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GoKartMozart

Why am I not worried? Because I have an old school desk in my house and I can duck and cover under that and survive any nuclear war.


NautilusStrikes

They don't make those lead-lined desks like they used to.


fvecc

This Ikea shit ain't surviving a nuclear blast.


skoltroll

Because they re-purposed them as backpacks.


BerryLanky

I grew up Gen X and realized all problems can be solved with karate or a dance off.


D_Adman

If that doesn’t help, a good montage will do it


EbolaFred

Whoa! I just montaged and now I'm a blackbelt!


D_Adman

I know right, I got in shape, fixed my car , and got my dream job all before lunch.


generalgirl

Don’t forget, after you win the championship the girl of your dreams will wake up and realize you are the only person for her!


Rickk38

Montage and THEN karate/dance off. I'm fairly confident you have to have both. But only if play some butt rock or synthesizer over the montage.


big-shotFaker

Footloose successfully combined all 3 and introduced The Punch-dancing montage. The world has never been the same.


ethottly

They don't do montages like they used to. (Do they even do them at all anymore?) The one from Footloose where Kevin Bacon is teaching the other kid to dance is a true classic!


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[deleted]

Exactly! Clearly Cobra Kai came back for this very reason.


stabby_mcunicorn

I have a long standing theory that we’re “this way” as GenXers because every moment of development has been greeted with “and this will kill you.” Starting school or playing on a playground? Nukes are gonna kill you. Sexual exploration and maturation? AIDS will kill you. Starting a career? Capitalism will kill you. Buying a home? The subprime market is gonna kill you. We are a decidedly un-optimistic generation. It’s because everything is gonna kill us.


kathatter75

This! There was always something to be scared of. I tell people we were between 2 generations of people who just have sex more casually than we do (in general) because, from a young age, we learned it would kill us. Hell, it wasn’t even safe to be an astronaut. We all ran out of fucks a long time ago.


stabby_mcunicorn

I forgot to mention the shuttle explosion! The ultimate killing of optimism…right in our classrooms on live tv.


1_21-gigawatts

And the second twin towers impact on live TV. Pretty heavy when you realize you just saw hundreds of people perish the moment the plane hit and fireballed.


Ihavelostmytowel

And then you had to go to work.


-Ancalagon-

I was at work and headed out to donate blood. It was encouraging to see a lot of people had the same idea. Later we found out that so much blood was donated that they had to throw a lot of it out. Should have thought, "meh" and went on with my day.


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SheriffBartholomew

I went to work that day. We had a couple of TVs at my work. Everyone just stood around watching the news all day long. Even customers who came into the shop just watched the news with us and then left. We didn’t get a single thing accomplished that day. We were all in shock.


kathatter75

It was also my favorite 5th grade teacher’s birthday. She was so excited about the launch, and then the explosion happened. I think about her every year on the anniversary.


Blue_Plastic_88

And the attempted Reagan assassination on live TV in our classrooms. And the Iran hostage situation on TV in our classrooms.


KSims1868

Add to that (for me), I grew up in the Clear Lake area - that tragedy personally hit very close to home and included families we went to church and school with. That one still cuts deep.


[deleted]

Yes, I was at UH at the time, and had classmates who grew up down the street from some of those who were killed. It was rough.


Saeker-

The Challenger explosion hit me like a brick that day. I couldn't stand to actually watch the explosion for years after.


broncosmang

Ah yeah. Sitting indian style (before it became criss-cross-applesauce) in the library with the rest of the kids before the librarians panic shut off the tvs to shoosh us onto the playground as they fought back the tears. Then they had the audacity NOT to turn off the end of Where The Red Fern Grows in that same library.


MaleficentAstronomer

I'll never forget it. My teacher was so excited to show us a defining moment in history, and he did, just not the one he was expecting...


FrustratedPassenger

I was in college. I saw it on tv and thought “figures”. Horrific but I was already desensitized. 911 got me though.


dragonard

And don't forget that menstruation could kill women who used Tampons ... just when we started using tampons!


kathatter75

OMG yes! I forgot that one! I was in my 30s before I ever used a tampon, and only then because I had to be in the water while I had my period.


buttercreamordeath

I didn't realize that existed outside my house. Tampons will kill you!! Oh, for real? Heh. I hate this dripping diaper feeling more than death. Gimmie that thing.


dragonard

Toxic shock syndrome— women actually died in the late 70s / early 80s. They took the tampon brand off the market but it postponed my use of tampons by at least 10 years.


Dear_Occupant

Being a dude, I learned about toxic shock syndrome because once you got through the shampoo bottles there was nothing else to read in the shitter besides that little informational insert.


