Some Recognition at Last–Experiences of a Filipino “Xennial”

I’m not Gen-X… not quite Millenial…

A few months ago, I was pretty sure I was a Millenial. Depending on whether you read the textbook definitions that said the generation began in 1981 or 1982, I was barely a Millenial, having been born in 1983. I remembered during the 90s when the Gen-Xers were enjoying the limelight, I asked if I was Gen-X. No, I was told, I belonged to Gen Y. And since then, the moniker of Gen-Y was absorbed into the bigger umbrella generation called the Millenials.

And I could identify with the Millenials. I liked technology, I embraced change and progress, and was still young when the first cellphones appeared. But then, the popular definition of the Millenial seems to put them at their mid or late 20s, and with stereotypical characteristics that don’t fit me… at all. Besides, except for a few people I was treated with skepticism when I professed to be a Millenial. Because Millenials were, well.. young.

But neither was I a Gen-Xer, that much I knew. The Gen-Xers were exposed to 70s-80s music, were stereotypically cynical and pessimistic, knew disco and were in their mid- to late- 30s with families and kids. I was just in my early 30s. They were somehow “old” to me.

I remembered wanting to bring back the Gen Y moniker, if only to distinguish my generation with the Millenials, and the Gen-Xers. Why did social scientists have to bunch us up with a digital generation, when the newer technologies seemed too novel for our tastes? The initial reaction was to divide the Millenials between the Younger and Older Millenials. It did acknowledge the problem, at least, but a better solution was needed.

Then I read an article on Dan Woodman about a word he attributed to those born in 1977-1983: Xennials. Having had the experiences of a Gen-X and a Millenial. His coinage of the term caught on, although the first recorded use of the word was in an article in 2014 by Sarah Stankorb, when it was used as a placeholder term to call those caught between the Generation X and the Millenials. For some reason, the word didn’t go viral until three years later, maybe because the Xennials were still young enough to think they belonged among the Millenials, heh, I don’t know.

In any case, the term Xennial (an awkward term, no doubt, begging for a more formal title), were coined by American writers. Their other term for it was the Oregon Trail Generation, because this was the generation that played Oregon Trail in the United States. But what was the Filipino equivalent? Was there really an Xennial here? Or is it just an American phenomenon?

Believe it or not, Xennials are distinct not only in the landmark events of their time, but also in their culture. This was a generation that knew Blur, Oasis and Radiohead, and also Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga and Rihanna. But they’ll look at you, confused, when you ask them if they know Duran Duran or The Who… or from the other side of the spectrum Kendrick Lamar or Chance the Rapper.

So let me tell you what I can remember of my experiences as a Filipino Xennial. Maybe the experiences of other Xennials vary, but the main theme of bridging the traditional life to the digital life is common to all of us.

Television

Before the advent of YouTube and Netflix, the main medium of consumption was the TV. It was true even in the decade at the turn of the millennium.

My memory of television was my family watching The World Tonight for the daily news, and I distinctly remember missing such shows as Champoy not because they had ended airing episodes but the shows competed with the regular brown outs of that time.

I was too young to appreciate the John and Marsha show, though they were showing reruns of it and even Iskul Bukol on the local channel. When the brown outs started lessening I was able to watch the comedian Dolphy as Mang Kevin in Home Along Da Riles. I also mostly missed Abangan ang Susunod na Kabanata because it was aired at late night.

The tone of television comedies really changed between Palibhasa Lalake and Ober da Bakod. One relied heavily on the absurd while the other focused on the sitcom slapstick. The classy Champoy was far different from the more absurdist Tropang Trumpo, which came at the late 90s.

The classic gags of Palito and Chikito which heavily focused on the comic persona soon changed to the more suggestive and green jokes of Andrew E and Janno Gibbs. The humor changed from the absurdity of the comic to that of the every man caught in comic situations.

The humor also began to be suggestive. In parody sketches in Tropang Trumpo a contestant always ended up blatantly saying a censored word to the laughter of the viewer. Andrew E played characters that were caught in risqué situations, and competed with the talented Leo Martinez for bawdy situations and comedy.

