Boomers vs Millennials
 

There is obviously a lot of "pent-up" anger from Millennials directed at their elders. Thought it would be more appropriate to have a separate thread vs the Democratic Primaries thread.

For a proposed definition

Generation - Wikipedia

Seeing baby boomers getting mad about "Ok, boomer" makes me laugh after hearing the disdain for millennials as being entitled, lazy, snowflakes the past few years.

I wonder if enough boomers have died in the last 4 years to make a noticeable difference in the outcome of the election.

Recently, one of my friends was talking with disdain and throwing the millennial stereotypes around about laziness and all that. Unfortunately, I had the task of informing him that by being born in 1983, he was in fact a millennial. Then it became a discussion of definition of the generations. I think I finally shut him up by saying that because we graduated high school in 2001, we came of age at the turn of the millennium. Therefore, we are millennials.

Now I’ve seen some things circling social media from my fellow early millennials about how we are the best millennials because we still played outside and other crap like that. A lot of selective memory. As if Nintendo and Sega didn’t exist.

I am what has been recently called an Xennial as I was born in 1980. As you will note in your definitions, Gen X apparently goes to 81 and Millennials go to early 80s, but some try to include 80 as Millennials.

I like how people are surprised that Millennials are pushing back after being blamed for the death of just about everything.

Indeed. The lack of awareness is stunning.

From a presentation I saw at a population conference, if the demographics of the electorate stays exactly the same as in 2016, the Dem candidate wins. So possibly yes.

As a late Xer [75] I identify much more with Millennials. Beside the fact that X gets squashed by these 2 behemoths, I feel like it's better to just throw in on that side, although, I did read an article where most Xers were Boomer supporters.

As a much more tech savvy person in my gen with much more Millennial leanings it just makes more sense. Besides, boomers never gave 2 fucks about Xers either.

Similar, I'm at the tail end of the Boomers and have always considered myself more Gen X.

Mid-ish(?) Gen Xer here (71) and I empathize and lean way more towards/with Millennial's and later generations than I do with the boomers.

Yup! Us in the gen X league pretty much tried to do everything our boomer parents did and got shafted. "Just get a bachelors or masters and you're set" and then just go, "Oops, guess you didn't try hard enough. Sorry you can only get a job at McDonald's with your degree".

This is me, down to the birth year and everything.

I do however wear being a GenX as a badge of honor. I think we are the last of an old guard that remembers how things were before technology gave us all we need at our fingers. Boomes dont really get technology, ease of info, etc...and Millennials don't really get how people lived without these things. Our generation straddles those worlds. Life without cell phones, cable, newspapers being primary source of info, listening to the radio with your hand on the record button to tape a song, actually watching a TV show when it came on or you missed it, etc...Lots of struggles Millennials would never understand

Oh man, just the cell phones and if we had those in high school, I can only imagine all the trouble I would have gotten into and especially after I found out about the wonderful world of girls, haha! At least *old man voice* back in my day, if I didn't call my parents, it was a legit excuse that I didn't have any money for the pay phone. */old man voice*

I shudder when I think about the shit I would have done with a camera phone in high school.

It was a suspension level offense to have a pager in school when I was in high school. The reason given - they were for drug dealers.

Proper Gen X-er. Both sides deserve derision and mockery.

With Gen X far ahead, maybe I should re-label this as Boomers vs Gen X. Let's give it 2-3 more days to better understand our demographics

The big one for me was memorizing the codes to get the correct long distance provider, then memorizing my dad's credit card number (with expiration) so I could use it for those calls. You had to know what the beeps meant, what codes to use and if not, then how to make a collect call. My kids can't (or won't) memorize their times tables as adults.

Another xennial. Our microgeneration *really* got shafted in the labor market. Gen Xers gobbled up the high-paying jobs and then companies wanted the cheaper millennials for everything else. I remain very bitter about this.

My kids are Gen Z. I remember wife and me teaching them & testing their multiplication tables up to 12. I remember my mom doing the same for me.

No kidding! Was talking to my best friend (been my best friend since Jr High) and we were saying about how we could get away with stuff so much easier if we had cell phones just by sending a quick text to our friends to coordinate our alibis. There were pagers back then but they were expensive and only some of the rich kids and the kids that were dealing, had them.


Oh shoot, I don't remember that, but, we only had one area code so maybe that's why? Very few things that are as stressful as waiting to hear whether or not the collect call was accepted or not.

