Baby Boomers vs. Generation X vs. Millennials

I agree with the author of the medium piece that we’re in an era of skepticism in america. People are more likely to describe social problems as intractable, or constitutive of our society in a way—a society that is wasteful and destructive in its essence, requiring new paradigms. This kind of structural critique used to be confined to academia or certain pockets of radicals or whatever but now it’s mainstream.

And it is a romantic outlook. It demands you stand apart from received values. It’s not especially new either—there was a wave of this kind of thinking after world war i and in other periods.

I haven't read the article yet (sorry) but I take issue with the equation 'postmodernism = Romanticism' (give or take a few qualia). While the latter has unquestionably informed the former, and not just chronologically, it doesn't ramp up suspicion towards metanarratives to the same self-defining extent, especially in the field of politics. Postmodernism has always been about embracing subversively blurred boundaries over and above urgent revolutionary impulses, deemed overly teleological in the then-dying wake of Marxism/Hegelianism. If we are to buy into the idea that the current generation is more neo-Romantic than not (and this thesis does hold some amount of water), I think it's equally safe to say that it too is a reaction to postmodernist playfulness and ambiguous (dis)engagement. Few things are as un-pomo as so-called 'identity' politics.

He’s not saying they’re the same. He’s saying the attitudes of millennials attributed to postmodernism could more aptly be tied to a deeper tendency—the outlook that people started calling romantic in the late 18th century.

It’s not a coincidence that Diogenes is one of the heroes of Jenny Odell’s buzzworthy book about “resisting in place.”

― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, May 15, 2019 5:16 AM (nine hours ago)

it's weird when someone on ilx namedrops someone I know personally

I thought you might know her! I think her book is really good—she articulated a lot of the concerns I have attempted to explain on ilx in a flailing fashion.

i do her taxes ... her bf is also cool and a writer ... he looks a little like you ... not like eerily similar, but kinda

Ha, this thread revive comes at an opportune time for me; see, at the beginning of the week I encountered a very young-looking paramedic and she just about made my month when she swore I didn't look a day over thirty. Considering I'm about a decade older than that and I'd worried my maternal bloodline's predilection for preserving their external youth beyond belief had passed me by, this was very heartening, not only because I'm an aging member of a cusp generation that doesn't exactly know where to slot ourselves (mine is the "Xennials", i.e. half-Generation X and half-Millennial) and am keenly aware of how comparatively superannuated I am to a great many people, it also enables me to effectively claim I can "pass" for a full member of a generation (the Millennials) and thus feel a sort of kinship with a specific generation, even if it's via artifice and sneaky trickery.

I'm not at all surprised the Gen X'ers won out in this poll considering the generational makeup of this forum; when I was more of a regular around these parts, there were a great many ILXors who were at least a handful of years older than me and thus more fully entrenched with "Generation X" and all that means. I suspect that legacy influenced the results of the voting back when this poll was first posted.

https://i.imgur.com/8qAN4wx.jpg

Perfect.

Is Kirsti an "Instagram influencer"? That's the only possible sane excuse I can think of for that photo. (Also, as a Mexican-American, I relish the opportunity to say I'm actually taller than she is.)

you're tall then! 5'6" is taller than average for an american woman.

i hate the term "adulting"

the zoomers are better than all of us

Lol @ results

the only thing i hate about millennials is the astrology

If you use "adulting" after having a child, your child should become a ward of the state immediately.

the only thing i hate about millennials is the astrology

Pretty sure they use it to pwn the Gen Xers, trolling themselves in the process.

lmao at the idea that gen x somehow evaded astrology

So all those 'lol @ millennials getting into astrology' pieces are fake news?

they've superseded the "gen x getting into astrology" pieces of yesteryear

I'm technically gen Y so I wouldn't know.

I have 28 teeth in my pocket right now.

The entire Kirsti 31 photoseries feels unresolved.

https://www.sunshynepix.com/Blog/Kirstis-Golden-Birthday-Cake-A

there's probably a german word for the existential discomfort i'm feeling after clicking on that

Norwegian iirc.

28 teeth on my dresser, yessir

it's so weird how it looks like she is having a party but she is the only one there
why photograph such a lame party that abundantly?

To prove that you can have a kickass birthday party all on your own.

but it is not kickass and not a party if there is no one at the party, it's just a photoshoot

Didn't say the proof was convincing.

can i stage a photoshoot of myself standing on a stage pretending to sing/play an instrument and call it a photograph of a performance? even if there is no audience (beyond the photographer) and no one asked me to perform and i didn't actually perform i just posed for a picture?

that is definitively not a party if you're just eating cake alone in the woods w a sign & your photographer

hey, she never called it a party

i'm not a kristi 31 defender here, but this is definitely a photoshoot with all the signifiers of celebrating a birthday with no actual celebration

so many questions about this beguiling woman. what are her squad goals? how many Fs does she give?

I want to know about the traumatic dog licking themselves incidents.

But she also hates cleaning so maybe the answer is right there.

I did some rEaSeArCh and it turns out she's an instagram mommy with 1,028 followers, 80% of whom are other instagram mommies and 20% of whom are lonely single men who love booty. she celebrated father's day by wearing a one-piece leopard print swimsuit with her husband's face printed on it (not this exact one, but the concept is similar):

https://i.imgur.com/l7eptPm.jpg

Apologies if this is already known to you all, but it has come to my attention that the 'adult cake smash' is a Pinterest subgenre unto itself.

https://www.babble.com/parenting/adult-cake-smash-birthday-photo-shoots/

maybe if the draft is reinstated for next gulf war selective service can fast track a new conscription category?

One of my questions got answered! Why it was turning 31 that merited the big celebration.

I hate it when the dog licks himself too!

there are tons of these things, adult cake smash. someone on my insta feed aggregated them in his stories one day. it's disturbing. it's like next level, gender-reveal-level normie inanity bordering on insanity.

At least Kirsti isn't a boomer. Our reputation has been tarnished enough as it is.

xxp I think something said golden birthday which is some invented holiday where your current age matches the day of month? so turning 31 on may 31st or whatever

I don't even know

been halfheartedly pondering the overlap between instagram moms and the pre-existing milieu of suburban wine moms this afternoon and, while not a perfect circle, there's a definite early millennial/mid-millennial overlap

i've definitely gone on dates with suburban wine moms, and perhaps with aspiring instagram influencers, but never someone who has been both

instagram seems bad

I really hate the term cougar juice, but they don't make it easy.

Are they going to keep complaining/complimenting themselves in regard to "adulting" until they die?

Something about "being a kid at heart" that tolls throughout the Millennials and the Boomers. So many 40somethings in 80s commercials, can't believe they're wearing a SUIT and TIE, hearing the distant call of the Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'" echoing from somewhere past the conference room windows...

I don't see a whole lot of that from my generation. Except from Beto, who's got some trip going on that I'd wish he'd keep to himself.

I don't care much about instagram, it seems mostly spon cons and people doing yoga in inappropriate places. But I hate that a lot of places/tourist destinations have become unbearable just because people go there to get a shot for their social media.

The worst is when people ask you to move in a museum so they can take a picture of a picture.