Baby Boomers vs. Generation X vs. Millennials

Yeah, I'm much more copacetic about being called a slacker for the thousands in student debt I can't pay off with my dead end job.

i feel defensive about all the generations though. "baby boomer" culture has had a stranglehold on our country for too long, i guess, but still that's not the fault of the baby boomers themselves. there was some popular comment in that gawker article about how baby boomers who still work at target should be shamed because they were the most privileged generation in history and i wanted to reach into kinja and strangle that person, or at least log in and give them a good verbal dressing down

I like my own tail-end of the boomer window (1961). (See? I'm narcissistic.) We love Highway 61 and "One Bad Apple," find Nine Inch Nails and Rage Against the Machine campy.

It's interesting how quickly the narrative regarding millennials has shifted from 'hyper-confident and outgoing' to 'anxious and fragile'.

yeah really this is interesting, even though i dont think those personality types are necessarily opposites! i wonder if these generational traits tend to emerge as a result of the preceding generation's descriptions of them. the boomer = narcissism one is particularly interesting to me because i think the popularly of that term only emerged as way to describe boomers: see Christopher Lasch's "The Culture of Narcissism"--which is perhaps one of the first books i know of (would love to know of similar books) that adopts a kind generational framework (ie, "we are different (usually worse) than our parents"). that whole dynamic is itself pretty interesting.

like, i can't imagine (though it's certainly possible) someone in 1900 muttering "these kids today."

I wish the stock gen x descriptors didn't suit me as well as they do. But, pssh, whatever, like I even care about that authoritative, corporate bullshit anyway.

as a millenial, i think millenials are extremely good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wCXr_6wgns

oh nice!

I am now embracing my millenial designation, even though pretty much every one of my peers was born a couple years before me and I was born at the beginning of '81

I mean, I got out of college when the prices were only starting to hike up, found gainful employment that I've retained since then, and generally am pretty ok

but, solidarity, my fellow millenials

i feel like growing up with the internet is the more definitive thing than the exact years

my own personal marker for Millennials is that they can't have actual, living memories of the 80s.

dang you got me

they were probably bad anyways

i was born in december '87 and have only vague memories of 1990-1993

i believe i arrived just in time for peak "bad to the bone"

I remember the 80s, so maybe I'm back out of the club

*listens to foreigner*

like, i can't imagine (though it's certainly possible) someone in 1900 muttering "these kids today."

― ryan, Monday, May 2, 2016 11:00 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no way, this has been a constant throughout human history

as an actual "generational" statement or just the folly of youth in general? I imagine even the latter depends on an idea of adolescence that is itself rather new in the scheme of things?

though yeah the idea of societal degeneration and "declension" is far older (and maybe these "newer" ideas simply glom on to those older ones)

I read a really bad late novel by Edith Wharton (Twilight Sleep, 1927) which is 100% on the theme of "this younger generation of people is feckless and useless, what will a world in their incapable hands be like"

i was born in december '87 and have only vague memories of 1990-1993

― ejemplo (crüt), Monday, May 2, 2016 11:32 AM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i believe i arrived just in time for peak "bad to the bone"

― ejemplo (crüt), Monday, May 2, 2016 11:33 AM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I remember the 80s, so maybe I'm back out of the club

― μpright mammal (mh), Monday, May 2, 2016 11:57 AM

http://45.media.tumblr.com/a85e5d7fc85bba23a7f3e09a3f1ca1a9/tumblr_neaqitaUoJ1roul0do4_400.gif

i'd feel pretty good about a world in the hands of my generation except for the part where it's already fucked beyond repair before we got here

I read a really bad late novel by Edith Wharton (Twilight Sleep, 1927) which is 100% on the theme of "this younger generation of people is feckless and useless, what will a world in their incapable hands be like"

― Guayaquil (eephus!),

ha – I read it last year and was pretty appalled.

i remember everyone remembering the 80s in 2002, fun times

as a millennial born in the nineties, i learned a lot from VH1's I Love the 80's.

