Why Early 80's Babies Are Different From Other Millennials

[methodwriter85]

People born in the late 1970's/early 1980's (say about 1977 to 1983) are often seen as being somewhat of an "in-between" generation- not quite Gen Xers, not quite Millennials, although they're often lumped in between the two generations. I remember Scott telling me once that he kind of feel like an "in-betweener" when it came to the generation that Adam represented( the Xers) and the one I represent (the Millennials.)

Anyway, here's this article that talks about the influence of technology/social media/etc that created this schism:

Why Early 80's Babies Are Different From Other Millennials

Oregon Trail. I'm going to admit I vaguely remember hearing about it, but the computer game I was excited about was Where In the World in Carmen SanDiego?

 

It's interesting to think that Adam's co-horts really did exist as kind of that bridge between an analog and digital world.

 

Here's another article that argues that those born in the late 1970's/early 1980's are their own microgeneration, displaying characteristics that overlap between Gen Xers and Millennials, and coins this group Xennials.

Reasonable People Disagree About the Post-Gen X/Pre-Millennial Generation

 

It's interesting to think that this "micro-group" existed at just the right time to have gotten into the work world for a few years before the start of the Great Recession, and were able to recover better than the people who graduated college just a few years later. Also the idea that this group largely spent their coming-of-age in a Pre-Colombine/Pre-9/11 Era, whereas for me, Colombine hit in middle school and 9/11 hit during the opening weeks of high school, so those were two big fears I was forced to grow up with, as opposed to my oldest sister, who was born in 1977.

Anyway...I'm curious for people born in the late 70's/early 80's...do you consider yourself a Gen Xer? A Millennial? Or something else entirely?

[CassieQ]

I was born in 1981 and definitely recall all the things mentioned in the article…playing Oregon Trial in school during rainy day recesses, and using AOL when I was in middle school/high school.  I think we had our first desktop computer when I was 12.  Columbine was my senior year of high school, and 9/11 happened while I was in college.  I think I'm closer to Generation X than a Millennial (and I hate that name too), but neither one seems to fit.  

My sister, who is five years younger than me, and my coworker, who strangely enough is only one year younger than me, seem to "fit" the description of Millennials much more than I do.  I am much more happy with antiquated technology than having the newest, shiniest tech toy, and I put off getting a cell phone until my parents got me one and made me use it when I was driving an hour back and forth to school.  I rarely use social media.  I had no student loans when I graduated college and minimal difficulty finding a job, (which seems to be some of the  struggles that Millenials come across).  Like I said, Columbine happened my senior year of high school, a few years later my sister's school went into a lock down policy after a stabbing and apparently that was perfectly normal.  

It's a weird thing to think about.     

[Puppilull]

I'm born in 1974, so I might be Gen X. I however distinctly remember when we started using computers and the Internet. Maybe we are a bit behind in Sweden. It's funny to think what an enormous change that took place in only a few years. I took a children's course in Dos at the age of 7-8, but still used a type writer in high school. So it was kind of a drawn out process.

[Dark]

Cassie and i are the same age and I recall things like she mentions.  I have two younger brothers and they're both Millenials.  I never felt like the traits of Gen X or Millennials fit me, so I find the articles interesting.

 

I loved the Oregon Trail!  My 6th grade classroom was the first one to have a computer in the room.  We had a long-term project that year, involving role-playing that all of us students were part of a wagon train.  We got placed into groups that were our wagon "families" and had to write journal entries about the challenges our teacher would set for us.  Like, your wagon lost a wheel, what do you do?  Or so-and-so broke his ankle, how do you react.

 

Our teacher was super-short, just like me, and this project was only one reason I idolized her.  I was super-disappointed when she got married at the end of the school year. 

[Drew Espinosa]

I may have been born in 1995, but I also recall playing Oregon Trail, briefly, during Elementary School.

[JamesSavik]

I don't think much of the labels people try to assign to the generations.

 

By the numbers, I would be a Boomer but, I don't share any of their traits. I've met Gen Xers and Millennials that are way more conservative than me.

 

Maybe astrology would be more accurate. At least it is so generic, you can't actually claim it's wrong.

[TetRefine]

I am solidly a Millennial (1992) and I played Oregon Trail all the time. My dad went out and bought us a copy of it and my brother (a '94 baby) and I played it so much we probably wore the thing out. Granted we spent 90% of the game just dicking around on the hunting feature, but hey we were boys.

Edited May 24, 2015 by TetRefine

[MrM]

Wasn't this age group called GenY at one point?

