You’re an XYer, most likely. For a while, the Generations theory included mini transitional generations when your birth fell on the border. As someone born in 1981, I’ve always felt that my personality was strongly influenced by both X (music, movies) and Y (technology) so I’ve always felt like I was neither or both.
You’re probably the same way.
I was thinking about this, and I actually have less in common with my ca. 1965 cousin than I do with my brother, despite the fact that we all went to the same high school and college- he was firmly a child of the 70s and 80s, while my brother and I are 80s/90s boys, and ended up with more common ground (and with each other’s friends as well) than we do with my cousin or his friends.
Another way to think about which generation one belongs to is to look when one’s parents first entered the foray of child-rearing.
If I had been my parents only child, born in 1977, I probably wouldn’t have had the typical generation X experience. I’m already at the tail-end of the generation, but having older siblings means I was sucked into even more of the 80s DayGlo than I would have been otherwise. Parenting styles also don’t change that much from one cohort of siblings to another. Even though my parents, like many Boomer parents, were doing financially better once I came up in the 80s versus when my older siblings did in the 70s, it’s not like my childhood was appreciably more enriched or “spoiled” than theirs was. The templates had already been laid down. However, if I had been the only child, my parents wouldn’t have had been primed by the lean times of 70s child-rearing. I would have been raised more like the kids born in the 80s were, probably.
Good points.
Another thing to consider is culture. One of the main reasons that people want to pigeonhole people into generational cohorts is to stereotype. E.g. if you were born in 1983 but you spent most of your time hanging out with your older siblings born in the early 1970s and ended up picking up most of your pop culture from them, you could have a good argument for “being” Generation X. Likewise, if you were born in 1978 but you were a social and cultural nobody until 1993 when you started getting into the stuff your little sister (born in 1986) was into, then you can make an argument that you are part of her generation. It’s not like there is a surly clerk at the DMV who has a big chart of birthday cutoff dates.
I disagree. Strauss and Howe’s generations from their book *Generations *are pretty widely accepted. They’re the guys who invented “Millennial” as a generation name:
1883–1900 Lost
1901–1924 G.I.
1925–1942 Silent
1943–1960 Baby Boom
1961–1981 X
1982–2004 Millennial
2005–present Homeland
I was born in 1964 and I’ve never met anyone born in the early 60’s who identified as a Baby Boomer. A lot of Boomer identity was formed by the events of 1963-1974 – assassinations, protests, Viet Nam, Watergate – during that same time period people my age were mostly interested in dolls and Lego.
The Baby Boom as a demographic phenomenon was definitely 1946-64. But I would have to agree with you that people born across that interval don’t really share a common culture. My wife and I were born in 1954 and 1964, respectively, so I turned 14 in 1968, and she turned 14 in 1978 - totally different worlds.
1968 was the height of the Vietnam war, Clean for Gene, MLK and RFK getting shot, the Chicago convention, and all that. The Summer of Love had been the year before; Woodstock would be the year after.
1978, by comparison, was the height of the disco era. The Panama Canal treaty was negotiated, and the next year, our embassy in Iran would be stormed, and 52 Americans would be taken hostage.
Totally different worlds.
ETA: Looks like Hamster King touched on this as well.
I agree with this except I would change:
1982-1995 Y/Millennial
1995-Present Homeland/Whatever
I think the dividing line between X and Y is: Do you remember a time before the internet?
The dividing line between Y and Millennial: Do you remember a time before 9/11?
I disagree about the Internet dividing X and Y if you’re going to use 1982 as the starting year for Y. Most people started getting connected around 1996, so surely a 14 year old at the time would have plenty of experiences pre-Internet.
Some cultural markers to divide X and Y, IMHO:
[ul]
[li]Collapse of the Soviet Union[/li][li]Fall of the Berlin Wall[/li][li]The first Gulf War[/li][li]The Challenger disaster[/li][li]Reagan as President and Thatcher as Prime Minister (and Hawke in Australia)[/li][li]Live Aid[/li][/ul]
If you remember most of those, you’re in GenX territory.
More relevant to children of the era:
[ul]
[li]Rise of the NES/Sega Master System[/li][li]Rise of the VCR[/li][li]Seeing the original Star Wars trilogy, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future or E.T. at the theatre[/li][/ul]
Someone born in '82 will have no conscious memory of these things.
I do think 9/11 is another big marker that will divide generations, but so will the iPhone era, which really has transformed society in a very fundamental way.
It’s sort of like the meaning of “millennium”. The millennium started 1/1/2001. But other millenniums are starting all the time. One just started as I typed this.
It depends on the reason for the reference. People who like round numbers, for example, noted the beginning of a millennium on 1/1/2000.
It seems absurd to assign people to two different generations, in the context of something like the OP, if they were born two years apart. E.g., 1980 and 1982. I don’t see how named generations comes into play here.
So age gap should play a role here.
Traditionally, a generation is considered from 30-33 years. So 11 years apart puts them well inside the same side of a generation spacing.
Also consider if two people 11 years apart were dating. No one would say: “Dude, isn’t it like dating your mother?”
I vote “Same”.
Good point.