I first heard "Billie Jean" and "Blue Monday" as MIDI files in a freeware Pac-Man clone for Windows 95

This would be a whole lot easier if everybody was born in clumps. Like in 1945, someone decided: let's all fuck for a year and we'll have a generation of kids who all share a common experience. Then we'll take a breather to raise those kids so that they all have the same values, experiences, and cultural touchstones.

Okay, that went great. Now it's 1965, let's make another bunch. These ones will be totally tubular.

Hmmm. 1985. Where were we? Oh yeah, reproduction. Quick, everybody make some babies.

Instead, what we have is a continuous stream of births. Alas.

http://www.clickhole.com/article/no-coincidence-9-months-after-fuck-day-first-wave--4234

I don't really know any teenagers atm but I follow a few on twitter as an anthropological experiment, and I think I like this gen of highschoolers. they remind me much more of my gen than do the millennials.

I just bought two Wharton collections from Library of America and I think that book is included in the second one - can't wait!

dang there are kids in high school who weren't alive on 9/11

I just bought two Wharton collections from Library of America and I think that book is included in the second one - can't wait!

― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱),

that's where I read it. The Mother's Recompense is better.

I just bought two Wharton collections from Library of America and I think that book is included in the second one - can't wait!

If The Bunner Sisters is in there, go straight to that one, wow.

Twilight Sleep not just bad but really different from the good stuff; to the point it was literally hard for me to get my head around the fact that the same person wrote it.

In good Wharton, by the way, generational differences are certainly an issue but I think the view from middle age is less "kids today are terrible let us explain to them how they should be" than "our time is done, we shall now graciously and regretfully fade into the expensive wallpaper"

Wharton's heroine in Summer is a teenage unwed mother

i am totally Generation Wharton

Boy, Gen X's stock couldn't be much lower these days (b. 1968)...we truly are the Jan Brady of this bunch

i am seeing more and more pieces about how my generation's anxiousness and fragility is secretly manipulative, a way for us to get our way.

― Treeship, Monday, 2 May 2016 13:22 (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Starting to believe this btw

lol

Boy, Gen X's stock couldn't be much lower these days

I dunno, our attitude is described as "conditional loyalty" which I think far the most sensible stance out of all those depicted

but then I would (b.1971, have purchased Zima)

well at least you never boomed a baby

Time to drown my Gen X sorrows in OK Cola

had a millennial written Twilight Sleep she'd have called it Twilight: Sleep.

i think of millenials as 'people who got fucked over economically and are really tight with their moms'
gen x as...ted rall basically?
there's some people in there who hate the carter administration because gas lines
and boomers think they invented everything

I am poorly educated

or...
...millenials unlock mountain dew badges through phone things
...gen x hated marketing but the ads for mountain dew were a tongue-in-cheek mockery of how bad ads are
...and boomers had mountain dew ads with an actual fucking hillbilly

or...
...millenials make dank memes for their youngs tumblr gif thing
...gen x got in flame wars on usenet
...everyone before that your life is unfathomable bcz no internet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm_LmlFeNnM

i wish i was a racecar driver who enjoyed the undying loyalty of wanda. baby boomers had all the luck .

A little history lesson for you millennials who might not be aware that a lot of the slang you use today originated from gen x-ers.

http://hoaxes.org/images/hoaxarchive/1992grungespeak01.jpg

I like you but fuck you map

counterpoint: man alive sucks despite being younger than me

I like you but fuck you map

― Dan S, Monday, August 30, 2021 3:07 AM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

hahahaha, touche

Dan's mom = one of the good ones iirc

some boomers still got it

lmao

was born in the middle of the 46-64 boomer time period. my high school class was the biggest in my town ever, before or after

The sunshine coast is really unaffordable if you're not an older transplant from the city, there's a decent amount of poverty and drug addiction in Sechelt.

