Generation X Gains an Icon
Copyright (c) 1994, L. Shawn Aiken
All rights reserved


        So have you heard that Kurt Cobain died?  If you haven't, you must
have been living under a rock for the last month.  Had you heard of Kurt
Cobain before he killed himself?  No need to crawl back under the rock.  If
you hadn't heard of him, don't feel bad.  It was a Generation X thing.
        It has been all over the news.  It's been flashed over the front pages
of major newspapers.  Kurt Cobain,  27 year old lead singer of the Seattle
'grunge' band Nirvana, took a shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger on
April 8, 1994.  Hordes of fans stood in stone cold shock.  Lead anchormen on
major nightly news shows said "Who was this guy?"
        "He was the greatest musician of all time," some said.  Others said,
"He was an unwashed, suicidal, long-haired freak."  Both of these views miss
the point.  He was a music star, and with his death he became an icon.
        Strangely enough, it was just what they needed.  Generation X.
Twentysomething.  The Lost Generation.  These people had little of thier own.
Half of them were missing a parent by their high school years due to the
attrition of divorce.  The most interesting thing to happen in their formative
years was to hear the screeching of Axel Rose.  They looked back at the 60s
and pine with misty eyes.  There are no legends from the 80s.  There was no
cultural revolution.  The 80s didn't have any really eresting clothes.  Mix
AIDS into the pot, and they didn't really have a very good time at all.  It
was just like the 50s, except in color rather than black and white.
        The discontentment grew.  They had no cause.  They had
no parents.  They experimented with 60s clothes, then 70s clothes, but that
was just a fad.  All they had was Nintendos, VCRs, and MTV.  Hardly anything
to write home about.  Just electronic babysitters, really.  Then it happened.
        Nirvana came out of the Northwest, spurring on not only good music,
but a new clothes style.  THEIR clothes.  The grunge style.  The grunge look.
They latched on tight.  And the songs.  Oh the songs.  Kurt Cobain
wrote songs for THEM.  He understood their pain.  He knew their loneliness.
After all, he was a latch-key kid himself.
        But he was strangely moody.  He had stomach problems.  He used drugs.
Cobain couldn't handle his success.  To put it more concisely - he couldn't
stand it.  Was he typical of the generation?  Are they not bred for success?
To paraphrase a young comic "My mother worked hard so I wouldn't have to
work so hard.  And guess what?  I DON'T!"
        Are the Japanese right?  Are we fat and lazy?  Is Generation X
destined to work at Burger King for the rest of their lives?  Well, the
parent's of the hippies of the 60s looked in horror at thier own children.  Or
at least the next door neighbor's kid.
        Generation X is having an identity crisis.  Few things that came from
the 80s were valuable enough to keep.  Not even the promise of free sex they
were given while they grew up in the 70s was paid up in full.  If they have
nothing, how can they be anything? Kurt Cobain's death was something that
Generation X needed.  An icon, something to call their own.  But this
morbibdity will not last long.  Generation X will turn out okay in the end.
It's just a phase.