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Gen X wigs out at Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain's grandbaby being born

Use those genetic superpowers for good, little one.

Photo credits: Joseph Gall (left), P.B. Rage from USA (right)

Imagine having Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain as your granddads.

If you wanted to create a human with the most Gen X superpowers possible, the recipe would be pretty simple. Just get Kurt Cobain's kid to marry Tony Hawk's kid and have a baby, right?

Welp, that's exactly what has happened, and it's like a 90s fever dream come true.

Frances Bean Cobain—the daughter of infamous grunge legends Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love—married skating legend Tony Hawk's son Riley in October of 2023. How this news slipped past a good number of us Gen Xers is a mystery, but it's probably due to our stage of life. We're too busy caring for aging parents and putting kids through college to consume celebrity news like we used to. But whatever. That oh-so-Gen-X thing actually happened.

And now the 90s offspring supercouple just welcomed their first baby—Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk—and we typically chill Gen Xers are having a hard time staying cool over it.

— (@)

The most Gen X thing that's ever happened

First of all, how is it possible that Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain could be grandpops? Isn't Gen X still young and hip? Are we really hitting the grandparent era? And second of all, this is so frickin' rad.

Needless to say, the commentary on the announcement is epic:

"Kurt Cobain’s daughter and Tony Hawk’s son just became parents? That’s a rockstar-skater royalty baby right there! Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk is bound to have some serious genes and an even cooler future ahead. Talk about a legendary family tree!"

"This is the craziest 90s collab I've ever seen."

"This kid has just been born and is already the coolest person alive."

"Imagine Kurt Cobain and Tony Hawk are both your grandfathers, you’re like the Son Goku of white people."

via GIPHY

"Alternative rock and Xtreme sports literally defined the 90s for yt ppl. His grandparents are the legends in both!"

"The most '90s grandchild to ever live."

"This is the most gen x thing i have ever seen...."

"Finally, they have created the most chill human on the planet."

"Kid's got the coolest name ever on top of the coolest family tree."

"That is going to be the raddest child of all time."

"That kid is 90s legacy. Pain and sadness met with high energy happiness and had a baby."

Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk has some awfully big shoes to fill

Some people are pointing out the pressure that can come with having incredibly famous family members, making jokes about how the kiddo will likely surprise us all by being remarkably average.

via GIPHY

"The most rebellious thing he could do is grow up and get a regular job as an accountant."

"This kid is going to grow up with the most unreasonable expectations and end up being a farmer in Illinois or something just to get away from it."

"And we though Lisa Marie Presley had an impossible standard to live up to. Godspeed, Ronin."

Of course, the kiddo doesn't actually have to fill any shoes—it's not like he chose to be born into 90s pop culture royalty and who knows how those genetics will actually play out. He could be a musical genius with incredible motor control or he could be something totally different.

Kurt Cobain and Tony Hawk led very different lives early in their fame

Despite both being Gen X icons, Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain were polar opposites in some ways. Cobain struggled with a lot in his too-short life, including physical and mental illness that eluded diagnoses, poverty and a broken family, and isolation fueled by drug addiction. He spurned the fame and fortune that came catapulting his way, not really knowing how to handle it, but before he was able to realize his dream of a simpler life with daughter Frances Bean, he tragically died by suicide at age 27. His musical genius and influence on rock music are still lauded to this day.

via GIPHY

Tony Hawk's story bears little resemblance to Cobain's, other than his huge success. He stayed away from drugs early in his rise to fame and became part of the anti-drug PSA campaign in his youth. He did slip into some over-drinking and use of painkillers in his 30s, but then stepped away from the partying lifestyle altogether. Though he retired from competition in 2003 and is no longer trying to push the envelope with new tricks, he still skates for fun at age 56. His four children came from his first three marriages, all of which ended in divorce, and he's been married to his fourth wife since 2015. The public knows him as a good guy with a friendly disposition (and a good sense of humor about people telling him he looks like Tony Hawk).

How these two famous men's genes express themselves in little Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk will remain a mystery for some time, but one thing's for sure: This kid will go down in history as having the two gnarliest granddad's ever.

Welcome to the world, little Ronin. Whatever you do, please use your Gen X superpowers for good.

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Here are 17 things people really miss the most about living in the '90s

Wouldn't you kill for a Friday night at Blockbuster and a pizza? No texts. No TikTok.

via Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikimedia Commons

Kurt Cobain, Blockbuster Video, Bill Clinton.

The 1990s was a sweet spot in American history. The stifling Cold War with the Soviet Union had just come to the end in 1989 and it would still be 12 years before a new era of fear after the 9/11 attacks.

