Some things bring back so many memories they seem to take you back in time yourself; the smell of your favorite dish from when you were a kid, for instance, or a song you loved during the college years. It can also be a picture of something your generation had to deal with that would likely puzzle the current youth. A floppy disk, for example.
Loads of pictures depicting the ‘back in the day’ of one particular generation are shared on the Facebook group titled ‘Righteous Memes from Generation X’. With nearly 90k members, this public group is a gold mine of nostalgia-evoking memes that perfectly encapsulate the life of the baby boomer successors. Scroll down for the images and get ready to take a trip back in time.
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Internet memes are a phenomenon that spreads like wildfire, and there’s no end in sight when it comes to their prevalence. You can create them about anything and everything, as long as there’s something on your mind. That’s why they cover topics from cat behavior to economic crises, and everything in between, including peculiarities of each and every generation.
The Washington Post pointed out that during the first seven years of its existence—from 2008 to 2015, to be exact—the page ‘Know Your Meme’ documented roughly 12,300 memes. It is difficult to determine how many of them there are now, but one thing is clear—it must be a lot.
Memes are typically witty and oh so accurate, and that can be seen just by looking at the examples on this list. Everyone with a birth date that starts with 19 followed by a six, a seven, or an eight (in the case of 1980 babies) can definitely relate to them.
Pictures of the “remote control” from the seventies reminds them—the “remote control” in their family—of the times they’d be running between the couch and the TV to change the channel. Not to mention the nostalgia that seeing the patterns on the backs of computer game cards brings.
Nostalgia is likely one of the reasons such memes gain popularity. There’s something comforting about that warm fuzzy feeling (or a heartfelt giggle) they often bring, especially when you’re down and longing for the good old days.
According to the licensed psychologist and professor of psychology at LeMoyne College, Dr. Krystine Batcho, nostalgia is a feeling that unifies. In the podcast ‘Speaking of Psychology’, she explained that it unites “our sense of who we are, our self, our identity over time”.
Dr. Batcho pointed out that we’re constantly changing, which makes us way different from what we used to be, whether it’s three years or decades ago. By encouraging us to remember past events, nostalgia unites us to the authentic self and allows us to compare it with who we are now. This way it also helps us to get a sense of what version of ourselves we’d like to be in the future.
Wow ... I feel like I have been called out ... I don't want to think about the punctuation.... and maybe I'm a little dramatic for no reason
‘Medical News Today’ revealed that the term ‘nostalgia’ was first used to describe being homesick. It derives from the ancient Greek words nostos (home) and algos (pain), and was coined by physician Johannes Hofer back in the 17th century. He used it to describe the adverse feeling Swiss soldiers had being away from home.
I was 5-6 yo, so everybody at the high school was at the end of their lives for me.
Home is typically something dear to our hearts, a place we miss while being away and can’t wait to come back to (after the day at the office, especially). That’s why it’s not that surprising that the origins of the concept of nostalgia can be traced back to longing for home.
‘Science Friday’ revealed that nostalgic memories typically involve cherished moments or time spent with loved ones. They usually evoke joy, a sense of belonging and meaningfulness in life. And that’s a state every person is likely to feel fond of.
I got to know the routine of shows usually watched each evening. If it’s Tuesday at 8pm it’s “Combat” on channel 4, after it’s over I promptly get up and change to channel 7 for “Maverick”. I didn’t need to be told. I just got up and did it. Auto tune. Who new? A kid ahead of my time.
When I watch Back to the Futore II, I'm always 16 yo and it's 1989. So, 2015 is clearly the future. It's great watching Starwars Return of the Jedi and being 10 yo again!
Bringing positive emotions is one of the reasons people tend to feel nostalgic when they’re feeling blue. Clay Routledge, a social psychologist at North Dakota State University, told ‘Science Friday’ that people rarely ever choose to recall memories of mundane events, such as going to work or paying taxes.
Instead, they think about the special moments, such as weddings and graduations, or the people they love. That’s how, according to Dr. Routledge, nostalgia helps people deal with negative mental states. Bringing back beautiful memories becomes a coping mechanism, in a way.
When it comes to generation X, they have plenty to feel nostalgic about. Due to the rapid pace of technological development and other changes in, well, basically everything, the world as we know it now is far from the one they grew up in. And adjusting to change is not always easy. That’s why it’s understandable to look back on the good old days, seeking the warm embrace of something familiar—recalling an image of a toy from one’s childhood or food grandma used to make, for example.
In addition to the Gen X memorabilia, this list is brimming with descriptions of situations oh so familiar, as well as numerous pop culture references. For instance, the youth nowadays might not be able to name the movie by looking at a picture of the ‘Grease’ cast; however, it would take no more than a blink of an eye for a Gen X representative to do that.
