I’ve heard a ton of different definitions. Most definitions seem to put Millennials around 1980 to 1995 and some extend it to 2000 or 2001, but I’ve also heard 1985-2004 and even 1977-1989.
I was born at the start of 1990 and personally I’d be inclined to include most if not all 80s and 90s births as part of my generation. I’d say 1980-1999 is basically reasonable, though perhaps you could shed off or possibly even add a year or two on either or each side.
I’m not exactly sure what our generation all has in common vs Gen X or Gen Z, but my guess would be that our focal point of youth basically covered the rise of the Internet and cell phones, rap alternative and pop music, the rise of the culture wars and kid-centric/politically correct/mass media society and the globalization of the economy and our jobs. By the time this really all started kicking off, circa late 80s-1996 or so depending on what you’re talking about in particular, Gen X was mostly grown up or at least in their teens, and Gen Z hadn’t even been born yet.
I also think a young adult born in the late 80s or early 90s is just barely old enough to appreciate how globalized and hyperconnected the media around the world is now vs just a few or ten or twenty years ago. Even in the early 2000s fads and information traveled slow compared to today. There’s no way Gangnam Style could have become such a big global hit in the 90s or even 2004. The Macarena took four years to reach the United States via cruise ships while Gangnam Style blew up in a couple weeks and disappeared nearly as fast.
Someone born in 2002 would basically take what we have now as second nature and a Gen Xer would have firsthand knowledge of an age that was truly old school in its technological ways, ie prior to about 1985.
Generations are not real, objectively existing things with real boundaries or lengths. Babies are being born all the time. They don’t come in waves. “Generations” begin and end (and can be named) however you want them to in order to serve your polemical purposes of the moment. Just don’t be surprised when the dates and labels that happen to suit your purpose of the moment fail to be the same as those being promulgated (or even recognized) by someone else with different polemical purposes (or even you at a different time in your life).
tl;dr: All “generational” talk that isn’t at least half tongue-in-cheek is bullshit.
I would have a hard time grouping someone who has clear memories of the pre-internet world with someone who doesn’t. So I’m guessing the cut-off based on this simple criterion would be 1988 or thereabouts.
“Generation Y” is supposed to pick up where the Xer’s left off at 1978 or so. If the Millennials are supposed to be the internet generation and Gen X’ers have the “children of the 70s and 80s” legacy, the Gen Y’ers “own” the 90s. But I imagine in the future, Gen. Y will be treated like Generation Jones–which followed the Boomers and preceded the X’ers. It won’t be talked about much because it isn’t represented by anything significant or associated with any stereotypes.
I’ve heard 1978-2000. Some people have said 1982-2000 in keeping with 18 year long stretches (1946-64=boomers, 64-82=generation X, 82=2000=millennials), but the argument was made that those born 1978-1981 are more in line ideologically and how they approach the world with millennials than with generation X rather than just having 18 year gaps starting at 1982.
Millennials came of age during a time of corporate abuse, weak government, the failure of the economic contract (work hard and you will be rewarded) and a wide berth of problems (pollution, resource depletion, plutocracy/oligarchy, terrorism, economic crisis, lack of decent jobs, etc) were all present. Supposedly their approach to the world reflects this.
The Strauss-Howe generational theory is worth looking into. They claim every 4th generation comes of age during a time of crisis and finds solutions for the crisis. They claim the millennials are that current generation. They wrote the book before 9/11 and before the economic crisis, but they said that terrorism or an economic collapse could be the problems that are faced by the 4th generation.
I’m surprised to hear that someone born in 1998, with parents who were of a generation using the internet already, would be the same generation as someone born in 1977 or even 1985. I thought millennials was 1995-2005.
No, Millennials are what was used to be called Gen Y (back in the 90s, when I was a child/teen). And yes, I venture to say that I, as someone born in the early 80s, have much more in common with my cousin, ten years younger and definitely a Millennial, than with my siblings, born in the early 70s and classical Gen Xers.
Someone mentioned it in another similar thread about generations, but one thing Millennials do have in common is that they were still kids when internet became popular or started to become popular. I remember getting internet in the 90s, but I was underage. My parents grew up without it, my siblings finished their own schooling without internet, but I had it to finish high school and college and beyond. And that IS different.
I also think people confuse Millennials. When news mention how selfish are the Millenials and how they return back home and they’re having student loan problems and employment problems, they’re not talking about snotty high schoolers, they’re talking about adults, young adults, in their 20s and early 30s now. Meaning they were born in the 80s. Yet the image that comes to some people are the current crop of high schoolers, which is a different generation altogether.
I was born in 1983. My dad couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that I completed a four year college degree and never once checked out a physical book from the library.
To make it simple, I generally peg it (since the terminology seems to have changed as noted earlier) from 1980 to 2000. An early millennial like me (born 1982) is able to remember the time before the explosion of the Internet as distinct from the days of BBSes (whether locally-hosted or companies like AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe.) They may or may not have been online until the late 90s depending on their family. For instance, we had a 286 with a modem when I was four or five (so say 1987) and for a while subscriptions to both CompuServe and Prodigy (but never AOL) before the Internet as we know it today.
