Gen-X seems to be having a “moment” online. Countless memes and videos featuring old school “X” era archives have either been texted directly to me, or have made their way to my social media feed. I see more and more of these photos and videos every day. It appears, as a whole, we have realized we are far enough along in our futures to reflect on our pasts, and are enjoying doing so. Gen-X is all at once, collectively on this memory lane journey together (or would it be “meme-ory” lane? Yeah, that was a bad pun, but couldn’t help myself). So, it seems to me, we ARE having a moment. (Many “moments” are happening right now for this generation, but I’ll cover some of the others in a later post)
Usually what I see is a vintage photo from the 70s or 80s stamped with some kind of statement across it, or something like a “shout-out” to X-ers who will understand.
For example, a meme typed in all caps stating the modern struggle the entire human race suffers trying to remember passwords for a variety of websites, apps, streaming services, and devices. Yet childhood home numbers, as well the phone numbers for family members, are forever inked like tattoos in our brains. I can rattle mine out right now without thinking for a second, but always have to check my “password list” when I want to purchase something off of Amazon. Even if I’d just signed in the day before.
By the way, why are most memes in all caps, and usually accompanied with bad grammar? “It’s okay to use a comma occasionally. It’s also okay to not yell using all caps, I PROMISE!” I want to shout at the sender while using all caps myself, but don’t. I digress.
Sometimes it’s a photo of a location that was popular back then, but doesn’t exist now. Recently, a meme was sent to me of an Orange Julius store-front sitting in a mall. It’s color scheme giving away the era the photo was taken. With the motif and level of grain in the picture, I venture to guess it was taken somewhere between 1977 and 1981. The quote was “WHO REMEMBERS THEIR FIRST ORANGE JULIUS?”.
Well, upon seeing that photo, I could hear the blenders mixing the creamy frothy orange drink, smell the orange peels in the air, and remember when I used to sip on an Orange Julius while walking around the mall. I felt so cool…and refreshed!
Then there is the meme that has been floating around a lot lately. It’s a bit dark in its statement, yet still garners a chuckle from me. It’s a photo of kids playing in someone’s front yard with the statement “WE PLAYED OUTSIDE TIL THE STREETLIGHTS CAME ON. AFTER THAT THE WEAKEST AMONG US ENDED UP ON UNSOLVED MYSTERIES”.
Generation-X is very proud of the fact that we played outside as kids, and frankly, though some may not admit it, look down a little on newer generations who sit inside all day with their faces stuck to a screen instead of physically interacting with the human race. Well, we don’t look down on them, we just throw one giant sarcastic eye-roll their direction to display disapproval.
Our general daily schedule was as follows: Get up. Go outside. Get on a bike. Grab some friends, and go explore together! If you get thirsty, everybody’s house has a water hose. Use it. Just be back home for dinner by the time the streetlights come on.
By the way, I’m going to stand up and speak on behalf of the entire class right now. The theme from UNSOLVED MYSTERIES is THE scariest song of all time. That song made people not want to go to another part of the house alone while the show was on, or for a solid half hour after the credits rolled, because it was THAT spooky. Then add in Robert Stacks voice narrating kidnappings, disappearances, and paranormal activities. You’d be afraid of getting snatched by Bigfoot or run into Lincoln’s ghost on the way to the restroom.
Who are these people you may ask? Me, ok?! Me. I was terrorized by that song, and I still have PTSD heart palpitations when I hear it now.
Click the YouTube link below to hear it, but only in the presence of others. You’ve been warned!
My personal favorite “retro memes” are the ones depicting 80s technology that I grew up using. When I see those memes, I can feel the button of the VCR on my finger tips, or hear the sound of the cassette loading into the dock. I instantly relive the frustration caused by the NASA-level programming it took setting the timer to record a movie or television show when no one was home. It wasn’t just the simple procedure of aiming the remote and pushing of a button like for a DVR. It took patience and actual know-how to program the device.
Most of the time it recorded what was intended. However, there were those soul crushing times when you accidentally set it to the wrong station, and ended up recording MURDER SHE WROTE instead of NIGHT RIDER. It was such a bummer when that happened!
There are also a TON of video game referential memes. Especially classic arcade games, or versions made for home consoles of the time.
I can hear the electronic chomping of Pac-Man’s mouth as he dines on multi-colored ghost meat followed by a pixelated fruit salad for desert. Also, the condescending sound the Atari made when Pac-Man died resonates heavily in my mind any time I make a mistake. Every time.
This particular meme hits home the hardest for me, though. I know exactly what it feels like to be the youngest, therefore the official channel changer for the family, in a world before remote controls were in every home controlling nearly every device in our households.
I’d sit in my designated spot at the end of the couch that was closest to the television so that I didn’t have to walk as far. It wasn’t really much of an inconvenience though. There were only three stations at that time, ABC, NBC, & CBS, unlike the over 500 stations plus countless streaming apps that we have available at our fingertips today. I did gladly hand over the duties to a remote once we got a cable box installed, though.
It isn’t just memes and videos that penetrate through that wall of our past rekindling long tucked away memories, though.
Some of us have been, or are, emptying our parents’ homes, possibly preparing their estates for a post mortem sale, or packing for our living elders, relocating them to a smaller homestead where there is no room for a lifetime of accumulation, much less our old things. So we find ourselves digging through the attic and closets unearthing what have become cardboard time capsules of our youth that, somewhere along the way, were compartmentalized in boxes and our minds.
We may find packages of uncut school photos, saved report cards, or favorite books as a child held onto by the parents that wanted to preserve who we were. Not just who we were as individuals, or what our interests and accomplishments were, but who we were to them in their eyes at that age.
Rolled posters of a favorite band or movie that used to hang on our walls, now getting brittle and yellowing with age. Mixtape cassettes with hand made artwork we’d created of playlists reflecting moods or the messages we were trying to send the world. A favorite toy tucked away, or a much loved worn out shirt we used to wear all the time that is now used to wrap something else, acting as padding, to preserve a more fragile memory from breaking.
Stock is taken of these rediscovered treasures, these pieces of our former, younger selves, reliving and relishing the memories from each. Then, instead of displaying our toys on show-and-tell day at school, or at Friday night slumber parties like we used to, we employ modern technology to create a photo collage, or video showing (and bragging) to the world who we were and who we still are, via social media.
We do this not just to chronicle our finds, but also as an attempt to reach out and connect with someone else who can relate. Maybe they will relate to the vintage items posted and it reminds them they too once owned the same thing. Maybe they relate to a post about having aging parents entering a different phase, and the things you find during the task of moving their lives, both literally and figuratively, forward into an unfamiliar future.
Some of us have even taken to going online and finding the vintage items we no longer possess, but deeply miss, and hunt for them there. It’s like searching for and finding pieces of our own personal jigsaw puzzle, fitting them back in their places, and rebuilding a treasured time in our lives.
Then, like parties and eras, everything must come to an end. After we are done reminiscing by touching, holding, and savoring each memory in the boxes, or scrolling through digital garage sales, we close the lids, or click the “x” in the upper corner of the browser screen. The flashes from the mental montage of memories and emotions slows like a movie theater projector powering down. Then inhale a deep cleansing breath, reconfigure, and exhale back to our futures.