Western shows also filled TV time. My earliest cartoon was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I remember watching MacGyver on the local channel. We also watched National Geographic when it was still mostly focused on the animals rather than the human element.

Although we watched Box Office shows on the TV, local shows were still mostly popular and captured the popular imagination. It still had a classic Pinoy character to it.

By the mid 90s, however, things started changing. From In Living Color that my brother loved to watch, we started watching DragonBall Z, Sailor Moon and Ranma 1/2. Friends and Frasier began to air. And music videos became popular.

The music videos changed the TV landscape. Before Myx we would watch music videos from V or MTV. We would see the inventive videos of Eraserheads, but also hip hop and boy/girl groups.

By the turn of the Millennium, TV shows had become Westernized, mostly embracing hip hop though still trying to retain a Pinoy persona. But between Champoy and Pokémon, Xennial humor was still campy and silly.

So the Gen-Xers would look at the things we watch and shrink in disgust, while the Millenials would cringe, laugh and point “Ang baduy!”

Music

Our music started decently enough. From Sharon Cuneta’s Kahit Konting Pagtingin rendition to Ogie Alcasid’s Nandito Ako, early Xennial music was populated by ballads. We enjoyed music from Jose Mari Chan as well as Sana Kahit Minsan of Ariel Rivera.

I remembered listening to the radio waiting for my favorite song to play while I had a cassette ready to record the songs. Every now and then I’d hear a song like I Finally Found Someone by Barbra Streisand or Stay by Lisa Loeb, but it was the likes of Magkasuyo buong Gabi which captured my attention.

Then the girl and boy groups arrived. First it was the Spice Girls and their campy outfits and even campier songs. Then the heartthrob group Backstreet Boys with songs like As long as you love me.

Yes, we considered Gen-Xers stuck up in their discos and old people music, but we didn’t exactly have a high standard either. The younger Gen-Xers sang to Boys 2 Men, but Xennial swooned to 98 degrees, Nsync and Boyzone. I remembered a Spice Girls that really became popular was one Millenials would cringe at: 2 become 1.

But alternative music became popular as well. I remembered during my High School years listening to Freshmen by the Verve, and I still associate the song with my High School crush.

Hiphop was prevalent, but so was Oasis, Blur and The Presidents of the USA. I banged my head to Song 2, relaxed to One Headlight, and sang to Wonderwall. By the late 90s New Radicals, Smashing Pumpkin and Alien Ant Farm were hitting the airwaves. I actually found out about Smooth Criminal from Alien Ant Farm rather than Michael Jackson, though I identified MJ more with Black or White.

The 2000s

After the big celebrations welcoming the Millennium, Will Smith’s Willenium and Gettin’ Jiggy with it, the first two years of the Millennium was still upbeat. Sure, there was Eminem’s Slim Shady and the controversial music video of Smashing Pumpkin’s We must never be apart, but everyone was more concerned about the Y2k bug that would have brought on the apocalypse.

Pokémon arrived on TV, and shows like Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer were at a high point. Two years before the Philippines celebrated its Centennial, and by 2000 the President would soon be impeached.

Eraserheads celebrated the Millennium with Nutty 99, and I remembered still listening and singing to Rivermaya and Parokya ni Edgar by 2000. I also started watching David Letterman on The Late Show, waiting for the Top Ten list as highlight.

MTV introduced the claymation Celebrity Deathmatch, while an early show Reboot showed up with what was my first experience with 3D graphics. By 2000 I was watching Dexter’s Laboratory, Quantum Leap and Sliders.

Alternative music would continue to be popular well into the early 2000s, and I remembered listening to songs by Vertical Horizon.

Then 2001 happened. The President was ousted forcibly, a separatist group tried to take Zamboanga City, and that one key event in September that the whole world watched.

I didn’t know if that flipped the switch somewhere, but everything changed. I didn’t know then when I was watching it unfold in the TV in the Internet Cafe that everything would be different now.

There were unity songs like Where is the Love and Whats Going on, but the angst of the generation carried to Linkin Park’s Crawling and Breaking the Habit, and Green Day’s American Idiot and Wake me up when September Ends, as 2001 led to Iraq.

Also popular in TV was the show 24, which had counter terrorist Jack Bauer saving the President or thwarting nuclear terror attacks.