The only other option I see is to really shrink the generation due to the effects of technology. That might be a good way to discuss it, but then again that’s always been true. Just look at how angry a late Boomer (say 1963) can get when being compared to an early Boomer (say 1948).
Yes, as an early Millennial, I didn’t get internet until the late 90s, but I knew about it before that, and I grew up with drastically more electronics than my siblings. Video games, color and cable TV, CDs, walkmans, pagers and cell phones are some things that may be seen a bit outdated now, but are still more similar to the current modern version than to what my siblings back in the 70s had.
Raised by helicopter parents, coddled and over-protected, rewarded for mediocrity at every turn, behavior without meaningful consequences. It’s not surprising that some end up as you have described.
Not necessarily. People born around the same timeframe tend to have a shared sense of history, experiences and cultural references. This tends to color their perceptions and world outlook. It’s not a hard and fast division, but generally people of my generation (Gen-X) born around the 60s and 70s all tend to share memories of the following experiences:
The Cold War.
The Challenger shuttle explosion.
Prior to 9/11, not having experienced any sustained military conflicts.
No such thing as the Internet or cell phones smaller than a football before 1995
Going to high school with the classic John Hughes film subcultures - jocks, preppies, metalhead stoners, nerds, goths/skater kids.
Computers becoming a “thing” in the 90s, culminating with the .com crash in 2001.
Beyond relevance to marketers and branding experts, it’s important to understand the mindset of different “generations”, particularly when they have to interact with each other in the workplace.
And early 90s, I’d say. I don’t think someone born in 1990 or 1991 is in the same category as a 13 year old born in 2000. Most people my age are done with college and some even have kids and stuff. Most of my friends were born in the late 80s and I don’t feel like they’re a different generation at all. Then again I was born two weeks after 1989 ended.
I think this is largely a stereotype. I was punished physically (wouldn’t do it to my own kids!) and was not materially spoiled, and I was also allowed to roam around the neighborhood and walk to school by myself as young as six years old.
As a 24 year old adult my mom almost never talks to me on the phone or asks what I am up to. However I do relate to constantly being told I was “special”, however this is largely because I was considered quite a “whiz kid” when I was younger.
Millennials are also part of the “echoboom” a baby boomlet that happened when lots of career-minded boomers had children at a later age. Xers are the children of the minority of boomers who had kids at younger ages – the mid-late 70s were a “baby bust” – a very low birthrate period.
Like their parents, Millennials are a numerically large cohort, which Xers never were.
My mid-sized Wisconsin hometown had a number of closed school buildings during my school years (born in '74), a couple of elementary schools and a junior high building, all built to handle the tail-end of the baby boom generation. The junior high closed just before my sister (born in '68) would have gone there. Not too long after I went to college those buildings had to be reopened and the single high school expanded to handle the Millennials.
A lot of Millennials are the offspring of Generation Jones’s–those peope who were born after 1948 but before 1968. Folks like my aunt, who is 17 years younger than my Boomer mother. Her daughter–my first cousin–is a typical Millennial. Almost all my other first cousins are Gen X and older.
For individuals born on the edges of any generation, I think it makes sense to categorize them on a case-by-case basis. I was born in 1977, the tail end of Gen X. I feel like I got the typical Gen X upbringing because of my older siblings’ influence. But if it hadn’t been for them, I might not have been so much into 80s pop culture. I might feel more like a Millenial, since I came of age in the 90s. If I had been the oldest in my family rather than the youngest, I’d really feel misplaced among the Xers. Your siblings have a big influence, I think.
True. I was referring to the older Millennials, which people forget about.
Chefguy, I respectfully disagree (as a Millennial whose student loan debt is four times or more her current salary in a STEM career, with three degrees and a board specialty). And actually, a lot of the Millennials, particularly older, were likely still being raised with spanking (I was, and so was most of my cohort), and NOT by helicopter parents. If anything, the stereotype of helicopter parents is more common now, the parents of the next (or next next) generation. Some of whom may very well be Millennials themselves.
monstro, yea well… My siblings, all they did was reinforce that I wasn’t in their generation. And I’m OK and happy with that. Perhaps if they were closer in age, they may have been more influential.
Based on release dates, relative ages of the main characters and the general tones of the film, IMHO the following films reasonably represent the Gen X experience (or fantastic version thereof in some cases), from high school through mid 40s:
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Breakfast Club (or any John Hughes film)
Reality Bites
Singles
Swingers
Office Space
Fight Club
Old School
Hall Pass
This is 40
Hot Tub Time Machine
Grown Ups
Applying the same criteria, these films represent the Millennial experience (also fantastical in some instances) from high school through the early 30s (also IMHO):
American Pie
Superbad
American Wedding
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
Scott Pilgrim v The World
Knocked Up
Garden State
(500) Days of Summer
American Reunion
Neighbors
I was referring to the older Millennials, which people forget about.