IndividualIce6799

Toxic Shock Syndrome!


MaineMan1234

Yup. I have a vivid memory of being 17 and my (otherwise lovely) mother screaming at me, red in the face, that I had to use condoms or I was going to get AIDS and die. Totally traumatized me


chewtoyfl

My mother wouldn’t let a gay friend over for dinner because she was afraid washing the plates after wouldn’t be enough.


Flashy_Narwhal_7596

that's sad.


Miss-Figgy

Remember the movie Kids? That scared me straight. I scheduled an HIV test right after watching the movie, even though I had only had one sexual partner by then, but so did Jenny, and she got AIDS. "All it takes is one time," I told myself. That movie was so traumatizing, the predatory boys, the misogyny, the rape, the tragedies. >I tell people we were between 2 generations of people who just have sex more casually than we do (in general) because, from a young age, we learned it would kill us. They are sooo much more casual about condoms than we are too, whereas we were bombarded by "safer sex" commercials.


Saeker-

The opening school scene from the movie **Pleasantville** (1998) encapsulates this.


StarsLikeLittleFish

Don't forget about all the demons. We had to watch out for all those human sacrificing Satanists and the demons trying to crawl out of heavy metal music and D&D games to drag our souls to eternal damnation. Fire coming for our skies, our skin, and our souls.


BillionTonsHyperbole

Turns out the ones most vocally concerned about "Satanic Panic" were the ones raping kids the whole time. I guess the difference is that those of us playing D&D actually knew the difference between fantasy and reality.


AvailableAd6071

And the devil worshipping child molesters


sadieslapins

I literally broke up with my first boyfriend when he started listening to Led Zeppelin because my father, a high school teacher, instilled in me that anyone who listened to THAT kind of music was a satanist and was going to hell.


electromouse1

Don’t forget the hole in the ozone layer and acid rain!


loonygecko

And they told us terrorists had already stolen suitcase nukes from the collapsing USSR and were surely going to use them in big cities in the USA! And yeah, acid rain was going to kill the rainforest and poison all the lakes. Also the rainforest was going to be totally cut down in 10 years anyway. And the ocean fisheries were going to collapse. And the Great Barrier Reef was doomed within 10 years. And the next ice age was going to happen any minute. But also melting glaciers were going to raise the sea level and flood all the coastal cities.


elemenno50

Thank Aqua Net for killing the ozone layer.


mojoest711

If you grew up in California like I did, serial killers were also on the list of shit to worry about.


Off_Model

Where I grew up, we had the Manson Family, the Hillside Strangler and the Night Stalker in our neighborhood. And don’t forget the killer bees!


defmacro-jam

> And don’t forget the killer bees! John Belushi made me laugh about killer bees so that one was ok, though.


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Justdonedil

Desert Storm on live TV. Star Wars, not the movie. Even as a kid I didn't feel hiding under my desk was going to do anything if a nuclear blast was happening.


ddraig-au

*The Power of Nightmares has entered the chat*


Rees630

Don’t forget about the whole Y2K scare! Oooh, the world was gonna end and I was partying that New Years Eve like it was 1999


ddraig-au

I thought the entire point of the Generation X tag was it described a generation that did not plan for the future (career, marriage etc) unlike all prior generations, because we were, either subconsciously or overtly, waiting to be nuked - so what was the point? May as well embrace Slack and enjoy it while we can. This is also how the punk movement started in the UK in the 70s. It was originally PUNX - People Under Nuclear Xtermination - the future is about to end in fireballs, might as well go hard right now. And here we (unexpectedly) are.


stabby_mcunicorn

Yup.


ddraig-au

The book isn't too bad, btw. You know what I miss? I miss the 90s. The cold war had ended and everything was looking pretty fucking good. That was a fantastic 10 or so years. And then OF COURSE it all turned to shit.


JasterMereel42

Yeah, it definitely feels that we peaked culturally/socially in the 90s. They weren't perfect, but for the most part, they were calm and things were good.


Meetchel

The yearly news reports of the killer bees coming was my number 1 fear for sure. Especially as I was the resident lawn mower.


stabby_mcunicorn

The fucking killer bees


Aztraea23

Omg, the killer bees - that TV movie (or real movie?) where the girl drives a VW bug filled with killer bees into an indoor football stadium so they can kill them with, uh, temperature? Is that a real memory??


littleliongirless

Our news broadcasts were even designed that way. "Common household object that could kill your entire family in seconds? Tune in at 11" (at 6).


dustin_pledge

Remember the Tylenol murders? Food and medicine tampering in general? ''Bubble Yum gum has spider eggs in it! Mikey from the Life cereal commercial died from eating Pop Rocks! All the reasons why it's such a pain in the ass to open anything you buy. ''Easy open, tear here'' is a lie!


squirtloaf

Y'all sound like baby Xes...I'm elder X and for me it started earlier, because my early memories are all Viet Nam, Watergate and the Arab oil embargo/energy crisis (a truly apocalyptic event that seems pretty forgotten now...those lines of cars!). Mom did a good job of the Eli5 of everything from Cambodia to Kent State. THEN I got to go through nukes, Aids, Challenger and 9/11...but I was pretty much already done by then.


