Discussions
Do you identify with your generation?
Posted by Agit8r • 7/03/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: age, generational traits, generations
In case you don't know what generation you fall into or what that generation's traits are supposed to be, here is one list that may help:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_(book)#List_of_Generations
User Comments
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Great question. I am completely convinced that I was born in the wrong place during the wrong era. The things that I like, (styles, music, culture) and the outlook I have on politics, religion, and sociology are not in tune with my generation nor my peers. I have more in common with my father who is part of "The silent generation" and grew up during and after the great depression and WWII than I do with anyone in my generation, or my mother's generation (Baby boomer).-
what generation do you fall into (according to this or other lists)?
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She's probably a Gen xer -
I'm a genXer
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See psychic.
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I didn't want to presume. My father is a Silent Generationer also. My mom is an early Boomer, but she's not very boomer-like herself. I think most of my peers growing up had mid Baby-boom parents.
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It's funny because I was thinking about this yesterday. Both my husband and I have what others deem "very strange" opinions and tastes. They just don't get us, I guess. We are very traditional in a lot of ways, very "old" for our age.
Unlike our peers we do not outsource anything to the best of our ability. Both of us prefer the hard work that nets us immediate outcomes rather than marginal work that gives us money to purchase or outsource our needs. I'd rather grow our food than buy it, I'd rather fix our own cars or build our own bikes than buy them brand new.
I hate new cars, new bikes, new houses, and most new music. I don't like new clothes, new styles, or new "hotspots". WHen I got my hands on my painting and pinstriping supplies, I chose the oldest (original) style materials they had. I figured if it was good enough for them way back when, it's good enough now. And the fact remains that I have more trouble with the newfangled styles and materials than I do with the traditional ones.
I guess we're just weird -
no, older things were built around utility (in the economic and socialogical sense of the word), whereas modern implements are often disposable feeling... perhaps reflecting their built in planned obsolescence. We live in a Wal-World now, which discard classical notions of utility and resource management, and substitute a sort of Yang energy, which is "productive" but also destructive.
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Yeah! Exactly! But according to our peers, that's "weird"
Are you a genxer too? Maybe they've got the labels all wrong. -
I feel that i am in a wrong time and place. well it's obvious. should have been born in the time of Alexander.
On the toher hand technology fascinates me so there is that contradiction. sigh. should have been born in 2578 -
i was born in '78
I was saying to someone else, below. i think there is a duality. probably the case in every generation, but maybe the split is more pronounced among genX.
My brother was born in '76. he's more of the market fundementalist brand of libertarian, and more globalist... and he's into 'free love.' Go figure
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Probably yes, at least I really identify with the whole change in the world - factor and all the advances in technology. But I agree with Anok, that's a solid question! -
I was born right at the very end of X, so I am not sure where I fit generationally really ?(1981).
It is not a term I actually hear much over here in the UK, unless I have missed those discussions totally. So I went a read some of the stuff in the links provided.
Techincally as stated "The study revealed a generation of teenagers who "sleep together before they are married, don't believe in God, dislike the Queen, and don't respect parents,"
Some of that is applicable to me, but not all and I would have to read up a lot more to make a sensible comment.-
culture and of course individual particulars are going to blur generational distinctions somewhat
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I heard a lot about Generation X generation do nothing. I hate the label. I did community service so I don't think I fit the labels. No, I don't identify with it.
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I don't think Gen X has that bad of a reputation. They tend to be "overeducated" for their career level, but that is more a matter of opportunity than will.
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You weren't around for the commercials then. You're a yungun.
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what commercials? Who were they trying to appeal to?
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I don't remember what they were for maybe Pepsi? I think they trying to get you to buy a product to do something.
This was a notion that was popular though. www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/02/09/so_ma...
As you can see in this article Gen X is refered to as "slacker." -
Oh! What a great article!
I can't help but wonder if "genx" is an unfair label because there does seem to be two distinct sides of it. The side I have always been exposed to was those influenced by Reagan and the capitalist boom of the 80's. The mad dash for cash, the expensive sweaters, the sleepy bedroom communities, with two cars two kids, and two working parents. Suburbia hell as it were. All of my peers pushed off marriage and family in lieu of a lucrative career, and immediately purchased houses, condos, and SUVs.
Although there was the discontented genx crowd - the Punks and skins and social misfits. Although that fringe element has and will always be around. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that the beginning o fthe Genx generation is very different from the end part. The Reagonites are different from the apathetic grunge crowd. -
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X "In the U.S. Generation X was originally referred to as the "baby bust" generation because of the drop in the birth rate following the baby boom."
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that's what I think of too, the would-be overacheivers... if they weren't sapping their own success with conspicuous consumption. I think of Gen X typically being like a more driven version of the baby boomers. But I know of some that fall on the other side as well. maybe that's the X factor... the unknown quantity.
As far as the description "Liberal Arts Types," that would describe our nations Founding Fathers to a T
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I'm Gen X and while, like Shirley, I don't agree with the idea of laziness of our folks, I do have the cynicism, and I did graduate in a time when jobs were very scarce. We didn't start off with a lot of open opportunities to choose from.
