A generation that’s never lost for a definition

Douglas Coupland’s seminal book Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, which coined the term ‘Generation X,’ also used several other expressions, most of which have not yet entered mainstream language, but nonetheless provide an entertaining insight into what Coupland saw as defining the generation. WA Business News selected a few.

Anti-Sabbatical:  A job taken with the sole intention of staying only for a limited period of time. The intention is usually to raise enough funds to partake in another, more personally meaningful activity. Employers are rarely informed of intention.

Boomer Envy: Envy of material wealth and long-range material security accrued by older members of the baby boom generation by virtue of fortunate births.

Cafe Minimalism: To espouse a philosophy of minimalism without actually putting into practice any of its tenets.

Clique Management: The need of one generation to see the generation following it as deficient, so as to bolster its own collective ego.

Down Nesting: The tendency of parents to move to smaller, guest-room-free houses after their children have moved away so as to avoid children aged 20 to 30 who may boomerang home.

Fame induced apathy: The attitude that no activity is worth pursuing unless one can become very famous pursuing it. Fame induced apathy mimics laziness, but its roots are much deeper.

Historical Slumming: The act of visiting locations such as diners, smokestack industrial sites, rural villages – locations where time has been frozen many years back – so as to experience relief when one returns back to ‘the present’.

Homeowner Envy: Feelings of jealousy generate by the young and disenfranchised when faced with gruesome housing statistics.

McJob: A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit no-future job in the service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one.

Occupational Slumming: Taking a job beneath one’s skills or education level as a means of retreat from adult responsibilities and/or avoiding possible failure in one’s true occupation.

Option Paralysis: The tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none.

Poor Buoyancy: The realisation that one was a better person when one had less money.

Poverty Jet Set: A group of people given to chronic travelling at the expense of long-term jobs and a permanent residence. Tend to discuss frequent flyer programs at parties.

Power Mist: The tendency of hierarchies in office environments to be diffuse and preclude crisp articulation.

Rebellion Postponement: The tendency in one’s youth to avoid traditionally youthful activities and artistic experiences in order to obtain serious career goals. Sometimes results in the mourning for lost youth at about age 30, followed by silly haircuts and joke inducing wardrobes.

Safety Net-ism: The belief that there will always be a financial and emotional safety net to buffer life’s hurts. Usually parents.

Terminal Wanderlust: A condition common to people of transient middle-class upbringings. Unable to feel rooted in any one environment, they move continually in hopes of finding an idealised sense of community in the next location.

Virgin Runway: a travel destination chosen in the hopes that no-one else has ever chosen it.