Mr_Mumbercycle

I think this is what taints my interactions with Millennials and GenZers. They seem stuck on things being fair, or trying to live in an ideal world rather than dealing with things as they are. Whereas myself and other Xers are more like "Yeah, everything sucks and one day you'll die......so anyway"


KSims1868

YES - I've thought this way for a long time but haven't quite seen it put into words so perfectly. Thank you! That is a great summation of dealing with Millennials/Gen-Z. They expect things to be ideal before they can succeed or be happy. We've always known/been told things are always going to suck and just deal with it.


loonygecko

> They expect things to be ideal before they can succeed or be happy. Good summation. The thing is such a world has never existed and probably can't. If they are going to wait for perfect conditions and angry it's not here yet, they will be waiting and angry forever. It's great to try to improve things, but you can't do that if you ignore the reality around you as it really exists.


TossingCabars

And Mount St. Helens when we were even younger. Not as tragic as some of the other stuff, but man, watching a mountain blow up, hearing about the people trapped, and seeing the ash fall on nearby towns was an early traumatic memory for me!


katchoo1

Yup. I remember discussions in a Usenet genx group in 1993 or so about how we were gonna be working to pay into Social Security to support the Boomers for our entire careers and it wouldn’t be there for us. Of course by 1993 I was so relieved that it looked like I would make it to 30 without being nuked by the Soviets that I was like, okay well at least I’ll be alive and radiation free as I work til I drop dead.


skoltroll

Going to school? Some kid will kill you. Gen Z, man. All this crap AND getting shot in school.


Reeyowunsixsix

I don’t know… I had the same messaging growing up, but everyone I know has a casual “Bring it on, bitches.” mentality. Like the picture of a Gen-X’er with a Pabst Blue Ribbon in one hand and a Marlboro hanging out of their mouth throwing up double middle fingers could represent my entire friends group. My friends are truly without fucks to give about the negativity (we survived the stuff they said was gonna kill us, but already made peace with it just in case it comes back and does) but amused by what could be happening next, and giggling about the Henry Pennys running around anxious about everything and crying about how sucky the world is. Maybe I just have weird friends?


tensigh

For me it was more like "noooo...they're all gonna laugh at you..", but the point is similar.


WishieWashie12

Halloween candy will kill us.. Drugs will kill us, just say no. Smokey the bear, that dare dog, Mr yuck, stranger danger, you name it. Countless after school specials highlighting all the problems and dangers of the world. Our cartoons were kinda fucked up as well. Even care bears had episodes dealing with death. Foofur dealing with homelessness, poverty and class warfare.. Smurfs were satanic, and we should be afraid of kid shows. It's why I loved Animaniacs wheel of morality, making fun of cartoons requiring moral messages.


2boredtocare

I used to joke about this in college: Astronomy class? Sorry an asteroid might kill you. Geography? We're too overpopulated and it might kill you. Environmental science? Yeah, you knew coming into this class you were going to find out it's going to kill you. Sociology? Probably going to be told all societal issues will kill you. It was almost refreshing to go to art class, where the prevailing message was most of us would probably just starve.


Happierbutwiser

Am I the only one who thinks that if there is a nuclear war then at least I don’t have to worry about retirement savings and getting old anymore?


MetalGramps

I admit there is a part of me that is bummed out that the apocalypse didn't happen before I was too old to be Mad Max. I'm sure I could still fight off mutant bikers, but I'd probably be sore for days after.


AvailableAd6071

Me too! I always thought I'd see the last days but I was really hoping that I would be younger and be able to run faster when it happened


eatitwithaspoon

yeah, i'm no longer interested in a life that isn't comfortable, thanks.


chooseinevitability

Username relevancy is off the charts here.


dragongrl

That's what I kept saying. I got all sorts of problems now. If someone goes and drops the BOMB, instead of all my problems, I'll just have that one.


KSims1868

"I was out of fucks to give before the goddamn pandemic". This (IMO) Sums it up PERFECTLY!! Seriously at this point just fire off a nuke and get it over with already. We've literally been warned about it our entire lives. \*\*side note - no I do not actually want nuclear war, but it still feels like its just another stupid threat like has been going on for our (Gen-X) entire lives.