Back in the Philippines, we had our own share of angst. The President that left paved the way for an even more unpopular President. The collegial Xennial, more than ever before, became political. And it showed in the shows Ispup which spoofed political events and personalities, as well as Eto Na Ang Susunod na Kabanata which carried the political commentary of a previous show to the 2000s.

Still, camp was very much alive in popular culture, and while American culture got darker, pop culture here got cheesier.

The gag comedy of Tropang Trumpo gave way to Bubble Gang, and apart from parodying local commercials, it was the talent of comedian Michael V that introduced parody songs like Mas tanga ako sayo and Kung kelangan mo bato. He was more popular for Sinaktan mo ang puso ko which was a local version Weird Al’s You don’t love me anymore. Although comedy in the 2000s was bawdier, Michael V tried hard to not be crass or risqué. It wasn’t the same for other artists.

In the turn of the Millennium, Tom Jones became popular again for the single Sex Bomb. In the 2000s, the variety show Eat Bulaga introduced the group Sexbomb Danvers, scantily clad and gyrating suggestive as they sang to hits like Bakit Papa and Ispageti. The adult entertainment industry also promoted the Viva Hot Babes and songs like Bulaklak. Rap was even more explicit, with Salbakuta’s Stupid Love sharing air time with a raunchy song (seriously, pick any) from Andrew E.

But the Xennials were also introduced to a new of wave of singers. From Hungry Young Poets, Barbie Almalbis started a solo career, as did Bamboo Manalac from Rivermaya. Kitchie Nadal sang Huwag mong Sasabihin, while Cueshe rocked to Ulan. I remembered watching singer Nina at the campus soon after listening to a more popular artist sing Does the Moonlight shine on Paris.

While Eminem was hitting the airwaves with Without Me, Avril Lavigne was rocking Sk8er Boi and Michelle Branch was singing Everywhere. 50 Cent was hitting his stride with In da club, while Black Eyed Peas would sing My Humps. Western music was more somber, and had more angst to it. I would even say it was darker.

In the early 2000s the Lord of the Rings trilogy hit the cinemas. It was, however, the local fantasy series or fantaserye Marina which would kickstart the trend of fantasy shows in the early 2000s. Mulawin would eventually pave the way for local TV’s LOTR version Encantadia. Superhero shows would follow suit: Darna, Captain Barbell, Panday and Pedro Penduko.

Xennials began the Millennium with the upbeat Pokémon, but matured listening to Bamboo’s Tatsulok. Popular media tried to appeal to escapist entertainment, but the politicized Pinoy Xennial rocked to harder music and looked for grittier entertainment.

Technology

My first encounter with technology was playing the arcade for the first time while we were vacationing in Tagaytay. It was Streetfighter II, and I was turning the toggle and hitting buttons randomly just to imitate my opponent. It would be the introduction to a passionate relationship with technology.

While culturally the Gen-Xers and the Millenials still overlapped with the Xennials, technologically we had the privilege of living the best of both worlds: an analog existence before technology pervaded every facet of our lives, and a digital one that we were quick to jump into. We were there when technologies like the cellphone, the CDs, the flash drives and the MP3s first came into existence. We were there at the beginning.

The Xennials’ early analog existence began with pastimes and hobbies shared with Gen-Xers. I remembered playing Moro-moro­, Patintero and Baril Barilan with friends. Television was a familiar friend and so was the radio. A regretful practice I did then was to record over music from existing cassettes with hits I heard from the radio. In fact, I remembered making a “mix-tape dulaan” where I created a story from the songs Tindahan ni Aling Nena, Harana, Ligaya, Pare Ko and Sampip.

My experience with the arcade would not end in that chilly day in Tagaytay. I would spend precious money and tokens playing at the mall with games such as Darkstalkers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, though I never did appreciate Mortal Kombat.

Viewing movies had also changed, initially with the introduction of Betamax and later of VHS. I remembered panicking when trying the Betamax tape for the first time I inserted it the wrong way. It was in the Betamax that we watched Back to the Future, and it was in VHS that I first watched Robin Hood, Men in Tights.

