GenX is Not Okay Right Now

I hate those Chat-GPT-inspired posts that clog my feed with “I wasn’t gonna post this” or “I didn’t plan to write this.”

And yet - here we are.

I genuinely didn’t plan to write anything new this week. My week has already been a shitshow, I'm talking FUBAR to the nth degree. And every time I think maybe I can escape into some low-effort doomscrolling, even that manages to screw me over.

Especially this week. Including about an hour ago.
And just like that, now I have something to say.

First came the news four days ago: Malcolm-Jamal Warner died tragically while vacationing with his family in Costa Rica. The details that keep emerging are heartbreaking.

I can’t imagine the pain of flying back home from a family trip with an empty seat next to you that you weren't expecting to be empty.

Conversely, when I watched footage from Ozzy Osbourne’s recent farewell concert, I knew we wouldn't have him with us much longer. He'd been fighting his illness for a long time, but I didn’t think it would be that soon.

And just this morning, the proverbial “death always comes in threes’ moment happened (if you’re not counting Connie Francis, RIP):
Hulk Hogan passed away from cardiac arrest.

Three GenX icons gone in five days.  

Holy. Crap.

As a child of the 80s, I avidly watched The Cosby Show. We all did. And while the legacy of that show has aged like milk, Malcolm-Jamal Warner as Theo Huxtable was a Gen-X touchstone all the same.

His character was funny, flawed, and deeply relatable. Over time, Warner built an impressive career as an actor, poet, and Grammy-winning musician.

He embodied something very Gen X: talented, adaptable, and never stuck in one lane for long.

Ozzy Osbourne was part of my metalhead education, whether my parents liked it or not. And now, decades later, every road trip with my daughter, no matter how short, involves one of us picking out the perfect song to blast out the windows.

Ozzy's music will always remain in healthy rotation. His music continues to connect generations, and that’s no small thing.

WWE was a constant presence in my childhood home, thanks to my father’s unhealthy devotion to it. Hogan was the one I watched because of that wild, jacked-up persona, that showmanship he had. That abusurd, over-the-top energy that somehow made everything feel epic when he entered the ring.

To this day, my daughter and I will square off over absolutely nothing and growl, “LEMME TELL YOU SOMETHIN’, BROTHER!”

I write about pop culture because, yes, it entertains and distracts us, but also because these icons helped to shape the soundtracks and cinematic memories of our most formative years.

And now, one by one, they’re disappearing.

We mourn the persona, but we also mourn who we were at the height of their relevance. Our younger selves, sitting cross-legged on shag carpet, cereal or popcorn bowl in hand, staring at screens and believing our icons would always be there.

That's why it hurts so much when they leave us. It reminds us that time isn't waiting for us, either.

They don’t call us the Forgotten Generation for nothing.

We were taught to self-sooth (and often self-parent) and to stay out of the way while having a front-row seat to every cultural collapse from AIDS to Enron and everything in between. We learned early how to take the blows without making a scene.

And now, here we are, burying friends, fighting burnout, and doing our best not to examine our own mortality too closely.

So we do what we've always done:
Turn the music up, make a joke to deflect, and move on.

That’s what this week feels like.
And that’s enough said.

Also, could someone please arrange 24/7 wellness checks for Dick Van Dyke and Dolly? I genuinely can’t take another hit right now.

Related Reads

• This connects with Stark Contrast, check it out.
• For an easier look back, go to Triggers and Treasures.
• The escape/reinvention thread runs back to Movies: Escape or Compass.

Heather Papovich is a long-form essayist, cultural writer, and longtime ghostwriter whose work explores lived experience, cultural identities, and the emotional mechanics of everyday life.

She is the founder of Unfinished Business, an independent digital publication blending personal narrative with cultural commentary, currently read in 33 verified countries.

Her writing focuses on reinvention, the emotional weight of ordinary moments, and the role popular culture, particularly long-running franchises, plays in how people cope, connect, and create meaning.