Finally, There’s A Name For The Generation Between Gen X And Millennials

[corbe]

Finally, There’s A Name For The Generation Between Gen X And Millennials
 
I’m honestly not sure why it took the world so long to discover that people like me exist, or that we’ve long been miscategorized as members of Gen X.

By Melissa Langsam Braunstein   
July 21, 2017
 
Oh, to finally feel understood! And get a little air time. I mean really, growing up, all I heard about were the Baby Boomers. Now all I hear about are millennials, millennials, millennials. Seriously. Jan Brady would understand. It’s as if no one else ever existed — especially no one between those two demographic bulge groups.

A friend recently posted an article on Facebook about Xennials, the newish name for the microgeneration spanning 1977-1983. For the first time in forever, when I read an article about “my generation,” I could relate.

I’m honestly not sure why it took the world so long to discover that people like me exist, or that we’ve long been miscategorized as members of Gen X. Yes, we were all alive then, but I certainly never felt like the designation fit well.

Sure, I wore flannel shirts in high school. I loved “Reality Bites,” and I liked Nirvana’s “Nevermind.” But I was a munchkin during Reagan’s presidency and vividly remember the Challenger explosion as a defining event of my childhood. I never identified as a slacker or felt soured on the world. I’ve long questioned plenty of what I learned growing up, but I’ve always identified as a Save-the-World sort, which is central to the millennial stereotype. Perhaps this category error — my being dubbed part of Gen X’s tail — mimics the general confusion over whether tomatoes are fruits (technically) or vegetables (functionally; tomatoes really belong in a vegetable salad).

Oregon Trail Generation? Really?

Interestingly, Slate raised the issue of my cohort’s uneasy fit as far back as 2011 when we were nicknamed Generation Catalano after everyone’s favorite TV crush. BuzzFeed dedicated a listicle to us back in 2013. And in 2015, we were dubbed the Oregon Trail Generation, recalling a favorite computer game from the days of yore.

However, the Xennial name itself doesn’t seem to have existed until Sarah Stankorb coined it in Good in 2014. Given that was nearly three years ago, it’s not really clear why the notion of my microgeneration and our fashionable name have suddenly gone viral.

That said, I’m glad there’s finally some widespread recognition of my misfit posse, born during the years of the original Star Wars movies. Given how quickly the world has changed, those few years make a difference. Consider Stankorb’s description of my analog-turned-digital cohort:

We use social media but can remember living life without it. The internet was not a part of our childhoods, but computers existed and there was something special about the opportunity to use one.

Sexting wasn’t part of our adolescence. Many Xennials didn’t get cell phones until our twenties (at which point, many friends told me, their Millennial younger siblings already had them). It isn’t a novelty to ask Siri a question, but we have some ability, or at least a latent space in our brains, to unplug. Technology unfolded around us, but we got to ease into it during that brief period before it became ubiquitous.

<..snip..>

http://thefederalist.com/2017/07/21/finally-theres-name-generation-gen-x-millennials/

[Suppressed]

Born 1977 to 1981 or 1977 to 1983, depending on who is defining it.

Short for a generation, but there's definitely a large gap between them and the far ends of the other two generations.

[Free Vulcan]

Not a generation. Then number of years in a generation doesn't change. It's usually considered 20 years.  It can't be 6 for one generation, 25 for another, and 14 for yet another.

That's not to say that the back half of a generation can't be completely different than the front. Late 60's hippie Boomers v. early 80's Reagan Boomers for example.

I've noticed that generations seem to start either majority liberal or conservative and end up the opposite, which starts the next generation at that point to flip again at the end.

None of which is a hard and fast rule because at least a quarter of that part of a generation will swim upstream against the current majority leanings no matter what. And since we no longer have a common pop culture like we did before the internet the old numbers don't hold any more anyway.

[RoosGirl]

Is a microgeneration similar to a microaggression?

[jmyrlefuller]

Not a generation. Then number of years in a generation doesn't change. It's usually considered 20 years.  It can't be 6 for one generation, 25 for another, and 14 for yet another.

That's not to say that the back half of a generation can't be completely different than the front. Late 60's hippie Boomers v. early 80's Reagan Boomers for example.

To call it a generation is kind of a misnomer anyway since most kids are born well after their parents turn 20, so over time, generations are going to be skipped and scattered. The daughter of two twenty-year-olds who were likewise children of 20-year-olds at birth will be the same age as the son of 40-year-olds. From the same reference point of his parents and her grandparents, both of whom are the same age, they're a generation apart.

The tail end of the Baby Boomers was Generation Jones. Then came Generation X, then the one being described, and then the millennials.

[RoosGirl]

I was taught that a generation was considered 30 years.

[Free Vulcan]

I was taught that a generation was considered 30 years.

Like I said, I'm not sure the numbers hold true anymore. Since the Civil War culture and technology have been moving at such a faster and faster rate that now two people 10 years apart almost have completely different reference points and world view. We're nearing toward where 5 years is a generations worth of change.