Boomers added life expectancy and refusal to retire, remain in power has really fucked everyone else. They just clog the pipeline. They were able to move up the chain faster with a greatly expanding economy, rode out the downturns with those positions and now, thanks to the last recession refuse to leave.

They cry about their SS after crying about paying for it. It's no secret that the trump tax cuts expire after all boomers have left the workforce, and why no congressional leadership will touch the reduction in benefits necessary to fix SS until everyone has gotten into it. The year 2030 will be landmark year and the cherry on top for all the ways the boomers fucked us.

Millenials being called responsible for the death of some company is a big pet peeve of mine. It smacks of corporate entitlement.

We didn't kill anything. You corporate assholes failed to tell why your products are worth buying.

Mine are the same, and in high school. They know them, but there completely suck at then. They simply don't use them enough, and were allowed calculators too long. They are blown away by how fast I can do mental math. My millennial, special needs son, who we were homeschooling when he learned, knows his better because I rode him constantly to learn them. The others didn't get that.

I really enjoyed an article that was like Millenials are responsible for the killing of Applebees, to which my response was.. GOOD!

I think not only entitlement but completely tone deaf too. I like to call it, 'Pulling a Tower Records'. Either adapt to the wants and needs of the newer generations or...go out of business.

They also fail to understand that no one wants to buy expensive crap that needs to be replaced within months.

Oh man, the cajun steak was great on a limited budget.

I don't remember reading about Millennials blamed for killing off companies but agree that its because the companies didn't change fast enough or didn't really have a worthy product(s).

Sears & Kmart comes to mind (but then Gen X probably "killed" off those companies).

Well it's headlines like these that I'm talking about

18 industries which are being killed by millennials | The Independent

It's ab article about the fall of casual dining, in favor of the variety of 'fast' casual.

Why is restaurant traffic falling? Blame millennials

I remember if we were out, at the movies or something, and it was time to get picked up we would collect call our parents. When the call went through and the operator was asking if they would accept it we would just yell over them "ready to be picked up!!" and hang up the phone.

Remember emergency breakthroughs before call waiting was the norm?

The wording is intended to get clicks but I'm not sure that the point is that we should have all banded together to make sure Kmart was OK (and you don't have to search far to find much meaner stuff said about old people as a group)

Every generation kills lots of stuff. We'd be living in stone ages otherwise.

The craziest thing to me about all this is just that old people used to be young and young people will eventually be old. You'd think there's be say, less racial tension if we all experienced life as each race at some point.

I guess it's just evolutionarily prudent to want to push out the old people, and of course the old people are going to resist that.

Haha! That's great! Never even thought about doing it that way. I do indeed remember the emergency breakthroughs! When I was in the air force, I did a TDY to Saudi Arabia, so I bought a at&t long distance card, but, I would call the closest base to whoever I was calling, call that base operator and ask to be connected to an off base line and then use the at&t number to cover the cost of that call but it would only be charged from where the base was to the person I was calling. The whole thing was like that episode of M*A*S*H* where Hawkeye was able to call the BBQ place back home and when he hung up, he remembered that he forgot to order the cole slaw.

I think this is a fairly accurate "Which generation am I" table:

The G.I. Generation – Greatest Generation
- Births from: 1900
- Births until: 1924
- Coming of age: 1918 - 1942

The Silent Generation – Lucky Few
- Births from: 1925
- Births until: 1945
- Coming of age: 1943 - 1963

The Baby Boom Generation – Baby Boomers
- Births from: 1946
- Births until: 1965
- Coming of age: 1964 - 1983

Generation X – Latchkey Kids
- Births from: 1966
- Births until: 1979
- Coming of age: 1984 - 1997

Generation Y – Millennials
- Births from: 1980
- Births until: 1994
- Coming of age: 1998 - 2012

Generation Z – Gen Next
- Births from: 1995
- Births until: 2016
- Coming of age: 2013 - 2034

G.I. Generation (1900-1924)
■ Also known as the Greatest Generation, includes the veterans who fought in World War II.
■ Lived through two World Wars, the Great Depression and many other advances.
■ They are conservative savers, hard-working , with a high sense of moral obligation, patriotism and respect for authority.
■ Two overlapping groups consistent with the Depression Era (born between 1912-1921) and the World War II cohort (born between 1920-1924 to fight in 1939-1945).
■ The parents of the Baby Boomers.

Silent Generation (1925-1945)
■ Born between the two World Wars, many of them who were too young to join the service in the World War II.
■ Also known as the “Post War Cohort” or the “Lucky Few”.
■ Lived through the post war economic boom but also through tensions and approaching wars.
■ Conservative, rational savers, hard-working, patriotic members that fight for security and stability.

