If you read my posts regularly, you may think that I’m all rah-rah about Gen AI and all the increasingly powerful things it can do. But I belong to Gen X, and my head is still screwed on tight. I sometimes mourn for the good old days of analog media, when we crafted most content with our hands and the computer was a merely a tool, not an existential threat.
I read this NYT story by Steven Kurutz about the plight of Gen X creatives (Gift Link) and I felt sad. Excerpts:
“Every generation has its burdens. The particular plight of Gen X is to have grown up in one world only to hit middle age in a strange new land. It’s as if they were making candlesticks when electricity came in. The market value of their skills plummeted.
Karen McKinley, 54, an advertising executive in Minneapolis, has seen talented colleagues “thrown away,” she said, as agencies have merged, trimmed staff and focused on fast, cheap social media content over elaborate photo shoots.”
“It seems fitting that Gen-Xers would reach middle age amid an upheaval. They always had cursed timing.”