So there was a convo on FB that started off about how “Karen” ended up being the name all over the internet, from this definition:
WHAT DOES KAREN MEAN?
Karen is a mocking slang term for an entitled, obnoxious, middle-aged white woman. Especially as featured in memes, Karen is generally stereotyped as having a blonde bob haircut, asking to speak to retail and restaurant managers to voice complaints or make demands, and being a nagging, often divorced mother from Generation X.
Which steered the thread to a discussion about Gen X and how there seems to be different kinds of Gen Xers – to which I absolutely agree. I was not called a Karen, it was just the start of the discussion. Here’s what I said (slight edits for clarity):
As an elder Gen Xer (b 1965) raised by Silent Generation (b/t Depression and WWII) parents (NOT Boomers), I can tell you that there is ABSOLUTELY a schism in Gen Xers. There are ones like me, who were not precisely early adopters of the internet, but whole heartedly adopted in the mid 90s. BBS and chat rooms, OH MY! Those of us who got into tech in the 90s are VERY different animals than those who eschewed tech and lagged behind until FB made them feel like they “finally” understood the internet (LOL x 100).
The ONLY people I have contact with from my generation growing up are those who are technically adept. Why? Because those of us who kept up tend to be FAR FAR more knowledgeable about the world in general because we have used the internet for decades and understand how to do searches, how to spot FAKE shit and how to filter our shit to find the TRUTH.
Those of us who have been online since the 90s understand how to use the power of the internet to LEARN things and broaden our horizons. AND talk to people from EVERYWHERE. Those GenXers who went off to breed and had little to nothing to do with technology, were left behind in SO many ways. And the irritating part is that they can’t even understand how left behind they are. Hence so many of them being fucking MAGAts. They don’t even know how little they know. And by the gods, no one can tell them anything, either, because if it doesn’t line up with their ideals readily, then it MUST be that the internet (aka the whole world) is just trying to trick them. (Because the internet is big and scary!!)
I resent being put in the same category as the idiot GenXers who know nothing about that there internet or them there smart phones.
THAT IS NOT ME. Nor is it any of MY GenX friends.
There ARE two kinds of GenXers. Absolutely. The smart ones and the left behind ones – regardless of where they fall within the dates (1965-1980). I am old, yes, but I am a tech savvy NERD. FEAR ME, young ‘uns, I’ll dox the FUCK out of you. And: get off my fucking lawn. LOL :D