Are you a Geriatric Millennial? 👴🏻

Yes, lol. But I'd rather be the oldest member of one generation than the youngest of another.

Forgotten bridge? How about a forgotten generation between Boomer and Millennial?

Yeah - we had a moment in the early/mid-90's, but then it was over.

Isn't that what Xennial is supposed to be?

Born in 1978 and feel this way.

[quote] Isn't that what Xennial is supposed to be?

Yes, but that wasn't stupid and pointless enough so the Telegraph had to come up with something even worse.

Will they ever just allow us to be Millennials? Why the fuck do we have to be so special? Is there an early boomer group? Geriatric Xers?

Just because we didn’t grow up with fucking Facebook doesn’t mean we’re not millennials. Enough of this shit. Every generation has older and younger members.

Yes!!!!! I think it's annoying because I do not feel like I relate to real millennials which in my mind are 1985+ and are in their mid 30's now.

R6 - they've tried it with the youngest Boomers (1960-65) by calling them Generation Jones because they really didn't have the same things as easy as the Boomers did.

Many people in that time relate more to Gen X than Boomers and I understand it. I would venture many of the older Millennials also relate a bit more to Gen X than to peak Millennial culture.

No Millennials were born in 1980. Their first year was 1981.

[quote] Yes!!!!! I think it's annoying because I do not feel like I relate to real millennials which in my mind are 1985+

I can relate to anyone regardless of age -- it's all about your personality, baby -- but there was a definite sense of being too young to experience peak adult fun of the 1990s and being too old to take part in core Millennial teen culture (emo/scene/skinny jeans, etc.) around the middle 00s.

I was born in 1983 and I realized that I have nothing really in common with millennials born in the late eighties. I have younger siblings who can be considered a true millennia.

Same, I have a brother who is in the rich heartland of millennial-ness and I just don't talk to him.

Well someone needs to feel real special.

I'm an elder millennial and wonder how people of my generation ever had to struggle in school when they had access to all the information they want at their fingertips. When I was in high school, we had dial up, but the information available online was pitiful compared to what you found in books. We had to do actual research. Nowadays, young people don't put in any effort whatsoever.

If younger millennials had to grow up during my time, they would collapse into tears at the slightest offense. I had to deal with actual bullies in real life and I didn't have the option of logging off or placing them on ignore.

And now people can't even fucking study for the SATs. What the fuck is wrong with Generation Z?

If you are an old millennial, you still had to deal with things like graphing calculators (hell) and didn't have phones with all the answers in them.

Boy, I sure am glad I graduated high school before social media took off.

We had Encarta instead of Wikipedia. I remember being so excited and feeling like I was the man because I had an entire encylopedia on disk. Print shop Deluxe blew my mind at the time. I could create simple graphics without having any skill in graphic design. I played retro games (sega and nintendo) and thank goodness for that because when I tried playing my first FPS, I nearly vomited from motion sickness. I still can't play any 3D games even today. We didn't watch Disney but Nickelodeon and then when we were high school we watched Fox and the WB.

I think if social media were around in tandem with that period of time, I probably would have killed myself. I don't how Gen Z does it. Their lives have been on social media from the womb some of them.

Is this a group of not so young anymore adults that like Golden Girls?

R19, I wouldn't have wanted to grow up with smartphones either. Your parents able to text, call, track you at all times. Yuck -- no thanks.

Gen X are nobodies who failed all younger generations. Now we millennials have suffer for the damage y’all have allowed. You could have stepped up for change and you didn’t. Millennials and Gen Z are going to be the leaders who turn this shit around.

Born in 1982 and I totally get this.

1980 and definitely happy that according to r8 I’m a gen x...mils are the worst

I'm still trying to figure out where is Carmen Sandiego!

I also thought this was the coolest show on Nickelodeon.

A lot of the more famous, successful Millennials are of this group. Michael Phelps, Mayor Pete, Serena Williams, Brian Chesky, Natalie Portman, John Mulaney to name a few.

