As a fellow Gen Zer I feel like there is a generational gap. I want to see if I’m trippin or there actually is one.
Millennial here. My impression is we’re the largest generation on this platform, but I could be wrong.
Because every other “generation” is about 10 years and yet somehow “Millennials” are an almost 25 year gap. Notice how it’s “Older Millennial, younger millennial, etc”. You don’t use those qualifiers with the other generations because they are appropriately sized.
Millennials should be 2-3 named generations. It currently refers to 80’s kids, 90s kids, any kids alive when 2000 happened, and early Aughts kids(probably because the last name sucked and no one wanted to use it). Too many generations wanted the claim of “I was the first generation of the new millennium” and everyone co-opted the term even when it didn’t traditionally apply(newborns because they were closest to the date as opposed to when their major development occured is part of that stretch)
I’ve only ever seen it include 1981-1996. Gen Z is considered 1996-2009.
Seems like Gen Z should be split between pre-9/11 and post-9/11 in the US.
You’re further proving my point. A person born in 1981 would be 18 years old in 1999. They will have had NONE of their childhood during the Millennium(unless you’re counting the very end of it)
I think you’re focusing on what really amounts to a bad nickname for the generation that obviously is Generation Y. (Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, I wonder what letter was left out??)
Secondly, a millennium is a thousand years. Are you saying the previous thousand years (1000-1999) don’t count as a millennium that millennials… existed in?
Thirdly, it’s the change from one new millennium to another that people were excited about, no one gives a shit about the before or after. It’s simply excitement about the changeover. In 2024, no one gives a shit that we’re living in the “new millennium.” The song goes “let’s party like it’s 1999” not “let’s party like its 2001” or “let’s party like it’s 1981.”
Finally, last I checked, humans tend to celebrate things before they come to pass, kind of like how walking for graduation comes before finals. We celebrate New Years Eve all night leading up to the New Year. New Years is over when the new year has actually begun. Nobody celebrates on January 1st.
So literally no one born in the new millennium gives a shit about it being a new millennium. Only people born before it cared or would care.
Secondly, a millennium is a thousand years. Are you saying the previous thousand years (1000-1999) don’t count as a millennium that millennials… existed in?
I agree with that the comment you’re replying to is basically nonsense, but I do have two points to correct about this.
First, a small nitpick. Technically, millennia go from 01–00, so 1001–2000, with 2001 being the first year of the new millennium.
More significantly, it is obviously the case that millennials were so named because of something to do with the turn of the millennium. Frankly I don’t know what that is and it would have made more sense to name gen Z millennials because they actually span across the millenium divide and are the first generation born into the new millennium. Or if gen Y had started and finished 5 years later, they could have spanned the bridge, as well as even older genYers still being children during it, which would have been more appropriate.
First, a small nitpick. Technically, millennia go from 01–00, so 1901–2000, with 2001 being the first year of the new millennium.
Bro, a hundred years is a century. That’s why 1900 was “turn of the century.”
A millennium is one thousand years.
Ah shit sorry. I’ll edit that.
Still, it’s 1001 to 2001.
It’s not an exact definition, but below I think is close:
Baby Boomers: Born 1946-1964 (18 years)
Generation X: Born 1965-1980 (15 years)
Millennials (Gen Y): Born 1981-1996 (15 years)
Generation Z: Born 1997-2012 (15 years)
Generation Alpha: Born 2013-present
What you’re saying doesn’t line up with this at all, but maybe you have other generation dates in mind.
And look at all the other dates others are giving me. They’re not the same as yours. THATS my point. No one actually agrees on the dates and at this point, it’s expanded to include other generations.
Yet I have 10 different people spouting different dates and all telling me I’m wrong. None of you see that you’re the exact point I was making. Everyone tries to shove in some extra years before or after.
Which is exactly why I qualified it saying it’s not exact. What dates are you using? You must be using something to say that Millennials are 25 years while the others are 10. That’s MY point.
Look around at the other comments like I said?
That’s MY point. It’s called reading comprehension.
I did. You never explained where you got this idea that Millennials have a 25 year gap and the others are 10.
When I was growing up, the definitions kept changing.
I was born in 1986, and while in primary school I was told that makes me GenX. So I grew up thinking I was GenX. Then in high school, my teachers said actually anyone born after 1985 is GenY, so we’re definitely GenY.
Then when year 2000 came around people started talking about a new generation of people who would “never remember the 20th century”, or “never know a world without the internet”, basically people born after 1997 so they grow up completely in the 2000s. They called them Millennials.
