-- Gen X'er in 1994

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4923670&forum_id=2#43131261)

that year we couldnt find a ride to lollapalooza in ontario, canada, so we bought a POS toyota for $200 and drove it there

there was summer hail along the way and we pulled over and cavorted outside. one girl took off her hippie top and got back in the car tits-out

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4923670&forum_id=2#43131300)

Yeah, I'm late Gen-X, so a little late to that party. But my buddy and I did a similar thing the summer of 9/11 when we were in our early 20s. Bought a '69 VW bus for $200 that was just rotting on the street in the Haight. Kicked out the homeless heroin addicts and rebuilt the engine, then just drove around the country for three months. Partied with our friends spread across the country (Portland, Seattle, Boulder, Chicago, NYC, DC, New Orleans, etc) and tons of backpacking and rock climbing in between. Met a lot of great chill guys and girls along the way. Crazy thing is that 9/11 was the very last day of our trip. Woke up at a truckstop in Bakersfield in the bus with a bunch of voicemails from my Mom telling me we were under attack, that the WTC towers had fallen (had just been up to the top of them a few weeks prior), etc. It was really such a distinct end of an era. The timing was uncanny.

Damn. It was a great time, but still probably didn't truly appreciate it the way I should have at the time. Youth is wasted on the young.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4923670&forum_id=2#43131413)

looking back, the cracks in the wall are obvious now. but i remember being very optimistic pre-ite. aughts were a great time.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4923670&forum_id=2#43131858)

I've noticed this with other people around my age - I will have much more in common with Gen-Xers who had similar experience in youth of high school sports, having to call someone's parents to pick us up from the movie theater or the mall, etc.

I remember the *occassional* Friday nights where in high school we'd play Everquest instead of going out - the seeds of socially arrested development were there, but hadn't fully blossomed - this was mostly b/c we didn't have cars yet b/c after we could drive ^ that wouldn't happen

I can talk to Gen-Xers 10-15 years older than me who had similar youth experiences. However millennials 5 years younger than me.... there's something unhealthy, unnatural, even satanic about this generation.

If you want to be horrified about, well.... the industrial revolution and its consequences that have been a disaster - if you want to be horrified about the damage technology has done to us - just take some time and talk to a younger millennial / zoomer about their experience growing up - it's evil what we've done to kids... we've completely disrupted all these core life experiences they're supposed to have, and have DEFINITELY disrupted their social development - there's a reason they're so easily influenced by the state / social media / pop culture - ie oversocialized , as opposed to the foundations for belief / morals in older people that you find.

The incredibly tragic thing to think about is how the America we grew up in is dead - the types of small upper-middle class towns that existed that have been invaded and decayed, the social experiences of youth undisrupted by technology, all of it - just doesn't exist anymore.

Controlling for the fact that I wouldn't want to be old right now if I chose eg 1960 to be born - I think coming of age in the 80s-90s is obviously the cr situation

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4923670&forum_id=2#43131634)

The Internet is horrible for children. It's up to parents to do their damn jobs, keep their kids off the Internet/phones and teach them how to be normal, healthy, responsible human beings.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4923670&forum_id=2#43131761)

it only works if no one has social media and smart phones. i think in the future we're going to start seeing "no social media" schools crop up. like minded parents giving their kids a traditional experience.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4923670&forum_id=2#43131883)

we're completely fucked and there's no way to take it back. i feel really bad for them.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4923670&forum_id=2#43131890)

btw, none of us owned test prep books (aside from kaplan and princeton review, don't think there was much else) and we would take the sat cold and be happy with whatever score we got. super study azns hadn't multiplied like gremlins yet.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4923670&forum_id=2#43131707)