I just Airbnb'd the downstairs of a semi-retired boomer couples house nearby for my wedding anniversary. So I've helped ruin the place for year round working class people I guess lol

https://archive.md/2021.10.28-121933/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-28/florida-baby-boomer-wealth-influx-risks-pricing-out-younger-locals

https://64.media.tumblr.com/bac734dc93ded8e1133eaaa6d64eca46/7cc9662330821461-56/s540x810/b4f67586f95569bbc64522db56f8eac923e69cae.jpg
https://sarahcandersen.com/page/20

Gen X reading that comic:

https://i.imgur.com/JmK29hh.jpg

We publish a magazine geared toward high schoolers, about college scholarships, budgeting money from your first job, etc.

The last issue had a feature comparing the habits of Boomers, X, Millennials and Z. Representing them were celebrities from each generation.

And they had TOM CRUISE and MICHAEL JORDAN representing Boomers, which, yeah, might be technically true, but C'MON.

she has a few more comics where millennials and z and boomers make an appearance. haven't found one with gen x yet!

That’s how we like it.

xxpost

this is a good point, most boomers are in their 30s these days

And they had TOM CRUISE and MICHAEL JORDAN representing Boomers, which, yeah, might be technically true, but C'MON.

― pplains, Tuesday, March 29, 2022 10:41 AM (nine months ago) bookmarkflaglink

its the anger

Nah, those guys are definitely not Boomers. I will always maintain that the early '60s babies are a transitional generation. After all, a a baby boom cannot last 18 years, that is absurd.

Similarly, people born in the late '70s are not Gen X, they are an in-between generation.

Yeah, my baby sister was born in 77, she neither identifies nor acts like a Gen X-er.

*identifies as

I believe the term is Xennials

I used to think gen x were the coolest ever but their whole whatever man thing is so played out (no offense) and these days I'm more interested in weirdo fringe boomer survivors who tend to get left out of this discourse. as a millennial our differently-bullshit approach isn't hitting as hard as it used to either and we all have back pain and mental health problems

every post on this thread should be assumed to have an "obviously we all know this is bullshit" disclaimer at the bottom

Whatever, man.

I identify pretty strongly as Gen X, but I acknowledge our politics overall are shitty. We are the Trumpiest generation: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/20/cherie-westrich-alt-rock-gen-x-maga-00033769

In retrospect, this isn’t surprising. In particular, white dudes my age were in their teens and 20s when the whole backlash against “political correctness” started, when Rush Limbaugh started, when Fox News started. It was attractive to be snarky and cynical in the Clinton era. And then a bunch of those bros got all jacked up on flag waving bullshit after 9/11.

I will always maintain that the early '60s babies are a transitional generation. After all, a a baby boom cannot last 18 years, that is absurd.

Generation Jones

I guess that's my parents - who always seemed vaguely haunted by missing the peak of the counterculture and only encountering it in its disintegrated forms (most notably for them it was west-german stalinism and radfem separatism respectively)

I think more millennials could easily have gone hard right if the financial crisis hadn't hit who it did in the way it did - and hey we still could if they want to buy us out. boomers/pundits who complained about us having been indoctrinated by radical ideology have it all backwards - all you have to do is give us houses and we'll fall in line

I'd never heard of Gen. Jones but I guess I am one (late 63). Dumb name.

people who are not within 6 years of my age in either direction are insufferable, and all their views on everything are wrong

Same, except my range is 5 minutes and shrinking.

Jones: Have never thought Flower Power hippies and the senior class of Dazed & Confused were of the same generation.

Wooderson's a Boomer tho

my gen z students think millennials are old. we're "cheugy."

ok boomer

it's true we are cheugy

they still love lana del rey though. some millennials are for all time.

millennials are old. we had our chance and we blew it on craft beer and justin timberlake. now all we have left is a future US president and I hope the zoomers are savvier with them than we were with obama.

This one always makes me laugh
https://imgur.com/ypBhMIW

Rizz named word of the year 2023 by Oxford University Press
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-67602699

ugh i dont know how to do images

https://i.imgur.com/ypBhMIW.jpg

"y'all worried about the wrong houses" kills me every time