2 out of the 3 movies pictured involve job loss: one spree kicked off by losing the job, and one story about the tension of the “will they or won’t they fire me” and the arbitrariness and unfairness of it all.
So no, only one of these involves unrest amidst a stable career. The others are about unstable careers.
And the fun thing is we (GenX) are still working! So we’ve just got to experience the fucking slow slide to oblivion where every day is just worse than the last! Yay!
At work, when people ask how it’s going, I always say, “Every day is better than the next.” Been doing it for years now. So far only one person has clocked that if each day is better than the day that comes after, that means every day is a new low.
Sure, but we were stuck at entry level jobs and told that the boomers were going to retire any day now and if we just stick with it, we’ll shoot right to the top. Then as they started to retire, those jobs are not being filled and there is a fresh round of layoffs coming. Oh, and also being told by those same boomers that they owned a house by our age.
Something that fight club didn’t mention pertaining to this working generation is that even if you work hard and get promotions, you’re likely to just keep up to the cost of living. I started with when a beer was $1 a bottle at the grocery store. 10 years later, I can be making double from 3 or so promotions and beer is now $2 a bottle. Working harder for the same purchasing power. It feels so hopeless and yet, I feel lucky to be in this position considering I have so many friends who are much worse off.
I always understood it as Peter getting tapped for management not because he stopped giving a shit, but because he was honestly and accurately describing the root cause of problems caused by having so many middle managers (and he did that because he stopped giving a shit and just told them how fucked the workplace is)
My takeaway was not that he was giving them the info they need, but rather that his new persona was so charismatic that he became the one they liked & remembered. A lesson that it isn’t what you know, but who you know.
That is a very good point, I had never looked at it that way. Sometimes being the personality hire is the best form of advancement, by which I mean that if your supervisors like you, you can get away with a lot more
I thought the whole point of Fight Club was the narrator realizing he was a terrible person, with or without Tyler.
I mean the film starts with him exploiting dying people so they will listen to him. Not recognizing that the only people open to listen are those dying, and he’s exploiting their openness to lie to them and get the “crying” he needs. He doesn’t give one flying fuck about what is happening to any of those dying people, he only barely stands up for Bob.
I would put the main point of Fight Club to be about how universal the feelings are, of loneliness and isolation in complex social/economic systems that they don’t actually control, despite the system continually relying on them for that control. The warning is that lonely men will crave agency, and might seek it out in destructive ways, even paradoxically turning over their agency to another, like a charismatic cult leader, if it means they can take part in another plan that they are no more actually in control of.
…the whole point of Fight Club was the narrator realizing he was a terrible person…
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to say a character is a flawed human being without writing them off entirely like this? Narrator is stunted, broken, looking for fulfillment in all the wrong places. He’s isolated, he’s disconnected, there is no one in his life for him to care for, or who cares for him. How good a person should anyone expect him to be?
…the film starts with him exploiting dying people so they will listen to him. Not recognizing that the only people open to listen are those dying, and he’s exploiting their openness to lie to them and get the “crying” he needs.
Narrator angrily explains pretty much exactly this to Marla. Refers to himself a “faker.” I think he recognizes.
He does explain “When people think you’re dying, they really, really listen to you,” but he could very well be referring to himself as the listener. He isn’t depicted speaking at the meetings he crashes. “If I didn’t say anything, people always assumed the worst.”
“When people think you’re dying, they really, really listen to you,”
My main takeaway is always going to be that the people who are actually suffering are the only ones really willing to listen to others who are suffering. He thinks this, but he’s proof of otherwise, he isn’t really listening to any of them.
Ask me how I know after three years of cancer proving to me people could give fuck all about listening. Sorry, just grinds my gears, because the people “really, really listening to you” are the people who are fucking dying.
You’re assuming a lot of media literacy out of the audience. Most people I know who are really into Fight Club miss all subtext (and quite a bit of text) and unironically see it as an indictment of modern society and a call for a “return” to a mythical hyper-masculine strength-based patriarchal society.
