Today I received the most recent Film Forum poster, which features a large ad for the 40th-anniversary screening of Easy Rider. I wonder if there are others who think this movie has a happy ending. It’s not that I condone blowing anybody away with a shotgun. In fact, I’m on the record as a wuss about violence in movies. It’s just that those characters are such unappealing people, I didn’t feel a whole lot remorse for them when they bite it at the end.
And so I add this as item #2 to a brand new list: How You Know You’re Generation Jones. (I tried to start compiling it collaboratively on Facebook with this status line: “Dean knows he’s Generation Jones because he couldn’t care less about where you were when JFK was assassinated.” That effort went nowhere.)
I realize I’m somewhat late to the game, Joneswise. The book that first identified this generational sliver was published in 2001. Still, as Time has noted, Barack Obama is the first president who is one of us. (End to the baby boomer era? Good riddance!) And so, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, work with me here. Let’s take this opportunity to come up with some other emblems of the generation that stayed a little too long at the party. Yes, Bob Dylan is fair game.
Can I be a Ms. Jones? I was born in '66, but Generation X has never resonated for me. When I was in my early 20s, I missed out on the whole slacker thing—finished college, got a job, got married, bought a car, and got a mortgage between the ages of 21 and 26 when I was apparently supposed to be living with my parents and playing video games.
You're Generation Jones if you're intimately familiar with the videos that appeared on MTV in 1981 and 1982 and can name all the early VJs. Your friends who didn't have cable had to make do with an hour (half hour?) of Friday Night Videos.
From a very poppy culture perspective, you know you’re Generation Jones (1963 for me) if you had a Flatsy Doll; if you argued over the Jackson 5 vs. The Osmonds; if you were barely allowed to go see Saturday Night Fever in 1977 (which you wanted to see because of Vinnie Barbarino). You actually purchased those sweet and sour candy rings, and probably one of those mood rings as well.
From a techie perspective, you know you’re Generation Jones if your first computer class required you to learn Basic and you were so proud of printing one of those punch cards with Snoopy’s image on it.
I was born in 1960 and never did feel like a Baby Boomer.
You're Generation Jones if you owned a Partridge Family Album and you paid more than $20.00 but less than $100.00 for a calculator to take to college.
You're Generation Jones if one of your most cherished possesions was a portable cassette recorder, complete w/ microphone to capture yourself warbling those Partridge Family tunes.
You're Generation Jones if Watergate was your current events project in elementary school (I played Spiro Agnew in our classroom dramatization!)
Yes, SEL's answers resonate strongly with me.
I felt too old for Sesame Street by the time it made its debut (although now I understand it's even better for adults). The most formative and beguiling character on TV for me was not Big Bird but Sam Ervin.
And what was that early portable cassette machine? It was white, molded plastic, with rounded features liked an AMC Pacer.
The Pacer! That's another one.
You're a generation Jones if the Nixon / McGovern election generated serious heat in your 5th grade classroom.
You're generation Jones if you remember your mom waxing the kitchen floors while watching the Watergate Hearings.
You're generation Jones if you spent time seriously worrying that Skylab might fall on your house.
I think what defines the Boomers and the Jonesers is Vietnam and the aftermath. If you could be drafted to serve in Vietnam, you are a Boomer. If you could legally drink at 18 but did not have to worry about the draft, then you are a Joneser. If you turned 18 after the drinking age went back up, then you are an Xer. A lot of people will disagree with me about the Joneser/Xer line, but I think events define generations as much as dates.
I just discovered the whole Generation Jones – and yes I am a generation Jones. OK – you know you are a generation Jones growing up in NYC if walking down the street in the mid 70's you were either confronted by a Moony or Hari-Krishnah, asking you to leave home and run away with them
You know you're Generation Jones if you identify with Will or Penny characters from the TV show Lost in Space. That is, you've been lost all your life.
