"How can we sell them our product," the overpaid executives muse. "None of our silly marketing tricks are working on them, so let's tap into their sense of existential cynicism and unending pessimism."

Witness Coca-Cola's advertising strategy for OK Soda that featured slogans such as "Don't be fooled into thinking there has to be a reason for everything" and "What's the point of OK? Well, what's the point of anything?" (Incidentally, there is a very elaborate theory circulating on the Internet that the CIA and conservative editor William Kristol worked together on the marketing strategy of OK to brainwash young people into being "neoconservatives.")

During the past 10 years, the reputation of Generation X has undergone several transformations. In the beginning, many viewed us as whining slackers, lost in a sea of economic mediocrity. The first Bush recession had saddled us with wage stagnation, unchecked corporate greed, an enormous Cold War national debt, a glut of low-wage service jobs and the skyrocketing cost of college and home ownership. (In case you are wondering, I'm still paying off my student loan and I don't own a house.)

But then something dramatic happened to Generation X: the Internet. It changed how we viewed ourselves and how the world viewed us. Suddenly, baffled baby boomers were asking us how to e-mail their friends or download Beatles tunes. Low-wage service jobs gave way to high-tech industry jobs. Irony became hip.

Giddy with revolutionary fever and ungodly amounts of caffeine, Generation X finally had something to do. And boy did we do it Ñ for 18 hours a day. Blessed with this new communication medium and an opportunity to do something truly radical, we formed bold start-up companies and ordered expensive, ergonomically designed office furniture.

Then, of course, the bottom fell out of the market and now you can buy ergonomically designed office furniture secondhand. As we Gen Xers like to say, "Whatever."

As the second Bush recession continues to tighten its grip and the sins of the CIA have blessed us with gas masks and sky marshals, Internet companies such as Netradio continue to fold (the Minneapolis-based corporation closed this month, laying off 50 employees). The age of irony is over. Nobody wants to buy banner ads anymore.

For the past 10 years, the phrase "Generation X" has been loaded with cynical subtext and subtle derision. It has graced the market strategies of Fortune 500 companies and fueled academic complaints about "self-absorption and materialism." It has downloaded itself onto the hard drive of America and America has responded, "Whatever."

OK, so maybe we oversold the Internet by promising that the old media would soon be obsolete. Maybe the recently outdated New Economy works from many of the economic paradigms of the Old Economy. Maybe we shouldn't expend so much of our energy crying into our lattes.

But during the past 10 years, Generation X has imbued the world with its enduring legacy: the Internet. History may not reward us as the "greatest" generation but it's no small accomplishment to revolutionize communication, education and commerce. Sure the Internet bubble may have burst Ñ for now. But don't dismiss the possibility that Internet IPOs will once again burst upon the scene, just like the Old Economy theory of "economic cycles" predicts.

And don't be so quick to dismiss irony. It will make a comeback.

This column originally appeared in the Oct. 28 edition of the Tallahassee Democrat and was republished in the Charlotte Observer and the Akron Beacon Journal.