From then on the usage of “millennial” kept growing, starting to see it everywhere. Mostly by boomers complaining about millennials.
Around 2012 I stated seeing some youtubers around my age referring to themselves as millennials, I thought it was a joke, or a bad understanding. Then people started referring to me as a millennial. Someone who’s whole childhood was in the 90s, how could I be a millennial, it defied the definition.
So I imagine my shock when I find now they’ve removed all trace of the usage of GenY, and retroactively applied “millennial” to mean anyone born after 1985. So maybe I am a millennial? I remember staying up late to celebrate with my parents and make sure our computer didn’t crash at midnight on new years eve in 1999. I remember wondering why dragonballz wasn’t on TV when the news was showing footage of American skyscrapers in 2001. Are those the things that make me a millennial? If so then what about the original definition? Those born 1997 or later won’t remember those things, so now they’re Zoomers? All this business makes me so confused.
Thank you, someone who gets it. The definition has expanded so much it’s essentially meaningless now.
When I grew up and the term was first coined, it refered to the generation coming after mine. It was literally “what will we call this next generation? Well, they’re growing up during the turn of the millennium…”. Then suddenly years later it included my generation. Then suddenly it includes the generation before me? When really it’s just a lazy replacement for “kids these days”.
I don’t think this is correct.
The bit you’re getting confused by, I think, is that some generations are just bigger than others. The boomers were by their name sake a big generation. Millennials are essentially boomers’ kids … and so they’re bigger than both Gen X and Gen Z.
- Most “generational” definitions span about 15 years, sometimes more. EG, Boomers: 1946-1960
- There are sensibly defined micro-generations typically at the borders between generations.
- EG, “Jones Generation”: 1960-1965 … “young boomers” … they had a distinct life experience from “core boomers” not too different from that of X-Gens. Vietnam and 60s happened while they were children, Reagan was their 20s, not 40s, etc.
- Xennials are notable here because they’re the transition between X-Gen and Millennials (late 70s to early 80s) … probably what you’re thinking of as “older millennials”. What’s interesting though is that the relevance of Xennials is that technological changes mark the generation … they’re essentially just barely young enough to count as part of the internet generations but not
oldyoung enough to be ignorant of the pre-internet times. Which just highlights that how you talk about generations depends on what you more broadly care about. In the west, arguably not too much political upheaval has occurred since WWII and its immediate consequences (basically Boomer things) … and so the generations are distinguished on smaller and probably more technological scales.
Notice how it’s “Older Millennial, younger millennial, etc”. You don’t use those qualifiers with the other generations
Of course you do. I, a young millennial, have a lot more in common with my old genZer sister than she does with a young genZer born in 2011. It’s an important distinction because we both didn’t get smart phones until we didn’t have smart phones until late teens at least, while young genZers weren’t even born when the iPhone was first released.
My parents are young boomers. For my dad that means he never had to worry about getting drafted like his older boomer brothers.
there are no gen Z born in 11.1997–2012 is the definition used by Pew (which also uses the oft-quoted 1981–1996 definition for millennials). Statistics Canada uses 2012 too, while the US census uses 2013.
But anyway, the earliest cutoff I could find was 2010, which is what the Australian Bureau of Statistics uses, and my point still works for 2010 kids. (The ABS’s other boundaries also don’t change the fact that I’m young millennial but my sister old gen Z, or that my parents are young boomers, either. So every point I was making still works.)
My mistake, i thought it was 10.
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Further proving we’re all more alike than we think.
Older millennial here. I came here a year ago.
If you ask me, these generation labels are bullshit and just a way to put people into a stereotypical box and make them an “other”. Not much better than astrology.
I don’t get the impression there are even precise definitions of these generational labels.
And I don’t think they make any sense at all outside of USA and maybe west Europe.
It’s inherently an american concept, which is what also annoys me as some Europeans have started importing the concept even though it makes little sense (I don’t really think it makes sense in the US either but the fact that it is imported is just extra stupid).
I think people just love putting other people in boxes. Consider people complexly instead.
i just wanted to know your age without invading privacy. a threshold is better than a number
Well, in that case, maybe this is interesting to you. I ran a user survey last year for my instance and anyone else wanting to answer and one question was age. Here’s the age group graph:
The y-axis is number of respondents, x-axis is age group. Obviously this only applies to the people that responded to the survey and thus might not apply in general to the fediverse, but it’s probably an indication. And, well, it’s mostly smoothly distributed without any major gaps or humps (slight hump at 30-34 but not sure if that’s statistically significant).
thats cool. that hump might be random as well
People 25 to 39 are more likely to respond to an age survey on the Internet?
