Are you Gen X? Take the Quiz

Jeff Gordinier, author of X Saves the World, which we’ve mentioned on the blog before, a couple of times, has an interesting way of testing whether one is, in fact, a member of the generation. He points out that unlike the Baby Boomers, there is no agreed upon start (or end) year for the Generation. He proposes a quiz to tell whether you are a member:

1. Do you want to change the world?

a. Yes, and I’m proud to say, we did it man. We changed the world, just look around you.

b. Yes, absolutely, and I promise to get back to doing that just as soon as interest rates return to where they are supposed to be.

c. Omigod, omigod, changing the world and helping people is, like, totally important to me! I worked in a soup kitchen once and it was so sad but the poor people there had so much dignity!

d. The way you phrase the question is so fucking cheesy and absurd that I am not even sure that I want to continue with this pointless exercise.

That’s the only question on the GXAT. I could tack on a bunch of stuff about John Hughes and George Stephanopoulos and the Austrian version of “Rock Me Amadeus,” but there is no need. We’re done. If you chose d, accept it: you’re an Xer, even if you happen to be eighty years old. As people like (Douglas, author of Generation X) Coupland have been pointing out for years now, X is more a sensibility than a rigidly confined demographic.

I have multiple version of Rock Me Amadeus in my iTunes, but not that really cool extended dance mix with Falco’ pretentious spoken work autobiography. If you like the answer to C, I can point you toward some blogs.