Oh of course, I’m not speaking about the average jabroni’s interpretation. Pretty sure Chuck Palahniuk didn’t intend Tyler to be read as a hero. Yet, here we are.
No I mean the “stable jobs” meme. Only one of the characters pictured there had a stable job, and his was so morally corrosive and isolating that he really did go insane. And then he lost the stable job.
Every generation thinks they’re the first to experience pain or angst or hardship. We’re only a few generations from millions of people being sent to their deaths in globe spanning industrialised slaughter so maybe things aren’t always that bad?
doesn’t mean things aren’t that bad in the present
I never said that, my point is that everything is relative.
Sure things are pretty awful right now but things have also been objectively worse for the ordinary person throughout pretty much all of history and are certain to be a lot lot worse in the short-medium term future so people today don’t have a monopoly on suffering.
No one said they had a monopoly on suffering. There is no reason to say that “the past was worse, so today isn’t that bad” except in an effort to downplay the severity of how bad things in the present are.
It’s a pointless statement that doesn’t say anything.
It doesn’t matter that the past was worse when we know that things could still be better.
Again, you have missed my point, which was in response to a comment essentially saying Gen X had nothing to feel angst over. At no point have I even suggested that life today isn’t awful because, in case you haven’t noticed, I also happen to be alive today.
I’ll tell you a secret. Something they don’t teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.
Gen x isn’t to blame for that though. They were born after boomers and many of them faced the same struggles that millenials and current generations are now.
2 out of the 3 movies pictured involve job loss: one spree kicked off by losing the job, and one story about the tension of the “will they or won’t they fire me” and the arbitrariness and unfairness of it all.
So no, only one of these involves unrest amidst a stable career. The others are about unstable careers.
The guy in falling down got laid off. He went crazy because he didn’t have a job anymore.
and office space is just a romance. where’s your flair?
To be fair, I’m sure it still sucked. I’m sure it was just as unfulfilling then as it is now, it just sucks WAY more now.
I can’t even imagine. It felt hard growing up in the time that I did, but I look at what my kids are facing and I can’t even imagine how it must feel.
Pretty fucking bleak. I feel for them too.
And the fun thing is we (GenX) are still working! So we’ve just got to experience the fucking slow slide to oblivion where every day is just worse than the last! Yay!
At work, when people ask how it’s going, I always say, “Every day is better than the next.” Been doing it for years now. So far only one person has clocked that if each day is better than the day that comes after, that means every day is a new low.
yeah i forget did camus have much to say about prometheus?
I think he did
Oh this is resonating. that’s not good.
Chat is it chudcoded to feel an emotion about a cultural touchstone from antiquity
We are all brothers in antiquity
What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?
Yes, yes it is
Wow, that’s messed up.
Yea, that’s life these days. Pretty fucking messed up.
I’m just quoting office space.
Sure, but we were stuck at entry level jobs and told that the boomers were going to retire any day now and if we just stick with it, we’ll shoot right to the top. Then as they started to retire, those jobs are not being filled and there is a fresh round of layoffs coming. Oh, and also being told by those same boomers that they owned a house by our age.
Something that fight club didn’t mention pertaining to this working generation is that even if you work hard and get promotions, you’re likely to just keep up to the cost of living. I started with when a beer was $1 a bottle at the grocery store. 10 years later, I can be making double from 3 or so promotions and beer is now $2 a bottle. Working harder for the same purchasing power. It feels so hopeless and yet, I feel lucky to be in this position considering I have so many friends who are much worse off.
Isn’t the point of “falling down” that
spoiler
he got fired/laid off from his defence industry job?
Yes, and in Office Space, they had consultants firing people left and right while others were asked to come in on the weekends.
…while management did fuck all.
They even tap Peter for management material when he stops giving a shit, like it’s an expectation that you stop caring about things to be in charge.
I always understood it as Peter getting tapped for management not because he stopped giving a shit, but because he was honestly and accurately describing the root cause of problems caused by having so many middle managers (and he did that because he stopped giving a shit and just told them how fucked the workplace is)
My takeaway was not that he was giving them the info they need, but rather that his new persona was so charismatic that he became the one they liked & remembered. A lesson that it isn’t what you know, but who you know.
