I was born in 1982. I grew up loving brands like Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I think one of my generation's defining characteristics is the way consumerism has been encouraged from such a young age, and the way we are willing to embrace brands.
Which leads me to a defining moment. In the 1970s Hot Wheels (or was it GI Joe?) tried to create an animated series based on their brand. The government stepped in and said: "No way. You can't have a 30 minute commercial for your product and pretend that it's entertainment."
When Reagan was elected, they said: "Ah, forget it, make as many brand-based TV shows as you want." And thank god they did, because we got lots of awesome 80s entertainment.
I read somewhere recently that a writer had produced a screenplay aimed at teens. The studio's advice was to put more name brands in the script, but only the ones that the kids think are cool. The coolness factor is supposed to bleed over from the brands to the film.
I'm not sure if these trends are good or bad, but I think it does have a big influence on what my generation likes, and the type of work they do. How many of us became graphic designers, advertisers, and branding experts? How many of us are creating a brand for ourselves?
Earliest memories feel like an old Italian movie (spent 1980 there). I can clearly remember Oliver North, the cold war, and my family's first microwave and VCR. (I wasn't all that well off). In grade school we had three lessons from a "computer guy" and were able to spend an hour every week or so on Apple II's.
High School through the early nineties...we all still had big hair. Used a black and white Macintosh to write a program in Turing. For my class project, I had graphics of a missle blowing up a house if you got the question wrong, since I skipped ahead to the back of the book and read the appropriate section. I remember how scared people really were during desert shield. We thought it could be WWIII. Saddam's army was the 4th largest in the world.
Joined the army in the mid nineties. I remember seeing a buddy's 486 with windows 95 on it and thought that this internet thing was pretty cool, but not as cool as the GPS's we got to play with. I did my time and got out, went back to school and got into IT just as the dot com boom was at its height. Never made the mounds of cash others did.
Been stuck behind a computer in one form or another ever since.
Annoying - I keep on seeing different standards for X and Y, and never know which one I belong to, because I was born at the end of 1981. I am XY I guess.
'79 - feel more like a Y than an X.
But isn't the idea that we can draw hard-lines around generations the very problem here?
It's these hard-line definitions that enable articles like the WSJ one to exist in the first place.
Change happens gradually and continually, but if you sample it at a frequency of ~20 years then you see all sorts of artifacts.
A lot of times what makes these lines be drawn is generation gaps. They supposedly make lines possible. Bob Dylan's generations' message to the preceding . The Clash to Dylan's. I don't think us Ys have a clear line with the previous generation. Maybe we'll find it at some point, but the pattern hasn't changed so much.
I imagine a lot of that is written as history is written, not based entirely in reality.
Anyway, I get this feeling that these 'generations' that can be characterised are not inevitable & constant. There were just a few that were.
Also 1981 here. A lot of people consider the border between Gen X and Millenials (usually 1981-1982, but sometimes as early as 1979 or as late as 1984) to be a distinct generation, with characteristics of both. Wikipedia calls it the "Cold Y Generation".
I was born in 82 and have way too much in common with kids in HS. Perhaps this is because my first job was for a high school social network and my wife is a Young Adult Librarian.
I've got a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit (haven't got anything off the ground yet, though), and I'm pretty sure that if I was five years older, I'd be a ex-Porche owner :)
I was born in April '82, and I have several friends that are 18-19. Not too many younger, but that's just because I don't hang out where you'd meet kids still in high school.
I also have friends that are retired old folks, so I guess I relate well across generations :)
Not proud of it. Don't apologise for it either. Come to think about it, never really thought about it that much.
I spend lots of time with people from age 4 to 92 and never think about which "generation" they're in. Frankly, I think it's a giant non-issue.
I do know that we didn't have all this cool technology when I was in college, but I sure am glad we do now. Having suffered with earlier stuff makes me appreciate what we have today that much more.
Now stop worrying about stuff that doesn't matter and get back to work.
As the primary account-holder of the future which your generation has mortgaged, I would kindly request that you address all future payments to us, directly.
Additionally, it has come to our attention that your account is more than 90 days past due, and we must inform you that if you do not begin making payments immediately, we will be forced to turn over your debt to collections. If you do not respond, your future may be repossessed without further notice.
As always, Fuck You and thanks for the $700 Billion. We'll also be interested in changing more laws to make sure we don't retire and that you can't get promoted into the executive level jobs that you have waited for. We got them first, nyah nyah. Any attempt to disagree with the way we run things we be met with our votes, which will always outnumber yours.
Oh yeah, make sure you pay our kids right. Even if it's more than you ever made and bankrupts your company.
Lumping me in with bandits in the same age group makes as much sense as blaming you for the shitty code I have to clean up because you happen to be a programmer.
1990, so solidly Gen Y. I remember not having internet access, but I don't remember not having a computer at home. Some of my earliest memories involve playing DOS games.
I think 9/11 is a pretty defining moment. I was in 6th grade that year, so I was old enough to understand what was going on but not old enough to really be interested in politics, so I became politically aware in a world with a war on terror and patriot act.
Wow. You know, being exposed to this forum at 18 is putting you miles ahead of where I was at your age. Don't take that for granted, take heed to a lot of the advice here, especially from those who have been around the block.