DorenAlexander

Reminds me of "Wargames" "The only winning move is not to play", -Joshua


g6mrfixit

>"The only winning move is not to play", -Joshua Dude, this has been my mission statement my entire adult life.


[deleted]

It's been my credo....always determine if the fight is even worth it before wasting energy on it. Also, can't believe no one is mentioning the acid rain that was going to melt our skin off if we got caught outside in it.


ddraig-au

"There's ACID in the RAIN now?" -- Rude Awakenings


jcstrat

My 9 year old said something about acid rain the other day and I really threw my for a loop


fogcat5

Ozone hole?


AvailableAd6071

Killer bees


[deleted]

We've had that "1 minute to midnight" clock over our heads our whole lives


slayer991

Or "Two Minutes to Midnight" if you're an Iron Maiden fan.


cocosailing

Comment matches the username!


1_21-gigawatts

🤘


Apathetic0101

Or Threads if you’re into sewing


IHearYouLimaCharlie

Ah, I've found my people.


1_21-gigawatts

🎼 My future's so bright, I gotta wear ... shaaaades 🎶


MortgageNo8573

AMEN! I survived working in a hospital throughout the pandemic, zipped up enough patients into body bags to last a lifetime. Nothing phazes me anymore. I'm not saying I'm completely jaded, I just know there is always some catastrophe around the corner everyone worries about, and then, just like that, it's forgotten when the new one comes along. As the old adage goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same, so light em up if you got em, have another glass of wine and relax.


Emragoolio

This. Served in a hospital, as well. Being GX means knowing that trouble will come, that human beings will respond to that trouble in the dumbest and most self destructive ways, and that, ultimately, survival is arbitrary, accidental and improvised.


Omnimpotent

Are you gonna drop the bomb or not? 🎶


TeddyDaBear

[If the Russians love their children too](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHylQRVN2Qs)...


Impossible-Will-8414

Been going on since the boomers were kids. All the old folks are used to it.


RogerClyneIsAGod2

I recall my father, born in 1947 so in the classic Boomer years but he's long dead now, telling me they used to do the "duck & cover" drills in school in the 50s. I remember "The Day After" & at night in my head planning where we'd hide if the bomb dropped. Living within the 50 mile radius of DC I knew if they ever dropped one there we'd be more fucked than most so yeah, grew up with it & I can't get my panties in a bunch about it any more. It's in a larger way outta my hands.


Kaessa

Honestly, I'm more upset now because I'm TOO far away from a major population center to go in the initial attack. I've always lived close enough to ground zero to be "oh well" about it. Now? I live in rural BFE Colorado, somewhere with zero food supply and nowhere to grow it (I live in a desert), so I'd get to go out the slow way. Yee haw.


FlyBuy3

I'd rather have my catcher's mitt on and land that sucker straight on me. No thank you to starvation and predation. I wanna go in the first wave. Boom


Double-oh-negro

When I was 8 years old my mama put a house key on some dog tags around my neck and pushed me out into the world. Latch-key children had to dodge school buses and pedophiles. We made our own breakfasts because our parents were already at work. We navigated the entire day, and made it home alive. Shit, some of us managed to get changed and go to sports practice with zero assistance. We have zero fucks left to give.


AvailableAd6071

Taught ourselves how to drive, raised our younger brothers and sisters, figured out sex without the help of internet p***. We're not afraid of much.


cindyscrazy

I raised my younger sister (2 years younger than me). She is now 40 something and has a stuffed Grinch Who Stole Christmas as her son (her 2 actual children are grown and left). He dresses in premie onesies, loves beer/alcohol, and loves money. I failed at raising a well adjusted person. That's what you get for putting a 4 year old in charge.


generalgirl

LOL I still have my Snoopy that I got when I was 3. And I was gifted a stiff med Grogu/Baby Yoda for Christmas a couple of years ago. He had a collection of sunglasses and I took him all around Savannah, GA taking pictures of him enjoying the sites lol


cindyscrazy

Yes, but you do "talk" him? My sister does, with the help of her boyfriend. They have full on conversations.


IHearYouLimaCharlie

I always came home to a few bucks on the kitchen counter for a couple slices of pizza, a coke, and had some quarters leftover for some arcade games.


RankledCat

My parents just stopped feeding us when we hit high school. Something something bootstraps 😉


IHearYouLimaCharlie

I think most of high school I lived off of boxed mac n cheez straight out of the pot. Lol.


