r/GenX • • Aug 30 '26

Mod Approved New photo megathread

Post image
66 Upvotes

That’s me on the left and my sister and a dog I do not remember. I would say I was about six or seven years old, which would make this 1974 or 1974. This photograph was taken on the porch of the feed shed of a small store my parents owned in Eastern Kentucky.


r/GenX • • Aug 19 '26

Health & Science Colonoscopy Megathread

Post image
1.1k Upvotes

Hi everyone. Do you want to be stereotypical GenX and talk about your butt?

Discuss all things colonoscopy here.

And don't forget to rehydrate.


r/GenX • • 4h ago

History & Culture A friend found this though it would be appropriate here

Post image
1.2k Upvotes

Cinemax after 10 you can see if you hit both buttons on side of channel…sometimes then tech of wavering arm up and down horizontally you could get in phase almost to minimize lines interference

That is all


r/GenX • • 10h ago

Old Person Yells At Cloud The grocery store rearranges itself every six months now and I am done learning new floor plans

521 Upvotes

I have lived in the same town for fifteen years. The main grocery chain has moved the bread aisle four times. Four. They shifted pasta to where the cleaning supplies were, put cleaning supplies where seasonal used to be, and now seasonal lives in some kind of floating pop-up situation near the front.

This is not about efficiency. Someone in an office is getting paid to justify their job by making us all wander through impulse buy territory hunting for black beans.

I finally snapped last week and asked an employee where they hid the peanut butter. She said, and I quote, "Have you tried the app?" No. I have not tried the app. I tried learning where things are, which used to be a reasonable life skill, and now that knowledge expires like a television password.

My parents had the same store layout for thirty years. The manager knew their names. There was a butcher who would cut things to order. I am not asking for much. I just want to walk in, get ingredients for one dinner, and leave without needing a map and a software update.

Anyone else stockpile favorites when they find them just to avoid the scavenger hunt next time?


r/GenX • • 23h ago

The Latchkey Years Yeah! … and you had to use multiple floppies to get the entire dose!

Post image
3.1k Upvotes

I can recall the school nurse referencing my medical record every time I was sent for another spontaneous nosebleed. Stuffing some gauze up there, being told to pinch my nose, and sit on that stainless steel rotating stool.


r/GenX • • 2h ago

Nostalgia When you were a kid was there always an opened box of baking soda in the fridge?

Post image
47 Upvotes

My mom always kept a an opened box in the fridge. She never baked anything or did anything else with it but it was always in the fridge.

---In the 1970s, Church & Dwight (the parent company of Arm & Hammer) was facing a decline in sales because home baking was becoming less common. To sell more product, they launched a massive advertising blitz pitching a brand-new concept: placing an opened box of baking soda inside the refrigerator to absorb food odors---

---By the 1980s, the ad campaign was so successful that more than half of American households had an open box sitting in their fridge. The ads even encouraged consumers to replace the box every 30 days and pour the old box down the drain to freshen garbage disposals—a genius strategy to keep people buying it month after month.---

I didn't know about the marketing campaign but my mom sure must have.


r/GenX • • 10h ago

Aging Tiger Balm

217 Upvotes

As I lubed my shoulders up tonight, my husband was showering and came out and said what's that smell? Hahaha, I said get used to it, it's going to be a staple in our house till the day we die. I actually love the smell, it makes me feel special, like patchouli or something. Like a wild night out! Aging.....ugh.


r/GenX • • 9h ago

Pop Culture Why no 80s 90s diners?

Thumbnail
gallery
118 Upvotes

So when my dad was young they made 50s/60s diners with Elvis and marylin Monroe on the walls and jukeboxes playing music from this time period. We still have those around. Shouldn’t their be diners for Gen ex? Pacman arcades, grunge music? What would you like to see at a place like that but made for us?

Photo of cafe 80s from back to the future two.


r/GenX • • 16h ago

Nostalgia How 13-Year Old Girls Told 13-Year Old Boys They Liked Them in 1985

Post image
378 Upvotes

I should be fixing the big hole in my roof but instead I'm putzing around in the garage and poking through ephemera in my old filing cabinet. 


r/GenX • • 12h ago

Question For Genx Were my PE teachers just pervs?

179 Upvotes

Back in the late 80s, in jr high and high school, the teachers would do a daily “jock check.” The male teachers would go row by row, and have us all pull our shorts out so they could look down our pants to see if we were all wearing jock straps, or potentially, see little boys privates. Was this a normal thing, or were they just sickos? I grew up in the Inland Empire, Southern California.


r/GenX • • 11h ago

Nostalgia Did your mall have The Disney Store?

Post image
126 Upvotes

I read they peaked in popularity in the late 90s, with about 750 locations. Now there's about 20. I remember the one in my local mall was always busy. Yes it was a bunch of cheap plushies and toys but still nostalgic. All of these "fun" places seem to be gone.


r/GenX • • 11h ago

Music I was just thinking, people who understand the phrase 'what's your favorite radio station' are dwindling but the ones who can remember the station (94.1 and 98.5) still are doing alright.

96 Upvotes

Was choosing the so called radio station, on YouTube music and was annoyed they called it a station. Get off my dirt patch!


r/GenX • • 21h ago

Pop Culture Any MacGyver fans in the house?

Post image
588 Upvotes

I'm re-watching it and oh, wow!

What a great spy show!


r/GenX • • 22h ago

Pop Culture Seems like people either loved or hated 90210. What's your opinion?

