As someone who was born in 1979, I must say I strongly disagree with this. I was raised thinking, hearing, believing, reading, and considering myself a "Generation X"er. IMO, anyone who was a kid not just born when I was, but also in the 80s and early 90s is. Have I been wrong all this time??
I PMed the poster who made these remarks and asked them about it, and they say they consider me a “Gen Y” person (which I always thought/considered to be another name for millennials, AKA anyone born from 2000 to about 2014).
“Gen Z”, to me, is still a fairly new phrase coming out only in the last twelve years or so…or at least rising to popularity in that time and I always took it to mean “people born, say, after 2015 or so”.
Have I been wrong with all of these??? I mean, I KNOW I certainly grew up being TOLD I was a generation Xer…we even had that wrestling stable in the WWE, that I loved. Degeneration X. Formed in 1997.
Was I taught wrong all long???
When were Generation Xers born in your opinion?
Yes, I looked up and at previous talks of these on here, but most seem to be from about 20 or more years ago.
I was born in 1974. To me, Gen Xers are kids born 1965-1980.
I’ve heard people born in 1978-1982 refer to themselves as “Cuspers” or “Xennials”, but that’s neither here nor there. In the words of my generation… whatever. The OP should feel free to fly the Gen-X banner.
I’m 1967, definitely Gen X. I think 1979 is Gen X as well.
But say mid-80s to 1999 are Millenials. Anyone 2000 to 2015ish is Gen Z, my kids, who were born between 2000 and 2006 consider themselves Gen Z. 2015 to now is Gen Alpha.
2000 is definitely after the Millennials. Millennials are the generation that was coming of age around 2000, not those born then.
The lines are fuzzy, of course, as they always are. I was born in 1977, and the first time I ever encountered the term “Millennials” was in an email from my sister (born 1974), listing a number of generational touchstones (which shows we watched after school, what music we listened to, what historical events we witnessed, etc.), and declaring that “We are not Generation X. We are Millennials.”.
Of course, now she goes around blaming everything wrong in the world on “those Millennials”.
The more usual term nowadays for Generation Z is “Zoomers”: It keeps the Z, of course, but also indicates a very important generational milestone, that those are the generation who went through part of their education via online videoconferencing. That’s a stronger common tie than most age cohorts have.
I’d thought I was the youngest of the GenX-er being born in 1977
I would definitely not describe myself as a millennial. I was 23 at the turn of the millennium, my “cultural upbringing” was complete by then. All the good cultural stuff (music, movies, etc.) happened in the 1990s, everything from the new millennium is new stuff for kids.
Hello fellow ‘79er. I think everyone above me has covered it. Generally, we’re considered the youngest of gen x but sometimes the oldest of the millennials. I’ve heard the microgeneration term xennial before as well because there are some unique aspects of being born around 79/80.
Another term coined is the “Oregon Trail Generation.” lol We generally made it through college before social media became such a thing but experienced it during young adulthood.
People born near the end of one generation or the beginning of another are sometimes referred to as cuspers (i.e. born on the cusp of two generations). They tend to have characteristics of both generations.
People born on the cusp of Generation X and Millenials are sometimes referred to as Xennials, with typical birth dates ranging from 1977 to 1983.
ETA: Whoops—maybe I should try reading the whole post before replying.
That is the original origin of the term. “Zoomer” dates back to 2016, and the word was added to Dictionary.com in January 2020, which are both pre-pandemic, of course. Cite.
This informal term for Generation Z likely got more traction after the pandemic due to this secondary connotation, though.
Personal anecdote from an early-to-mid-80s baby: c. 1998, while watching the opening college-graduation scene of Reality Bites during a school trip, one of my classmates quipped “That’ll be us in a few years!” At which point I immediately thought No, we will never be like those characters - they’re fundamentally different from us in some way I can’t quite put my finger on.
To me, my marker for Gen X is “the characters from the musical Rent”. Which cemented my self-identity as a Millennial, because there was no way I was going to identify with those selfish, entitled jerks.
The current “definition” of Gen X has the starting point at 1965, but that wasn’t the original meaning. The term was created in the 1991 book Generation X by Douglas Coupland, who was born in 1961. The characters in the book were all born in the early 1960s.
I have always thought of '65-'80 as defining Gen X, but it’s an inherently imprecise thing. So yeah, '79 is sort of on the cusp, but I’d say you qualify.
I thought the term was created by Billy Idol in 1976, but Wiki says it was actually first used as the title of a photo-essay about young adults in 1952. It was also the title of a 1964 book about British youth culture, which is likely where Idol heard of it. Coupland has been inconsistent about whether he got the phrase from Idol’s band’s name or not.
1965 to 1980, give or take a few years each way seems to be the consensus.
I think some of the key defining characteristics of Gen X is growing up and completing most of their education before social media but after having to worry about being sent to Vietnam.
It’s really up to each generation to find their own group of selfish, entitled jerks to identify with!
