way since the 70s and 80s, when Gen X kids donned the worst mass-produced costumes known to man to go out and ask strangers for candy that we were sure was laced with poison or razor blades. Those sure were good times, though, weren't they? Social media creator Kelly Manno shared a video describing what Halloween was like for kids who grew up in "the forgotten generation," and holy moly is it accurate.

First, Manno showed a photo of someone dressed in an "80s costume" for Halloween, with neon colors and legwarmers and big hair, and said, "Absolutely nobody looked like that in the 80s, especially on Halloween. We looked like this."

Then she showed a grainy photo of kids in the plastic masks and poorly printed costumes that were the hallmark of the age.

"Every single member of Gen X can smell this photo," she said. "It's like a vinyl, like plasticky paint smell."


Manno explained that our parents only took a few photos of us per year, and Halloween was always one of them.

"You knew, before you went out trick-or-treating, that you had to line up with your cousins in front of the fireplace, in your highly flammable costumes, with your mom chain-smoking Virginia Slims, like, 'Say trick-or-treat!'"

Oh, those masks were the worst inventions ever. The eyeholes never lined up properly, so you were constantly trying to adjust them to be able to see even a little bit. "We would push our tongue through the slit in the mask. It would cut our tongue, but then we'd keep doing it again because we were eaten up with OCD and ADD and nobody cared."

Then Manno described the "garbage bag costumes" we had, which were basically trash bags printed with whatever character it was supposed to be. So janky. So sweaty. So crinkly when we walked. But somehow still socially preferable to your mom making your costume from scratch.

via GIPHY


"Look at us, we were terrifying," Manno concludes. "No wonder people tried to poison us."

Her descriptions of what it felt like to trick-or-treat in those costumes and haul our own bodyweight in candy are spot on, and people who lived it are feeling the nostalgia.

"So much truth in one video! 😂 I just saw, heard, and smelled my childhood."

"You are literally making me laugh so damn hard, cause you described it exactly as it was, but my mom smoked Winston's!"

"It was always freezing on Halloween that the vinyl/plastic suit would crack and tear halfway through the night."

"Or the rubber band breaking at the second house and you had to hold it up on your face at the door the rest of the night. 😂 Good times."

"The tongue thing is on point. I can still feel it. 😂"

"I can totally smell that picture lol. I remember the steam from inside the mask would have your lashes and eyebrows covered in dew then after a couple streets of running house to house the crotch would tear out. We would stay out until everybody turned their lights off and the pillow case was full."

"Yes!!!! And we used a pillow case for our candy. And no adult supervision."

"My mom made me really nice homemade costumes, but I remember begging for the plastic Strawberry Shortcake garbage bag one. So, she bought it for me one year. That was a terrible, sweaty experience. 😂"

"Let’s not forget having to inspect every piece of candy for razor blades. I swear I lost half my haul to my father in that clean up. 🍬 🍫 😢"

Kids these days have no idea, with their official city trick-or-treat hours and their parents walking around with them and their costumes that actually look like the thing they're trying to be. The 70s and 80s were a wild time, and as funny as it is to reminisce about those Halloweens of old, most of us would agree that the experience has been much improved for our own kids.

Pillowcases still make the best trick-or-treat bags, though. Some things do not change.

This article originally appeared last year.

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Joy

Five Gen X values from the ’90s that can save today’s world

We're bringing "whatever" back.

via Unsplash

A mix tape from 1992.

A few weeks ago I came across an article about a kid who watches television at 1.5x speed so he can cram as much viewing in as he can. It seemed that his unquenchable desire to get through shows in the Golden Age of television meant he’d sacrifice the entertainment value of the show just to get to the end.

“Man, this guy would have been crucified in 1993,” I thought.

As a 45-year-old card-carrying member of Generation X (those born between 1965 and 1979), I remembered a time when nobody bragged about the amount of TV they watched. In fact, they bragged about not owning a TV. “I don't watch TV, man,” people would say. “It only exists to sell you stuff.”

