The other day it occurred to me the coiner of Generation X didn't really think it through. After all, he'd run out of letters after just two generations.
While the Baby Boom cycle did run until 1964, Gen X has also been defined as 1961-1980 or 1981. This is in terms of the attributes of the group. Barack Obama may have been born at the end of the Baby Boom but he is IMHO the first Gen X president.
I think generational labels have some use in getting a rough (very) idea of what someone's life experience may have been like--similar to the Beloit College list that comes out each year, showing what incoming freshman have never known/not known (for 2022, they'd always been able to use Wikipedia, for instance). What gets tiring is how the labels can be weaponized and become another way to gripe about a broad group of people--especially on some social media sites.
The other day it occurred to me the coiner of Generation X didn't really think it through. After all, he'd run out of letters after just two generations.
While the Baby Boom cycle did run until 1964, Gen X has also been defined as 1961-1980 or 1981. This is in terms of the attributes of the group. Barack Obama may have been born at the end of the Baby Boom but he is IMHO the first Gen X president.
I think generational labels have some use in getting a rough (very) idea of what someone's life experience may have been like--similar to the Beloit College list that comes out each year, showing what incoming freshman have never known/not known (for 2022, they'd always been able to use Wikipedia, for instance). What gets tiring is how the labels can be weaponized and become another way to gripe about a broad group of people--especially on some social media sites.