Baby Boom Generation (1946-1965)
■ Born after the World War II, their parents belonging to the G.I. Generation.
■ A 14 year increase in birth rate worldwide.
■ Focused on the civil rights movement and cultural development.
■ Lived through the Vietnam War, MLK, the Kennedy assassination, the Nixon resignation.
■ They came of age in the ‘60s with the hippie movement, Woodstock and college rages.
■ Boomers I or The Baby Boomers (1946-1954) and Boomers 2 or the Jones Generation (1955-1965).
■ Many of the Baby boomers embraced a more conservative behavior and eventually gave birth to Generations X and Y.

Generation X (1966-1979)
■ Also known as the Gen X is the first generation to follow the Baby boomers.
■ This is also the first generation to be named and defined by marketers.
■ Many of its members are aware of their generational title.
■ Came of age in the '80s and '90s with the Reagan era, Challenger explosion, fall of Berlin Wall, Persian Gulf War, economic recession.
■ The all-knowing spoiled kids of the Baby Boomers yet with fewer ambitions and less driven to change the world.
■ The generation X kids are called the “latchkey” kids, exposed to daycare and family instability and this has probably shaped how they regard their family life and how the next generation, Y, is being educated. - The best educated with 29% obtaining a bachelor’s degree or higher (6% higher than the previous generation).

Generation Y (1980-1994)
■ Also known as the Echo Boomers or Millennials.
■ The demographic cohort of individuals, primarily children of the Baby boomers.
■ This generation grew up with many world-changing events including the rise of mass communication, technological advance.
■ All knowing as the former Gen X they have what it takes but are also willing to do something about it.
■ This generation benefits from all science advances and better education and has the ambition and desire to change the world.
■ They have been exposed and seen so much that are now immune to traditional ways from marketing to sociology.

Generation Z (1995- )
■ The term generically used to describe the cohort of people born around 2000.
■ Also known as iGeneration, Gen Tech, Gen Wii, Net Gen, Gen Next, Post Gen.
■ This is a generation living in a society where everything is possible and the main communication channel is the internet.
■ A volatile environment of terror threats, possible nuclear or biological attacks.
■ Family stability and moral values put aside, heightened sense of self.
■ Education is now focusing on developing practical skills and enriching creativity.

I just want to point out that there is an entire generation living now that hasn't seen the Lions win a playoff game.

One wonders how many generations will die off before another win is seen.

Isn't it time for a new generation? I guess they're here already, we just don't know enough about them yet to tell them what's collectively wrong with them.

Probably the final generation

The Pepsi Generation

At 1981 I'm squarely between Gen X and Millenial. I sympathize more and identify with Gen X much more than Millenials.

I'll echo some thoughts above - I am super glad that social media, pervasive cell phones, and MMO video games all came of age after I graduated college. That would have been a shitshow.

Its pretty clear to me now that it was never Boomers vs Millennials. Its really Boomers vs Gen X (or at least on this forum).

I'm no social scientist, but I suggest the "good luck, suckers!" Generation

I mean this is a bulletin board for a text based football sim. How many millennials do you really think would be here?

I think that was taken by the Boomers, Gen X or a subset of them. How about Pepsi One Generation?

EDIT: NVM, that would probably be Gen Z.

By the vitriol, I would have thought they were the majority. But instead a bunch of Gen X venting, using Millennials as their foil :)

Or how about the Crystal Pepsi Generation? It did make a comeback a couple of years ago :D

I saw a tweet last night talking about the yellow first down line was first seen on tv in 1998. There's an entire generation who don't know football prior to this.

Gen X here and I agree. I would have been in a lot of trouble had I had a cell phone camera in HS. Hell, when I was in the USAF(95-99), we had cell phone cameras a lot of us would have likely been kicked out of the military.

If only there was something that could attract them, like ... a beer tent

It also seems worth mentioning that the boomer generation spent the entirety of their youth actively promoting unprecedented ageism against their parents' generation, and then transitioned to complaining about gen X's attitudes in the 80s and 90s, before they set their sights on millennials.

Ok boomer :p

(in seriousness, those sort of comments about millennials is what birthed the ok boomer thing in the first place)

Who doesn't like a beer tent?

Of course I haven't played text based sports sims in almost a decade (yes, including FM)

What was the boomer saying back then...never trust anyone over 30 or something like that?

That was it!