And that’s just one example of a topic they would likely excel at. For more all-things-gen-X, browse this list previously shared by Bored Panda to see what things people consider the most representative of this generation.
Yeah , I once held onto the roundabout while on my tricycle, my foot got wedged between the roundabout and the concrete, .. that was the first time I saw one of my own bones. (Ankle) good times 😘
Load More Replies...We need to bring these back. They culled out the weak and those to stupid to learn.
Nowdays, instead of falling off the roundabout the kids slide their cars into trees. Much better to learn early that stupidity hurts.
Load More Replies...It wasn't fun until you got 1st degree burns from getting burnt on the way down a hot slide. Sometimes, I can still hear the screams.
And the thing is we knew they were burning hot and still slid down them!!! Lol
Load More Replies...I lived with my Nan. Just get back by dark was understood. I spent hours playing in the brook outside the village. Never even thought about danger. It didn’t exist.
In my day it was understood that evolution implies a certain amount of natural wastage.
That's more fun than parks now when swings practically have seatbelts attached to them
Ask an A&E nurse from the 70s how much "fun" it was. Those things killed kids. And injured thousands more.
Load More Replies...Yeah, playgrounds were a Darwin paradise back then for sure. 70s-slide-...0a92e8.jpg
We could use the time machine for a battle royale: 1 team of 5 children per decade (1900s to 2010), there can be only one. This must be sold to Netflix.
Load More Replies...Sometimes I wonder about all the ways I could have died in the late ‘50s. Makes me wonder about my loving parents sometimes.🤔
I jumped off the swings when they were really high up. No one told me not to.
dude i remember those metal bars you had to climb to get to the very top - we had this enormous one near by and i just remember the terror after i arrived to the top - had no clue how i was going to get down cause the shape was like a bubble so i couldn't see the next step !!!
Fell off one of the climbing frames in about '76 or 77, smacked my jaw on the way down and nearly bit my tongue off. Pretty sure there was some other kids traumatised that day. And I suspect I'm part of the statistics they used to change playground construction in our schools. Mostly because within a couple years that climbing frame was pulled out and replaced with something safer and the ground changed from bare dirt and rock to being covered with wood chips (impact damping).
The generation before them did not even bother to learn there kids name until they made it to age 6
and we are better for it. we didnt live in a bubble, we had a sense of humour, we scraped our knees, cut our hands, got dirty and we survived. can it be said about kids these days.....without offending someone
Yep! No knee or elbow pads, no Helmut and don't come in before the Sun sets. And you know what, WE SURVIVED!!!
I still have the scars from landing hands first on to old boards under the swing set in the first grade. Drove a spike of wood from palm out my wrist. I was banned from the swings for it. I'm over 70 and still POed about that.
At Devonian Elementary in West Texas the boys PE teacher had to go out before recess to kill any rattlesnakes in the soft dirt at the end of the slide.
Hey, we survived!! That's gotta tell you SOMETHING about our generation!!
It really was Darwinian theory in action every day in some areas. Survival of the fittest and the smartest. And most of us survived. That would never work now, the injury rate would be frightening.
there was always a box of band-aids in the right hand drawer in the bathroom and don't bother with one unless there was actual blood.
Yep. Hanging. Upsidedown. From the top of the mnkeybars. Over the asphalt playground. Ooo!
WORLD POPULATION HAS LITERALLY DOUBLED IN THE 50 YEARS FROM ALMOST 4 BILLION IN 1973 TO 8 BILLION IN 2023. IS OVER-POPULATION A SIDE EFFECT? COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT!
can still screams of laughter and fun. These days only hear nothing. Everyone is on their cell phones, sad really.
I used to play on bomb sites in the centre of London when I was a kid!!
these pictures reminds me of Dana Carvey doing the Old Man on SNL. We had burning hot metal slides, that's the way it was AND WE LIKED IT!
I’m starting to understand why people are depressed nowadays, look at all the fun they’ve taken away from us for the sake of SaFeTY. :p
I secretly went away on a raucous weekend with some pals. Didn't even ask permission cause, what 80s parent would agree to a naked beachfront mushroom party? Got home after 3 days. Was expecting to be murdered. Mom heard the front door and called to me, Bobby, Is that you? Ugh! I thought, here it comes. Yeah, I replied. "Oh" she said..."we thought you were in your room". 🤷
I once commented on the playground where I grew up and the the strange "climb tower". The tower was made from c**p metal and old tires painted in different colors and no matter how careful you were, you always got scrapes and bruises. My grandma looked up and said, "It's a sculpture the county got as a gift once. It's damn ugly and we didn't know what to do with it, so we put it on the playground."