This complete reversal on the social acceptance of gluttonous TV viewing made me wonder what happened to the values we were raised on as Gen Xers? We were taught that sincerity was for simpletons, everything corporate is evil, old school is always better than the latest and greatest, authenticity is king, conformity is death and there is nothing worse than being a sell-out or a poser.

Nobody would have ever referred to themselves as an “influencer” in 1991—that’s the definition of a sell-out.

“After writing this book, I’m back in the mindset of ’90s thinking, which is that nothing is worse than selling out,” Chuck Klosterman, author of “The Nineties: A Book,” told Esquire. “Nothing was more embarrassing in the ’90s than trying to convince people to like the thing you made."

Deep inside the heart of almost every Gen Xer is a deep-seated feeling of nihilism. We didn’t trust the corporations that laid off our parents or gutted their pensions in the ’80s. In fact, everything corporate was predatory. We didn’t have a lot of faith in family values because we were the first generation raised by single parents or in daycare. We didn’t care much about politics either. Back in the ’90s, Gen X’s aversion to politics was historic.

Of course, these are all generalities about a generation of nearly about 65 million people, but studies show that there are some definite hallmarks of being a Gen Xer.


According to a generational differences document circulated through the business community, Gen X’s core values are “skepticism,” “fun” and “informality.” They’re described as “self-reliant,” “independent,” “unimpressed with authority” and motivated by “freedom.”

In the young Gen Xer, the culture of the era “instilled a wariness and skepticism, and a kind of ‘figure it out for yourself’ mindset,” Paul Taylor, author of “The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown” told The Washington Post. And with that came a sense “that you don’t have to shine a light on yourself. You’re not the center of the universe.”

But things have changed since the ’90s when Gen X was coming of age. We live in an American culture that is fractured by political partisanship, fueled by a constant culture of outrage, crippled by a preoccupation with technology, plundered by greedy boomers and annoyed by overly sensitive millennials. All of this is happening while we face the greatest challenge of our times, climate change.

The answer to all of these problems is simple: admit that Gen X at one point had it right and if we followed its lead, we could reverse these terrible trends. OK, it might not fix all of our woes, but the way things are going now surely aren’t working. Plus, weren’t the ’90s great?

Also, with hat in hand, I must admit that this message is for Gen Xers as well. Many of us have lost our way by forgetting our disdain for authority and skepticism toward institutions. This is a call for us to remember what we once stood for and to fight back by doing what we do best—staying above the fray.

Gen X, it’s time to strap on your Dr. Martens boots and get back to fighting the “Battle of Who Could Care Less.” It’s time we collectively got our “whatever” back and showed the other generations how powerful dismissiveness can be.

Here are the top five Gen X values that we need to embrace again.

5.  Buying vintage items

Nothing was less hip in the early ’90s than wearing mall clothes. If you had any style you shopped at a thrift store and bought used duds from the ’70s and early ’80s and remixed them into something awesome. If you were into hip-hop or skating you shopped at the surplus store and rocked some super-durable Dickies or Carhartt gear. The mood of the times was totally anti-fashion. These days, we live in a world where fast fashion is killing the environment. By embracing the Gen X value of old-school cool, we can help the planet while looking much more fashionable in the process.

4. Corporate skepticism

In the early 2000s, people fell head-over-heels in love with smartphone technology and social media so quickly that nobody stopped and said, “Hey, wait a minute!” Now, we have a world where kids are depressed, the culture has become divided and nobody talks to each other in public anymore, they just stare at their phones. I can totally understand why young millennials and Luddite boomers would fall for the big-tech ruse, but sadly, Gen X was asleep at the wheel and fell victim, too. The generation that embraced the notion that TV rotted your brain needs to remind everyone to go outside and play in the sunshine or read a book. And if you read a book it should be by Bret Easton Ellis.

3. Just say “whatever”

Two of the most popular Gen X phrases were “whatever” and “talk to the hand (because the face don’t give a damn).” These may seem to be flippant responses but they are the correct way to deal with other people’s nonsense and in 2022, we have to deal with a constant barrage of it.

Somewhere along the way, people forgot that it’s even more powerful to ignore someone than to admit they got under your skin. In the world of social media, we unintentionally amplify the most wretched voices by subtweeting, commenting and liking the posts from the army of grifters fighting for our attention.