That said, I got out of college and worked extremely long hours at a job I didn't care for to support myself and make it on my own.-
Yes Gen Xers tend to be more willing to marginalize their labors. partially to adapt, partially because of societal conditioning
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No. I never took part in any of the movements of the 60s. I've never been interested in politics or drugs or communal living or changing the world or any of that stuff. I've always been a loner with my own private pleasures and interests, which seem to change continually from week to week. By the time I was eight, I pretty much knew what mattered to me-personal freedom and happiness. And to me that meant as little involvement or interaction with the world as possible.-
mmy parents were convinced that communism was going to take over the world. they were members of the John Birch Society during the 60's and 70's
and no I kid not
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society#Values -
My roommate-and later best friend in college-was a John Bircher. He used to read me passages out of their pamphlets all the time. Extremely anti-semitic-Jewish banker conspiracies and all that stuff.
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I remember we saw one of their films one time, about the subversive nature of the Civil Rights movement
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Well, I went to grad school in Arizona in the mid-70's and was surrounded by right-wing rhetoric everywhere. Everything was part of a Communist conspiracy to destroy American Christian values, from growing your hair long to smoking pot.
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Generation WHY!
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Wait psychic channeling... Gen X too?
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I think spamming is predominately a Gen X reaction to being beaten with the doctrine of "wealth creation"
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*snicker*
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Spamming is the opiate of the nouveau poor.
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I thought that opiate was training-supplies-selling pyramid schemes
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Same purpose, slightly different drug.
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I'm generation sexy rrrrrrrrrrr.-
Donkeh!!!!!!! WHere ya been?
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Well because the weather has been nice I have resumed my hobby of exposing myself to pensioners in the local park.
The local paper is calling me the Lavender pimpernel:
He shows it here,
He shows it there,
That damn lavender pimpernel shows it everywhere! -
sexy rrrrrrrrrr...than what?
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Hobbies are good....I guess....
Today is nice here, as well. I am waiting just a bit longer to make sure a freak storm isn't going to hit us, and then it's back to work for me. -
exposure to air and sunlight keeps the skin healthy... you could get a doctors note for it.
don't know where you'd keep it on your person though... o_0
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Ill answer this question later.-
I relate pretty well.
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white noise -
right, but, our heritage also play important role -
Sure, I identify with the baby boomer generation.-
Strauss and Howe describe the Boom generation as "Prophet (Idealist)." Do you think that is accurate
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How can you sum up a whole generation in two words? Pretty ridiculous, as the term Baby Boomer and all such epithets are.
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you're all the same--a single organism
hehe
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I'm late to the party I see. Not typical of an early boomer for sure. Never have worn a watch, but I'm usually early out of anxiety that I might miss something. Think I was born 20 or so years too early. I ran away from home in 1960 at 17 planning to get a job and an apartment and be near my fiancee 3 states over, and get to really know him and what life was like. But, he said "Im not that kind of guy..." and I had to marry him or go home to mama. I chose the former. Unfortunately that ended my dreams of being a commercial pilot, maybe even a "rocket-girl" (astronauts were unnamed at that time) and forced me to learn about Windex and Pablum. I got a later chance at freedom just in time for free-love and pot to make a late appearance in our backward community, Hoo ha! But I was too busy with 2 children to put many flowers in my hair. Still I wear a dashiki at this very moment, even as I await the arrival of my youngest grandchild (of six). No, I can't put a label on myself. I am a child of the universe....etc. and I love computers!-
I always wanted to be a rocket girl too.
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That's a tough question. I think the pack starts off fairly close together, then begins to separate over the years. Separation is based on income, familial status, political outlook, etc. These markers seem to overtake generation-adherence over time. I'm a Gen X'r born in the 60's. I don't really think about my generation per se, but I guess we all watched the world go from pinball to Pacman to blackberry. . .and, well, some were more enthusiastic about it than others.-
Generational tendencies are just that--tendencies. As descussed above, GenX has two very divergent tendencies (consumer-workaholics, and "slackers") perhaps the general tendecy is toward X-tremes...
...or this generational stuff could be all bunk -
"All bunk" gets my vote.
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I would say mostly bunk. People are the product of their enivironment to a point, and a product of their own will the rest.
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I don't think general tendency is toward extremes. I think the tendency is toward similarities in markers such as: income, familial status, political outlook (etc). Generational cohesion, in my opinion, is secondary. Is it bunk? Not necessarily. There's definitely a glue present--it's just a weak force.
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I'm slightly involved in market/marketing research. There does seem to be differences in generations. That said, no one is predetermined by their generation to be anything. The generational tendancies are a description of the think part of a generations bell curve, not a cause of anyone's behavior or personality.
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I think these things you call generational tendencies don't really exist-they're media hype. They sell newspapers and magazines in their time-and so-called scholarly studies twenty years later.
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In the wise words of Utah Phillips (in response to generational groupings), "The past didn't go anywhere".
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Well i agree that these are all media stuff. tell that to people growing up in secluded villages and there is not much generation gap. young and old seemed to like the same music andd believe in the same principles. i think it's technology that alienates us but ironically the same thing that binds us together.
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