Category: Culture

The Breakfast Club Library Confessions and Beautiful Tribes

Does The Breakfast Club have insights we still need? Did belonging to a club or team help many of us find friends? Is it okay that these tribes were imperfect and the same as other tribes? Memorial for a Friend Last weekend I was at a memorial for a dear friend from high school who…
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May 8, 2024
Limited Time and the Unspoken Truths

Is Gen X running out of time? Do we need to speak the unspoken while there is still time? Yes. The Memorial Last night I participated in a memorial for the dearest of friends. Her name was Erika and I wrote about her in a poignant article in the early days of Gen X Watch.…
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May 5, 2024
The Devastating Impact of Christian Courtship in the 80s

Could one movement solidify rape culture? Did the movement also hurt countless queer teens? And could losing your virginity outside of marriage forever ruin your future marriage? If we are talking about Christian youth courtship in the 80’s that led to purity culture that answer is yes. What was Christian Courtship? Courtship found a revival…
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April 24, 2024
Delving into The Tortured Poets Department And Cowboy Carter

Tortured Poet’s Department Taylor Swift has broken the internet again with the release of Tortured Poet’s Department. The Swifties have brought the album into record breaking territory yet again and with that comes the hatred. Call it our collective “keyboard courage era” in which we hate in viral fashion. Like a virus, I’m thinking herpes…
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April 22, 2024
Is There Still Time for the Mister Rogers Generation?

Is Gen X the Mister Rogers generation? Did a neighborhood fight the lie of consumerism with love? Do we still need to live his lessons? Can we be the helpers while being liked just the way we are? I hope so, because everything is on the line right now. A Neighborhood in Our Living Room…
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April 21, 2024
Christian Weeds in the Garden of Love Traumatically Choking Beauty

Was there a cultural shift in Christianity in the 80’s? Did this shift hurt women, queer people, abuse victims, and children? Is it time to have a conversation about it? Yes. Religious Trauma Syndrome This is the beginning of a limited series about Religious Trauma, mostly at the hands of Christianity. A lot of you…
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April 17, 2024
My Love Letter To Hip Hop

The Intro My family moved to the Cleveland area in 1983 and having moved into a racially mixed area on the southeast side I became aware of hip hop culture by my pre-teens. Our neighborhood was around the corner from Cleveland proper. It was a place full of young families, many were Black, that were…
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April 15, 2024
Cleaning House With Joe Jackson While Being a Real Man

Did Joe Jackson know that not everything is Night and Day? Do we need to ask who the Real Men are? Is it time to keep a promise and make a confession as Editor-in-Chief of Gen X Watch? Yeah. Joe Jackson and the Lost Masterpiece In 1982 Joe Jackson released an album called Night and…
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March 28, 2024
Yearbook Nostalgia and the Artistic Quest to be Kind

Dear Mr. Vernon. We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms,…
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March 27, 2024
St Patrick’s Day and the Music of Revolution

By Jeremy Ritch My official title with Gen X Watch is culture and music editor. So that is my focus, of course, but in those areas, the often-uncomfortable space of social and politics collide. With St. Patrick’s Day being upon us, I wanted to write about such a collision as an activist and a person…
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March 17, 2024