We also live in an era where many seem to be addicted to outrage. The quickest way to stop fanning the flames of outrage is with a simple, “whatever.” Like dogs distracted by squirrels, we’ve got our heads on outrage swivels these days. Throwing around the occasional “whatever” gives us the time and energy to focus on the problems that really matter and take action.

These days “whatever” matters more than ever.

2. Bring back snobbery

Good taste used to matter. In the 2000s, millennials decided that people have the right to like what they like and that it’s worse to judge someone’s personal taste than to have bad taste. Gen Xers based their entire personalities on taste and demanded integrity from artists and were rewarded by living in a time of superior films and music. These days, no one listens to new music and we’re stuck in a world dominated by comic book movies because no one stood up and shamed people for liking low-effort culture.

1. ​Political apathy

America’s political divide has calcified over the past decade because more and more people are basing their personal identities on their politics. This has created a culture where the dialog between liberals and conservatives has become a shouting match that only makes people dig their heels in further. It’s also created a culture in Washington, D.C. that has attracted a more debased form of politician and led to the gridlock that has halted any sense of progress. Sadly, Gen X has also been sucked into this vortex.

Things were a lot different in the ’90s. Back in 1999, Ted Halstead at The Atlantic noted that Xers “appear to have enshrined political apathy as a way of life.” He added that Gen Xers “exhibit less social trust or confidence in government, have a weaker allegiance to their country or to either political party.”

Compared to what’s going on in America in 2022, this type of apathy seems welcome. Back in the ’90s, taking a “chill pill” could solve everything. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone took one, and then we could open our ears and hearts and have some constructive discussions?

There was a common lament in the 1980s that the boomer hippies had sold out and became boomer yuppies. They went from being concerned with peace, love and the planet to stocks, bonds and conspicuous consumption. Gen X is now in its 40s and 50s and it’s fair to say that we've moved from being the outsiders to creating technological and political machines that are generating the type of conformity that we once railed against.

Now that Xers are at the age where we get to run the world for a few decades, it’s time to recommit to the core values that make us well … us. The great news is that as Gen Xers, it’ll be easy to get back to our roots because we were raised to ironically love the past.


This article originally appeared on 03.10.22

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Health

Gen Xers and boomers share how they dealt with anxiety and depression growing up

We've come a long way since the "suck it up" days.

Photo credit: Canva

Those who grew up in the 70s didn't have much mental health support.

One of the hallmarks of today's younger generations is that they have a greater awareness and acceptance of mental health issues than generations past. That's a good thing overall, with therapy and treatment for anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses being destigmatized. There are some pitfalls that have come along with the wave of awareness and knowledge, but even so, it's a far cry from the way mental health used to be handled.

Gen Xers and boomers are sharing how they handled anxiety and depression growing up and it's a testament to how far we've come in managing mental health. Those of us who grew up in those years remember how mental health wasn't talked about at all, and if it was, it was either to make fun of someone who was "crazy" or to side-eye people who needed therapy. The idea that seeing a psychologist isn't all that different than seeing a doctor for a physical ailment was unheard of.

It may be a bit depressing, but here's how those who grew up in the 70s—so Gen Xers and younger boomers—say they handled anxiety and depression when they were growing up. (And yes, there's a whole lot of Gen X sarcasm in these responses. We had to put all that angst somewhere.)

We 'sucked it up.'

There's no more classic phrase than "suck it up" to sum up the attitude toward anxiety and depression back in the day.

"We were told suck it up. You're fine. There was no such thing as depression or anxiety then."

"Suck it up. Get over it. You think you're special? Life isn't fair, get used to it. Edit to add a forgotten favorite: No one wants to hear your whining."

"'Suck it up' was the recommendation."

"This is what I came here to say - you just sucked it up a dealt with it."

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We just 'stopped being so sensitive,' etc.

So many sayings are familiar to folks who dealt with untreated mental health issues…

"I didn't have depression. I just need to stop being so sensitive. My mom repeatedly told me so."

"Don't forget 'you're a kid what do you have to be stressed about?!' Or 'wait til you're an adult then you'll know what REAL problems are.'"

