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Fake Adults
Mar. 6th, 2026 05:35 amWhen I was little, I thought of adults as fake. I may not have had those words, but on some level, I was aware of this.
Adults weren't real. Perhaps its better to say that adults weren't genuine. Everybody was putting on their best game faces. This was the height of Nice Culture, and everyone was so very good at it. This is the fakery of the suburbs that everyone knew about, except for those who bought into the fakery.
Nice Culture is one of the white cultures, along with Professional Culture, Service Culture, Men's Culture, and Women's culture. We context shift between them constantly.
GenX was certainly aware of this fakery, but this was also the waters that we swam in. We rejected this culture while also reforming it, creating Nice Culture GenX.
The proposition of Nice Culture is that those who fit in will be welcomed and gain the benefits of the culture, while those who don't will have the full disapproval of the culture turned against them. Both the carrot and the stick were considerable.
Thinking back and finding role models was tough. I think that teachers tended to be more genuine people than most adults, especially high school teachers. You spent more time with them, and many of them just didn't care to play the game at that extreme level.
I remember my Uncle Bernie and Aunt Florence as very fake people. They each had their personalities, but they always had their game faces on, always had their nice turned up. I didn't really know them. Even inside the family, I didn't know them. Maybe they were more personable with their peers? I think that may be true, and part of it is my own child's mind coloring the picture, but not completely.
Uncle Joe was a tad more genuine. I think that he was my mom's cousin. He died early, in his later 40's or early 50's (at a guess), of throat cancer. He smoked a lot, and I suspect that he was a very functional alcoholic (a reasonable bet for that generation). As he was dying, he would just buy whatever he felt like, because he wanted it. I don't remember much about his wife, other than she was mildly overweight as women that age are.
When I wanted to be an engineer, he said that I didn't have to be one. I could choose. Yeah, I knew that, but he seemed to think otherwise. That's about as close as we got.
As for the neighborhood mothers, they all had their game faces, too. None of them seemed genuine to me.
I think that my grandparents predated Nice Culture, in it's mid-century form. They were all frictionous people, and they hardly bothered with their game faces. I didn't have much personal relationship with them, either.
Today, we still have our game faces, I think, in whatever generation of Nice Culture there is. Some people hold onto the tighter ways of the mid-century, but there's been push back against the more absolute maneuvering.
Adults weren't real. Perhaps its better to say that adults weren't genuine. Everybody was putting on their best game faces. This was the height of Nice Culture, and everyone was so very good at it. This is the fakery of the suburbs that everyone knew about, except for those who bought into the fakery.
Nice Culture is one of the white cultures, along with Professional Culture, Service Culture, Men's Culture, and Women's culture. We context shift between them constantly.
GenX was certainly aware of this fakery, but this was also the waters that we swam in. We rejected this culture while also reforming it, creating Nice Culture GenX.
The proposition of Nice Culture is that those who fit in will be welcomed and gain the benefits of the culture, while those who don't will have the full disapproval of the culture turned against them. Both the carrot and the stick were considerable.
Thinking back and finding role models was tough. I think that teachers tended to be more genuine people than most adults, especially high school teachers. You spent more time with them, and many of them just didn't care to play the game at that extreme level.
I remember my Uncle Bernie and Aunt Florence as very fake people. They each had their personalities, but they always had their game faces on, always had their nice turned up. I didn't really know them. Even inside the family, I didn't know them. Maybe they were more personable with their peers? I think that may be true, and part of it is my own child's mind coloring the picture, but not completely.
Uncle Joe was a tad more genuine. I think that he was my mom's cousin. He died early, in his later 40's or early 50's (at a guess), of throat cancer. He smoked a lot, and I suspect that he was a very functional alcoholic (a reasonable bet for that generation). As he was dying, he would just buy whatever he felt like, because he wanted it. I don't remember much about his wife, other than she was mildly overweight as women that age are.
When I wanted to be an engineer, he said that I didn't have to be one. I could choose. Yeah, I knew that, but he seemed to think otherwise. That's about as close as we got.
As for the neighborhood mothers, they all had their game faces, too. None of them seemed genuine to me.
I think that my grandparents predated Nice Culture, in it's mid-century form. They were all frictionous people, and they hardly bothered with their game faces. I didn't have much personal relationship with them, either.
Today, we still have our game faces, I think, in whatever generation of Nice Culture there is. Some people hold onto the tighter ways of the mid-century, but there's been push back against the more absolute maneuvering.
