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  • Millennial here. My impression is we're the largest generation on this platform, but I could be wrong.

    • Because every other "generation" is about 10 years and yet somehow "Millennials" are an almost 25 year gap. Notice how it's "Older Millennial, younger millennial, etc". You don't use those qualifiers with the other generations because they are appropriately sized.

      Millennials should be 2-3 named generations. It currently refers to 80's kids, 90s kids, any kids alive when 2000 happened, and early Aughts kids(probably because the last name sucked and no one wanted to use it). Too many generations wanted the claim of "I was the first generation of the new millennium" and everyone co-opted the term even when it didn't traditionally apply(newborns because they were closest to the date as opposed to when their major development occured is part of that stretch)

      • I've only ever seen it include 1981-1996. Gen Z is considered 1996-2009.

        Seems like Gen Z should be split between pre-9/11 and post-9/11 in the US.

      • It's not an exact definition, but below I think is close:

        Baby Boomers: Born 1946-1964 (18 years)

        Generation X: Born 1965-1980 (15 years)

        Millennials (Gen Y): Born 1981-1996 (15 years)

        Generation Z: Born 1997-2012 (15 years)

        Generation Alpha: Born 2013-present

        What you're saying doesn't line up with this at all, but maybe you have other generation dates in mind.

      • When I was growing up, the definitions kept changing.

        I was born in 1986, and while in primary school I was told that makes me GenX. So I grew up thinking I was GenX. Then in high school, my teachers said actually anyone born after 1985 is GenY, so we're definitely GenY.

        Then when year 2000 came around people started talking about a new generation of people who would "never remember the 20th century", or "never know a world without the internet", basically people born after 1997 so they grow up completely in the 2000s. They called them Millennials.

        From then on the usage of "millennial" kept growing, starting to see it everywhere. Mostly by boomers complaining about millennials.

        Around 2012 I stated seeing some youtubers around my age referring to themselves as millennials, I thought it was a joke, or a bad understanding. Then people started referring to me as a millennial. Someone who's whole childhood was in the 90s, how could I be a millennial, it defied the definition.

        So I imagine my shock when I find now they've removed all trace of the usage of GenY, and retroactively applied "millennial" to mean anyone born after 1985. So maybe I am a millennial? I remember staying up late to celebrate with my parents and make sure our computer didn't crash at midnight on new years eve in 1999. I remember wondering why dragonballz wasn't on TV when the news was showing footage of American skyscrapers in 2001. Are those the things that make me a millennial? If so then what about the original definition? Those born 1997 or later won't remember those things, so now they're Zoomers? All this business makes me so confused.

      • I don't think this is correct.

        The bit you're getting confused by, I think, is that some generations are just bigger than others. The boomers were by their name sake a big generation. Millennials are essentially boomers' kids ... and so they’re bigger than both Gen X and Gen Z.

        • Most "generational" definitions span about 15 years, sometimes more. EG, Boomers: 1946-1960
        • There are sensibly defined micro-generations typically at the borders between generations.
          • EG, "Jones Generation": 1960-1965 ... "young boomers" ... they had a distinct life experience from "core boomers" not too different from that of X-Gens. Vietnam and 60s happened while they were children, Reagan was their 20s, not 40s, etc.
        • Xennials are notable here because they're the transition between X-Gen and Millennials (late 70s to early 80s) ... probably what you're thinking of as "older millennials". What's interesting though is that the relevance of Xennials is that technological changes mark the generation ... they're essentially just barely young enough to count as part of the internet generations but not old young enough to be ignorant of the pre-internet times. Which just highlights that how you talk about generations depends on what you more broadly care about. In the west, arguably not too much political upheaval has occurred since WWII and its immediate consequences (basically Boomer things) ... and so the generations are distinguished on smaller and probably more technological scales.

      • Notice how it's "Older Millennial, younger millennial, etc". You don't use those qualifiers with the other generations

        Of course you do. I, a young millennial, have a lot more in common with my old genZer sister than she does with a young genZer born in 2011. It's an important distinction because we both didn't get smart phones until we didn't have smart phones until late teens at least, while young genZers weren't even born when the iPhone was first released.

        My parents are young boomers. For my dad that means he never had to worry about getting drafted like his older boomer brothers.

    • Further proving we're all more alike than we think.

    • Older millennial here. I came here a year ago.

  • Semi-related anecdote…

    During the debates my wife made a joke that Biden is so old he’s not even a Boomer. We then gave each other a look and pulled out our phones to check. Turns out it’s true, he is from the “Silent Generation”.

    • I think most of his cabinet colleagues wishes he would be.

      My parents were too but they were anything but. 1920s and 1940s.

  • Early 90s millenial here. I remember the wild west internet days. Left Reddit because it does not serve the interests of its users anymore.

  • Gen Z.

    This place is a lot older than I expected.

    Internet generation, progenitors of current online brainrot. Came too early to experience the 90s in all its glory, and too late for running console-quality games on a 6mm thick mobile device.

    At least we have the 2010s to claim for ourselves. Those were pretty cool.

  • I'd be cautious that behavior, common experienced events, technology shifts, etc define categories and not the other way around. If the boundaries for generations are arbitrary then inclusion is just as arbitrary and not defined by behavior since behaviors can spread across multiple labels. We all want to belong, but tribalism can be a useful tool to divide humanity against itself. Historic generation labels where distinct boundaries can be observed and defined in an historic context makes sense to me, contemporary generational labels seem like divisive nonsense to me.

215 comments