"I didn't have depression OR anxiety. I was also just too sensitive, and timid, and dramatic, and overly emotional, nervous and lazy. I just needed to smile more so other people would think I was happy until I actually was happy!"

"'Making mountains out of molehills...'"

"I read too much and had an overactive imagination."

"I let the little things bother me. Silly child."

We didn't talk about it.

Surely if we just don't talk about it, then it isn't a problem, right?

"No one talked about mental health. Even if a teen died from suicide, they just kept quiet, like if we ignore it, the kids will be better off."

"This was true if someone also attempted suicide. That person was seen as being mentally weak. Most people who attempt suicide either had mental health issues or other issues in their lives which weren't being addressed. Sucking it up doesn't work in those situations.

If you attempted suicide when I was a teen, you were taken to a mental health facility and usually you didn't return to school. The few people in high school that I had heard about who attempted suicide (none of them were successful) never return to school after the incident. It was hushed up."

"Yeah, we had a couple suicides at my high school. The kids knew. Hell, in one case it was a twin whose brother still went to school. You didn't talk about it. Nobody talked about it."

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We pulled weeds.

Pulling weeds is not a cure for anxiety or depression, but compared to most of the other things on this list, it at least had a little bit of therapeutic merit.

"I just suffered. And according to my parents, I was just fine and needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and go pull weeds."

"Go pull weeds 🤣🤣, yes it was a thing."

"I didn’t realize 'pulling weeds' was a popular thing of the times! I thought it was just my Dad making us earn our keep. lol Pulling weeds was like an escape for me. Quiet, outdoors, I think it helped my depression!"

"It was a thing for us Gen Xers as kids growing up. Lol Complaining of boredom? No plans with friends? Feeling sad and lonely?... Go pull weeds and collect rocks from the garden."

"The soil actually has feel good chemicals in it. I definitely feel better gardening, stuff like that. But yeah, I still get depressed as shit still, I'll watch movies and stuff, kind of helps. You may get some wisdom from a line in a movie that stays with you. :)"

We self-medicated.

Sadly, there were a lot of substance use and addictive behaviors that came out of those generations as they dealt with their issues through "self-medication."

"Substance abuse. I was a straight A student, active in sports, pretty popular, and I was bombed or high almost every day. Pressure lead to anxiety which led to depression but I found shit didn’t hurt as bad if I added weed, booze, or pills to my daily diet. I also learned that if you had the grades nobody cared, parents, teachers, administrators.

It all came to a head in my 20’s, life pretty much fell apart after college. I sobered up in my early thirties and learned some coping skills along the way. Life turned out pretty damn good and I am pleased with the person I became."

"As a teen in the 70's, I self medicated. Looking back on it now, I had few tools to deal with the crushing depression and anxiety I had. The drugs (weed, amphetamines) and alcohol took the edge off. Some nights, I would lay in bed and cry myself to sleep."

"Alcohol, cigarettes, wouldn't eat food for days at a time. It seemed like an okay thing to do at the time. Looking back I wonder why someone didn't intervene."

"Good old fashioned eating disorder!"

Music. (Seriously, though.)

Perhaps there's a reason music was so good in that era…

"Music, first and foremost,still to this day."

"Ahhh, yes. The music was amazing at the time."

"Yes. Listening to music and just sitting in my room for hours a day learning how to play the guitar. Whenever I had my guitar in my hands I felt at peace and I would always feel much better after playing for awhile. It was like therapy, a way for me to get my emotions out without talking."

"Music was it for me too. No matter how bad my day was, I knew I could go into my bedroom at night, put an album on the record player, plug in my headphones and enter a world where no one could find me. It was bliss. Music is still my safe place all these decades later."

"Music was the ONLY thing that helped me through some very dark times. I felt utterly disconnected from my peers and only music made me feel like I belonged."

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Thank goodness we've got so many more tools in our toolbelt these days. Though we still have a lot to learn about mental health and how to treat mental illnesses and disorders, at least we know they're real and are openly talking about them. It's good to see how far we've come from the "suck it up, buttercup" days.