That is also possible, but I think it’s more likely to show the actual distribution rather than a bias like that. But sure.
This exactly. At the broadest range you can say there are certain qualities that are more prevalent in one age group compared to another age group, but at the individual person level those trends are meaningless. Any individual person can be conservative or liberal, be caring or selfish, be x or y.
But but there is difference in advancements, science, tech Also doesn’t mean genz= this Millenials= that boomers!= this
They are arbitrary but they at least serve as marking posts for real generational trends. I’m not sure there is much benefit in trying to find any categorization that isn’t arbitrary, so long as the generations are large enough.
Elder millennial here. Born in 1985.
The millennials watched several thousand people die on live television when we were kids and then everything went downhill from there. I was in high school in September 2001. Old enough to just barely understand what was happening, too young to do jack shit about it. Frightened, we looked to guidance from our Gen-X and Boomer teachers and elders. They told us to sit down, shut up, do as we were told, and everything would be fine. By and large, we did. By and large, nothing, not one fucking thing, ended up fine.
I say this to illustrate that this is why, and how, we are the DOOMER generation. We got piled on with the baggage and bondage of manipulation and lies from the Boomers who climbed the social ladder and then pulled it up behind them, and their Gen-X toadies who rode their coattails half way up hoping they wouldn’t get noticed and shaken off to land back down here in the dirt with the rest of us.
And the thing that sets the Zoomers apart is that you witnessed this happening, every single crucial step of the betrayal from every authority figure from the president on down to the homeroom teacher, and by gods… You Learned.
Zoomers, in my view, seem to possess a preternatural hyper-awareness that any promise made by anyone who has something they can take from you is good for nothing. Some people say “Zoomers don’t give a shit” like it’s supposed to be an insult. HA. No. I see what’s really happening. They’re jealous. Giving a shit was a mistake. It was a mistake we Doomers made. And I am pleased, if not in awe, when I see Zoomers not falling for the bait. You have largely withdrawn yourselves from the rat race, and now it’s running out of rats. Maybe now those fucking rats can finally starve holed up and isolated in their mazes. You, meanwhile, may very well build a better way to live. And whether or not I get to participate, I love to see it.
Go get 'em, Zoomers.
dunno man. maybe that hyper-awarness shit is true, but i am overwhelmed by it. i fucking hate this government, the bullshit that they feed us, the lies, the invigilation, all of it. it makes me sick. this world sucks so fucking much and i feel pretty hopeless about it, which is infuriating. i wish i was born earlier
Tell you something homie:
Having no hope is, in my opinion, better than having false hope. You aren’t waiting around for some external savior to recognize that you’re struggling and swoop in to rescue you. You know that anything you get will arrive to you only by clawing it from the cold dead hands of the elders.
Yeah it sounds bleak but realize this: THEY don’t know that.
THEY, those fucking parasite boomers in their ivory towers, think you’re just like the millennial doomers who will roll over obediently and then do no worse than look sad and make sad noises when we get cheated ALL OVER AGAIN.
When they turned their back on US, we stayed docile, simpering, begging. When they turn their back on YOU, you are going to stab them thirty six times, slash their throats, and dig out their organs with a shiv fashioned out of one of their precious participation trophies, and eat them raw and howling.
… Or at least some of you will. And I for one hope that when it starts happening, we doomers will either stay out of the way, or for ONCE in our FUCKING LIVES stand up to protect you from the death throes of the worst generation.
You have it in you. It’s growing. Keep feeding it.
I’m also Gen Z and this was me for a while as well. Something that really helped me is not focusing as much on all of the million things going wrong that are way out of my control, and taking smaller steps wherever I can to try to make things better. That shift in perspective has made a lot of things more manageable and less overwhelming even if I still ultimately have the same negative outlook on everything that’s going on right now.
Yes, watching people die on tv does sound much worse than being drafted for Vietnam or living with the daily thought that Russia had a bomb and we could all die any day.
NOBODY WAS DRAFTED INTO VIETNAM WHEN THEY WERE FUCKING TWELVE DIPSHIT
AND, MOTHER FUCKER, YOU DO NOT GET TO INSINUATE THAT THE “DUCK AND COVER” CARTOONS WERE SOMEHOW MORE TRAUMATIZING THAN CODE GRAY DRILLS, LET ALONE SOME PEOPLE ACTUALLY DIRECTLY EXPERIENCING ACTUAL FUCKING SCHOOL SHOOTINGS
FUCK. OFF. IN. HELL.
at least Vietnam veterans could afford a fucking home when they got back
You know what, STAY fucked off. I don’t need filth like you in my feed. BLOCKED.
