The Y Bother Generation

By Elise Pallagi

The Broadway Skids, 2018


I am the source of many a social scientists indignation

Branded a member of the millennial generation

Yet I am filled with annoyance and frustration of being labelled as a member of the millennial generation

I have the misfortune of being born in a year where the generational gap isn’t clear

Where does millennial begin and generation X disappear?

 

I spent my childhood listening to Douglas Copeland go off about Gen X

The product of the baby boom

Sold Pepsi by the Spice Girls

As the marketing professionals called us generation next, generation next

Now that jingle is stuck in your head

#sorrynotsorry

 

I was too young to ride the cubicles

And accelerating office culture craze

And it wasn’t till my twenties that I started going to warehouse raves

But I vaguely remember the Cold War

And was raised by the TV

I didn’t have internet access till I was well into my teens

 

As a kid I played street hockey and Nintendo

no fancy graphics just imagination

Macintosh the computer of choice in the classrooms of our nation                                     

Where we suffered death from dysentery and starvation

Maybe that makes us the Oregon trail generation

 

It wasn’t till well into adulthood that I heard all this talk of the millennial generation

Apparently we are a scourge upon the hard working people of this nation

Millennials are lazy I hear boomers say

While I jump from contract gig to contract gig barely making a dent in this student loan debt I have to pay

 

Yeah life would be easier if you had dependable income and stability

I mean my dad could walk into a factory and make enough to buy a house but now it all seems silly

 

There was this article proclaiming my cohort was actually a micro generation

They called us Xenials

Born between A New Hope and Jedi

I guess that makes us Generation X-Wing Matthew Good the soundtrack of our indignation

 

Or maybe Christian Slater was right

When he called us the Why bother generation

As we watched the decline of white suburban American culture

Chewing on blackjack bubble gum

Sipping on wild cherry Diet Pepsi

Cans filling the landfills of our nation

Now thats an identity that I can get behind

As I make this proclamation

 

I am a proud member of the Why bother generation

I eat avocados and ass and will normalize queerness in our nation

I am proud to stand against homophobia, transphobia and racial discrimination

Why bother? Cause I want to make this world better for the next generation