{"id":24937,"date":"2025-03-28T20:12:41","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T21:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24937"},"modified":"2025-03-28T21:26:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T21:26:28","slug":"the-gen-x-career-meltdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24937","title":{"rendered":"The Gen X Career Meltdown"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Listen to this story with Steven Kurutz\u2019s commentary about why he wrote it.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption>
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In \u201cGeneration X,\u201d<\/strong> the 1991 novel that defined the generation born in the 1960s and 1970s, Douglas Coupland<\/a> chronicled a group of young adults who learn to reconcile themselves to \u201cdiminishing expectations of material wealth.\u201d Lessness<\/em>, Mr. Coupland called this philosophy.<\/p>\n

For many of the Gen X-ers who embarked on creative careers in the years after the novel was published, lessness has come to define their professional lives.<\/p>\n

If you entered media or image-making in the \u201990s \u2014 magazine publishing, newspaper journalism, photography, graphic design, advertising, music, film, TV \u2014 there\u2019s a good chance that you are now doing something else for work<\/a>. That\u2019s because those industries have shrunk or transformed themselves radically, shutting out those whose skills were once in high demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am having conversations every day with people whose careers are sort of over,\u201d said Chris Wilcha, a 53-year-old film and TV director in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Talk with people in their late 40s and 50s who once imagined they would be able to achieve great heights \u2014 or at least a solid career while flexing their creative muscles \u2014 and you are likely to hear about the photographer whose work dried up, the designer<\/a> who can\u2019t get hired or the magazine journalist who isn\u2019t doing much of anything.<\/p>\n

Gen X-ers grew up as the younger siblings of the baby boomers, but the media landscape of their early adult years closely resembled that of the 1950s: a tactile analog environment of landline telephones, tube TV sets, vinyl records, glossy magazines and newspapers that left ink on your hands.<\/p>\n

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Listen to this story with Steven Kurutz\u2019s commentary about why he wrote it.In \u201cGeneration X,\u201d the 1991 novel that defined the generation born in the 1960s and 1970s, Douglas Coupland chronicled a group of young adults who learn to reconcile themselves to \u201cdiminishing expectations of material wealth.\u201d Lessness, Mr. Coupland called this philosophy.For many of the Gen X-ers who embarked on creative careers in the years after the novel was published, lessness has come to define their professional lives.If you entered media or image-making in the \u201990s \u2014 magazine publishing, newspaper journalism, photography, graphic design, advertising, music, film, TV \u2014 there\u2019s a good chance that you are now doing something else for work. That\u2019s because those industries have shrunk or transformed themselves radically, shutting out those whose skills were once in high demand.\u201cI am having conversations every day with people whose careers are sort of over,\u201d said Chris Wilcha, a 53-year-old film and TV director in Los Angeles.Talk with people in their late 40s and 50s who once imagined they would be able to achieve great heights \u2014 or at least a solid career while flexing their creative muscles \u2014 and you are likely to hear about the photographer whose work dried up, the designer who can\u2019t get hired or the magazine journalist who isn\u2019t doing much of anything.Gen X-ers grew up as the younger siblings of the baby boomers, but the media landscape of their early adult years closely resembled that of the 1950s: a tactile analog environment of landline telephones, tube TV sets, vinyl records, glossy magazines and newspapers that left ink on your hands.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2528,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24937"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24939,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24937\/revisions\/24939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}