I’m Gen X. I think our generation is misunderstood in many ways — we are the “bridge generation” between the Industrial Revolution and the Info Age. We witnessed in real-time the evolution, so our generation wasn’t as adept at challenging social norms because in some ways we were trained to protect the status quo. But we were also educated fairly well and raised on great things like Sesame Street, the Electric Company, School House Rock. These shows instilled a multi-cultural paradigm in us before anyone knew what “multi-cultural” even meant. I’m not saying that as a braggart, I’m acknowledging that we are a proto-Millenial generation and therefore we didn’t always fully realize the vision of what America could be. But our country had to start somewhere, and it started with us. Remember, we were also the first generation born in or at the end of the Civil Rights Movement. I don’t think we were change agents as much as younger generations are. But isn’t that what progress actually looks like? The present should *always* look better than the past, it should be changing, evolving, transforming.

I am so grateful for all the people who came before us, who bravely fought for change even when they were literally the only voice in the whole universe looking for change, all alone, fighting the culture. Powerful people built this path we are on now.

😭 Whiners

R29. Ok zoomers.

I remembered using the floppy disks and having it in all colors. Hotmail was a thing and msn chat rooms. I had to go to some local small movie theater to watch a French dirty movie. I felt like I was sneaking into a porno place like a pepping tom. Good times although I look back and I wonder what was I thinking and wearing. The style in the late minutes and early 2000 was interesting. Everyone thought they looked hot and cool. Very baggy jeans on men and barely covering ass crack jeans on women.

R28 - Agreed. Gen X were the 'latchkey' kids and given relatively very little parental or societal notice. Plus, Millennials talk about Boomers and their mindsets - try to fight against the Boomers AND the previous generation, which was even more conservative and had their feet in the previous world before the 60s.

Millennial kids and their parents really had very little in common in terms of life experience. Everything was different in terms of school life, dating, music, attitudes toward race, sexual orientation, gender roles/expectations, etc. Plus the highest divorce rate of their parents of almost any generation.

Yeah - we're cynical (still, I would say) and for good reason. Millennials were raised with completely different expectations of how special they were and their parents could also be their friends, whereas our parents were often seen as the enemy.

They are Gen X. There’s no such thing xennial. They just want to be young but they’re not. I’m embarrassed for them. Xennial even sounds kook.

I thought they were called Generation Y

Millennials weren’t born in 1980. Dumb article is dumb.

[quote] Yes!!!!! I think it's annoying because I do not feel like I relate to real millennials which in my mind are 1985+ and are in their mid 30's now.

Millennials are 1981-1996. The oldest ones are hitting 40 this year. Not sure why you’ve chosen 1985 as being a real Millennial.

Gen X are not 1981.

Millennials I mean.

I am more interested in why DLers are so obsessed with generations.

Born in 1985 and identify with Millennials for the most part. I remember life before the internet but I was 6 or 7 when we first got Prodigy, which is markedly different from most Xers who were in high school, college or beyond when the internet started up.

For those of us on the bubble though, a lot of it has to do with your family.

Are you the youngest of your siblings and cousins, most of whom were Xers born in the 70s? Then it's likely you identify more with X Ditto if your parents are older Boomers or even older, born in 1940s.

Are you the oldest of your siblings and cousins, many of whom were born in the 90s? Then it's likely you identify more as a Millennial. Ditto if your parents are younger Boomers, born in the mid to late 50s.

[quote]I am more interested in why DLers are so obsessed with generations.

I don’t know. It’s been really bad the past couple years.

[quote] Millennials I mean.

Yes they are.

R41 - the media became obsessed with generations after that book came out in the early 90's.

It's not just here - it's everywhere. It's become part of the national dialogue - particularly when there are thousands of articles about Millennials destroying things and how they are different, blah blah blah.

But I would also say that it is needed - Boomers and older people need to know how different it is for Millennials than it was for them. Not enough has changed and everything is much more difficult and expensive.

R43 I do feel like you hear more about generations than you used to before. It also seems like generations are getting shorter and shorter.

R44 yeah change is happening at a more rapid pace. I’m glad I got a taste of how life was like before the internet. By the time I became an adult everything changed.

That's Generation Jones, r2.

There's overlap in all of these generations, none of which are scientifically determined, they're groupings created by cultural critics and sociocultural researchers.

