The “forgotten generation” has hit peak mid-life crisis time, as Gen Xers find themselves careening through their 40s and 50s. And like presumably every generation before them, they’re reeling a bit, asking, “How did I get here already?” as they pluck gray hairs out of weird places, send kids off to college and obsessively check their retirement accounts.
And now a meme that hits right at the heart of that crisis has Gen Xers feeling even more dazed. One might even say…confused.
In cruel bit of calculation, X user @AZNotoriousJPG shared a screenshot image from the cult classic “Dazed and Confused” with this caption:
“Dazed and Confused came out in 1993 and was based in 1976. A comparable movie today would be based in 2007.”
Wait, what? No. NO. That can’t be right. That math isn’t mathing. Where’s the calculator?
[Frantically calculates this very basic subtraction problem four times because there’s no way.]
It’s right. How? How is this possible? The ’70s felt like they were ages from the 90s, while 2007 was only like three years ago. Right?
First of all, I’m wrong. 2007 was 17 years ago—that’s basically an entire generation ago. (I know, I have to let that one sit for a minute.) But secondly, it seems like there was much more of a cultural difference between the 1970s and the 1990s than there was between the 2020s and the 2000s.
But why? In some ways, the 2000s feel like they’ve all been one long decade, at least in terms of “feel.” The 1960s, ‘70s, ’80s and ‘90s each felt like they had a distinct feel in terms of style and culture. We can pinpoint fashions, slang, musical genres and what was popular during those decades. Can the same be said for the 2000s and the 2010s?
Maybe it can. Facebook came out in 2004 and the iPhone came out in 2007, so I’m sure that changed things significantly. Social media and smartphones? That’s huge. Is it just because we’re (gulp) so old now that Gen Xers can’t differentiate between recent decades? Are we just so out of touch with young fashions and hip culture that we don’t even see it?
Honestly? Yeah, probably. I’ve heard my teens say something along the lines of, “That’s giving, like, early 2000s” when referring to a song or a fashion choice. I guess I should be happy that I’m “with it” enough to know what “giving” means, but I’d never be able to tell you how something from the early 2000s is any different than something from two years ago.
Gen Xers have not taken kindly to having this timeline change thrown in their faces:
“Oh!! This hurts!!”
“Lies.”
“I was having a good day. We were all having a good day.”
“I get, we’re old!!! Quit reminding us!”
“All I see from this is that I am old AF.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. 2007 was last week. I have medicine in the closet which expired earlier than that. Not possible.”
“Nope, that’s not okay.“
“You didn’t have to choose violence, yet here we are.”
You can tell the Gen Xers from the millennials and Gen Zers in the comments because the younger folks just keep commenting with “Superbad,” a coming-of-age comedy that came out in 2007. What they don’t understand is it’s not the number of years that hits hard with this meme, it’s the vast difference between how 17 years felt between the 70s and 90s and how they feel in the 2000s.
You have to have lived it to get it, I suppose, but “Dazed and Confused” in 1993 felt more like a movie made now based in the ’80s would feel. Think “Stranger Things.” That’s what the time difference felt like for us.
Time is weird, man. But even 30 years later (wait, what?) “Dazed and Confused” is still a fabulous film, and Gen X is still the coolest generation.