Winona Ryder smokes a cigarette
Every generation has its ultimate hero. Or does it? Perhaps for the Silent Generation, it's Jimmy Stewart. The Boomers? Clint Eastwood. Or any of the Easy Rider gang, like, say, Jack Nicholson. But in a recent post on Threads, someone posed the divisive question to Gen X-ers and many of them weren't having it.
The statement/question read: "If Hannah from Girls is the patron saint of millennials (which she is, don't argue), who does Gen X have? Is it Kurt Cobain?"
Lena Dunham as Hannah GIF by Girls Giphy HBO
For anyone confused by this question, Hannah from Girls is a character created and portrayed by Lena Dunham, who is having a comeback moment with her new show Too Much.
There are nearly 700 responses in less than a week. But before we get into the X-ers’ candid thoughts, a few millennials were outraged by the "saint" applied to them. One writes in typical millennial fashion, "Life is hard enough. Please don't do this to us millennials. We've survived too much for that." Another: "Hannah from Girls? What in the Veronica Mars are you on about?" Another wisely pushes back: "Surely the patron saint of millennials is Taylor Swift?"
Now let's move on to those who attempt to answer the question. "I'm too old to know what this means, but the answer is Janeane Garofalo."
A scene from the film Reality Bites. Giphy Universal Pictures
Many merely posted photos or memes of their response, including Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Madonna, and of course, the MTV cartoon Daria.
But the thing that stands out most about my beloved X generation is that most of us are simply not going to take this question seriously. Here are a few: "I claim McGruff the Crime Dog as my patron saint. Let's take a bite out of crime."
Another dives into the Spielberg catalogue: "Now that I think about it: the patron saint of Gen X is…Elliott from ET. Not the actor, but the character. If you're peak Gen X, then you were a little kid when that movie was released and Elliott was f-ing GOD." (A hilarious response to that was: "I'm Gen X and do not care for that movie. If you swap Elliott with Carol Anne from Poltergeist, now we're talking.")
Carol Anne gets in touch with ghosts in the movie Poltergeist. Giphy Tobe Hooper GIF
One person got very serious: "Gen X has no patron saint. We had no one but ourselves and our friends who also had nobody, and that's why we are the way we are. Stop trying to fit us into your worldview and leave us alone like our parents did. We're fine being invisible."
That got real fast, and it was also quite the popular answer. One Threader responded, "One half of my brain fully supports this answer. The other half is doing 8,876 other things so it can't fully get on board with anything."
Another adds, in part: "If I were a millennial, I'd be infuriated by this post. Anyway, Gen X doesn't have a patron saint. We were all into different things, depending on who we were. Some preferred Trent Reznor. Some preferred Kurt Cobain. Some preferred Robert Smith. Gen X wasn't a monolith, and many of us hated the things others loved while others loved the things we hated."
Kurt Cobain, the patron saint of Gen X. Giphy
And lastly (finally), the correct answer is shared: "Whatever, never mind." So very Gen X.
Keanu Reeves has a reputation as a kind celebrity
We love you, Keanu.
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