JBeek says:
I'm your age, Dean, and call myself Generation X. We're the early edge of that, as defined in America by Strauss and Howe, and popularized by Coupland (his defection notwithstanding). Generation Jones is marketing BS by huckster Pontrell. Sorry you got scammed by it, as did I at first.
Define Gen X as roughly 1960-1980 births, then Millenials through 2000.
I am 1960 Jones – How's this, did you learn how to drive in a Ford Pinto? And do you watch "That 70's Show" and realize they are acting out your high school years?
Billy, don't be a hero – 'cause in the early morning after, one tin soldier rides away.
Don't rock the boat with that fox on the run. Listen to what the man said, and just live and let die.
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y. Saturday night's alright, and tonight's the night. Moonlight feels right. Venus and mars are alright tonight.
If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy, come on sugar let me know, my Sharona.
Don't go breakin' my heart of glass, you heartbreaker… dream maker…love taker.
Don't you want me, baby? I just wanna be your everything. Let's get physical!
Farrah was our Queen.
R.I.P.
*tear*
Farewell to the ANGEL and the THRILLER. We'll miss you, Farrah and Michael.
You know you were generation Jones if you were a teenager during the sexual revolution of the 1970's and were in your 20's and getting your first taste of freedom during the AIDS scares of the 1980's.
i have never felt like a boomer,thats my aunt barb nor an X'er, that was my brother born in 1975. so i think your a jones if you went to see starwars at least 2 times with your friends and had a partridge family lunchbox, oh and i rocked the dorthy hamill haircut.
You are Generation Jones if, "Mom always said, don't play ball in the house," and "Oh my nose!" is permanently burnt into your brain.
You're JG if you remember going with your parents to the store because your sister wanted a Light Peg.
You're JG if you remember the songs "Monster Mash" and "King Tut" with great fondness.
You're JG if you loved the show "Space 1999."
You're JG if they had video equipment in grade school that was the size of a refrigerator.
You're JG if Keith was cool, but you wanted to have sex, whatever that as, with his sister Laurie.
I WAS BORN IN MAY OF 1963.NATION BALL WAS THE GAME MOST PLAYED AT SCHOOL LEARNING WAS EASY CAUSE WE'D RATHER LISTEN TO THE TEACHER THAN TALK TO THE CLASS. IF YOU PAID ATTENTION TO WHAT WAS SAID YOU ALWAYS FINISHED YOUR WORK IN CLASS. WHATS HOMEWORK? AND OUR SLANG TERM FOR ANYTHING COOL WAS… BAD. WE WERE THE "LOWRIDER" GENERATION.
Born in 62 here and I think that much of what defines "Generation Jones" is having a very questioning attitude coming from being told and taught one thing in early youth and then seeing / experiencing a very different reality as we came of age. From the "American Dream" to Recession, from "WW2 Heroes" to "Apocolypse Now" and "Kill a Commie for Mommie" to "Kent State Shootings"… LOL. So please ignore the man behind the curtain and enjoy the show, which might consist of things like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Dirty Harry, Star Wars, LP's and Remembering when McDonalds signs had replaceable numbers for how many million burgers they sold instead of "Billions and Billions"!
you know your a joneser if you wore those jeans with the loop in the side and had a bandana hanging out of your back pocket.
you know your a joneser if you had to replace your 8 track with a cassett player in the car
you know your a joneser if you parted your hair in the middle and kept one of those combs with a big handle hanging out of your back pocket.
you know your a joeser if you cried during lassie but laghed at appocolyps now.
You know your generation jones when your not exactly certain what "summer of Love" actually refers to. Oh yeah, I don't actually recall where i was when JFK died either.
Thanks to a glitch that is totally my own fault, “Malinak” wished to leave a comment here and could not. I’m posting it on Malinak’s behalf:
“You know you’re Generation Jones if you collected Looney Tunes glasses from McDonald’s, ran around with those ridiculous wax lips on your face, knew all the words to Benny and the Jets (or faked them), and your fifth or sixth grade teacher wore a button that read: Don’t blame me, I voted for McGovern.”