hence the "generation jones" concept
― got the scuba tube blowin' like a snork (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 14:40 (five years ago) link
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.
― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 15:02 (five years ago) link
otm. so so tired of people talking about generation whatever.
― macropuente (map), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 15:09 (five years ago) link
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."
― fetter, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 15:16 (five years ago) link
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.
― got the scuba tube blowin' like a snork (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 15:21 (five years ago) link
I do want to engage in it!: I'm pointing out that I think the theory is deeply flawed.
― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 15:30 (five years ago) link
The thread started out mocking generational theory don’f forget 🌈⭐️
― 🦅 (Trϵϵship), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 15:32 (five years ago) link
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.
― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 15:52 (five years ago) link
(That's not the only flaw, though.)
― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 15:55 (five years ago) link
But the theory has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with culture, I assume
― Josefa, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 16:05 (five years ago) link
the gilmore girls seem like the same generation
― 🦅 (Trϵϵship), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 16:10 (five years ago) link
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!”
― Paleo Weltschmerz (El Tomboto), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 16:11 (five years ago) link
This isn’t a nerd forum please use a different analogy using cultural touchstones that millennials can relate to
― 🦅 (Trϵϵship), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 16:14 (five years ago) link
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.
― sarahell, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 17:05 (five years ago) link
similarly, people who weren't born/were too young to remember Reagan's presidency aren't really Gen-X
― sarahell, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 17:07 (five years ago) link
born too early to explore the universe, born too late to boom a baby
― ciderpress, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 17:09 (five years ago) link
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
― 🦅 (Trϵϵship), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 17:10 (five years ago) link
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.
― faculty w1fe (silby), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 17:12 (five years ago) link
37 year olds are millennials. they are all over tinder and they have stupid media and tech start up jobs.
― 🦅 (Trϵϵship), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 17:16 (five years ago) link
"stupid" is disparaging. they have the new york kind of jobs that everyone in my milieu seems to have.
― 🦅 (Trϵϵship), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 17:17 (five years ago) link
more like peedia and tech fart up jobs
― macropuente (map), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 17:20 (five years ago) link
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
― sarahell, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 17:24 (five years ago) link
Anyone can be a millennial if they want to be.
― 🦅 (Trϵϵship), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 17:36 (five years ago) link
is that why so many dudes in their 40s are dating/trying to date ppl in their 20s?
― sarahell, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 17:40 (five years ago) link
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.
― silverfish, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 17:58 (five years ago) link
That’s right sarahell—Idealism
― 🦅 (Trϵϵship), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:00 (five years ago) link
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.
― Josefa, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:01 (five years ago) link
I’m not sure if I’d choose to be a millennial if I was allowed to pick tbh
― 🦅 (Trϵϵship), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:02 (five years ago) link
ancient millennial proverb
― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:03 (five years ago) link
Somehow Gen X leaped forward five years at some point in the '90s.
Yes!! I remember it used to end in 1975 or 1976.
― sarahell, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:04 (five years ago) link
(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)
― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:04 (five years ago) link
They cant be better off though as they’ll live through more decades of climate change
― 🦅 (Trϵϵship), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:05 (five years ago) link
yeah, I was born in 77 and definitely remember not being in Gen X as a teenager. I got recruited later on.
xpost
― silverfish, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:07 (five years ago) link
To me the 1959-1964 babies have always seemed like an in-between generation, just as the babies of the late '70s seem neither Gen-X nor Millennial.
And I'm another Gen-Xer who thought Ghostbusters and Back to the Future were fine but nothing super special and am very surprised people still talk about them.
― Josefa, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:07 (five years ago) link
millennials are in fact a doomed generation and the generation after them is like them but better in every single way
this was the Gen-X zeitgeist in the 90s iirc: we were born and raised during a time of decay, but things started getting better after we were already doomed, like public education funding started increasing when millennials started going to school.
― sarahell, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:08 (five years ago) link
otoh, it was easier to get into good colleges because there weren't as many of us.
― sarahell, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:09 (five years ago) link
we were born and raised during a time of decay
Think about it: Steve Winwood albums!
― The Silky Veils of Alfred (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:09 (five years ago) link
I feel like the prognostic for millenials used to be much better than it is currently. We'll see in a couple of years how it goes for the post-millenials, I'm pretty sure society as a whole will continue fucking up.
― silverfish, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:11 (five years ago) link
how quickly that sentiment faded on their part
― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:12 (five years ago) link
(from what I can tell the people who hate millennials most aren't boomers at all but gen x)
I'm in the Pepsi generation
― frogbs, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:13 (five years ago) link
It is probably tedious of me to point this out, but the Baby Boom earned its nickname early on from sheer amazement over the numbers of infants flooding the post-war world. It was bestowed on them by newspaper journalists.
The designators for all subsequent generations have been bestowed by marketers, because the sheer weight of boomers taught corporations that selling to young people was hugely lucrative. Soon marketers learned that labeling generations made them sound like they knew arcane lore that would help corporations sell stuff. Now all this marketing hokum has become so mainstreamed that young people actually believe in it and find personal meaning and identity in their generational label.
Breaking news: being a Gen X or Millennial is about the equivalent of being a Sagittarius or a Gemini. You'll learn as much about yourself by reading your daily horoscope as you will by reading about what marketers say about 'your generation'.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:13 (five years ago) link
It’s almost as if people say extremely similar things about each generation as its members pass certain age milestones.And yet, each generation also has distinct cultural experiences growing up which mark them as distinct from every other spawning of humans.
― Paleo Weltschmerz (El Tomboto), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:13 (five years ago) link
yesterday at work i was listening to a youtube playlist of hair metal from the 80s, and i think i like it more now than I did at the time? (not sure if that would work for Steve Winwood)
― sarahell, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:14 (five years ago) link
being a Gen X or Millennial is about the equivalent of being a Sagittarius or a Gemini. You'll learn as much about yourself by reading your daily horoscope as you will by reading about what marketers say about 'your generation'.
well, you'd need to do your whole natal chart. Sagittarius is way better than Gemini, so I'll claim Sag for Gen X thanks!
― sarahell, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:16 (five years ago) link
Now all this marketing hokum has become so mainstreamed that young people actually believe in it and find personal meaning and identity in their generational label.
oh fuck right off, older people also believe in it
― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:17 (five years ago) link
(this is however an excellent demonstration of my last post!)
I'll admit to not having read the whole book but my understanding is that Strauss and Howe did intend for their 'generations' to be the span of a 'season of life' (as per Ch 3: https://books.google.ca/books?id=d8bBFGJq79sC&printsec=frontcover&dq=strauss+howe+fourth+turning&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNy5LgpaTdAhUBwFkKHT1BBhkQuwUILTAA#v=onepage&q=strauss%20howe%20fourth%20turning&f=false)
― The nexus of the crisis (Sund4r), Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:19 (five years ago) link
i'm just kinda envious of millennials -- and it's easy for envy to turn to hatred -- idk I'm a Scorpio!
― sarahell, Wednesday, 5 September 2018 18:20 (five years ago) link