The 1990s was also a time of prosperity that lifted up Americans across the socioeconomic spectrum and an era that saw unprecedented peace in the world. In fact, things were going so well in America that President Clinton managed to have a budget surplus four years in a row.

The '90s was also the last gasp of the analog era when people couldn't contact you 24/7 and did things for the pure joy of it instead for the likes and shares.

To say that the '90s was the last great American decade may be looking back with rose-colored glasses but it's obvious that as we've entered this new era dominated by technology, we left behind a lot of things that brought us joy. Many of us wouldn't mind having them back.

A recent Reddit thread asked "What do you miss about the '90s?" and the answers will take you back to a time that most of us remember fondly. Will people ever say that about the 2020s? Only time will tell.

1. You made plans without having to text people.

"Before we had mobile phones, my wife and I would plan to meet at a certain street corner at a certain time after work. We sometimes had to wait for the other person to show up, but we knew they would." — i_will_be_dead

2. The world was clearly changing for the better.

"There was a period between the Cold War and the War on Terror when it seemed like there was hope for the world." — igetasticker

3. Friday nights at home with the family.

"Blockbuster/Pizza Hut on Friday nights." — EdwardPackard

4. People left you alone.

"Not being contactable 24/7. Peace of leaving school/work and not having to deal with their nonsense till tomorrow." — Soma_Tweaker

5. Air travel without the stress.

"Did you know that before 9/11, it wasn't a massive pain in the ass to go fucking anywhere?! Loved ones could walk you right to the gate. You could bring snacks, sandwiches, and drinks onto the plane with you. The prices at Hudson News were perfectly reasonable, because if they weren't, you could just walk out of the terminal and grab something." — GavinBelsonsAlexa

6. The mall.

"Malls were awesome, and I hate that the strip mall style has taken over. Especially up in Canada, where it gets to -40 in the winter. Back in the day you could legitimately spend hours wandering the mall, indoors and warm. Now it is depressing. Maybe the big malls like Mall of America or West Edmonton Mall are still okay, but the ones in my city are shit." — Lexi_Banner

7. Following a scene.

"In the '90s I would walk to my local record shop and talk to the guy. He would recognize me and ask about my thoughts on the Offspring album I bought last time I was in, and then recommend something that just came in from some guys called Green Day.

I'd then give a listen on the wall-mounted headphone player and take it home. Then, the whole next week would listen to nothing else... It was kind of great." — Koro

8. A genuine good time.

"I think people are more concerned with posting something and going viral now. I really hate that you can just be minding your business, doing something with family or friends and enjoying yourself, and somebody will randomly record what you're doing so they can call you 'corny' and get likes and views." — Enviornmental-Bank81

9. Magazines.

"Everyone had their favorites for whatever hobby or interest you had. For me it was 'Guitar World,' picking up the issues with bands I loved and plinking along to the tab on my crappy electric guitar! For my wife it was 17, checking out the most recent trends!" — JackFairy80

10. Hanging out.

"Honestly the thing I miss the most, and the thing that is so hard to explain to modern kids, is 'hanging out.' Before cell phones, people used to just go to each other's homes, or to some public space, and just spend time together." — Vambot5

11. Making mix tapes.

"It was so much fun to make them, carefully trying to fit as much as you could in the limited amount of time that you had, but still making each song work with the next. Getting one was just as thrilling, especially if you just put it on without looking at the tracklist (if whoever made it included one) and being surprised by each new song." — Edgar

12. Music mattered more.

"Music felt more special because you kind of had to take some risks when buying a cd. At best you could listen to it at one of the stations in the store, but other times you might have heard a song on the radio or watched a music video on MTV. I bought some albums where only the song I liked was good, but still tried to appreciate it all." — plentyfunk66

13. Less pressure to be perfect.

"Nowadays due to social media, especially sites like Instagram, so many young people feel like it's necessary to always be dressed well, always wear a full face of make-up, etc. Sure, we had unrealistic beauty standards and plastic surgery before, but to me it feels like it's gotten much, much worse and also much more uniform than before." — Owezara

14. No 24-hour news cycle.

"Maybe I'm in a minority, but I for one REALLY miss NOT having a 24-hour news cycle. Once that became a thing, it basically prevented journalists from actually doing thorough research before splitting 'information' on TV to satiate their corporate owners." — Minerva_Madin

15. People talked to one another.

"I miss going to coffee shops or bars and being able to meet new random people. I made some of my best friends that way. Now folks just leer up from their phones more often than not." – Shiller_Killer

16. People watched concerts instead of filming them.

"Concerts weren't a sea of phones in the air. People are so concerned with people knowing they were at a concert via social media, that they don't even pay attention or experience the show. It's so dumb." — thebestmike

17. Brick-and-mortar stores.

"I still think this is underrated. Yes now we have a much much wider selection of stuff available instantly, but it used to be extremely fun to go out on a Sunday, go to a record store or video rental store with your friends, discuss options and settle on one." — Humble Shoulder

This article originally appeared on 11.19.21

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Irish hitchhiker reacts to learning he's a big reason why Dave Grohl started the Foo Fighters

For nearly 30 years, no one believed his story.

via FoosDublin/Wikimedia Commons and

Dave Grohl preforming in Dublin, Ireland and Lorcan Dunne.