Currently the older Millennials and the younger GenX are very much alike, which is why I don't understand this "geriatric Millennial" label. I was chatting on Twitter a few weeks ago with a guy who was born 8 years after I was and we are different generations, but we both had the same computers, video game consoles, and technology when growing up. There was a guy on the Friends thread on here who is over 10 years younger than me and talking about how Friends was on when he was in college, well it was on when I was in college, too, even though we're not even close generationally, but we have that similarity.

I think the insistence on sticking to 15 to 20 year generations for these cohorts and not talking much about overlap is a bad idea, but of course the media won't admit it, they love these generational division stories, it's the easiest way to stir up shit they know.

What's funny is that the original definition--the Baby Boom generation--was based on high childbirth rates.

But I can't imagine that someone born in 1947 had a similar life experience as someone born in 1963

[quote] the media became obsessed with generations after that book came out in the early 90's.

What book?

Not that poster R48, but I assumed they meant "13th Gen" by Strauss and Howe, which was all about Gen X and introduced a number of pop culture theories about generations in the US

Does Twitter represent Gen Z or Millennials?

This group that’s on the cusp of the last years of Gen-X and the first years of the Millennials are called the Xennials. We’ve discussed them here at length before:

We had 24/7 media coverage of the OJ Trial, Clinton Impeachment, and Chandra Levy. People think of 9/11 when they think of the beginning of cable news dominance but I remember those were what people were obsessed with at the time. It seemed so silly at the time, but looking back I long for the days where we can obsesses over true crime stories. Ironically, the world was a much more safe and banal place back then.

Of course a lot of people credit Scream (96) as their gateway to horror. It was certainly the first that led me to consume horror and slashers in particular.

After 9/11 the news ticker, which was usually brought out only on special occasions, became a permanent fixture. Shortly thereafter, news became more hyper partisan in order to compete with clicks. It was the beginning of outrage culture.

I think a term like 'getiatric Millennial' should apply to those born 1975 - 1980. They would be 46 and under, and teens when computers took over. They were the ones playing Atari and Pong.

It's also interesting that as a Xennial, all my best friends who I met later in life are 5-10 years older than me. So perhaps it's true that this micro generation has more in common with Generation X.

^ and probably why I'm drawn to DL, whose audience is primarily Gen X.

How would you describe millennial sex vs other gens?

Good motherfucking god, is this a thing now? I find it funny that these “geriatric millennials” fail to see the stereotype in labeling themselves as unique snowflakes within the snowflakes generation. Let’s see, how should we find more ways to talk about ourselves? What are the ways in which we could distinguish how special we are from other generations and sub generation within generation?

Isn’t there a gender reveal party (millennial specialty) involving explosives that these geriatric millennials should be attending?

[quote] Isn’t there a gender reveal party (millennial specialty) involving explosives that these geriatric millennials should be attending?

So you don't believe in generational differences but then you go on to label others?

R58 Are you a Gen X asshole or a Boomer asshole. It's hard to tell the difference between you two these days

[quote]but the information available online was pitiful compared to what you found in books. We had to do actual research.

Bless your little heart. Try researching when you had to go done to the Library unless you had a set of encyclopedias.

In every generation, the oldest and youngest members can barely relate to one another. That's hardly new.

I thought Millenials were Gen Y.

A couple to add to that list R27: Chloe Zao, Mark Zuckerberg, Kirsten Dunst, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, LeBron James, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Trevor Noah, Alexis Ohanian, Jacob Frey, Chris Hemsworth, Carey Mulligan, Amanda Seyfried

They keep moving the damn goal posts on Gen X/Gen Y/Xennial/Millennial.

It's irritating. And I was born in 1980, so I have to constantly check the internet to see which group I belong to any given day.

R59 and R60 looks like I touched a sensitive nerve. Are you a regular millennial asshole or geriatric millennial asshole, it’s hard to tell these days. Born in 1980 and don’t go around labeling myself micro-generation.

All the hot Chrises are of this cohort.

R66 Isn't there a latch key that you should go and choke on?

Something not mentioned so far in this thread: how different it was to grow up gay if you were born in 1980 vs say 1985 or 1990.

I was born in 1980 but I still feel like I was deeply affected by the AIDS crisis. I can remember reading an issue of Time or Newsweek and seeing a picture of someone covered in KS lesions and asking my parents what those purple spots were. I received a very accusatory explanation.