I think video games have not had a fundamental change for many years. Games today are flashier and more realistic, but they are not of a different nature from the games of the 1990’s or even the 1980’s. First person shooters go all the way back to Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. Multiplayer video gaming has been around since the 1970’s when friends could gather around an Atari 2600. Gaming with random people across the Internet came into its own in the 1990’s, but there were network games before that, such as Netrek (arguably very interesting because Netrek is still popular today, 25 years later). MMORPG’s existed as text-based MUD’s and then later picked up graphics.
The problem with the “Homeland” designation is it’s really US-centric. I don’t think it’s a concept that resonates well elsewhere in the English-speaking world, at least as far as defining a social generation.
Ditto the “GI” designation. Having said that, I’ve never heard anyone here apply a “Generation” label to anyone born before World War II, except perhaps “Retirees” or “Pensioners”.
I agree with this.
Strauss and Howe’s work is very US-centric. They don’t pretend that there’s some sort of global generational clock ticking along in synch. The generations they identify are very closely tied to the particular life experiences of Americans.
I’d be interested to see if there’s anyone doing similar work in the UK or Australia, in that case. It might make an interesting comparison.
Here’s the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ take on the matter: 4914.0.55.001 - Age Matters, May 2009
Thanks for finding that link, Lobot - fascinating reading!
I agree with most of it except Generation X being considered to start in 1965. There’s no way someone who was old enough to remember the end of the Vietnam War when it was news (as in, on TV/Radio/in the paper as it happened) is in the same social generation as me (early 1980s). They would have been finishing High School when I was born.
I’d agree with all of those.
I’m that age have very clear memories of the rise of the Sega Master System and the rise of the VCR, but I grew up in New Zealand, which was a few years behind everyone else when it came to that sort of thing, to be fair.
I was born in 83, and I barely remember the collapse of the USSR, the Berlin Wall, and the first Gulf War. The later because one of my second grade teachers was called with the possibility of being deployed, but thankfully she was not (and we had a substitute for a few weeks).
I do remember the rise of NES/Sega, as my aunt and cousins had one of the first Segas, and I had a SNES and Gameboy (that I shared with my mom). I think that is something that approaches me to younger Millenials, like my cousin (93 model) and separates me from my siblings and older cousins (70s models).
In terms of technologies, even the older Millenials like me were underage by the time they started to beome popular. I grew up with Gameboys and SNES, and later computer games. They finished my late childhood/teenage pop culture education, they shaped me a bit in those years (and I’m kickass at original Tetris). My younger cousin had a Gameboy as well since he was young, just a later generation, but same basic idea. While for the Gen X and others, they were already over 18 by the time those things became popular. Heck, I joined this board around my 18th birthday, but I had lurked it for a couple of years before.
I also place Gen X as the group that loves the horrible horrible 80s pop culture, while Gen Y refers to the (less horrible) 90s/early 00s culture, at least for the older millenials like me. 
So I dislike to be dumped as a Gen X. I’m Millenial/Gen Y, just the wiser part. 
Me too :nodding: I think “they” label us as Late Boomers, but no, we’re really not Boomers. We didn’t come of age protesting the Vietnam war or knowing what the Stones meant by not getting any “Satisfaction”. We saw it all, of course, maybe adopted some of the trends, but we didn’t understand it because we were too young at the time.
My godmother’s oldest daughter is/was the typical Boomer. She was in junior high when the Beatles hit the scene. She loved the British “mod” look and affected it when she reached high school. She drove a VW bug that had a huge flower-power sticker on the rear bumper (it was hot pink – I think that’s why I remember it). After college she went over to London and eventually married and started a family there.
My touchpoint to that era: I adored everyone on “Laugh In”, even if I didn’t get all the innuendoes.
I agree with Lobot, this is a dumb designation given “the internet” wasn’t commonplace until the mid-90s. No one thinks that Gen Y didn’t start until 1992.
Instead I’d go with “Do you remember a time before video games were common in people’s homes?” I was born in 1977, and I was around 6 when video games played on early PCs like the Vic20 or game systems like Atari became something common, not just a device you could play a single game on, like pong or arcade games. My brother, born in 1983 has no memories of a time before video game systems and PC games.
If you remember there only being 3 broadcast networks when you were a kid, you’re Gen X or older. If for you there’s never been a time Fox wasn’t around, you’re Gen Y or younger.
Obviously this wouldn’t work outside of America (and possibly border areas of Canada).
Fox started in 86, but since newborns don’t remember TV networks much, that would put it back a few years for the cutoff, maybe 83 give or take a bit.
GenX starting, I’d say you had to have Sesame Street as a kid to qualify. So… since that started 69… maybe take it back a few to 66 or so. You probably shouldn’t remember watching Star Trek in it’s original run if you’re GenX
GenY ending, if you don’t remember a time without internet, you’re not GenY. Since there’s no particular date with INTERNET NOW FOR REGULAR PEOPLE stamped on it, I’ll just say 95. No it wasn’t generally in home yet then, but again, newborns don’t really count.
That said, someone from the tail end of GenX is going to have much more in common with someone from the start of GenY than someone from the start of GenX, no matter when you set the dates.