[Ashi]

Born in 1978.  I remember it's quite a transition between generations.  Like James said, I don't like labels.  In fact, that's what my generation hates the most: labels, sweeping generalization, corporate cultures, consumerism.

 

Lots of things happened during our time.  GenX was marked by general optimism, we were in a lot of transitions.  We were the first generation who grew up in the Internet culture, so a lot of those established netiquettes, use of emoticons/emoji, lolspeaks (though I must admit you guys coin the terms emoji and lolspeaks).

 

We are the children of some golden ages and also the great economic downturns.  It's really a giant rollercoaster ride, and we were also mature enough to know what's going on around us.  Imagine the Roaring 20's and the transitional in-between wars 30's and then the horror of WWII, and compress that into 10 years, that's what we went through.

 

What our lives went through:

 

High school years (mid-1990's):  We watched Mr. Rogers and Barney and Friends.  Goths were the prevalent alternative culture and attend live action Rocky Horror Picture Shows.  Quentin Tarantino made Pulp Fiction.  Urban Outfitters actually sold urban outfits (not suburban clothes).  Gap brand launched Old Navy and started selling fleece everything.  Game started to come out in multi-media CD-ROMs (King's Quests, Loom, Oregon Trail, Where in the World is Carmen San Diego, 7th Guests, Myst, Doom as shareware, Simcity 2000).  PC first became normal household items.  Microsoft Windows 95 vs IBM OS/2.  Internet became popularized when I was in senior year in high school.  Popular shows for high school students included Friends, Seinfeld, Saved by the Bell, Wonder Years, Beverly Hill 90210, Melrose Place, Dawson's Creek.  Golden Age of MTV.  Popular boy bands were Backstreet Boys, N'synch.  Golden Age of Disney (Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Lion King).  Dot.com boom, and everyone lived like it was 1920's.  You are either Nick or Great Gatsby, i.e., even when you were a nobody, you probably still had a millionaire friend somewhere who made it rich through trading IPO stocks.

 

College Years (late 90's, early 2000's):  Cell phone wars (Nokia vs Motorola).  The beginning of school shooting era.  9/11.  War on Middle East.  Krispy Kreme went IPO.  Dot.com Bust (party is over man!  I started in college in dot.com boom and ended in dot.com bust... guess what I felt like when I graduated).  Will and Grace on NBC.  Lord of the Ring and Matrix trilogy.  The new Star War movies.  Al Gore "invented the Internet" and later, published Inconvenient Truth.  Abercrombie and Fitch became popular.  Boot cut jeans and cargo shorts.  Flip flops graced the campus.  High speed Internet (DSL/Cable) became popular.  Everyone had a personal website through some free web hosting service (anyone remember Geocities?).  During this time people sort of know they can't live like there was no tomorrow anymore, but some still refused to end the party.  This was also the era when Ashi had his sexual awakening and finally no longer happy trying to be someone else....  Ashi wanted to be gay, and Ashi didn't want to dress like everyone else cause Ashi wasn't "anybody."  Ashi was Ashi. 

 

Before 9/11, everyone was all about John Locke, Emerson and Thoreau and all that civil disobedience.  You had to be your own thinker, be cynical, be skeptical, don't be anybody's sheep.  Dot.com boom also brought down the uptight corporate culture set by the WWII CEOs, and be a little more grassroot.  End doesn't justify the mean.  Don't be fed with major TV network's mass propaganda.  Ironically, nowadays, Internet replaced that role, and everyone be the sheep of Internet-pushed propaganda.  My generation also tried to defy peer pressure, but it seems peer pressure crept in again.  It was absolutely not cool to smoke cigarette (ironically it's okay to smoke happy grass), it's okay to be smart (and not be afraid to be called a nerd), and teenage pregnancy went way down because people actually used condom.  And increasing acceptance of homosexuality.

 

Mid 2000's to the end of 2000's:  Ashi went back to college once again after doing some shitty jobs due the result of dot.com bust "over-correction" (nobody was hiring, even if you have very high GPAs, as oppose to anybody can get a job, even without a degree during dot.com boom era).  Virginia Tech massacre.  Proposition 8 passed, banning gay marriage in California.  Arnold the "Governator" became California governor.  Emo was the successor of Goth culture (and the next outcast everyone loves to hate).  Many states legalized marijuana.  Teachers gave up telling student not to text in class.  Gucci CFO became A&F's CEO, and began to open up outlet stores....  General economic climate was very gloomy and people started to cut down budget, and people tended to dress down a lot to fit in.  Occupied Wall Street movement started nation wide.  People started to live a more sustainable life by buying organic and local, and be environmentally responsible.  Whole Foods expanded several folds.  Three major US auto makers went bankrupt, destroying Detroit. 

