Mat Honan:

But Generation X is tired of your sense of entitlement. Generation X also graduated during a recession. It had even shittier jobs, and actually had to pay for its own music. (At least, when music mattered most to it.) Generation X is used to being fucked over. It lost its meager savings in the dot-com bust. Then came George Bush, and 9/11, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Generation X bore the brunt of all that. And then came the housing crisis.Generation X wasn’t surprised. Generation X kind of expected it.

As someone who strongly identifies with this demographic (I was born in late ’69, right at the trough of the “baby bust” that followed the Boomers), I couldn’t disagree with a single thing Mat says here. Especially this part:

Right now, Generation X just wants a beer and to be left alone. It just wants to sit here quietly and think for a minute. Can you just do that, okay? It knows that you are so very special and so very numerous, but can you just leave it alone? Just for a little bit? Just long enough to sneak one last fucking cigarette? No?

Mat’s rant is response to (and links to) an editorial from a twentysomething Millennial posted in New York magazine. Read both.