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.
I’m gen X. I definitely feel that Boomers are from a different world. I felt we got a shit deal but that just got worse for millenials then gen Z. To me, I feel like I can relate to generations that followed me. They’re pissed off and they should be.
Young millennial. And yeah, I think it’s not the most stark and clear cut, but older millennials had hope once it was just dashed upon adulthood, gen z grew up with everyone getting that they were hopeless. Us young millennials though, it was awkward as a 13 year old trying to explain to my parents that I was doomed.
But I definitely have more in common with someone a few years younger than me than several years older
I hate these generational divides. Are we really supposed to think that a person from 1982 and a person from 1994 (both millennials) have more in common than a person from 1994 and one from 1997 (one millennial and one zoomer)? It makes no sense.
If I had to answer, I guess the closest would be Zillenial: born around the mid 90s.
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.
Old Millennial.
I grew up without cell phones or Internet until my teen years. Remember watching the OJ trial whenever I was home sick from school.
We were really worried about Y2K, which would have been a disaster if not fixed ahead of time.
Had to work on 9/11, and remember what airports were like before all the added security.
Also had to work - pushing groceries to people’s cars while the VA sniper was rolling around the area shooting people in parking lots.
I remember people smoking cigarettes fucking everywhere. There were cigarette vending machines.
Our 2 and 3 liter bottles had an extra plastic piece to make the bottom flat. I don’t think they were making them with feet like they do today. The bottoms were round, requiring a plastic shoe to create a flat bottom. Sometimes the bottles had a metal cap.
Hardly anybody wore seatbelts. Gas was under $1/gallon when I started driving.
Slightly younger old millennial.
Bacon used to be just about the most expensive meat you could buy.
Bill Clinton tried to kill Osama bin Laden.
Terrorists were angry leprechauns who had been abused by centuries of British oppression.
Russia was kind of cool for a little while.
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
Generation gaps are another great way of getting the plebs fighting each other rather than the people who actually run things (capitalists)
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.
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.
'93, younger end of millennial.
Not big on generation labels though, they feel like a failed experiment. People are born every day of every year and our experiences overlap in a gradient. They don’t separate into distinct portions.
The baby boom was an actual phenomenon, but every label afterwards feels arbitrary.
I agree that it’s not a useful metric to apply to an individual. “Ok boomer” aside, there is too much variation within a generation for it to be a useful way to draw any conclusions about a single person.
Where generations are useful is in demography. There is no strict dividing line between a lot of kids of demographics, but categorizing them can still give us useful data for studying populations
Gen Z.
This place is a lot older than I expected.
Internet generation, progenitors of current online brainrot. Came too early to experience the 90s in all its glory, and too late for running console-quality games on a 6mm thick mobile device.
At least we have the 2010s to claim for ourselves. Those were pretty cool.
The electrochemical kind
Generation Tamagotchi
Well I have kids your age, so a literal generation gap? Yes.
I think Lemmy has age diversity, more so than other platforms.
i mean, its a good thing
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)
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.
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.
When it 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.
deleted by creator
Further proving we’re all more alike than we think.
Older millennial here. I came here a year ago.
As Millennial as Millennial can be, smack dab in the middle of the cohort.
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).
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.
thats cool. that hump might be random as well
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.
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.
But but there is difference in advancements, science, tech Also doesn’t mean genz= this Millenials= that boomers!= this
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!
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.
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
Ditto though '84
