:rolleyes:
I know what the X is all about , but what the heck are Y , Z and E , beside an attempt by marketing people to rape language yet again ?
Laziness.
People suddenly have to name generations (for some reason. Maybe it is because they stopped naming presidencies based on catch phrases). Baby Boomers, X (Lord knows why, exactly.), Y (because journalists are uncreative), and E (because of e-mail. How mundane). This isn’t helped that no one has any clue how long a “generation” is, specifically, and 50 million people are naming it at once, and each has a different idea.
I say shoot 'em all and let history sort 'em out. Baby Boomers will stick because it has obvious historical significance. I doubt the rest will. Except for maybe “The Pepsi Generation.” … Or maybe not. I have a hunch that the kids today will have a generation tag, from the Intraweb or whatever it is called. :-p
It reminds me of the '80s, which were, at the same time, the Space Age, the Computer Age, the Electronic Age, and a half dozen other Ages. I’ll just call it R-age-an and keep my life simple, and other’s lives as confusing as possible.
We had a thread about this once, but I can’t find it now. IIRC, Generation X was so named because it was the tenth generation in the USA (since the Revolutionary War?). This term was popularized by the media including Douglas Coupland’s novel of the same name. Generation Y is what the next generation is called by people who don’t understand the origin of X. I believe E is used to denote the generation which will grow up online, never knowing the world pre-Internet, which may have interesting sociological connotations.
I think these terms are used by real sociologists, but they probably have more precise terms too. Mostly these are just media hype.
Here’s the previous thread on Generation X. Specifically, see Wendell Wagner’s comments correcting me on where Coupland got the title for his book:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=96876
I was always told that the “Y” was, in fact, simply the pronounciation of “why”: generation Y, by that account, is the generation that, after the cynical generation X, started caring about the world again, and mistrusts authority in such a way that every decision e.g. the government made had to be explained, and effectively needs a reason “why”, before the generation will even consider respecting that decision. The fact that Y comes after X is just a poetic coincidence. At least, that’s what I’ve heard, and that’s still no excuse for “generation Z”.
I think I’m from some generation black hole between “X” and “Y”… sucky. But I am cynical, apathetic, AND mistrusting, so I guess it fits. I remember Lincoln Logs, records, plaid, Jethro Tull, Star Wars, and nuclear bomb drills… little baby ducks, old pickup trucks, and so on and so forth.
I think “generations” are just getting shorter as society changes faster and faster. Personally, I just draw the line at anyone who doesn’t vividly remember the Berlin Wall falling. If you do, you’re with my peeps. If not, you’re a youngster menace to society, damn kids these days, etc. I bet there will be a similar line drawn for the year 2000 and/or 9/11…
I do the same thing Zagadka, but I use the Gulf War as my yardstick.