Equally impactful was the sense of isolation growing up in a time before the internet. I often tell people my age that I think we were the last generation to grow up in reality, which is something I’m grateful for. But the price of growing up that way was having no access to information about being gay, gay culture, or the ability to connect with other gay people.

R64 don't forget us:

Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera

Ben Barnes

Tom Hiddleston

William, Kate, Harry, and Meghan.

Beyonce

Kelly Clarkson

Brandon Flowers

Amy Winehouse

Mila Kunis

Emily Blunt

Henry Cavill

Olivia Wilde

Lupita Nyong'o

R65, couldn't they just agree on a timeline and a label?

The one thing I know is that I'm NOT Gen Z.

Well I’m from generation CUNT

What is generation CUNT?

Only on Datalounge could this devolve into such a topic of bitchery.

I guess I’m a geriatric Gen X. Narrowly avoided being a Boomer (born in 1965) but older than most Gen Xers.

R74, DL has a bizarre fixation on generations, as though one’s generation were the most important, formative thing about a person.

What's the opposite of a geriatric millennial?

An embryonic millennial, R76.

R27 Don't forget about me!

This is not the group you want to fuck with, R66.

We know how to punch back.

Zoomers are pussy generation since they need constant self validation from strangers and they get easily triggered. We geriatric millennials had to grow up tough and we made things work for us. Our parents weren't our cheerleader and we worked hard to provide for ourselves and we rejected sympathy from strangers. We tried to pass those ideals to our younger siblings especially those born between 89-92. Some of them did not listen while some took the advice to heart. We did not seek validation from the internet since all we did was send emails using msn chat rooms and hotmail.

Oh please, even older generations are seeking validation on the internet. Just look at Facebook and Instagram.

R7 yo I’m not even 30 yet....

R77 my cousin was born in 1996. I think of him as an embryo Millennial, maybe even a Zillennial if you want to use dumb portmanteau. He acts and speaks and votes and expresses (dubious, trashy, IG/hype-obsessed) taste like a Gen Z tbh, but he has memories and experiences of things that are typically Millennial.

[quote] geriatric Millennial' should apply to those born 1975 - 1980. They would be 46 and under, and teens when computers took over. They were the ones playing Atari

One of my childhood friends had a stepbrother almost a decade older than us, who was in his late teens getting ready to move out when we were just gradeschoolers. One day c. the very late 1990s we were playing at her house, and we found his old dusty Atari, and despite examining it for ages and plugging it in we could not figure out what it did or how to load a game. We got the stepbrother to show us, and once he did it was like, “.....so that’s it? Tch, whatever I’m going back to PS2/Gameboy/GameCube”.

Funny to think that youth of today think of all the consoles we had as kids as ancient technology.

R81. We are not discussing mentally ill adult of any generation. I am referring to mentally sane people.

Agreed R1

I'm a basic bitch general millennial. does that count?

GENERIC. That's how basic I am.

Oh FFS. Just because you know the difference between an LP and a CD doesn't make you a cultural phenomena.

R85, I wouldn't want to be the Dewey or Cindy Brady of a generation. I am Greg or Marcia fucking Brady.😂

Don't forget about me!

Born in the early-mid 90s, and I find people born in the mid-late 70s way more attractive than my own peer group (even the geriatric Millennials). Idk whether that’s conditioning because I was bullied a lot at school, or I just prefer older partners by nature. Xers/Xennials seem cool and together and competent to me, and that’s sexy.

Z on the other hand are gross unstable little troll-dolls. I don’t even want to be friends with those brats, let alone fuck him.

I guess I'm a geriatric zoomer.

[quote] Something not mentioned so far in this thread: how different it was to grow up gay if you were born in 1980 vs say 1985 or 1990.

This. I remembering 5 in 1985 and on the news they were talking about AIDS. I can remember the images of the young guys with the purple lesions in hospital beds. After the clip there was an ad for a diet chocolate called AIDES. My aunt said "what an unfortunate name for a candy." I have never forgot this and I think she is a terrible cunt. When grew up with these images and then a lot of us were like terrified to have sex. If a condom might have slipped or torn it was a terrible panic. This was in the late 90'. The 2 week HIV test results. Ugh.

Generation Jones owns this thread.