That is a very good point, I had never looked at it that way. Sometimes being the personality hire is the best form of advancement, by which I mean that if your supervisors like you, you can get away with a lot more
shush that’s my secret. bribe them with spring rolls.
I thought the whole point of Fight Club was the narrator realizing he was a terrible person, with or without Tyler.
I mean the film starts with him exploiting dying people so they will listen to him. Not recognizing that the only people open to listen are those dying, and he’s exploiting their openness to lie to them and get the “crying” he needs. He doesn’t give one flying fuck about what is happening to any of those dying people, he only barely stands up for Bob.
I would put the main point of Fight Club to be about how universal the feelings are, of loneliness and isolation in complex social/economic systems that they don’t actually control, despite the system continually relying on them for that control. The warning is that lonely men will crave agency, and might seek it out in destructive ways, even paradoxically turning over their agency to another, like a charismatic cult leader, if it means they can take part in another plan that they are no more actually in control of.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to say a character is a flawed human being without writing them off entirely like this? Narrator is stunted, broken, looking for fulfillment in all the wrong places. He’s isolated, he’s disconnected, there is no one in his life for him to care for, or who cares for him. How good a person should anyone expect him to be?
Narrator angrily explains pretty much exactly this to Marla. Refers to himself a “faker.” I think he recognizes.
He does explain “When people think you’re dying, they really, really listen to you,” but he could very well be referring to himself as the listener. He isn’t depicted speaking at the meetings he crashes. “If I didn’t say anything, people always assumed the worst.”
My main takeaway is always going to be that the people who are actually suffering are the only ones really willing to listen to others who are suffering. He thinks this, but he’s proof of otherwise, he isn’t really listening to any of them.
Ask me how I know after three years of cancer proving to me people could give fuck all about listening. Sorry, just grinds my gears, because the people “really, really listening to you” are the people who are fucking dying.
You’re assuming a lot of media literacy out of the audience. Most people I know who are really into Fight Club miss all subtext (and quite a bit of text) and unironically see it as an indictment of modern society and a call for a “return” to a mythical hyper-masculine strength-based patriarchal society.
Oh of course, I’m not speaking about the average jabroni’s interpretation. Pretty sure Chuck Palahniuk didn’t intend Tyler to be read as a hero. Yet, here we are.
I’m not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou.
if this is directed at me dont worry I quite the force about two weeks ago. Im really hoping this comic stuff works out or ill be homeless soon.
Congratulations on finding your humanity again.
No I mean the “stable jobs” meme. Only one of the characters pictured there had a stable job, and his was so morally corrosive and isolating that he really did go insane. And then he lost the stable job.
Every generation thinks they’re the first to experience pain or angst or hardship. We’re only a few generations from millions of people being sent to their deaths in globe spanning industrialised slaughter so maybe things aren’t always that bad?
Just because things were worse before doesn’t mean things aren’t that bad in the present.
Things could be better and there is no legitimate reason to not make it so.
I never said that, my point is that everything is relative.
Sure things are pretty awful right now but things have also been objectively worse for the ordinary person throughout pretty much all of history and are certain to be a lot lot worse in the short-medium term future so people today don’t have a monopoly on suffering.
No one said they had a monopoly on suffering. There is no reason to say that “the past was worse, so today isn’t that bad” except in an effort to downplay the severity of how bad things in the present are.
It’s a pointless statement that doesn’t say anything.
It doesn’t matter that the past was worse when we know that things could still be better.
Again, you have missed my point, which was in response to a comment essentially saying Gen X had nothing to feel angst over. At no point have I even suggested that life today isn’t awful because, in case you haven’t noticed, I also happen to be alive today.
I read 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World… I see full employment, housing, free time for activities…
Gen X: why aren’t the millennials thanking us? We took away their benefits and stability. They should feel way more alive now!
That’s another Brad Pitt character, Achilles:
Gen x isn’t to blame for that though. They were born after boomers and many of them faced the same struggles that millenials and current generations are now.