Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/04/06/the-evolution-of-americas-s.html
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Boomer, all Boomer.
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It looks like I just scraped in under the Boomer bar. Shame; I’d have liked to be Gen X.
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We probably would like to have you too. Us Xers are a welcoming lot.
Except for those that aren’t. Spliiters.
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They keep bumping the end of GenX down closer and closer to my birthday. I’d like to stay GenX, and welcome those right before and after. We’re an open bunch, and tired of everyone before and after us fighting about all the pie.
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Thanks to a photographer (Robert Capa) and writer (Douglas Coupland) for defining the next 500 years of human history. Finally, school kids of the future will be required to learn the entire Greek alphabet.
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Does the term “Greatest Generation” annoy anyone else other than me?
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I am not crazy about Greatest Generation.
I thought the breakdown of racial groups along generation lines was really interesting.
As a GenXer I’ve always been frustrated at the lack of any real positive characteristics that get associated with us. It seems we are always measured as against the Boomers and not seen for our own selves. We were initially defined as sort of blase, but I think instead we just didn’t care to be pigeon-holed as a generation and have a vision of ourselves as a unified group. If you look at media consumption, the Boomers all had 3 channels and grew up with a very unified experience of media. We grew up in the age of cable. Probably MTV was the only common thread of media consumption among us all, and that was just kind of a blip. I mean, we all watched it but I don’t see it has having defined me personally. It wasn’t like I had U2 posters all over my wall.
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Am I the only person who is irritated by the silly-ass names someone came up with for each generation?. I remember the first time someone told me I was part of “Generation X”, then looked at me as if that was a terribly portentous pronouncement. I smiled and thought, “Who gives a shit?”
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“Generations” didn’t exist until The Who invented them. It was that goddamn baby boom population bump that did it all, they were part of a highly processed industrialized education system that necessarily enforced a ton of conformity, and ever since they have been running around conformly maintaining their individuality whilst insisting that everyone else is part of a “generation.” Its all a pretty dubious reification, might as well be astrology really (another thing the goddamn boomers were into, Age of Aquarius and all that rot)
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Generation X (born 1965-1980)
Wait, so they illustrate people from 35-50 with a guy in a motorcycle jacket and a great big pile of hair?
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I have the honor of being among the very first Gen Xers, having been born Jan 1965. Being on the cusp, I’ve always felt a bit out of place, but all in all I’m glad to be X rather than Boomer. Dated someone just a few years older than me for a while, and there is a definite difference in basic outlook, in my experience.
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I am very inclusive, except no Boomers allowed.
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Wasn’t that basically just a marketing ploy by Tom Brokaw to flatter more senior citizens into buying his book?
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That is so Gen X… 
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Generation Alphas are a bunch of cry babies.
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I was born in 1980, and usually get lumped in with the millennials.
In truth there’s no hard and fast dividing line between generations. I can just remember the cold war, but I pretty much grew up with a computer at home, and at school, but didn’t get a mobile phone until I was 19.
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Not that I buy into the idea of generations, but I have always felt I had more experiences in common with someone born in 1985 (5-6 years after I was born) than someone born in 1965. Still, there are usually enough common experiences that I can usually find some way to relate to people of any age. I have friends ranging in age from early boomers to gen Z.
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The whole thing is a little goofy, TBH, and at some point a way to sell ads in media. If you read about all “those kids who don’t care about their future, rejecting their parents’ politics, etc.” now, it’s Millennials, 15 years ago it was GenX, etc. It’s called being in your 20s.
Blah generation is old and cranky and won’t change even if they are ruining the world? What decade is it? I’m sure GenX will be there soon.
There are some clear differences based on history and technology, but that’s about it. I work in computers, so I’m used to even more “generations” because everything moves so quickly.
To my original point, I only like being part of GenX in age, because I don’t have to read tons of thinkpieces blaming me for something or other. Frankly, nobody talks about people in their 30s/40s right now, which is fine. I like being off the radar.
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