To begin with, I don’t like the OP’s definitional dates for Gen-X. But the Rolling Stone quote is (to me, at least) terrible writing. They say 1965 being the beginning is “horseshit” and their support is a list of people. Is the Rolling Stone writer listing people who are obviously Gen-Xers? They should say why that list makes it horseshit. For the record, I do think of those people as Gen-Xers but it isn’t an obvious thing.
I had a class where we studied a bit of Strauss & Howe’s generational concepts and it was pretty cool; I got the same kind of feeling as when Europeans described the process of promotion/relegation in soccer or when I learned about Ley Lines. In the end, though it has problems.
Nonetheless, the founding structure of the generational theory includes that the generations are different, that the Baby Boom (generation) started ~ 9 months after the end of WWII, and human generations are 18 years long unless a massive disruptive event (in a demographic sense, so don’t talk about the invention of the interwebs) starts a generation earlier than expected. Part of their research showed that the generations used to be longer and that maybe with the cycle increasing, generations will be shorter. But a 15 year generation is too short.
So, the Baby Boom starts close enough to Jan 1, 1946 and encompasses all the years through 1963, inclusively. Gen X should start at the beginning of 1964 and encompass all the years through 1981, inclusively. Millennials should start at the beginning of 1982 and encompass all the years through 1999, inclusively. Gen Z should start at the beginning of 2000 and encompass all the years through 2017, inclusively.
At this point, what is Billy Idol known for? These days one would think he was trying to cosplay as Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, instead of the other way around.
In my casual observance, these generations are probably too long by about half. There’s a massive cultural difference between a person born in 1946 and one born in 1964. The latter could be the child of the former. The world, at least in the US, transformed dramatically in the interim. For the former’s coming of age it was Woodstock, for the latter it was the consumerism of the Reagan era. Same holds for Gex-X and Millennials. Someone born in 1980 and someone born in 1997 are not going to align on much.
I think it’d be much more useful for most people to use those transitional generations like Xennials to define cohorts.
I think that the 18 year window (which actually seems to reduce as time goes on) might have originally been based on how long it takes for humans to grow up and really start the next generation (using generation in the parents -> kids sense, not the one we are mostly talking about here.)
Your logic about being too long makes some sense, but every time you describe spreads of time and people have a thought like yours, there is a ‘cusping’ motivation to describe a shorter time frame. If the generations were nine years, people would say that someone in year one is closer to someone in year 0 than to someone in year 9, etc.
Strauss and Howe expanded their theory, though, in a way that means the shorter generations wouldn’t make sense. Their theory says that Generation #1 is followed by Gen #2 which is followed by Gen #3 which is followed by Gen #4 (duh.) In the theory, Gen #1 will have a type of character (based on global events of the era, etc.), Gen #2 will have a different character, Gen #3 yet a 3rd character, and Gen #4 even another type of character. They call each of these periods of time ‘Turnings’ and they group four such Turnings into a bigger grouping called a 'Saeculum 'which was thought to mirror the length of a human life.
The interesting part is that they say Saeculum #2 will follow Saeculum #1(again duh) and that the internal pattern of Turnings will be the same in Saeculum #2 as it was in Saeculum #1.
The four Turnings are
High - comes after a big crisis, the country exhibits strong social institutions and weaker individualism (think post WWII)
Awakening - follows High and people start attacking the stronger institutions and they want more individuality and spirituality (think late 60s into the 70s counterculture)
Unraveling - follows awakening, the country exhibits weak institutions after the attacks of the Awakening and has stronger individualism (think of Reaganomics and the 1994 Republican Revolution)
Crisis - comes after an Unraveling and before the next High. In response to some crisis and combined with the weak institutions, the old institutions are rebuilt in a new manner (think WWII)
To go along with the four turnings, they felt that there are four generalized Archetypes of people that form based on when they were born+. People born under one turning come to adulthood under another, reach peak power under another etc. They often act in reaction to the situation and the ‘mistakes’ of their parents.
The four Archetypes are
Prophet - childhood in a High. They grow up indulged after a crisis and they idealistically crusade which creates the Awakening. (example = Baby Boomers)
Nomad - childhood in an Awakening. The grow up under-protected and ignored, surrounded by people attacking the institutions and trying to be spiritual. They become pragmatic (example = Gen X)
Hero - childhood in an Unraveling. Parents seem to have seen the under-parented previous generation and go towards protection again. They are more team-oriented than Prophets, though, and they (like Prophets) will become political leaders. (example should be Millennials but it is early to say. Another example is the Greatest Generation who were born in the 19teens and fought WWII.)
Artist - childhood in a Crisis. The dangers of the crisis engender a character of public consensus and sacrifice. (example should be Gen Z but it is way too early to say. Another example is the Silent generation born in the Great Depression and WWII)
I feel that the term “Baby Boomers” is older than the Strauss and Howe theory and that its existence helped inspire their ideas that a pattern would exist. Since creating it, they have applied it backwards in time through Western/English/American history to the 1400s, defining the generations, naming them, and showing how they might fit in the Turnings, Saecula, and Archetypes. Also, their definitions of generations show that they used to be longer and that they are shortening.
It’s an interesting narrative and being that it was modeled after the last 80 or so years, it obviously fits in broad terms, but I’d be curious of these Archetypes actually hold up over history. They say that played it back over centuries, but there’s a high risk of confirmation bias in such a study.