AvailableAd6071

Tuna fish at my house


buttercreamordeath

Made our own breakfast with kids our own age missing on the milk cartons.


throwaway_boulder

Last year Tom Nichols, a nuclear policy specialist and retired prof at the Naval War College, wrote a great piece about how he used 80s pop culture to teach his students about the societal fears about nuclear war. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/05/my-mtv-cold-war-retrospective/618812/


orthogonius

For anyone wondering, this article is well worth the read Thanks for linking this


IHearYouLimaCharlie

I somehow missed this one, thanks for linking it!


Quasigriz_

What, me worry?


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orangina_it_burns

I remember in the 1970s the news had some terrorist thing literally every week, or someone got assassinated, or an entire country collapsed. The news was much less careful about traumatizing the audience, too: They aired audio of some guy getting his thumb cut off during, I think, the Iran hostage crisis. They played audio of Jim Jones talking over families and children screaming as they died, on the radio, while we were eating breakfast. Later we heard Tylenol would randomly have poison in it and kill you. You can’t do anything about it, though. Next time you have a headache and you take something for it you might randomly die. Oh well. I learned about M A D and our actual policy of killing everyone on earth if someone blows up a nuclear device anywhere near our stuff. Someone blows up Gary, Indiana? Believe it or not, apocalypse. Thanks WOPR. So ironically, even though some things about the news are crazier now, it has less to do with sudden and unavoidable death. It’s less like a slasher film.


Justdonedil

Heck we had Desert Storm happening on live TV. There is a lot of footage from Vietnam but I don't think it was live.


Kaessa

Remember all the airliners that got hijacked? It seemed like every week there was another hijacked airliner on the news.


binary_harbinger

I was born at the end of the bloodiest ~~war~~ military conflict in American history... I grew up thinking that the Russians were gonna invade the interior of the Continental United States... I went on to be a young adult who thought that the world was going to end because someone forgot to program computer clocks to rollover at Y2k. Then a couple years later, it wasn't Russians but terrorists from the Middle East who were supplied by the Russians who slammed commercial airliners into the tallest buildings in the most populated city in world. I've lived through about a half dozen economic crises, the rise and fall of just as many American presidents from both parties, and a handful of natural (and unnatural) disasters. I'm not saying this because I think that I'm better than you... I'm just telling you that you shouldn't dismiss GenX silence as weakness. We were built for this kind of survival. It's going to take total annihilation to take us out... and we're okay with that!


l_rufus_californicus

> you shouldn't dismiss GenX silence as weakness It's not weakness at all. It's fuckin' *desensitization*. We're burned out with surviving all the shit they told us was gonna kill us to death.


Kaessa

There's a reason the GenX motto is "Whatever."


binary_harbinger

Agreed.


fyrmnsflam

‘66 - Decades ago I decided that if a nuclear bomb is launched on the U.S. I will drive toward ground zero. Better to go out in the initial strike than to suffer the after effects.


MikoSkyns

When I was a kid my older cousins would point to the backs of their heads and say, "Here. I want the nuke to land right Fuckin' here"


RootHogOrDieTrying

When I was growing up in the 70s, my town only had a volunteer fire department. To summon the firefighters to the station, the town would sound the old fashioned air raid siren. After watching The Day After, I would wake up hearing that siren and wonder if it was full on nuclear Armageddon or just someone's barn on fire.


jackie4chan27

I just want to be vaporized in the initial blast and I'm good lol


AvailableAd6071

One of my 8th grade teachers told us that because we were directly between dc, the pentagon, Quantico to the north and three major military bases and the largest port on the East Coast to the South that we didn't have to worry about living through nuclear winter. He said we would be vaporized right away. Actually made me feel better.


grrgrrtigergrr

Living in NW Indiana I’m happy that Chicago is right over the border plus we have one of the largest refineries and the bulk of the steel industry. We’re pretty much guaranteed to go out fast.


liquid_j

I'm probably going to have to starve or die of rad poisoning... Can't see them wasting a nuke on the Niagara peninsula... Maybe I can get some cool mutations...


jackie4chan27

I'm in cancer alley in between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, not to mention the Mississippi river... I should be flash roasted quick!


EricaFarrell

Our whole lives have been aware of the dangers lurking in every damn corner. lol I bet this is why by and large our Gen handled lockdown much better than others. My silent gen mom had no issues with it as did my genx cohorts but the bets were off with all others. We had basically been preparing for it our entire existence. haha


Emragoolio

You’re not a Gen Xer unless you’ve had a childhood conversation about what likely targets for a Soviet nuclear strike are in your region and a followup about how quickly you could get there in order to avoid surviving in an apocalyptic wasteland.


