From Colombo's All Time Great Canadian Quotations (April 1, 1994)

by John Robert Colombo

"Generation X."

The generation of North Americans born in the mid-1960s who are in no hurry "to find themselves" because they give equal value to life experience and education was given its title Generation X by the Vancouver- based fiction writer Douglas Coupland in his satiric novel. It is not certain whether he originated the phrase; he certainly adopted it and is identified with it following the publication of his work of fiction Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (1991).

Shampoo Planet (1992), his second work, surveyed the adolescent world of "global teens" who are most at home in shopping malls. Apparently, the descriptions "Generation X" and "Xers" have some history of being used in Britain to refer to their post-Baby Boom Punkers. "One generation is IBM. The next is Macintosh. They can communicate, but they're different." Coupland made this observation on CBC-TV's "Prime Time News," Nov. 4, 1992.