Generation labels are BS.
At some point, a clever media article increments the previous letter, or since everything was not planned well from the beginning and the letters have run out, stamps a poorly conceived label on a group of people.
These ‘generations’ are based on ambiguous date cutoffs, are engineered retroactively, and don’t really align with any actual zeitgeist of a period. Because discrete vs continuous and other reasons. But any good scapegoat requires a convenient label.
Begun, the generation wars have.
The older generation is blamed for the world’s problems since they were ‘in charge’. The younger generation is blamed for being impulsive or wild, just not working hard enough, and maybe having too little respect. Also toast wrecks the economy or something?
The older generation is perplexed by the fracas since the people who were actually in power were supposed to be taking care of the big problems, while they were working a job, raising kids, and hoping to retire some day. They had no direct power and could not make decisions of a magnitude that would change much of anything in society.
The younger generation is equally perplexed because they have little money, status, or power, and are also working a job or three, waiting to start a family perhaps, and have often given up on retiring someday.
Everyone has been fed a steady diet of fabricated hopelessness, dysfunction, and outrage from the media for decades.
Only a few will realize the whole ‘generation’ thing is fabricated to keep you distracted. Who benefits from the scapegoating, infighting, and status quo? Someone is driving it, and benefiting from it, but it is not you.
Vote dammit
Exactly. Also, It’s being used as a marketing cohort and therefore to be despised and reviled. In this lexicon, you are the product.
Also, vote, dammit. Unite.
Generation gaps are another great way of getting the plebs fighting each other rather than the people who actually run things (capitalists)
Pew Research Center recently commented on this https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/22/how-pew-research-center-will-report-on-generations-moving-forward/
The field has been flooded with content that’s often sold as research but is more like clickbait or marketing mythology. There’s also been a growing chorus of criticism about generational research and generational labels in particular.
Geriatric millennial checking in from 1983.
I like the “Oregon Trail generation” name someone mentioned earlier too, I might lean into that one more in the future. Remember playing Math Blaster on an Apple Mac Classic in elementary school computer lab? Then you were there too!
Same year!
Mavis Beacon teaches typing. BBSs. Cassette tapes with the pencil. I had a Spectrum that used cassettes before I got my Amiga 500.
There are dozens of us!
This one. I was born in 85, but in very poor, very rural Pennsylvania. I describe my upbringing as nearly gen x, with some millenial quirks.
Same
I like to use Oregon Trail generation too. It’s the perfect label for those of us who essentially had computers inserted into our childhoods at some point.
Computers pre-date us by a lot, obviously, but it’s more about the mass market computers (and home video game systems) that normal people could access.
Ditto though '84
Gen X. Aka: The feral generation. We were left to our own devices and most of us turned out fine.
Now get offa muh lawn! shakes fist
Same. Raised on neglect and hose water.
Sorry, can’t stay. The street lights just came on.
That’s a great image, love it
You call it feral, i call it free range.
Same here.
You know what’s kind of funny. Both my parents identify as Gen X. Both of them are actually Baby Boomer’s. With the pre-requisite feral children. But I’m a millennial and it’s kind of funny that having grown up basically a feral child my generation doesn’t get to claim that.
Huh… I never thought of that in this specific way.
When we were kids, and I was born 1994, our parents both had to work to acquire enough income to afford things, making us rely on ourselves. Parents did not pay that much for babysitters back then, no? And us kids weren’t being watched by GPS or something 24/7.
But it’s a tight window, and it depends on the family how long it stays open. I know some people born in 1997 who are like this, and others who aren’t.
Knowing about 2girls1cup, 1man1jar, that creepy car zombie coffee advert, other shock content… we were desensitised to gore and shock content. We played on MS Paint for hours.
Our parents did not know what we were doing, and it was… I’d say it was good.
Semi-related anecdote…
During the debates my wife made a joke that Biden is so old he’s not even a Boomer. We then gave each other a look and pulled out our phones to check. Turns out it’s true, he is from the “Silent Generation”.
I think most of his cabinet colleagues wishes he would be.
My parents were too but they were anything but. 1920s and 1940s.
Gen X
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Hey there 00’s brother!