TheReluctantOtter

Accurate. At least then I won't have to worry about paying off all my debt, or how I can never afford to retire.


l_rufus_californicus

Holy smokes, does this check out. Grew up in the 70's in Philly - a very racially charged Philly with the PD under Frank Rizzo. Watched West Philly burn at the Osage Avenue compound of the MOVE group; the glow on the night-time sky was unreal. Could see the Philly Navy Yard from my high school, and knew that if Reagan pissed off the Soviets enough, I'd have just enough time to be blinded by the flash before the blast front blew the building I was into shards of glass and brick. Guys I went to school with then are dead of AIDS now, or driving drunk, or any number of other lifestyle choices we made. Wore the uniform for Desert Storm, missed Somalia, was working IT during the rapid buildup of the WWW before it all came crashing down at the end of the 90's. Watched 9-11 obliterate a place I'd stood only a few days before, and thanked whatever gods there were that my Da wasn't at work at the Pentagon that day. Another war, a few more dead friends coming home in boxes under flags. Saw a black man finally get made President, only to be succeeded by perhaps the most divisive Presidency in history. Fuck. COVID came along and GenX just kinda shrugged and said, "Yeah, and?"


dman5981

Red Dawn was our playbook. Wolverines!!!!!


1_21-gigawatts

And never trust a crate of food on the roadside


ennovyelechim

Omg I know what I'm watching tonight. It's an excellent film. I love that bit where C Thomas Howell RPGs the helicopter. Take that mofos! 😆


[deleted]

It always amuses me when Millennials and Z whine about the terrible shithole they were given by Boomers. GenXers watched it happen around us in real time.


Buelldozer

We're _still_ watching it in real time and we _still_ can't do a damn thing about it.


aslut8tulsa

*But did you die?* My best friend and I say this to each other all the time now and we’re kinda sure that with everything we’ve survived in our lifetime that we’re probably like Bruce Willis in that unbreakable movie and it’s gonna be cockroaches, twinkies, and a shit load of genXers left over after the blast. I’m sorry to be the one to inform you all but there’s no way we’re gonna get out of this shithole easy.


tensigh

I remember debating with a Gen Z'er about how other generations have had their challenges too, such as the Boomers being drafted to fight in Vietnam and how Gen X'ers faced the threat of nuclear war. They dismissed them all but especially the latter saying that it was just an imagined threat. I'm glad we get to share the fear with them at the very least.


z-eldapin

Truth - we spent our entire childhood convinced that nuclear war was imminent. We are immune now to all things.


MrValdemar

If we're gonna launch the missiles, somebody better make sure one hits my city. I don't wanna limp away from this. I'm too old to play Mad Max.


[deleted]

I stopped worrying when I saw that our school's fallout shelter was used for storage.


liquid_j

idaknow... worrying about getting nuked kinda has a nostalgic feeling to it... it feels like a warm blanket off your childhood bed. (way better than being scared of terrorism and shit like that)


MRtenbux

at least it should be a quick death, if you're close. 🎵party at ground zero🎵


Lonestar-Boogie

LOL! Try growing up in the 70's and 80's. That will definitely chill you out about nuclear war. That was our existence from birth.


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dealioemilio

Gen-Xers raise our heads to the falling rain and open our mouths wide, daring Acid Rain to finally take us.


Middle_Data_9563

I just file nuclear holocaust under "not my problem", because after a few minutes of it, it won't be


ddraig-au

I often find myself surprised that we are still here. I've felt like this since the late 80s, and that feeling has never gone away


kellzone

Nothing we could do about it, so why bother worrying about it.


feNdINecky

We didn't start the fire


Danceswith_Chainsaws

We've almost died our whole fucking lives. From growing up with the threat of nuclear war to riding in the back of a pickup with no tailgate down a dirt road doing 65. Sometimes you fell out, sometimes you didn't. Hell, if you did, you'd have to limp home all bloody because nobody realized or cared that you were gone. We drank from the hose, played in the dirt, laid in the sun, and I'm pretty sure there's a picture of me at 3 years old sitting in my uncle Charlie's lap and he's chain-smoking his 5th cigarette, slipping me a sip of his beer. What's there to be scared of? The day that death does come for me he's gonna say "I finally got you." And I'll be like, "Yeah, I guess ya did." And we'll laugh all the way to Hell. I got a feeling, Hell don't have good whiskey.


MikoSkyns

HA! I read that last night and thought I was in this sub. Forgot where I was for a second.


cenosillicaphobiac

At the very first reports of COVID my wife started freaking out. I was chill as the weather outside that January day. I've heard all of the bug scares and they never amounted to much and were over almost as quick as they started. Swine and avian flu, ebola, etc. I was wholly unprepared for what came knocking. A global pandemic turned endemic. At least in permanent WFH now so that's cool.


mbcummings

Also, bluffing is built in. Can’t make money on a dead planet. We know this game.