I will say the titles assigned to the archetypes don’t seem to fit with the descriptions…
As a Gen X-er I will say Kevin Smith’s first few movies were really popular among my generation .back in the 90s. That been said I wouldn’t say that qualifies him as the most influential Gen X-er though.(I would say John Hughes’ 80s movies would probably resonate a lot more with Smith’s among Gen X-ers but Hughes himself was a Boomer.
I am not sure who would qualify as the most influential X-er. Kurt Cobain? “Stone Cold” Steve Austin? I don’t know.
As someone that just barely made it in before the gen-x cutoff, I know John Hughes was really popular when I was younger. But, at least for me, I’d put either the Coen Brothers, David Fincher or Quentin Tarentino above John Hughes. Especially Fincher when it comes to being influential. But I think they’re all boomers as well.
Kevin Smith made exactly two decent movies (Clerks and Chasing Amy) and one dumb-fun movie to define his generation (Mallrats). I was a huge fan in that era. I couldn’t get enough of his stuff.
The rest of his output isn’t even worth a first look, forget a second.
I will expand on Kurt Cobain. Even when he was alive the media was touting him as the “voice” of his generation. He always hated that and the pressure from it contributed to his depression and eventually suicide. And frankly I always though he was overrated with people waxing nostalgic about him because he died fairly young like older generations did with Ritchie Valens, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison respectively. I will admit Cobain had an influence on Grunge music and making it popular but I don’t see him having much influence beyond that.
I gotta go with Elon Musk; he’s our century’s Edison or Telsa. His primary goal is averting the extinction of the human race. I’m both amused and concerned “Skynet” is one of his biggest fears…mostly concerned he might be correct.
He’s more likely to be the one to create Skynet than avert it. And his ideas about “averting extinction” are primarily focused on “saving the super-wealthy.”
You said “interesting narrative” and “modeled after the last 80 or so years” putting those together is a big part of why, earlier, I said
It seems so cool but is it really a thing? For the soccer example, when I first started to meet a lot of non-Americans (all of whom loved soccer) they told me about relegation/promotion in their home leagues. They preferred it to the American minor league systems. During their advocacy, they always had an easy time, at first, getting Americans to like their idea by describing R/P and hinting that the New York Yankees could get relegated to a lower league. Usually, some American would bring that up and they would nod ’ Yeah, that could happen.’ It seemed so exciting. But if you study it closer you realize that Manchester City, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, PSG, etc. (and that means the Yankees) are never actually going to relegate. They are too good and if it they got close to relegation during a down year, they have the monetary resources to buy their way into non-relegation.
Ley Lines were such a cool idea when I was ten, an idea I could port into Role Playing Games. And the coincidences were common enough that it seemed plausible. But, an hour later I realized that the Ley Lines are either a function of so many human Sites (for long Ley Lines) or a function of smart city layout systems for others. The National Mall in Washington DC ostensibly displays a big, powerful Ley Line passing through The Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Capitol. Then you realize that such layout was intentional; not for the Ley Line power but for aesthetics, cheaper building, and sight lines.
By the way, Strauss & Howe get a lot of criticism about their theories from their academic peers. The cooler part of their theory that might be something is that the pattern repeats, not that they can name Turnings or Archetypes just to fit their model.
I do think that the Archetype names line up, though.
Prophets - these people crusade for a new system
Nomads - are ignored and have to make their own way
Heros - have a chiildhood in an Unraveling but, crucially, they are young adults during the following Crisis and they are the ones who have to do the most work to deal with it.
Artists - okay, I don’t have a lot for this one but it is probably a case of them fitting the name to the famous people of the various cohorts that populate these times.
Here is the table that displays the timings of Generations, Turnings, and, Archetypes.
I note that - differently from my old thoughts - they slightly divorce the timing of Archetypes from the Turnings at that moment. Thus, they say that the Baby Boom started (and ended) earlier than I said: 1943 through 1960, inclusively. This means that to S&H, the first Boomers were born under the 4th turning Crisis of WWII while the rest were born under the 1st Turning High that they call the American High.
I find this amusing as they defined the Baby Boom in conflict with its known (and probably pre-existing) definition of starting due to the end of WWII. The only reason I can come with for this is that they might want most of the stars of the Boomer’s music scene to be considered to be Boomers rather than Silent Generationers. If the Baby Boom started at the beginning of 1946 (about nine months after V-E day) then the Beatles, Bob Dylan, most of the Rolling Stones, most of Pink Floyd, most of The Who, etc., are members of the Silent Generation. If you move it back to 1943, many (but not all) of those become Boomers.
His ideas about averting extinction have nothing to do with fairness; it’s simply about protecting the human race against the most likely causes of extinction. If it’s only possible to save the rich that’s unfortunate but better than everyone dying.
I took your Skynet response as being flippant but he is very serious. He’s been warning people that AI intelligence is increasing too fast. The primary purpose of his Neuralink project isn’t to help paralyzed people move again; that’s a happy side effect. It’s to enable humans to think as fast as computers:
It’s so convenient that it’s “only possible to save the rich” and he happens to be one of them. Frankly, if that’s the only option, he’s proven that the human race isn’t worth saving.