How do you do fellow zoomers?
Want the suffering to end
Another fellow 00’s sister reporting here !
Generation X here.
Why is your profile pic an outline of me
Haha, I’ve been using old.lemmy.world for so long I’d forgotten I even had the Space Needle profile on my account. Was truly puzzled for a minute.
“How do they know I’m in Seattle? Oh, yeah.”
No, it’s because you’re wearing socks with your sandals
As someone who lives in the PNW that PNW clued me in.
One of us!
Generation strange.
Sun don’t even shine through our window pane.
Xenial, I think it’s called. I was the youngest, and I was born in 1983. My siblings are Def GenX, and I never quite identified with that group.
I never quite identified as a millennial either, I’m somewhere in between.
i dont know how its called but my shot would be xillenial
Also dubbed “Generation Catalano:” https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/10/generation-catalano-the-generation-stuck-between-gen-x-and-the-millennials.html
I prefer Oregon Trail generation.
This is how I feel too. 1984 for me.
Same here except a Zillennial. I was born in 97 so I don’t really identify with zoomers nor millenials
Gen Z. For once we are a minority on a social media platform that isn’t facebook lol
Same, and it’s honestly a little refreshing
Memes are lacking though and I finally know why
GEN X. The best gen.
We were nihilists long before the internet proved us right.
Plus we gave you grunge. You’re welcome.
well nirvana is my favorite band
I saw Nirvana in '92. It was nothing special, sorry.
No need to apologise. You’re allowed to be wrong.
– In case it’s not clear, that’s a joke. I feel like “smart ass” needs a tag like sarcasm has (/s).
It’s not really a controversial opinion that they were often awful live. This particular concert (and their only concert ever in Denmark) can be found on Youtube.
what bands do you like then?
I do like Nirvana, which only embiggens the disappointment. I saw Pearl Jam on the same festival and they were awesome.
Last month I saw Beth Gibbons (Portishead singer), Metallica twice and went to the Copenhell metal festival (saw too many bands there to mention). This morning I bought tickets to The Flaming Lips. Tonight I’ll be seeing Rammstein. Tomorrow a one-day ticket to the Roskilde Festival with the wife, where I’ll be seeing PJ Harvey, Myrkur, probably Jane’s Addiction and then whatever.
I guess that is a pretty good representation of my taste in music and also an explanation of why I’m broke.
thats pretty darn cool
I appreciate your perfectly cromulent use of the word “embiggens”, here.
Thank you
Thanks for taking me on a search journey… to appreciate Beth, and Portishead beyond Dummy. Please do recommend any specific highlights. I’ll be going through their (and her) albums now.
She has only released two albums (there could some she collabbed on that I’m not aware of): Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man - Out of Season and her recent solo album Lives Outgrown.
It’s not as dark as Portishead and the music is more minimalistic, some of it may be closer to acoustic/folk, but she sings beautifully. If you get the chance to see her live, you should go. During the concert they covered a single Portishead song and the tears were literally streaming down my face.
Another tip: If you like Portishead, you should also give the Goldfrapp album Felt Mountain a listen.
Born during the very last month of the previous millennium, but I don’t know what generation that is.
If you weren’t old enough to understand what was happening when watching the twin towers fall and grasp the gravity of it while it was happening, you’re a Zoomer. (And that’s a good thing)
Young millennial here. My first memory relating to 9/11 is vaguely being told it was the anniversary of some event that happened the previous year in 2002.
It really wasn’t (at least not directly—the aftermath of it certainly was) the big generarion-defining thing Americans like to think it was. The impact on global diplomacy (not least of which is the Iraq and Afghanistan wars), the increased security theatre when travelling on planes. That’s certainly a defining generational experience. But the event itself is much less so.
Some of them are alphas (?!)
I don’t think any alphas had actually been born yet to witness it let alone comprehend it.
They can even talk back!
zillenial
Nope, full Gen Z.
I’m early Gen Z with a kinda poor family. So I had CRT’s and old VHS but also grew up on the internet.
I feel an extreme gap between me and people a few years younger. I graduated in 2018 so I was some of the last people to have a traditional highschool experience. Before Covid, Zoom, and Chatgpt.
I also mostly grew up with computers instead of phones so Im only just now getting into TikTok, I’ll likely never truly revolve around it like many others (both older and younger than me).
Im only just now getting into TikTok
Please don’t, for your own health’s sake. There is nothing of value on that platform.
There’s plenty of value on there! For the CCP, but still.