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Pop Culture

Gen X wigs out at Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain's grandbaby being born

Use those genetic superpowers for good, little one.

Photo credits: Joseph Gall (left), P.B. Rage from USA (right)

Imagine having Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain as your granddads.

If you wanted to create a human with the most Gen X superpowers possible, the recipe would be pretty simple. Just get Kurt Cobain's kid to marry Tony Hawk's kid and have a baby, right?

Welp, that's exactly what has happened, and it's like a 90s fever dream come true.

Frances Bean Cobain—the daughter of infamous grunge legends Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love—married skating legend Tony Hawk's son Riley in October of 2023. How this news slipped past a good number of us Gen Xers is a mystery, but it's probably due to our stage of life. We're too busy caring for aging parents and putting kids through college to consume celebrity news like we used to. But whatever. That oh-so-Gen-X thing actually happened.

And now the 90s offspring supercouple just welcomed their first baby—Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk—and we typically chill Gen Xers are having a hard time staying cool over it.

The most Gen X thing that's ever happened

First of all, how is it possible that Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain could be grandpops? Isn't Gen X still young and hip? Are we really hitting the grandparent era? And second of all, this is so frickin' rad.

Needless to say, the commentary on the announcement is epic:

"Kurt Cobain’s daughter and Tony Hawk’s son just became parents? That’s a rockstar-skater royalty baby right there! Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk is bound to have some serious genes and an even cooler future ahead. Talk about a legendary family tree!"

"This is the craziest 90s collab I've ever seen."

"This kid has just been born and is already the coolest person alive."

"Imagine Kurt Cobain and Tony Hawk are both your grandfathers, you’re like the Son Goku of white people."

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"Alternative rock and Xtreme sports literally defined the 90s for yt ppl. His grandparents are the legends in both!"

"The most '90s grandchild to ever live."

"This is the most gen x thing i have ever seen...."

"Finally, they have created the most chill human on the planet."

"Kid's got the coolest name ever on top of the coolest family tree."

"That is going to be the raddest child of all time."

"That kid is 90s legacy. Pain and sadness met with high energy happiness and had a baby."

Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk has some awfully big shoes to fill

Some people are pointing out the pressure that can come with having incredibly famous family members, making jokes about how the kiddo will likely surprise us all by being remarkably average.


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"The most rebellious thing he could do is grow up and get a regular job as an accountant."

"This kid is going to grow up with the most unreasonable expectations and end up being a farmer in Illinois or something just to get away from it."

"And we though Lisa Marie Presley had an impossible standard to live up to. Godspeed, Ronin."

Of course, the kiddo doesn't actually have to fill any shoes—it's not like he chose to be born into 90s pop culture royalty and who knows how those genetics will actually play out. He could be a musical genius with incredible motor control or he could be something totally different.

Kurt Cobain and Tony Hawk led very different lives early in their fame

Despite both being Gen X icons, Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain were polar opposites in some ways. Cobain struggled with a lot in his too-short life, including physical and mental illness that eluded diagnoses, poverty and a broken family, and isolation fueled by drug addiction. He spurned the fame and fortune that came catapulting his way, not really knowing how to handle it, but before he was able to realize his dream of a simpler life with daughter Frances Bean, he tragically died by suicide at age 27. His musical genius and influence on rock music are still lauded to this day.

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Tony Hawk's story bears little resemblance to Cobain's, other than his huge success. He stayed away from drugs early in his rise to fame and became part of the anti-drug PSA campaign in his youth. He did slip into some over-drinking and use of painkillers in his 30s, but then stepped away from the partying lifestyle altogether. Though he retired from competition in 2003 and is no longer trying to push the envelope with new tricks, he still skates for fun at age 56. His four children came from his first three marriages, all of which ended in divorce, and he's been married to his fourth wife since 2015. The public knows him as a good guy with a friendly disposition (and a good sense of humor about people telling him he looks like Tony Hawk).

How these two famous men's genes express themselves in little Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk will remain a mystery for some time, but one thing's for sure: This kid will go down in history as having the two gnarliest granddad's ever.

Welcome to the world, little Ronin. Whatever you do, please use your Gen X superpowers for good.

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