Post image
543 Upvotes

Yes, it was cheesy at times but most shows back then kind of were. Great cast though and the show didn't fall off a cliff as the seasons progressed, in my opinion, as much as so many shows do. Although it did change quite a bit when they went to college. I thought the storyline was good too.

Edit: and this is coming from someone who grew up in small town Louisiana. Everything about the show was so foreign to me 😂


r/GenX • • 2h ago

Music What song takes you right back to your high school/college days and where does it take you?

10 Upvotes

For me, it’s Van Halen’s “Jump.” It takes me straight back to January or February 1984, when cheerleaders and wrestlers woke teammates for a surprise “early morning breakfast.” As we drove through the bitter Cleveland cold from one wrestler’s house to another, “Jump” blasted from the radio and we all screamed along.

Whenever I hear it, I’m back in that car with my teammates and cheerleaders, freezing our butts off and having the time of our lives.


r/GenX • • 21h ago

History & Culture Anyone else missed the days when we weren’t walking around with phones in our pockets?

341 Upvotes

When I was growing up in the upper west side of Manhattan and I used to go to the park and play with my dad or my friends we had a typical answer phone machine, a little mini cassette

I can’t really remember ever anxiously distracted by needing to run home to get a phone call although I’m sure it happened occasionally when one was expecting an important phone call

But now we’re all just walking around with our phones many of us as an addiction and it’s surely completely eroding and taking away from our potential to physically and spiritually connect with each other it seems

Sometimes you’d be like walking down the street and people use their phones as a way to avoid having to interact with the person coming down the street

I’ll never forget after leaving New York right before the cell phone mobile phone boom

I came back to visit and it was like something out of a zombie movie people all holding their phones while walking and I remember having to make more effort to avoid people however those were flip phones at that point

I wonder what the next stage in our communication evolution is?


r/GenX • • 13h ago

Question For Genx Who Would You Cast For GenX Golden Girls?

72 Upvotes

Here’s what I have so far:

Dorothy Zbornak - Janeane Garofalo

That’s it.

So who would play:

Rose Nyland
Blanche Devereaux
Sofia Petrillo

Maybe The Go-go’s cover the theme song???


r/GenX • • 4h ago

Nostalgia I have a serious question for serious people.

12 Upvotes

I took a swig of my drink tonight (watermelon salt electrolyte powder in ice water) and it transported me to 1989 and a specific watermelon or green apple candy.

I found it most often at concessions of sporting events like little league baseball, softball or football games. I don’t remember ever seeing it at an actual store or I’d know this answer. It came in a square and was like a hard laffy taffy. The wrapper was waxy and not plastic. The flavor was printed on the outside of the wrapper.

By about the third time I popped a bracket off of my braces because of it my mom was fed up and I think I gave them up for good. Please help! What were these sour delicious guys and do they still make them? I specifically remember green apple, grape and watermelon flavors. Help, fellow X!


r/GenX • • 10h ago

Whatever What regrets do you have?

27 Upvotes

I got caught in a mental rabbit hole on that and came out with only one: I was invited to Burning Man as a DJ and didn’t for reasons I can’t even remember. What do you have?


r/GenX • • 16h ago

Nostalgia The car call

89 Upvotes

I used to always call my mom from the car with news or just to catch up. It made sense, given how busy I was. Now I (M59) am newly retired and my mom passed two years ago, and I often miss those calls when I get into a car.

But today I got a nice call from my daughter, she was driving home from volunteering and going to early vote. And of course, like my mom always was, I was available and so happy to talk to her!

Can anyone relate to this "car talk" dynamic? I still call my kids, but am careful to time the calls to when they are available, and often text first to make sure.

Also, cue the Harry Chapin music ;')


r/GenX • • 17h ago

Nostalgia I am ancient: explained listening to cassette tapes of music on a boombox on a school bus today

Post image
95 Upvotes

Listened to a song in the car today dropping my son off at high school. I explained how I used to listen to this song on a boombox on a school bus during field trips. It came up that cassette tapes were the format vs. CDs.
The look on his face said it all. He was not shy in saying I was ancient.

I haven’t yet discussed how we had to use pencils to unravel the tape when the cassette got jammed.


r/GenX • • 2m ago

Pop Culture First time in a limo, doctor?

Post image
• Upvotes

r/GenX • • 17h ago

Nostalgia Who was your favorite cat as a kid...Garfield or Heathcliff?

39 Upvotes

My vote goes to Heathcliff and the junkyard cats.


r/GenX • • 1d ago

Old Person Yells At Cloud Remember when things used to IMPROVE every year?

1.6k Upvotes

I'm 49 and thinking back to the 80s & 90s even the 2000s to a degree, everything seemed to slowly get BETTER over time. And then at some point everything started to either decline in quality and the few things that haven't declined have just stalled and there's been no further innovation. I can't pinpoint an exact year but at least since 2010 in my opinion. Seems like just about everything has been enshittified. The internet, the quality of food at restaurants, clothing quality, movies, video games, appliances, electronics, airlines, apps, streaming services. Everything is a fucking subscription now.

I know crap quality stuff has always existed and I know there were issues in the past but I don't remember anything to this extent. And that's not even getting into the cost of living now, the AI bullshit, and everything else.


r/GenX • • 14h ago

Nostalgia What did your parents read to you at bedtime?

20 Upvotes

I hope this still goes on with kids today, but do you remember the bedtime stories your parents read to you? So, we did Theocratic readings maybe 2 or 3 nights a week, and the other times, it was something secular. I remember some chapter books, and a lot of short stories. Some of my favourite ones were from "Trouble in Bugland" which is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche in the insect world. This came out in 1983 (when I was 8)