When Kurt Cobain died by suicide in 1994, the world lost a songwriter who was one of the most important artists of Generation X. The surviving members of Nirvana lost their friend, band and sense of purpose.

“When Kurt died and it all ended, I didn’t know what to do with my life,” Nirvana’s drummer, Dave Grohl, told “The Graham Norton Show” in 2021. “I couldn’t listen to music anymore because it hurt too much so I tried to escape and went to Ireland to soul search.”

To grieve his friend's death, he visited the Ring of Kerry in Ireland and disappeared to the “most remote place on Earth.” There, a chance encounter with a young Irishman would change the trajectory of his life and career.

Why did Dave Grohl start the Foo Fighters?

“I was driving around in my rental car on a country road and I saw this hitchhiker kid. And I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’ll pick him up’. And as I got closer to him, I saw that he had a Kurt Cobain t-shirt on,” Grohl said. “It was Kurt’s face looking back at me…in the middle of nowhere!”

The drummer had traveled to the other side of the world to get away from his grief and realized his past was inescapable.

“I realized like, ‘Oh. I can’t outrun this’. So I need to go home and f**king get back to work. And so I did,” Grohl recalled. When he returned home, he started recording the first album of his new band, the Foo Fighters.

Who was the Irish hitchhiker who inspired Dave Grohl to start the Foo Fighters?

Nearly thirty years after Grohl encountered a stranger in a Kurt Cobain t-shirt who would change the trajectory of his life, the hitchhiker, Lorcan Dunne, has come forward to share his side of the story. His cousin, Eoin Tighe, shared a video on Twitter of Dunne telling his story, which his sister, Claire Tighe, edited together.

— (@)

“We were down on the Beara Peninsula on a holiday and we hitched up to this place to go swimming. I was running and I saw a car there, so I thought I’d run up and hitch. When I was hitching, I looked into who was sitting in the passenger seat – but it was David Grohl,” Dunne shared in the video.

Tighe told Upworthy that his cousin was 15 years old at the time.

“I didn’t recognize him firstly, but I saw this look of shock on the guy’s face… and I had a Nirvana t-shirt on with Kurt Cobain on it,” Dunne continued. “It was black tie-dye, the one with Kurt where he has the mascara on his face. I saw the look of shock and the next thing, the car just tore off, away. And I turned round like, ‘That was David Grohl, lad!’ Nobody believed me!”

Two weeks before the video was filmed, Dunne came across a video of Grohl talking about his experience in Ireland. Dunne had no idea that he had played a role in the birth of the Foo Fighters and finally had confirmation from Grohl himself that he met the drummer all those years ago.

“So you made the Food Fighters!” a friend of Dunne’s screams at the end of the video, to which Dunne responds emphatically, “Yeah!”

Grohl released the Foo Fighters' eponymous debut album on July 4, 1995. He played every instrument on the album save for one guitar part by Greg Dulli of The Afghan Wigs. The album would go on to be a hit, selling over 3.3 million copies, and now, as a Foo Fighter, Grohl would go on to enjoy one of the greatest second acts in rock history.

As of the time this article was published, Tighe told Upworthy that Grohl has yet to respond to the tweet.

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kurt cobain

Gen X wigs out at Tony Hawk and Kurt Cobain's grandbaby being born

Use those genetic superpowers for good, little one.

The most Gen X thing that's ever happened

Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk has some awfully big shoes to fill

Kurt Cobain and Tony Hawk led very different lives early in their fame

Here are 17 things people really miss the most about living in the '90s

Wouldn't you kill for a Friday night at Blockbuster and a pizza? No texts. No TikTok.

1. You made plans without having to text people.

2. The world was clearly changing for the better.

3. Friday nights at home with the family.

4. People left you alone.

5. Air travel without the stress.

6. The mall.

7. Following a scene.

8. A genuine good time.

9. Magazines.

10. Hanging out.

11. Making mix tapes.

12. Music mattered more.

13. Less pressure to be perfect.

14. No 24-hour news cycle.

15. People talked to one another.

16. People watched concerts instead of filming them.

17. Brick-and-mortar stores.

Irish hitchhiker reacts to learning he's a big reason why Dave Grohl started the Foo Fighters

For nearly 30 years, no one believed his story.

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