We often hear about the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation being referenced in pop culture and in American society in general.
That is, a time after the end of World War II when the there was literally a ‘boom’ in the number of US births - from about 1946 to 1964, approximately 76 million new citizens were born.
But just the other day, I ran across an old letter of my grandmother’s as I was cleaning out the attic, and as I perused it, I noticed a blurb where my Gram channeled her inner Tom Brokaw, referring to her generation as the “Greatest Generation.”
The business of naming generations is bogus. People born from 1945-1964 have nothing in common, and trying to summarize them all in two words is almost insulting. Don’t encourage them.
I was born on the cusp between two “generations.” What does that make me? Can I start my Medicare early, or am I allowed to act young a while longer? And while you’re at it, get off my lawn!
That chart can’t make up its mind what generation I’m in (born September 1979). I’m happy with that result, it leaves me free to make up my own mind (not that I wasn’t before).
I think the idea is that people from those age ranges would have experienced the same major events, and the world’s reaction to them, during their childhood and teens. Of course, this ignores that two people from the same class at school could have experienced the same event then come to opposite conclusions about how it effects them and what to do about it
Do both? The first punks are now old enough to get a pension, It doesn’t mean they have to become respectable.
@Melizmatic What is Generation McGuire? Never heard of it before.
Today I learned that to experience the rise of Mass Media one should have been born between '75 and '85.
1965-1980 “Experienced Vietnam War/Cold War”
If you were born in '65 you experienced Vietnam as a young child (for limited definitions of “experienced”), though since the Mass Media didn’t exist yet, thankfully you’d have minimal exposure. Also people born pre-'65 were mercifully unable to experience the Cold War.
I always hated the whole attempt to define GenX as sulky brooding whiners. I felt like that was to define us as the opposite of those world-changing hippies, who frankly by that time were just the establishment themselves. I got sick of the Baby Boomer “we’re all different, just in the same way” crap. Like, we are all wearing purple tie dye! We are all so counter culture! But on the other hand, a lot of the people who were from that generation led the way in yoga and I am grateful for that.
Right now I do see that we had a weird little niche in time where technology was forming. I’ve been watching The Americans and wow does that capture the way the pre-computer world was and the transformation to one with computers. I still remember filing cabinets and had many jobs in college and right after that involved hours of filing paper. I also worked in a microfiche room at a bank. Seems like that changed overnight. I think our generation has a lot of knowledge about computers because we were learning them as they were being developed, so we understand all the legacy weirdness (ctrl+alt+delete - why is that still a thing at all???).
I still feel that the boomers continue to stand in the way of our generation taking our place. They should all be retired now but they are hanging on. I feel the Millenials on our heels, just by their sheer numbers they are going to overtake us before we get a chance to strut our stuff.
In the US I have always heard Millennial as GenY, and is defined by the first people turning 18 around 2000 to people who were babies around 2000; and GenZ is the iGen following GenY - you know, when iProducts became a huge thing.
As far as I can tell Wikipedia supports that rough definition.
I was born shortly before Nixon resigned. Ronald Reagan enacted policies that made my childhood harder than it should’ve been. I had to change my major at uni because the cold war ended and I had to get a job upon graduation because loans. The best economic times this country had in my lifetime were under W. Clinton. Some of the worst lie ahead with whatever Republican’t gets into the Oval Office next. My grandparents still had a party line when I was 10 or 11. Yet I ditched land lines forever when I was in my 20’s. I grew up playing video games, and still have an Atari 2600, but also have owned each generation of PlayStation. I saw every Star Wars movie first run in the theatre. These and a million more things put me squarely in Gen-X.
@nemomen: The cold war started very shortly after WWII ended. Everyone born prior to about 1982 had it darken some part of their memories.
@ChickieD: In time, we will be called the Forgotten Generation. Also, Boomers need to retire like 10 years ago, we should be ruling the world right now.
My point was that anyone in the US who lived between '45 to '91 had it darken some part of their memories, it’s a very odd thing to ascribe experiencing a thing that went on for around 45 years to one generation.
well I guess by that chart I am a GenX by 2 years… but its odd to almost feel with the previous generation as I am just old enough now that oh hey we can do things like move your job and if you don’t want to move with it too bad some 20 year old out of college can do it for 1/3 the salary anyway.
here I have been waiting for the boomers to retire yet they are not really doing that in droves. and by the time they do it is gonna be not me that gets to replace them but the kids out of college.
Gen-X represent. Not because it really means anything, but because people think it does. Boomers think I’m a Millenial and Millenials think I’m a Boomer.
Yup. And now we’re all in our 40s we gotta contend with these young whippers snappers biting at our heels!
My boss is currently 70 (or 68?), my Dad didn’t fully retire until 73… its nuts!
@crashproof - I was born in 1972… I have been called a boomer to my face by undergrads. /sigh
