FUSSELL BELIEVED IN an escape pod from this tyranny of classhood: residence in a special American psycho-emotional space called “category X.” (Fussell borrowed his notion from Matthew Arnold’s analysis of the three British classes—even a century earlier, Arnold was describing this fourth set of “aliens.”) Fussell’s Xs were essentially bohemians, the young people who flocked to cities in search of “art,” “writing,” and “creative work,” ideally without a supervisor. Xs disregarded authority; they dressed down on every occasion; they drank no-name liquor (“Beefeater Gin and Cutty Sark Scotch betray the credulous victim of advertising, and hence the middle class”); they wore moccasins and down vests (in 1983, Fussell considered L.L.Bean and Lands’ End natural X clothiers); they carelessly threw out, unread, their college alumni magazines.
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Class Dismissed - Magazine - The Atlantic
I thought I was weird for automatically trashing my alumni mag without opening it, but turns out it just signifies that I’m a member of the creative class! All the other signifiers fit too except the LL Bean. (That was written in 1983).
