I am dead square in the middle of Gen-X, coming of age in the late 80s/early 90s. I think you accurately define the cultural nihilism of the time (as expressed in music and film) as a youthful rebellion against the boredom of middle-class suburban existence. I lost that by going to war (Desert Storm) at age 20.

It was replaced by a nihilism of drifting through life and genuinely not caring if I lived or died. And I lost that in my mid-30s when I witnessed the birth of my son.

I won’t link to it, but I wrote a poem published here in Medium a couple weeks ago titled “Nihilism” where I called it a “pretension, a posture, and a first-world problem.” Gen-X nihilism was predicated on the presumption that you weren’t actually going to starve, even if you played at it for a while. (You could always go home.)

As you touch upon, for Millennials and Gen-Zers like my 14-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter, they deal with a great deal more existential uncertainty, now escalated by pandemic. But I like the optimism they have. They have so much more information about the world than Gen-X ever came close to having at their age. I listen to my kids talk to their friends and I am just astounded sometimes at the very-matter-of-fact, dare I say sophisticated, insight they have into a wide range of issues. The kids are all right.