The reference to Gen M shouldn't be there... that table is not the Wikipedia canonical order of generations. This one is better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generations Feel free to switch the tables if you're feeling so motivated.
A concert that a few friends went to in high school:
RHCP headlining, and a few other regional (northwest) bands opening: Nirvana, and Pearl Jam. Everyone was quite into RHCP, but weren't so sure that Nirvana was that great.
Me, I was (am) more into Fishbone, who are, incidentally, still a going concern.
What cultural expresions you found defining for this new generation?
Im 1979, so Gen X; but dont feel like im a prototypical genxer, maybe cause im at the tail (ending Gen X, beginning Gen Y.
Generation Y. Born and lived in a small South Asian country for 19 years. In the US for the last 3 years pursuing undergrad CS degree in a not so popular university with a decent CS program. Not gone back home since I arrived in the US.
Ah, this reminds me of what I really identify with more than age groups: a sort of 'international' set. I'm American, from Oregon, married to an Italian woman, living in Austria. Amongst our best friends here are an Australian couple, an Italian/Mexican couple across the border in Italy, and various and sundry Americans, Italians, French and so forth.
Not having that is one of the things that scares me about going back to the US. We have a small daughter, so big cities are not as interesting as they once were, and smaller towns in the US can be incredibly homogeneous compared to what I'm used to.
There has been a lot of conversation about generations and demographics here on HN lately. There are definitely differing viewpoints and relationships between them. Where do you fit in?
In Strauss and Howe's book Generations (I highly recommend reading it, if not visiting this Wiki explanation on their theories of social cycles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_(book)), they say very simply that whatever Generation you believe is yours, is yours. That is, if you were born in 1981 and felt that Nirvana and Reality Bites and Microserfs were items that you feel define you and your peers, then you are Gen X. If you were born in 1981 and are/were more interested in Hanson/Britney and Varsity Blues and not reading books (I keed!), then you are a Millenial (Gen Y). I was born in 1977, an unrepentant Gen Xer.
I think most of the comments here support this general self-assessment. (God knows that anyone in Gen X was all-too aware of the fact.)
P.S. Obama, born in 1961, is on the X/Baby Boomer cusp. But given his single-parent upbringing and general awesomeness, I have always considered him our first Gen X big-time leader. The biggest unspoken issue of the 2008 campaign is our movement away from a Baby Boomer or GI Generation president in a very very long time (Eisenhower was our last Pres not from GI/Boomer Generations). McCain, born in 1936, would be the FIRST member of the Silent Generation to become President, ever (Bush II: Boomer; Clinton: Boomer, Bush I: GI; Reagan: GI; Carter: GI; Ford: GI; Nixon: GI; LBJ: GI; JFK: GI; etc.). The real question of this election is: do you want someone from the old school that can't logon to a computer leading us in the 21st Century, or would you give that task to one of the do-nothing, lazy, slackers that you have come to know and love?
Gen-X according to those ranges (born in 1973) but I disagree with at least some details of these definitions, if not the entire premise behind labeling "generations."
For example, the Gen-X stereotype would be some lazy, self-centered kid listening to 90's grunge music, while blaming his parents generation for fucking up the world, while wearing a flannel shirt and ridiculously long sideburns.
I feel pretty much nothing in common with that stereotype, fucking hate grunge music, and am far more interested in how we (my "generation" or whoever) can change the world, than in assigning blame to others.
I was proud to defend the Generation Y article when it was up for deletion on Wikipedia. Any other names for my generation annoy me. The reason is because if the singularity occurs in the near future, it will be incredibly cool if Generation Z isthe last generation of humanity before the first generation of post-humans (Generation Alpha?).
Generation Y by birth, though I feel like I can appreciate aspects of each generation listed. 90's indie music had a big influence on me too, and my parents are Baby Boomers (yes, they had children late in life). Perhaps I'm transgenerational?
I am Gen Y (1983), but culturally I feel more at home as 'Gen X'. I worked during the dot-com boom, most of my friends (and with few exceptions, the women I've dated) are late 'Gen X' (1975-1981).
BTW, how is (1925 - 1942) the "silent" generation? Alan Ginsberg, my favorite poet, who wrote 'Howl', one of the greatest epic poems ever, was born in 1926. In fact most of the beats probably fall into that category. They can hardly be called "silent".
Which leads me to a defining moment. In the 1970s Hot Wheels (or was it GI Joe?) tried to create an animated series based on their brand. The government stepped in and said: "No way. You can't have a 30 minute commercial for your product and pretend that it's entertainment."
When Reagan was elected, they said: "Ah, forget it, make as many brand-based TV shows as you want." And thank god they did, because we got lots of awesome 80s entertainment.
I read somewhere recently that a writer had produced a screenplay aimed at teens. The studio's advice was to put more name brands in the script, but only the ones that the kids think are cool. The coolness factor is supposed to bleed over from the brands to the film.
I'm not sure if these trends are good or bad, but I think it does have a big influence on what my generation likes, and the type of work they do. How many of us became graphic designers, advertisers, and branding experts? How many of us are creating a brand for ourselves?