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Now We Are 40
Tiffanie Darke
What happened to Generation X? Millenials dominate our Facebook feeds and people bang on about the baby boomers – but what about us? The lost generation, the middle youth, the middle child of today. Are we still cool?
Generation X? Remember them? The kids who believed they'd never grow up. The generation Douglas Coupland immortalised in his novel of the same name. The wry, knowing navel-gazers obsessed with cool and being cool who today are sandwiched between the boomers of the 60s and the millennials.
Gen X'ers came of age against a backdrop of Britpop and the Spice Girls, Tarantino and Pulp Fiction, Madchester and the Stone Roses, acid house and rave, super clubs, Ministry and Cream. They holidayed in Ibiza high on hooch and E and never ever believed there'd be a comedown.
So whatever happened to them?
We turned 40. And as Tiffanie Darke points out in this witty exploration of the generation who defied generalisation, we're not handling it all that well
Where once we wore floaty skirts and Doc Martins, now we’re sporting Scandi fashion and 'interesting' trainers. We still party in Ibiza but now bodyboard in Cornwall. Where once mixtapes were the ultimate mating call, now we take selfies and swap Spotify playlists all the while conspicuously wearing large Dr Beats headphones and casually leaving old packets of Kingsize Rizla lying round our open plan kitchens.
More to the point, Gen X are now in charge. In government, in business and the creative industries. The most anti-establishment of generations has now become the establishment. But as tech overtakes the arts as society's great shaping force, Tiffanie ponders does cool and its pursuit still matter? If Gen X had it sorted, gave us Barack Obama and downward facing dogs, why is stress the new flu? Why are we working not for love anymore or cool but to avoid negative equity and depleting pension pots?
In Now We Are 40, Tiffanie interviews some of the most iconic Gen X’ers such as Pearl Lowe, Richard Reed and Blur’s bassist Alex James to look at how Gen X live their life in between being young and old, and how it feels to want to burn down the establishment only to realise that now you are the establishment.
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Copyright (#u83ea2665-dfc5-55b9-b89d-a5b454d29081)
HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
FIRST EDITION
© Tiffanie Darke 2017
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover illustration © Noma Bar
Tiffanie Darke asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780008185329
Ebook edition: February 2017 ISBN: 9780008185343
Version: 2017-02-07
Epigraph (#u83ea2665-dfc5-55b9-b89d-a5b454d29081)
The carapace of coolness is too much for Claire, also. She breaks the silence by saying that it’s not healthy to live life as a succession of isolated little cool moments. ‘Either our lives become stories, or there’s just no way to get through them.’
Douglas Coupland, Generation X
Contents
Cover (#u1cac3145-6622-5ac1-8680-2e26a7f2e874)
Title Page (#udacc11ae-3b0e-58f8-a84a-c21b0bc5eba2)
Copyright (#u3efb1ee1-9b0e-57b3-ae5f-e61adb7de9bb)
Epigraph (#uf9be8ccd-1e01-59f7-af43-9d4d5f33a546)
Going Up, Going Down (#uf8ad87a5-11cd-5c2d-b130-8fb12bba86b9)
Introduction: Don’t Grow Up – It’s a Trick (#ufc63a28f-1c98-5ffa-9262-26eba35b9438)
1 I Was Eight in the Eighties (#u9d55d2ae-7146-51e2-adf6-7aaf97c2d596)
2 Four Go to Ibiza (#u7cce07ef-0076-5c01-b7ad-1008b7e59388)
3 Just Be Good to Me: How Business Became Sexy (#u3d888635-3bfd-5c63-a123-a149167e23b1)
4 When Noel Gallagher Went to Number 10 (#ua87fa3e0-178a-5d6e-8414-6ed936175a95)
5 Clinton’s Cigar (#uecbdc264-a002-570e-ad6b-6b5f6c2ec5c3)
6 Let’s Get Digital (#litres_trial_promo)
7 Three Lions (#litres_trial_promo)
8 Sex: The Consequences (#litres_trial_promo)
9 Meet You in the Gastropub (#litres_trial_promo)
10 Never Complain, Never Explain (#litres_trial_promo)
11 Namaste (#litres_trial_promo)
12 Alexander Is Dead, Long Live McQueen (#litres_trial_promo)
13 Flat White (#litres_trial_promo)
14 Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels (#litres_trial_promo)
15 Is It My Go on the iPad Now? (#litres_trial_promo)
16 Amy Winehouse, RIP (#litres_trial_promo)
17 Going Green, Finally (#litres_trial_promo)
18 Will House Prices Ever Stop Going Up? (#litres_trial_promo)
19 The Speed of Things (#litres_trial_promo)
20 Where We Are Headed (#litres_trial_promo)
Appendix (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Going Up, Going Down (#u83ea2665-dfc5-55b9-b89d-a5b454d29081)
When I edited the Sunday Times Style magazine, the ‘Going Up, Going Down’ column became something of a cult read. Readers furiously measured themselves against it: were they still wearing one of the trends we would cruelly consign to ‘Going Down’? Were they already ordering the cocktail that we would crown in ‘Going Up’? A shortcut to everything that is in and out of favour, like the best journalism the column was born of instinct, wit and inside knowledge. Or just how ravaging our hangovers were on a Thursday morning.
This is my version of what it’s like being in your forties.
UP
Boden
Strangely good these days
Zoopla and Rightmove
Better than sex
Food
OBSESSED. When your buckwheat risotto says more about you than your vintage Prada
Witness the fitness
The Iron Man entry form is the new trophy wife; sleeveless dresses the status symbol of acceptable upper-arm tone
Paaarty!
The skills are honed
Our kids
A confetti canon of love on permanent explosion
Home economics
What you used to spend on shoes, you now spend on mid-century modern furniture
Wise, but not smug
Yep – we know stuff now. But we still want to know more
Cool
Still like it. Love it actually
DOWN
Hangovers
Crucifying. And getting worse
Luxury labels
So new money. Unless it’s Gucci. Or Balenciaga. Do keep up
Having it all
Overrated
Smartphones
Remember that time when we used to go places with people and do things? Walk along the street without bumping into people? No, me neither
Botox denial
Don’t get left behind, pruneface
God
Who?
Parenting
Torturous, difficult, exhausting, boring, life-limiting, endless
Money
Suddenly, irritatingly, an issue
