Baby Boomers vs. Generation X vs. Millennials

* really good use of that King Crimson song

* i was at a house show over the weekend and this guy started talking about his taste in house music and how he liked old school stuff from when his parents were his age -- his parents were young enough to be my high school classmates.

which got me thinking -- were baby boomers the first generation that really tried to socially/culturally integrate with younger generations -- or is it just another boomer myth? Like the stereotype of the aging gen-x hipster just seems like an update of the "weird old guy" at punk shows in the 90s?

The weird old person has been hanging around at the the young people since ancient Mesopotamia, I’d guess

Wait what xp

were baby boomers the first generation that really tried to socially/culturally integrate with younger generations

there's also the flipside of that which is that so many of the touchstones of the boomer generation never went away - you can still go and see the rolling stones in concert, paul mccartney's still pumping out albums, music and film from the late sixties and early seventies are still forever being referenced in new art etc

speaking of younger generations, a couple of friends and I were wondering: were millennials the first generation to think (collectively, as much as a "generation" can think or exist really) the generation after them was unambiguously better in any single way? given that every single "the first generation to" complaint/theory is wrong, the answer has to be no, right?

Are men’s sperm counts really dropping that dramatically with no explanation? That is definitely a symptom of more things going wrong in public health

Btw i don’t think generation Z is better than me and ky fellow millennials.

BPA and phthalates in plastics, according to the article

there's also the flipside of that which is that so many of the touchstones of the boomer generation never went away - you can still go and see the rolling stones in concert, paul mccartney's still pumping out albums, music and film from the late sixties and early seventies are still forever being referenced in new art etc

and boy did they

i feel the boomers should be split into two generations. my parents were born in the early sixties and i don't associate them with any of that stuff.

they're not big pop culture people in any case, but if anything the 80s and 90s were their era. when they were my age, it was already the early 90s.

your parents are generation x

or possibly "generation jones"

Technically they are boomers, as the cut off is 64. Mt mom was the youngest of seven so she does seem knowledgeable about the whole “boomer experience,” although she somewhat despises that era (vietnam/counterculture) which she says “destroyed her family.”

yeah boomers need a subgeneration because it's demographically viable to say there was this continuous baby boom through the mid 60s but you end up with a twenty-year span for the "generation," such that first-round boomers could have kids that would also qualify as baby boomers. and then culturally, yeah, there's very little affinity between ppl who graduated high school in 1967 and in 1985 or what have you.

hence the "generation jones" concept

yeah boomers need a subgeneration because it's demographically viable to say there was this continuous baby boom through the mid 60s but you end up with a twenty-year span for the "generation,"

I feel like the fact that people feel the need to subdivide these 'generations' to spans far shorter than actual human generations points to a flaw in the original theory.

otm. so so tired of people talking about generation whatever.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/05/sally-rooney-millennials-normal-people

I feel this could have been written about so many books of the last 40 years. "[...] her characters use irony to dilute their existential anxiety about being over-educated and aimless in a time when the very world order seems up in the air."

Sund4r, my point is just that if a parent and child can belong to the same "generation" then either that generation has been too widely drawn or we should stop talking about "generations." i agree with the latter in principle but it can be a nice pointless diversion and if one doesn't want to engage in it one can just avoid this thread, idk.

I do want to engage in it!: I'm pointing out that I think the theory is deeply flawed.

The thread started out mocking generational theory don’f forget 🌈⭐️

Either you have to draw the generations widely enough that a parent and child can be part of the same generation or you have to draw them so narrowly that their spans have nothing to do with generations in the biological sense.

(That's not the only flaw, though.)

But the theory has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with culture, I assume

the gilmore girls seem like the same generation

X'ers. rory is technically a millennial though, i believe.

“It’s stupid to measure position by a bunch of lines that all intersect at the top and bottom! If they all intersect, it’s meaningless!”

“Measuring position by continuous lines that just go around in circles doesn’t tell you anything!”

This isn’t a nerd forum please use a different analogy using cultural touchstones that millennials can relate to

back in the 90s, when generational theory was also popular, people born in the early 60s were considered Gen-X!!

Kinda feel like people who weren't born/were too young to remember Cuban Missile Crisis/Kennedy Assassination aren't boomers.

similarly, people who weren't born/were too young to remember Reagan's presidency aren't really Gen-X

born too early to explore the universe, born too late to boom a baby

that sounds right. i think my parents are more like Gen X. they seem like they were too old to like MTV, nirvana, etc. but really they were just too lame

Here's my rubric and the only one I'll accept

If you were around for the 60s but not world war 2 you're a baby boomer

Gen Xers think Ghostbusters and Back to the Future are really good and important movies

Millennials were in school on 9/11 and remember it

Gen Zers have no memory of 9/11

If you were in school on 9/11 and also care about Ghostbusters and Back to the Future, you're a cusp millennial, probably you were born in exactly 1981.

37 year olds are millennials. they are all over tinder and they have stupid media and tech start up jobs.

"stupid" is disparaging. they have the new york kind of jobs that everyone in my milieu seems to have.

more like peedia and tech fart up jobs

Gen Xers think Ghostbusters and Back to the Future are really good and important movies

yr obviously a millennial. i saw those movies in the theater. they were fun, but not really "good" or "important" -- kinda like the cherry coke of movies, and I do like Cherry Coke, but if I were to make a list of "good and important" things, cherry coke would not be on it.

It's more like, Gen Xers grew up with the shitty, corrupt leadership of Nixon (early X) and Reagan (later X) -- the "just say no to drugs" era

Anyone can be a millennial if they want to be.

is that why so many dudes in their 40s are dating/trying to date ppl in their 20s?

I feel like over my life I've continually dropped into and out of Gen X. For a while I'm pretty sure I was in Gen Y, which no longer exists.

That’s right sarahell—Idealism

back in the 90s, when generational theory was also popular, people born in the early 60s were considered Gen-X!!

I remember this. In fact that was how Douglas Coupland defined the term in his book Generation X which is where all this started. Somehow Gen X leaped forward five years at some point in the '90s.

I’m not sure if I’d choose to be a millennial if I was allowed to pick tbh

I’m not sure if I’d choose to be a millennial if I was allowed to pick tbh

ancient millennial proverb

Somehow Gen X leaped forward five years at some point in the '90s.

Yes!! I remember it used to end in 1975 or 1976.

(but this is what I was getting at, at least in my cohort there seems to be this near-universal feeling that millennials are in fact a doomed generation and the generation after them is like them but better in every single way)

They cant be better off though as they’ll live through more decades of climate change