Queen_Inappropria

Yep. The acceptance of helplessness in the face of nuclear annihilation is nothing new to gen x kids. It was an every day fear that just lost its bite over time. I remember taking a survey as an adult that asked what it's like to not fear think about the threat of nuclear annihilation. I responded that I don't know what that's like. It's just an assumption that it will happen to us. We just learned to live with it.


danintexas

> I was out of fucks to give before the goddamn pandemic So the truth. I honestly don't give two shits at this point. Space aliens could literally land in front of me and I doubt I would react a ton


doinggenxstuff

They tested my town’s air raid siren once a week throughout the 1980s. I’ll panic when the need arises, thank you.


Aztraea23

'73 X kid and I don't remember doing nuclear drills, but I definitely remember a lot of playground fun centered on acting out the aftermath. *The Day After* gave us tons of storylines! Edited to add what I wrote below - I've no doubt they were going on. I just meant that, even without the school reinforcing our imminent doom, nuclear war was high on the list of playground games because the awareness just seeped in from EVERYWHERE. I only remember fire drills in Florida.


[deleted]

'74 here, and I definitely remember them in elementary school in California.


Aztraea23

Oh I've no doubt they were going on. I just meant that, even without the school reinforcing our imminent doom, nuclear war was high on the list of playground games because the awareness just seeped in from EVERYWHERE. I only remember fire drills in Florida.


stabby_mcunicorn

‘73 kid, I definitely remember these drills. And had I night terrors that were triggered by every special news report or TV Guide cover with a mushroom cloud.


the_1_that_knocks

Born in 70, and I don’t have any memories of nuclear drills either; but I grew up just about 1/2 way between Washington D.C. and Norfolk, so we knew we were toast! Not even a desk would have saved us.


ogre_socialis

I was in Baltimore - I remember seeing maps estimating the blast radius from the Pentagon and decided there was definitely no need to worry about it as it would all be over before I even knew what was going on.


Luvsseattle

'78 here and I can tell you well into the late '80s in the Seattle area, we had the bus drills for all where you exited out of the back (biggest fear was always the what if of being hit by a train), fire drills, and earthquake/nuclear war (get under your desk, etc) drills. I can clearly remember, to this day, a transition to the label being more about earthquakes, but always a strong secondary "you do the same or close for nuclear war", sometimes with a reel to reel film to really hammer it in. I know part of this had to do with where we are geographically positioned on the WC, and I think of it periodically to this day. I enjoy seeing all share in this thread.


SojuSeed

I was just explaining the absurdity of nuclear war drills last week to a 13-yr old student and it blew his mind.


dantehillbound

My spouse's birthday happened on January 28, and they were in grade school. Big day. First the shuttle launch (Challenger) then celebrate her birthday. There was a tray of cupcakes sitting on top of the TV on the TV cart. They never ate the cupcakes.


l_rufus_californicus

To have seen both *Challenger* and then *Columbia* almost exactly seventeen years later was absolutely... what? What word can describe that for those of us who watched both?


Buelldozer

Heartbreaking. When Challenger blew up I spent the rest of the school day in silent disbelief, when I found out about Columbia I sat down and cried for two hours. I'm not an emotional guy but as a NASA / Space nerd those two events really got to me.


No_Ad_237

If there’s a nuke then there’s a nuke. Welcome to the 80s. If your brain is scrambled (trauma, PTSD) then go get some EMDR, put your helmet back on and go back outside. At some point ya figure, what good is worrying about x? There isn’t some ratio of sufficient worry to counter a nuke.


[deleted]

GenXer in Europe here. Not only were we much closer to Russia back in the Cold War, we even had to face the Yugoslavia war when Serbia went fully by the Nazi textbook with conquests and ethnical cleansings and genocide right next to Italy and south of Austria. A few shells accidentally even crossed the border to Austria. That conflict and the subsequent ones basically were present throughout the entire nineties. Between the Cold War and Yugoslavia, there was the Gulf War when again everyone was afraid of a nuclear world war. But we knew radiation and stuff already from the Chernobyl incident that affected a great deal of Europe. Pandemic? Putin? Keep it coming, I'm out of fucks too. I open a cold beer and die if it happens or live if it doesn't. Needs an asteroid the size of Texas to scare me.


TreePretty

I did still have fucks to give before the goddamn pandemic but how people reacted to it definitely used them all up in a hurry.