Well.. the thought process was ... rather Darwinian, wasn't it? If you are too stupid to not do the obviously lethal thing (dangerous and knee-scraping, yes. Lethal? No.)... maaaybe they should just make a new kid after all?
I broke my arm when I was seven years old falling off one of those slides at school during recess
Even in the mid 90s my elementary school playground was a huge stack of tractor tires. They got removed because it was discovered that they were a home for snakes.
My grandma gave us sheets of wax paper to sit on when going down the metal slides in the summer.
At 4, I fell off that slide and split my chin open. It tried. I won.
I’m always looking for the temperature of the surface of the sun two story octagon thingy in these pics
our park had wooden seated baby swings with metal backs and a chain to hold ur tiny self in
For generations those were what we played on. Suddenly they're deathtraps. If you really stop to think about it, nearly anything can get you injured but someone decided to create a business manufacturing and selling "safe playground equipment" to prevent injuries. It didn't work, the injuries just changed in nature.
I was using a chainsaw at 13 yo; now, I'm buying Lego plants for my office at 50 yo. So, yes.
That's when you held your head down ... sprayed a ton of hairspray ... and turned on the hair dryer. Bye Bye Ozone.
That’s a whole lotta Gen X packed into one pic.
Lmao! I love the payphone in the house!! Someone who doesn't know better will believe it, you know!
Well, that advice wasn't followed. Gen-Xers don't read instructions.
Traumatic when my daughter was no longer allowed to wear her PWH tee shirt. "Why daddy?"..."He did something wrong, hon"
Note: this post originally had 89 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
eh. we thought we were progressive and enlightened, but my school was super homophobic (among other things), looking back. I am careful to not get SUPER nostalgic about the past...because i am a better human today.
Load More Replies...Gen X 1965 – 1980. I love that my older brother is a Boomer born in 64. LOL. I was born in 68. I'm Gen X all the way. Went to high school from 82-86. Such a great time period to be a teenager.
As a Boomer I am loving this. I get to have more and more fun nostalgia. But just you wait all you Millenials, Gen X’rs, and oh yes, Gen Z’s way off in the future, Your day will come when they’ll be yelling at you too. But at least we’ll all have BP to go to and look back at all the good times. Kind of takes the sting out of it.
No comments about drinking from the garden hose yet, but just wait for it. Aaaaany second now ...
I am still in shock BP even mentioned Gen X. I think I'm shedding a tear of joy.
A memory from being around gas stations and the city in the 70's and 80's that can't be photographed is the ever-present smell of diesel gasoline. They have diesel now, but not like then. Another memory is the constant rumble and roar of muscle cars, Harley Davidson's, beetle bugs and others. That might be caught on someone's home video, however.
I feel so old now. Just glad there was no floppy disk meme
yeah, kinda though. i graduated from high school in '95, so many of my formative years were mid to late 90s.
Load More Replies...As a millennial... I didn't get most of the stuff. Still looked like wild times tho
Millennial here too, I think a lot of the stuff I didn't get is because I'm not American.
Load More Replies...My 40-year-old friends are not Gen X. Or did I misunderstand and are they laughing at me now?
I'm still waiting for Axe to take over from Old Spice for the prevailing scent in the senior center.
eh. we thought we were progressive and enlightened, but my school was super homophobic (among other things), looking back. I am careful to not get SUPER nostalgic about the past...because i am a better human today.
Load More Replies...Gen X 1965 – 1980. I love that my older brother is a Boomer born in 64. LOL. I was born in 68. I'm Gen X all the way. Went to high school from 82-86. Such a great time period to be a teenager.
As a Boomer I am loving this. I get to have more and more fun nostalgia. But just you wait all you Millenials, Gen X’rs, and oh yes, Gen Z’s way off in the future, Your day will come when they’ll be yelling at you too. But at least we’ll all have BP to go to and look back at all the good times. Kind of takes the sting out of it.
No comments about drinking from the garden hose yet, but just wait for it. Aaaaany second now ...
I am still in shock BP even mentioned Gen X. I think I'm shedding a tear of joy.
A memory from being around gas stations and the city in the 70's and 80's that can't be photographed is the ever-present smell of diesel gasoline. They have diesel now, but not like then. Another memory is the constant rumble and roar of muscle cars, Harley Davidson's, beetle bugs and others. That might be caught on someone's home video, however.
I feel so old now. Just glad there was no floppy disk meme
yeah, kinda though. i graduated from high school in '95, so many of my formative years were mid to late 90s.
Load More Replies...As a millennial... I didn't get most of the stuff. Still looked like wild times tho
Millennial here too, I think a lot of the stuff I didn't get is because I'm not American.
Load More Replies...My 40-year-old friends are not Gen X. Or did I misunderstand and are they laughing at me now?
I'm still waiting for Axe to take over from Old Spice for the prevailing scent in the senior center.