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| Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI |
We all know what “main character syndrome” is that cultural shorthand for people who move through life like they’re starring in their own personal drama. Gen X, broadly speaking, is the polar opposite. They’re the effortlessly cool, quietly aloof kids in the back row of life’s classroom, exuding indifference so convincingly that the world often forgets they’re there at all.
Born between 1965 and 1980, Generation X has long been dubbed the “forgotten generation.” In public discourse, generational conversations tend to frame narratives as baby boomers versus millennials or millennials versus Gen Z. Gen X is often the footnote acknowledged briefly, then brushed aside. To be honest, even at Truth Sider, we’ve perpetuated this trend: So far this year, we've published 166 stories about Gen Z, 123 about millennials, and 97 about boomers but only 34 about Gen X. And most of those mentions? Peripheral at best.
Why does Gen X get the silent treatment, and what does it say about the generation itself? Part of it comes down to demographics. Gen X is numerically smaller than the boomer and millennial cohorts. They occupy a transitional space a bridge between the analog world of boomers and the digital-native millennials.
“It’s like Gen X was the journey between boomers and millennials,” says stand-up comedian Jason Salmon, whose routines often reflect on Gen X’s overlooked status. “We were never the destination.” Online, he jokes that while younger generations express themselves through pronouns and older ones through flags, Gen X is stuck somewhere in the middle a generation with no emoji to symbolize a vintage concert tee.
Their invisibility isn’t just accidental it’s contextual. Gen X was the original generation of latchkey kids, expected to fend for themselves after school while their dual-income parents worked long hours. They grew up in the relative stability of the 1990s an era marked by economic growth but also cultural disillusionment. Their childhood heroes included Luke Skywalker, and their coming-of-age icons were grunge legends like Kurt Cobain. Romantic idealism gave way to disaffected realism. Boomers were the “me generation.” Millennials became the “me me me” generation. And Gen X? They became the “meh” generation.
“We’ve always preferred flying under the radar,” says Erin Mantz, founder of the blog and Facebook group Gen X Girls Grow Up. “We were the original ‘whatever’ generation.”
That “whatever” ethos became a defining cultural brand one that, ironically, ensured Gen X would remain somewhat neglected.
When I reached out to Megan Gerhardt, a professor of leadership and management at Miami University and author of Gentelligence: The Revolutionary Approach to Leading an Intergenerational Workforce, I proposed a theory: Maybe Gen X is underrepresented in media because they’re currently navigating the gloomy slog of midlife the most difficult stretch of adulthood. Maybe no one wants to talk about them because it’s just too depressing.
She shut that down fast.
“It’s on brand for Gen X to be overlooked,” Gerhardt said. And she has a point.
The generation never became a demographic powerhouse. Millennials have already surpassed boomers as the largest US cohort. Gen X never held that status. “We just didn’t make as much of a statistical splash,” she added.
Gen X also came of age without supervision the most unsupervised generation in modern history, Gerhardt notes. As dual-income households became more common, child care and after-school programs were still developing, so Gen X kids were left largely to their own devices. No GPS, no cell phones, no helicopter parents. Just frozen dinners and after-school cartoons. In the family dynamic, Gen X was the supporting cast not the stars.
Jean Twenge, author of Generations, says many Gen Xers feel indistinct psychologically, culturally, even demographically. Her research tracks shifts in self-perception and values across generations. She points to surveys showing a progression toward greater individualism and higher self-esteem from boomers to millennials. Gen X lies in the middle: a transitional phase between valuing meaning and prioritizing money, between modesty and inflated self-regard.
This has led to a sort of generational middle-child syndrome. Gen Xers feel squeezed between boomer parents and ambitious millennial successors. They're stuck between two sets of noisy neighbors but unlike either, they know how to fix a leaky faucet and do their own taxes.
“We take pride in our independence and resourcefulness,” Mantz says.
But while that chill, self-reliant attitude has appeal, it has drawbacks too especially in professional settings. As Salmon jokes in his routine, Gen X’s unofficial slogan is “I don’t care.” That kind of nonchalance can be liberating, but it doesn’t always fly in corporate life.
Gen X was the first generation to truly question the boomer workaholic mindset. They were raised on pop culture that rejected corporate ambition: The Breakfast Club, Reality Bites, Office Space. Their films celebrated slackers, not strivers. And while this bred a healthy skepticism of the rat race, it also made it tough to compete when millennials arrived with their hustle culture in full swing.
“When millennials entered the workforce, they brought with them this mentality of 'go hard, go fast, rise quick,’” Gerhardt says.
Many companies created accelerated leadership pipelines specifically for millennials, sometimes skipping over Gen Xers entirely. This left Gen X stuck in organizational purgatory not quite at the top, but not at the bottom either. While about half of current Fortune 500 CEOs are Gen Xers, millennials now dominate middle management roles. And when it comes to political leadership, Gen X remains MIA. No Gen X president yet, despite their prime age range. They seem to be waiting their turn while stuck between an aging political elite and rising millennial stars.
Mantz started her Gen X community to encourage her peers to take charge despite their tendency to stay quiet.
“We have to raise our voices,” she says. “We’re dependable and experienced, but if we don’t speak up and advocate for ourselves, we’ll keep being overlooked.”
And being overlooked isn’t just a professional nuisance. It has real emotional consequences. Gen X is reporting higher rates of depression, loneliness, and physical health issues than any other generation, according to Frank Infurna, a psychology professor at Arizona State University. Their cognitive function is declining faster too.
Infurna attributes this to multiple factors. Gen X began working right as pensions were phased out and 401(k)s came in meaning they had to figure out retirement planning solo. They're raising kids in the hypercompetitive modern school system, with immense pressure to “do it all.” They've also weathered more economic upheaval than many realize.
“They took a serious hit in the 2008 financial crisis,” economist Jeremy Horpedahl says. “That wiped out years of wealth just as they were starting to build it.” It took Gen X a long time to recover and many are still catching up.
Despite this, the generation’s mood is a mixed bag. Some are content to be left alone. Others resent being perpetually edited out of the narrative.
It’s not that Gen X hasn’t shaped culture. Quite the opposite. From Friends and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to The X-Files and The Fresh Prince, much of 1990s pop culture bears their fingerprints though people don’t always associate it with a specific generation. We remember Jennifer Aniston and Will Smith as stars, not as Gen X icons. Compare that with how we associate Taylor Swift with millennials or Olivia Rodrigo with Gen Z.
The same applies in tech. While Steve Jobs is firmly a boomer and Mark Zuckerberg screams millennial, Google’s cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are Gen X. But how often do we frame them that way?
Music may be the one area where Gen X's identity remains strong. Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Beck still serve as cultural shorthand for the era. And recently, Gen X nostalgia has made a comeback ahead of the wave that millennials are only now starting to ride.
To be honest, this whole invisibility thing might not be such a bad gig. No one blames Gen X for the avocado toast budget crisis or the death of cereal. They didn’t grow up glued to social media or trapped by algorithmic timelines. They had childhoods that weren’t documented online and know what it means to be unplugged and how to plug in when needed.
“Before we had the internet, we had The Terminator,” Salmon jokes.
Whether or not Gen X finally gets its cultural moment, they’re okay with it. If the spotlight finds them, cool. If not whatever.