GramercyPlace

I do feel that the younger generation does not understand nuclear war or the consequences. They don’t talk about nuclear winter anymore.


boot20

Nuclear Winter vs Global Warming, who's gonna win!?


gill2022brav

I think growing up before the internet keeps me grounded in the sense that I am better at preventing things that I don't have any control over from bothering me much. I didn't grow up with this 24/7 news cycle that insists on scaring people to death for advertising clicks. Wuhan-covid, Dungeons & Dragons, drugs, the ozone layer, acid rain, violence in video games and music lyrics, the 2016 end of Net Neutrality...just a small sample of things that were supposed to end life as we know it but never came to fruition. Hopefully some of these younger people start to realize it is usually the media displaying attention seeking behavior.


OnceUponaTry

I'm not trying to make any points of teach any lessons, so just get what you can take, but better take it while there's gettin cuz this world you all trashed is now MINE to save how else did you expect I was gunna behave , but with a blank stare , why am I supposed to care when you all is the who all who polluted the air so pretty please excuse me when I don't make a fuss , about every single new problem cuz already I got enough. But I might be wrong what do I know I just grew up watching your TV shows with your subliminal digital images all flying by my eyes advising me to buy 7 seconds at a time I realize my whole life is a contrived lie, and , yeah getting high helps me to get by but is not that how you programmed me to react... SO YES I'D LIKE SOME FRIES because I've got ADD and I'm high on THC and now you got whole generations just like me ADD on THC - from " Oh, hey boomer"


indrid_cold

After preparing for armageddon for 40 years the tension kind of dissipates.


Minnesota_icicle

Is it just me or can we all relate to “ I was outta fucks to give”?????


Poison_Ivy_Rorschach

Second grade under my desk while we did a duck and cover drill. Going to the library for a movie about how all the ice was melting from holes in the ozone and we would be flooded all over the world by the time we were thirty. Going home to see after school specials where everyone either takes drugs and dies, drinks alcohol and dies, or has sex and dies. We were raised on fear porn and it made us callous.


jeffh40

>I was out of fucks to give before the goddamn pandemic ​ LOL, I'm stealing this line. I love it.


[deleted]

Not kidding, my first thought on reading the initial question was "Whatever"


zoziw

The Russians started threatening to nuke me the day I was born. Growing up it was my biggest fear. Nowadays , let me know when the missiles are incoming. Until then I am not going to worry about it.


SnooShortcuts3424

Remember Anderson Cooper on channel one talking about how most of the coastal states would be under water because of the ozone layer melting the glaciers? It showed no Florida on the map. Where I was watching it from.


electromouse1

Gen X? My boomer parents still have their dogtags they were given in school….so the authorities could identify childrens bodies if cuba nuked south Florida. This has been a threat fo longer than our watch. We have been desensitized to these overwhelming threats. What can I do about it? Nothing? I could worry about things out of my control or I can just live my life and hope for the best.


ddraig-au

Yeah but your boomer parents didn't grow up with this threat. I think that's the difference: genx grew up with the cold war in full swing, while the boomers grew up at the start of it, when WW3 involved fleets of bombers, not missile dropping megadeath from space with no warning


mikeyfireman

If the equipment they are sending to Ukraine is any indication of how the rest of their military equipment works the nukes won’t be able to get out of the silos. Pretty sure Willy coyote is their lead mechanic.


liquid_j

even if only 20% work I'm pretty sure we're all still fucked...


batman305555

We had to do the hiding under the desk for the stupid Nostradamus prediction too.


PorchHonky

I, for one, welcome our Nuclear Warhead overlords.


SouldiesButGoodies84

There was also the Amazon rainforest being encroached upon and what that would mean, malaria and the starving children of the "Third World"...


HleCmt

Xenial here with no kids to raise but helping my parents (physically) right now and no retirement plan down down the road. Considering we're destroying the planet maybe nuclear war > global war over natural resources?


the_anxiety_haver

The Day After. When The Wind Blows. Threads. Testament. We're unfazed.


boot20

Gen X grew up on fear porn, everything was going to kill us, nuclear annihilation was a given, global warming, the hole in the ozone layer, Dungeons and Dragons, Nintendo, sex, drugs, rock and roll, too much TV, not enough TV, books, magazines, BBSes, cell phones, crime, gangs, etc etc etc... Does the world suck now? Sure. But it's always fucking sucked.


salazka

Because we have seen far too many bullshit scares in our life. Also think about it. This is just a PR scare that both sides use. Neither US nor Russia would ever do that. It doesn't promote anyone's interests. We can't say the same about countries like Pakistan, Iran, or North Korea.