Baby Boomers vs. Generation X vs. Millennials

Lemme know when millennial voters overtake boomer voters.

Aimless, demographic slices are abstracts projected on to groups by age, but it's really about shared cultural references and life experiences

I was born on around a similar generational cusp but I was mostly unaffected by the 2008 recession and the job market crash, although my peers who went to grad school and were entering the workforce a few years later really felt it. On the other hand, I was an internet early adopter and can relate to a lot of late-period Gen X'ers as far as that goes, but I didn't capitalize on it.

There's a lot of variation among groups but it's, again, a general abstraction that has some relevance when it comes to trend analysis. It's less useful than analyzing, say, people born in a particular suburb across a small number of years, but a hell of a lot more useful than astrology

lol

^^ short version and what I should have said

but yeah, main point is being "wow, what a difference a day makes" about what's meant to be a statistical abstraction is fun

fwiw the main way I really noticed generational marketing in the past was a free weekly publication that used to be dropped off in front of stores and restaurants (rip free weeklies) that was sold to advertisers as targeted at "people in their mid 20s" but what they really meant was "people who will look at ads for cheap townhomes in nearby suburbs"

so there's really a very late gen x/early millennial demo that is definitely easily identifiable as "people who owned cheap townhomes" and I can think of maybe a dozen people that were peers that fit that

but it's really about shared cultural references and life experiences

yeah. I know. but by this standard generations blend imperceptibly more often than not, and the standard labels promoted by marketers and feature writers confuse matters more than they illuminate.

the boomers started at a great dividing point, where WWII had kept young men and women physically apart and children very few, then suddenly the men came back and mating exploded almost instantly. but that sharply defined beginning point gives a false sense of unity to the boomers, because no one can say when that generation really ended or the next began.

ok boomer

(Aimless clutches chest and falls, twirling, to earth)

oops. I mistook that for *finger guns*. how about a "GET OFF MY LAWN!" instead?

lol i am not actually that much younger than you (i am 48 ffs!) and yet somehow it is you, in every thread, endlessly restating the obvious

i mean, you're a good guy! but lo the portentous emanations

man i wish "obvious" was the worst thing continuously stated around here tbh

if yr posting at 3:30am u might as well say it

Wait until it hits you that on Jan 1 1960 ppl didn't immediately start all smoking dope and playing around in the mud naked in a field

a one year or longer ban on any writing having to do with the concerning the concept of generations in any way would be a good start

love generations and how there are different ones

^^^gets it

(and then some)

love generations and how there are different ones

you'll love it even more when generations can name and define themselves, instead of Advertising Age magazine

I was part of the late boomer ‘me generation’, we were considered spoiled and overly self confident by previous generations. hearing that at the time didn’t bother me

the zoomers today are also spolied and overly self confident, but in a different way. they are more socially conscious and seem altogether more advanced to me

more to the point, perhaps, is how each generation is compelled to surrender to capital in its own way

30 years ago my college tuition was almost feasible, particularly if i spent the first year of it as an rotc midshipman (hoo rah)

a diploma -- which signals class far more clearly than potential -- is much pricier today

mating exploded almost instantly

mb I just don't know enough boomers but all the most retrograde individuals in my life are self-satisfied gen xers

Look me in the eye and tell me, that I'm self-satisfied. Hey, are you self-satisfied?

i feel like millennials are old and exhausted before their time, all too willing to hand the zeitgeist to zoomers

they seem more qualified tbqh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzGnX-MbYE4

treeship getting all introspective, shocker

getting?

(front) the un-introspected life is not worth living

(reverse) lottery: 2 - 12 -14- 19 - 28 - 31 - 40

The time has come to say fair's fair
To pay the rent, to pay our share
The time has come, a fact's a fact
It belongs to them, let's give it back

how can we dance when the babies are booming
how can we sleep while the zoomers are looming

i feel like millennials are old and exhausted before their time, all too willing to hand the zeitgeist to zoomers

― treeship., Tuesday, May 5, 2020 2:36 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i'm a millenial right on the cusp of gen x and i feel ancient tbqh

please feel free to strangle anyone who chirps brightly, "age is just a number". put it on my tab.

that's where generations come into play, because a 40 year old might understand a lot of a 28 year old's experiences, but a 60 year old to a 28 year old, nah

don’t think that’s true at all

I'm at the same shows as the 28 year olds and don't see any 60 year olds man

don’t think relating between generations is about shows

Shows: what, you? No

my neighborhood has turned over a bit but is still disproportionately people in their 30s/40s now

I'm thinking of the nextdoor posters from nearby areas who complain about their homes not appreciating compared to other neighborhoods or their blocks having issues with kids and thinking, yeah, demographics changed and your peers moved to other neighborhoods or the suburbs. but it's evidence that you have a demographic cohort, and you no longer live among them. not your fault, not theirs, but the houses are less-maintained and populated by younger people with even younger kids making comparably less money than your peers who moved :/

that's where generations come into play, because a 40 year old might understand a lot of a 28 year old's experiences, but a 60 year old to a 28 year old, nah

Is that really generations in the demographic sense or just commonalities between ppl are are closer in age? Like would a 2020 60 yr old time traveling boomer relate to a 28 yr old boomer in 1970 as much as they'd relate to a 60 yr old in 1970? Idk depends.

generations are.. made of people.. who age

Thanks siri

I mean, they might bond over having gone to the same Grateful Dead show and then one would ask wtf a smartphone was

xp otm

and a 60 year old in 1970 would have a shitload more grandkids, demographically

Ya. Some things are specific to eras and some things are specific to stages of life. Seems like the 2 get conflated.

fuck you mh

seems more likely to me that a 28 year old might understand a lot of a 40 year old's experiences, but a 28 year old to a 60 year old, nah.

my memories of my twenties have, understandably faded somewhat in the face of further decades of urgent, often difficult struggles, but on the whole it remains the decade where my entire adulthood was formed and many of my most important days were lived out -- compared to which, whatever popular culture was doing at the time pales to insignificance.

the problems I faced and my attempts at solutions are what really mattered. if you think that the problems of people in their twenties today are of a completely different quality than in the 1970s, well, that is what each generation thinks to some extent. it wasn't as different to those in their midst.

any given any year old can understand or not understand anything

that this mode of thought continues as a thinkpoint distresses me