 

2010's and beyond:  San Francisco Giants won several World Series in a roll.  Some of us who graduated after dot.com bust had been around for a long time without jobs, went through lots of soul searching, emotionally depressed and distressed, and then came back and accepted this new mode of living.  Lots of us went onto arts and crafts movement, and at least in SF Bay Area, the governments everywhere embraced it, so you could see a lot of local artists' works being visible as public art (graffiti as city beautification, utility boxes painted by local artists, lots of Kickstarter projects/Etsy crafts are actually handcrafted one-of-a-kind pieces done by people like you and me without much economy of scale to cut down cost.  Some of us drink PBR (because it WAS the cheapest beer on the market).  Hopefully one day if you get to see Ashi and other flâner photographers gracing the street and buying non-factory made art & crafts and filled-with-love homemade foods as a way of giving back to the community, you don't call them hipsters.  Remember: mass produced item has no spirit, no philosophy, no love.  A factory made mason jar is not a hipster mason jar. 

 

1920's = dot.com boom

1929 = dot.com bust

WWII = Wars in Middle East/Avoided Korean War/Avoided Crimean War

1950's = 2012 when soldiers came home

Industrial Revolution No. 2 (late 1800's) = Internet Revolution of the 90's

Arts and Crafts Movement = Counter Industrial Revolution = Love Your Community = Stop all that mechanical life

[Ashi]

Wasn't this age group called GenY at one point?

 

Yes, we were, but it's so stupid.  GenXers were very happy to be labeled, and us not so much.  Why would anybody want to be labeled by the media who doesn't even know who we were (not that we are all sheep painted the same color).

Edited May 24, 2015 by Ashi

[MrM]

Yes, we were, but it's so stupid.  GenXers were very happy to be labeled, and us not so much.  Why would anybody want to be labeled by the media who doesn't even know who we were (not that we are all sheep painted the same color).

 

I actually always hated being considered 'GenX'. The connotation was that we were the generation that should never have been. The ones that escaped the coat hanger. What a lovely notion.

 

The whole Grunge culture and fashionable contempt for the 'Yuppies' left me cold. But then I was born a generation out of step. My folks were nearly 40 when they had me. If things had been 'normal' I would have been born in teh 50s and not the early 70s. 

 

I'm with you Ashi. I hate labels. I have never fit any of them...except Queer ones.

 

This might be why I get along so famously with 50-60 somethings. I can relate even though I'm younger. My Mom and Dad's generation were the mother's and fathers of those born in the 50s. Its weird.

Edited May 24, 2015 by MrM

[CassieQ]

Wasn't this age group called GenY at one point?

 

 

That seems to be the way it works for each generation.  The generation born in the 1990s to 2000s are "Generation Z".  It'll be interesting to see what the generation after that will be called, once they run out of letters.  

[Drew Espinosa]

That seems to be the way it works for each generation.  The generation born in the 1990s to 2000s are "Generation Z".  It'll be interesting to see what the generation after that will be called, once they run out of letters.  

Generation AA, Generation AB, Generation AC...?

^For short the AAer Batteries 

^A very poor pun, I know 

[JamesSavik]

Generation AA,

^For short the AAer Batteries 

 

No. That generation is special both here and in the UK.

 

 

 

Despite the bombs, the Brits still stopped for a cup of tea.

 

 

Never forget what we owe them.

 

This generation defeated fascism and communism as a world threat in their lifetime.

 

They set the bar very, very high.

[MrM]

Hopefull

 

 

No. That generation is special both here and in the UK.

 

 

 

Despite the bombs, the Brits still stopped for a cup of tea.

 

 

Never forget what we owe them.

 

This generation defeated fascism and communism as a world threat in their lifetime.

 

They set the bar very, very high.

 

One can hope that their sacrifice and history can still inform us today so we can avoid another World War. I fear not, though, not with the Caliphate on the rise.

Edited May 26, 2015 by MrM

[Celethiel]

/me considers myself a ducky! quack! quack!

[FrenchCanadian]

Last April when we did a rebranding at work, I realized that I was in the Millenial generation

 

I guess it actually fits me... I prefer texting, chating and email to calling people. I watch most of everything off the internet...