Millennial here. My impression is we're the largest generation on this platform, but I could be wrong.
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Further proving we're all more alike than we think.
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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 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).
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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.
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Gen X
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.
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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
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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.
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.
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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, canβt stay. The street lights just came on.
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Semi-related anecdoteβ¦
During the debates my wife made a joke that Biden is so old heβs not even a Boomer. We then gave each other a look and pulled out our phones to check. Turns out itβs true, he is from the βSilent Generationβ.
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Gen Z. For once we are a minority on a social media platform that isn't facebook lol
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)
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Early 90s millenial here. I remember the wild west internet days. Left Reddit because it does not serve the interests of its users anymore.
Nice try fed, won't get me on a census that easily
GEN X. The best gen.
We were nihilists long before the internet proved us right.
Plus we gave you grunge. You're welcome.
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Generation 4, Diamond was my first and my best friend had Pearl
Serious answer, I'm on the border between millennial and gen z
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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.
Millennial
The coolest one . . . . Gen X.
x
Miellenial, right in the middle
I think this would work better as a poll. If you make one please let me know!
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