Baby Boomers vs. Generation X vs. Millennials

(from what I can tell the people who hate millennials most aren't boomers at all but gen x)

I'm in the Pepsi generation

It is probably tedious of me to point this out, but the Baby Boom earned its nickname early on from sheer amazement over the numbers of infants flooding the post-war world. It was bestowed on them by newspaper journalists.

The designators for all subsequent generations have been bestowed by marketers, because the sheer weight of boomers taught corporations that selling to young people was hugely lucrative. Soon marketers learned that labeling generations made them sound like they knew arcane lore that would help corporations sell stuff. Now all this marketing hokum has become so mainstreamed that young people actually believe in it and find personal meaning and identity in their generational label.

Breaking news: being a Gen X or Millennial is about the equivalent of being a Sagittarius or a Gemini. You'll learn as much about yourself by reading your daily horoscope as you will by reading about what marketers say about 'your generation'.

It’s almost as if people say extremely similar things about each generation as its members pass certain age milestones.

And yet, each generation also has distinct cultural experiences growing up which mark them as distinct from every other spawning of humans.

yesterday at work i was listening to a youtube playlist of hair metal from the 80s, and i think i like it more now than I did at the time? (not sure if that would work for Steve Winwood)

being a Gen X or Millennial is about the equivalent of being a Sagittarius or a Gemini. You'll learn as much about yourself by reading your daily horoscope as you will by reading about what marketers say about 'your generation'.

well, you'd need to do your whole natal chart. Sagittarius is way better than Gemini, so I'll claim Sag for Gen X thanks!

Now all this marketing hokum has become so mainstreamed that young people actually believe in it and find personal meaning and identity in their generational label.

oh fuck right off, older people also believe in it

(this is however an excellent demonstration of my last post!)

But the theory has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with culture, I assume

I'll admit to not having read the whole book but my understanding is that Strauss and Howe did intend for their 'generations' to be the span of a 'season of life' (as per Ch 3: https://books.google.ca/books?id=d8bBFGJq79sC&printsec=frontcover&dq=strauss+howe+fourth+turning&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNy5LgpaTdAhUBwFkKHT1BBhkQuwUILTAA#v=onepage&q=strauss%20howe%20fourth%20turning&f=false)

i'm just kinda envious of millennials -- and it's easy for envy to turn to hatred -- idk I'm a Scorpio!

Everyone can fuck the fuck off until they take their social science prerequisites

https://www.scribd.com/doc/86911597/Longitudinal-vs-Latitudinal

older people also believe in it

you are right that many do. and don't they seem ridiculous clinging onto that?

Aimless, are you an Aquarius? If not, I kinda feel like you must have that somewhere in yr chart

it’s like y’all spend all your spare time listening to music and hiking in the woods or some shit

they sure do, but not as ridiculous as people who take a fairly broad phenomenon and blame it on the shallow youngs

I doubt that many people self-identify as boomer/genX/millenial/etc. These are labels used for other people.

And afaict generational theory was not just about shared pop culture touchstones but about shared values, behaviours, and characteristics. This is what I most take issue with. xp to self

Based on how astrological dabblers react when they hear it, mine must be the scariest "star sign" of all. Not Aquarius, fwiw.

guessing you're referring to yr sun sign, which represents the ego (more or less), like, on ilx, people are probably most likely to perceive your mercury sign (communication/expression), mars sign (related to arguing, what excites you), and probably your rising sign, which is how you appear to others.

people who take a fairly broad phenomenon and blame it on the shallow youngs

if blame is to be bestowed, I blame marketers and the media who parrot their nonsense with perfectly straight faces. my own experience is that the depth of 'youngs' is quite variable on an individual basis, but with the same predictability as the rich getting richer, it is those who most value depth who get deeper.

well, with so many houses to fill and such a limited number of signs to inhabit them, then statistically speaking I would have to assume Aquarius does show up in at least one of them. so consider your guess confirmed, mathematically

xp to self: Geminis are actually rad too -- I kinda feel like they are the best at the internet, so it's kinda a compliment to millennials being equated to Geminis in an internet post

well, with so many houses to fill and such a limited number of signs to inhabit them, then statistically speaking I would have to assume Aquarius does show up in at least one of them. so consider your guess confirmed, mathematically

― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, September 5, 2018 11:34 AM (thirty-seven seconds ago)

most people have multiple planets in the same sign (principles of astronomy), and plenty of signs that don't affect their personality at all. So, I think yr math is off, or you don't get astrology ... idk

the part of my generational heritage, whatever it is, that i think comes through most strongly in myself even today is my distrust of advertising and repulsion at branding. it's possible this is an idiosyncrasy but i think it's probably a factor of when/where/how i grew up and what i paid attention to during my youth. also fiercely hating reagan and distrusting the rich.

i also didn't enter my birth date/time into the astrology website because i don't know where it's going. why would i trust a random website?! no way, FU. lol

we owe you nothing!

astrology is only good for owning your friends with memes, except it isn't even good for memes for me because my sign is the one all the people who make memes hate

Astrology is way better than the generational stuff

I fucking hate all of you

Well not la lechera she just stopped in to offer a personal perspective

But JFC not being able to understand generation theory and how it’s abused by hacks is just sad

Astrology is such a Boomer thing.

https://i.imgur.com/XwSR8Js.jpg

What is non-hackish about the theory in the first place?xp

my sign is the one all the people who make memes hate

i like all the signs and i also make astromemes.

gen x people are like boomers junior

I'll admit to not having read the whole book but my understanding is that Strauss and Howe did intend for their 'generations' to be the span of a 'season of life'

Still, I don't think they're attributing intergenerational differences to anything other than outside influences. The theory seems to be based on the assumption that culture (meaning all outside influences) is always changing. If culture didn't change in let's say a 50-year span there would be no reason to say a mother & daughter belong to different generational cohorts. (I haven't read the book either, so...)

but astromemes, and a bunch of ppl who are into them actually discuss this -- often reduce signs to stereotypes

like, if I were a Taurus, I'd be kinda annoyed at how all the memes about me involve food

As crazy at it may seem, despite all the shared values, experiences, cultural touchstones and what not, not just of our generation, but all belonging to the solid phalanx of one specific year in one specific city, all the members of my graduating high school class now exhibit a wildly diverse array of opinions about politics, religion, society and morality. Blows my mind.

i'm a virgo and have no idea what astromemes say about virgos but historically what people say about virgos has never made me feel good

ppl also discuss the fact that Beyonce has a Scorpio moon, and that is why she is awesome, despite being a Virgo

Still, I don't think they're attributing intergenerational differences to anything other than outside influences. The theory seems to be based on the assumption that culture (meaning all outside influences) is always changing. If culture didn't change in let's say a 50-year span there would be no reason to say a mother & daughter belong to different generational cohorts. (I haven't read the book either, so...)

The fact that culture is always changing is actually a reason why I think dividing people into discrete chronological cohorts of x years is such a flawed enterprise.

I'm glad we're all here rather than in the politics thread.

I fucking hate all of you

― Paleo Weltschmerz (El Tomboto), Wednesday, September 5, 2018 2:44 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

won't be the first one to

I <3 Virgos! They have an innate intellectual curiosity, they work hard, they are organized, and care about details and things that are useful and functionally important

afaict all possible properties have been attributed to all possible signs and all possible generations

relatedly, all foods will eventually be found to cause all possible health outcomes

(Culture obv changed during the 'Boomer' years as much as it did between the 'Boomer' and 'X' years. And the outside influences on people of different races, classes, genders, etc within a cohort are going to be very different, for a start.) xp to self

people are alike in some ways and different in other ways but in most ways, in the aggregate, they are more alike than different and have been for as far back into the past as we can peer

I <3 Virgos! They have an innate intellectual curiosity, they work hard, they are organized, and care about details and things that are useful and functionally important

― sarahell, Wednesday, September 5, 2018 1:56 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Furiously taking notes on how to be a better Virgo rn.

every single piece of astrology content on capricorns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrK-FwELA7I

I <3 Virgos! They have an innate intellectual curiosity, they work hard, they are organized, and care about details and things that are useful and functionally important

<3 it's not sexy but i'll take it!

Can we make an astrology board i could get into it

one of my fave memes is "roommate cleans negative energy with sage while you clean rest of the apartment" and the person cleaning the rest of the apartment is Virgo or Capricorn. Capricorns are rad too!