GenX or as I’d like to say it, Gen Us— wasn’t just a generation—it was an 18-wheeler doing a burnout in the parking lot of history while Rock Ballads blasted through the tape deck. It was loud, proud, and occasionally covered in glitter and neon zebra print.
Everybody—and I mean everybody—was there. Michael Jackson was moonwalking like the floor was infused with pomade. Nirvana and Pearl Jam showed up wearing flannel and acting like fame was a disease they caught from a dirty microphone. Axl Rose and the boys from Guns N’ Roses were screaming about rain in November like it canceled their beach day, and Sweet Child o’ Mine made every angsty teen feel like a misunderstood poet with a six-string.
Jon Bon Jovi, the man was riding into battle on a horse made of Aquanet and broken dreams, yelling Blaze of Glory like he’d personally survived three bar fights and a spaghetti Western. Kevin Costner was protecting Whitney Houston like the Secret Service guards the nuclear codes, and Whitney—good heavens, Whitney—sang “I Will Always Love You” and absolutely ignited our feelings.
Mariah Carey hadn’t gone full glitter diva yet—she still made you feel things, not just the urge to change the radio. Run DMC kicked the doors down in Adidas with no laces, started rap for the suburbs, and teamed up with Aerosmith, who looked like undead rock goblins, to tell us to walk and talk this way! And we did. Loudly. With attitude.
Rocky and Rambo. Same guy. Different flavors of awesome. One punched Russians in the snow to end the Cold War, the other took down entire armies with a knife and a bad attitude. While Arnold hunted down alien predators and cyborgs from the future while declaring “I’ll be back”. We didn’t need superheroes—we had Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Grit, sweat, and zero tolerance for nonsense.
I feel the need—the need for speed! Says Maverick and Goose—Jet engines, mirrored sunglasses, volleyball in jeans—it was a recruitment ad with abs. And yes, we wanted our MTV, back when it still played music and wasn’t just a circus of reality TV and emotional damage. We also had MacGyver—He was what happened when genius met duct tape and a Swiss Army knife and didn’t ask for permission.
Meanwhile, we were gaming like it was an Olympic sport. Personal computers were being born, but we were too busy ripping into Nintendo cartridges and laying waste to Street Fighter arcades. Sega, Atari—each console a plastic gateway to 8-bit greatness.
And just when you thought the dial couldn’t be cranked any further, in rolled Michael Jordan and the Dream Team. Not just a basketball team—The basketball team. The kind of squad that made other national teams forget why they showed up in the first place. Instead of playing defense, they were nudging the waterboy to snap a photo. “Never mind the scoreboard, just get me standing next to Barkley!” It wasn’t a game—it was a travelling masterpiece, only this artwork could slam dunk from the free-throw line while chewing gum and dominating.
Then space happened. Proper, chest-thumping space. America built space shuttles that came back. Columbia. Atlantis. Discovery. We cried for Challenger and her crew—everybody did—But then Endeavour soared into the skies with defiance and optimism. Proper machinery. Proper bravery.
The Berlin Wall came down like a mullet at a job interview—loud, awkward, and suddenly everyone claimed they’d never liked it to begin with. One day it was the Iron Curtain, the next it was souvenir rubble in your uncle’s man cave. In swaggered American ideals, wearing Levi’s, drinking Coca-Cola straight from the bottle, and quoting Die Hard like it was gospel. The Communist Soviet toppled over like a cow startled by fireworks—legs in the air and dignity nowhere to be found. Collapsed faster than a cheap lawn chair at an all-you-can-eat ribs contest. And the world? The world threw the biggest party since disco died—arms in the air, toasting for freedom and a front-row seat to history.
Then Iraq, in a moment of wildly misplaced confidence, decided to slap Kuwait. America didn’t flinch—it raised an eyebrow and said, “You want to run that by me again?” Moments later, stealth bombers took off with fighters behind them that looked like Batman’s side project for a midlife crisis. Sleek, dark and terrifying. Shock. Awe. We didn’t just bring the rain—we unleashed a precision-engineered hurricane with a point to prove. A backdrop to Desert Storm.
And yeah, they call us the last unreachable generation. Because we didn’t have smartphones? Please. We talked to people. With our mouths. We made eye contact like champions. We passed notes in class that had more soul than a thousand texts. We high-fived, we made mixtapes with actual tapes and bled ourselves into every moment. We prank-called pizza joints from landlines and risked everything for the thrill of hearing “Do you know what time it is, young man, young woman?”
So come on—tell me your stories. Your favorite moments. Your Saturday mornings, your late-night drives, your big, bold, beautiful memories.
Because Gen Us? We weren’t just a generation.
We were a montage.
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A Kings 
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