I'm Gen X. When Gen X was young, our whole thing was to not really care about anything. Indifference

I'm Gen X. When Gen X was young, our whole thing was to not really care about anything. Indifference to the world was what made cool. "Cool" was detachment.

The one thing Gen X really cared about, was any show of actually caring. So, for example, a big narrative among Gen X was this idea of selling out. Say a band signed with an indie label but started to get popular, maybe had a hit single that was breaking out of college radio?

If they left the indie label and signed with one of the majors, then they were sell-outs. The band had broken the Gen X code by caring. If they cared about how big they could get, about how much they could tour, about how much money they could make, about someone trying to get their videos on MTV, that marked them as a sell-out.

If they became super big but never seemed to care about it, that was fine.

Caring was verboten, however.

So obviously politics was something Gen X largely eschewed. There's no one in politics who doesn't care. No one in politics is just expressing themselves. To be in politics is to attempt to impose your will on the world.

Which meant that activism was not really a thing for Gen X, not in a widespread way. Doing activism was not popular. It was not cool. There was no Gen X pussyhat moment.

So it's been strange over the last several years to see political affiliation become so widespread and urgent. Making the correct mouth sounds around various issues and, of course, Donald Trump, is the price of entry for most social milieus any more.

I'm sorry, but I can't take it as anything other than fashion. It's no different than skinny jeans and athleisure.