Feeling pogi, looking panget
I was at a barber shop when I heard the guy beside me requesting the same hairstyle as his son.
“Barber’s cut po?” asked the barber.
“Hindi. Yung nakaka-bata.” The father winked at the barber; the son in the adjacent seat rolled his eyes.
After they left—I was still there as I was having my hair treated, complete with a scalp massage—my barber commented, “Buti kayo, Sir, hindi feeling millennial.”
That was the trigger. Was I, am I, really not “feeling millennial” every time I try to arrest the strain of time on my appearance? To complete the expression, feeling millennial, looking Xer—or, FMLX.
No, this has less to do with SOGIE (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression) and more with the quaint FPLP (Feeling pretty/pogi, looking panget), an expression which had its 15 minutes of fame around 2019, thanks to the “Feeling Pogi” contest of the noon-time show Eat Bulaga!
I’ve confessed to using various lotions, toners, lip balms, pore strips, even acne patches (yes, I still do get zits, occasionally), and branded myself “metrosexual” while keeping my ears, eyes, and mind open to trends. I try to work out every day, with “workout” being confined to a stroll around our village, just enough to reach my step goal for the day. And I attempt to be fashion-forward, with help from my wife and daughter.
Yet, I’ve also admitted to being a fan of Salonpas, Katinko, and other pain relievers that normally and eventually become the scent of choice of Boomers and Gen Xers (although, as I’ve written before, more and more youngsters, especially girls, are embracing inhalers and liniments as part of their wellness regimen, to the extent that they form part of their anik-anik).
Alas, there’s a fine line between being “age-appropriate” and falling into the FMLX trap. When I dab on my serum, am I just being a modern-day Patrick Bateman from American Psycho (minus the homicidal tendencies and the clear raincoat)? Or am I like Meryl Streep in Death Becomes Her, desperately gulping down a cosmetic potion to keep the cracks from showing? If I start wearing bucket hats and oversized graphic tees, I’m not suddenly a member of BTS; I’m just 30 Rock’s Lenny Wosniak (deliciously played by Steve Buscemi), carrying a skateboard and asking, “How do you do, fellow kids?”
Pop culture feeds this delusion. We see an AARP card-carrying Tom Cruise flying a motorcycle off a Norwegian cliff in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, or Jennifer Lopez defying the laws of physics during her Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show and her latest Las Vegas residency concerts, and we think, “I can also do that. I can be that.” We want to be Benjamin Button, aging backward in a world that moves too fast, until we realize we don’t want to be an infant again or worse, to return to high school.
For sure, reality sucks. You can wear the latest DBTK tees paired with classic Vans sneakers and blast Bebot on your AirPods just to sound retro-hip, but your creaking knees will keep reminding you to “act your age.” It’s the “tito/tita” paradox: your mind is singing along to fitterkarma’s Pag-Ibig ay Kanibalismo II, but your feet are tapping to VST & Co.’s Awitin Mo at Isasayaw Ko.
Ultimately, FMLX (Feeling Millennial, Looking Xer) is about the struggle to remain relevant in a world that treats anyone born before the year 2000 like a ‘Legacy Act.’
Reality also bites, as Lelaina Pierce learned in the 1994 film Reality Bites. Played by Winona Ryder (decades before she became Stranger Things’ Joyce Byers), Lelaina, an academic achiever, struggled as a working adult while managing complicated love affairs with polar opposites Troy and Michael.
The movie suggests that by age 23, all you have to do is be yourself and rely on your credentials and experience (or the lack of same). Yet it doesn’t warn that 30 years, three kids, five jobs, and seven cars later, annual physical exams and a medical cocktail is the new normal, along with moisturizers and a ton of patience in the face of clueless younger people.
Gen X fashion used to be the anti-uniform: flannel, shoulder pads, acid-washed jeans, band tees actual bought at concerts, and screaming logos. Now these are being branded as “retro” in an era where rocking athleisure, designer sneakers, and reading glasses that cost more than entire wardrobes, should be “effortless” and “low-maintenance.” Should we dare to look and act like our kids, fellow Xers? Or should we, like Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories sang toward the end of Reality Bites, simply “stay” and be true to ourselves? Should we try to blend into a crowd of digital natives even when we limit ourselves to sharing GIFs, memes, and unverified stories on Viber? Or are we simply “too cool” now to care?
The reality that we can own is that life often doesn’t always match our dreams, but finding our own way through the ambiguity is where growth happens. Ultimately, FMLX is about the struggle to remain relevant in a world that treats anyone born before the year 2000 like a “Legacy Act.” We must continue to feel and be useful and wanted—and even “not that old”—when we hear younger people innocently noting that we were born in the 1900s.