In the mid 90s, we got our first Desktop Computer which was then just called a Computer. It was “high tech” to have one, and it was where I was introduced to Wordstar (and my later passion for fiction writing). At our High School we were taught Logo and Basic 123, but by the end of the 90s we were doing PowerPoint presentations from Windows 95. Even back then when I was playing emulated versions of Double Dragon and Pac Man, I knew I would be a Hardcore Gamer.

I had a Family Computer console in the early 90s, but I never had another console since then. That didn’t stop me from venturing to gaming centers in our neighborhood, and outside of the arcade I played DragonBall III and later X-men vs Street fighter. I didn’t have a Brick Game console until I was well into College, though I remember missing out a Nayong Filipino field trip just so I could play a borrowed Brick Game console.

The lack of a console drove me to the arms of PC gaming. Very early on I leaned to strategy games like Red Alert and Starcraft (that I ironically said would not catch on). By the late 90s gaming would center on Internet cafes offering computers interconnected via a local network, allowing for network gaming. I spent many a time with friends somewhat reluctantly playing Counterstrike.

The first cellphone that I saw was from a classmate that was using it to play Snake. I didn’t appreciate then the importance of the device, other than just another console. By the 2000s, however, I was given a Nokia 3210 so I could keep in touch with the family, but even then ingenuity was not how sleek it was but how strong. A Motorola was admired because however it was dropped, it still worked.

VHS tapes gave way to CDs, and they in turn gave way to DVDs. But between the CD and the DVD was the CD-R and the CD-RW, important distinctions, for at that time Limewire was popular, and you could burn the latest music on CDs. Games, software and even movies were sold on the streets on burned CDs.

But that was already in the mid 2000s, when the Internet was still filled with web pages filled with text content. In the late 90s network gaming was all the rage among Filipino Xennials. It was not practical yet to have Internet at home when Internet cafes provided ready access.

Dial up speeds, however, gave way to DSL. And the familiar sound of a modem dialing a signal from the land-line gave way to fast connection. Xennials went to College and had their first jobs just as the Internet was growing from a few custom made web pages from such places as Angelfire to the first institutions such as Yahoo! which introduced Yahoo mail and Yahoo messenger (the latter became a popular chatting service).

While Xennials were first learning to use the semi colon and the close parenthesis to make a winking emoji, they were being bombarded by chain emails asking you to share or be cursed with some misfortune. There were fan sites and websites filled with text fanfiction, and I remembered seeing one such site for anime fanfiction. By the mid to late 2000s, personal websites became more sophisticated, and text content pages gave way to blogs. Personally I considered them the first social medium, and it came at a time when Filipino Xennials had turned to political activism. They turned up at the streets and to the blogs (“the shrines of militancy”) to protest the unjust government.

Programming, at its basic in COBOL and Fortran, developed into scripts for making web pages, like PHP and ASP. When I enrolled in Masters in Computer Science, I developed a program in PHP for my Thesis—at a time when PHP was at its infancy (2005). Soon, the terms open source and enterprise would be used to compare languages, and I remember that I first was introduced to one of the first Javascript libraries, JQuery, in 2007.

So here, maybe in 2005 or 2007, when blogging and web programming was at its early stages, do we finally leave the narrative of the Xennial. The arrival of the iPhone and the iPad would herald the Millenial generation, though they must also have enjoyed some of the advancements in technologies the Xennials were enjoying.

The point was: the Filipino Xennial, like his American counterpart, also could not identify with the disco culture of Gen X, nor can he catch up with the culture of the Millenials (though he can try). Because he still reached an analog life, he retains some form of conservative traditionalism in him, but because of the changes that invaded his world, he also embraced progress and technology. The result was camp, a happy-go-lucky attitude, then a mature, still-optimistic, pragmatism.

Again, I’m proud to say that as a Xennial, I’ve lived in the best of both worlds, appreciating the time when books and comics were popular, but also enthusiastically accepting the Walkman, the CDs, and the early Internet. I’m happy that we’re finally being acknowledged, albeit by the Americans, and I’m hoping we can finally get formal recognition with an official title and the official absorption in pop culture in general. We’ve been here for a while now. And it’s not too late to be recognized.