Is slacking dead?
I mention this because I've been working on an article for Salon about this year's crop of graduating seniors, who seem amazingly upbeat about the state of the American economy, and definitely don't plan on "dropping out" the way so many of us did in the early '90s.
I'd guess the early roots of our kind of slacking not counting slack forefathers of the Woodstock generation – occurred with the demoralizing election of George Bush I in 1988, the actual filming of Slacker in 1989, and the implosion of the economy in 1990. Like all great cultural phenomena, it was short-lived: its end began with the jubilant election of Clinton in '92, was mortally wounded by the corporate co-option of "Generation X" in '93-'94, and whatever was left was killed by the Internet explosion of 1996.
I figure my pinnacle of slacking came in the year between summer '94 and summer '95, when I lived on a farm outside Chapel Hill, NC for $117 a month with Ann and Greg Humphreys. Having just co-written a reasonably well-received book, I began writing a novel nobody was ever to see, and as the money drained out, I began walking around town with a certain distasteful misanthropy. I tried to start a band, but lacked the energy by Christmas, I grew so lethargic that I wrote a letter to myself, telling me to lose weight and find a girl by February. The weight came off – 25 pounds – but the girl did not; I had to wait another few months for that.
My own slacking came to an end after I moved into the Pink House; something about being the most responsible bill payer for the first time – kicked me into high mother hen gander. I started writing for the Independent and the Macmillan schoolbook series, and actually had money to buy drinks.
By 1996, you had to have zero motivation or be dead not to get a job at a dot-com, whether you were a programmer, an editor, a writer, or possessed a halfway-decent business mind. Even if you personally didn't have an idea for an internet company, you could have suckled the teat of local portals like we did with CitySearch in Chapel Hill (and Austin and San Fran and NYC, etc). The sheer amount of money I saw change hands in those days was truly stunning.
I largely suspect slacking has died even with the 2nd coming of the Shithole Modern Economy – because it's too expensive to live anywhere interesting without a job. Unless you sleep in a 400 square foot room with two Guatemalan families on the Lower East Side, it is impossible to slack in New York. Even Chapel Hill and Austin have priced themselves out of slackers, and everywhere else, you need a reliable car (which none of us ever had).
Also, the late '90s gave us all artificial needs that we can't imagine living without: at the very least, a laptop, a cell phone, and some way of getting onto the internet fast. Sure, plenty of people don't have those things, but their asceticism is usually earned through luxury. There is also a preponderance of style left over from the dot-com boom that has yet to subside: the kids who would have been slackers back in the '90s now traipse around Tompkins Square Park in Campers and ironic T-shirts from Urban Oufitters. We just like more stuff these days, and in stuff's defense, it is a lot cooler than stuff used to be.
It is a little sad, I suppose. I miss the long, unending afternoons of a slacking summer, and the free-floating, tetherless twitch of a future without engagement but my car actually works now, and I can't tell you how much sweet relief that is.
Posted by at April 28, 2003 8:18 PM