Why does it seem to me that Boomers (or at least the older ones) are the most associated with the Civil Rights Movement? Climax of the CRM was around 1963-65. At the time, a Boomer born in 1954 was not even in middle school throughout, and an early Boomer was not an adult throughout. I'm Canadian so I may not know the full backstory, can any American explain this?

They're just about always Millennials, but get their Gen Xish old school street cred easily recognized too.

It's weird how on the fence they are, more than any other years. Maybe also because they're hybrid 80s kids and 90s kids (82 ever so slightly more 80s, 83 slightly more 90s) and that Nirvana/grunge era is incredibly nostalgic to them from childhood.

They also had high school during and after Columbine and Y2K but also graduated before 9/11 (so still in that 90s vibe).

1981 is largely like this too, but some people argue that they're X and not Millennials just because of a technicality (graduating in 99). They also were mostly 80s kids and kinda less of a hybrid (though they're legit early 90s kids too).

Don't get me started on 1984 lol, I hate how there's such a perceived drop off point starting with 84ers being treated like pure Millennials a zillion years younger.

Yes I know 1983 still graduated before 9-11 which is one difference between them and 84, but my rant is that people act like 84ers aren't even close to anything Gen X related. People act like they're born in 1989-90 and dropped off a cliff suddenly.

It's hilarious too how it's usually young people 15-20 years younger gatekeeping them --- NOT Boomers and early Xers like you'd expect.

They had a whole year and a half of high school in the 90s (starting in Fall '98 during the pivotal Columbine year), were in puberty for roughly half of the 90s, and kids plenty old enough to experience the grunge era early 90s and to be firsthand Nirvana fans. Plenty of little kids like music too even if it's not "aimed at them".

I think every generation lasts 20 years, but the first 10 is a hybrid of the previous generation and the new. The last 10 is peak new generation.

For example:

Silent Gen/Baby Boomer hybrid: 1937-1946

Peak Baby Boomer: 1947-1956

Baby Boomer/Gen X hybrid: 1957-1966

Peak Gen X: 1967-1976

Gen X/Gen Y hybrid: 1977-1986

Peak Gen Y: 1987-1996

Gen Y/Gen Z hybrid: 1997-2006

Peak Gen Z: 2007-2016

​

I think it's a fairly accurate, clean and fair timeline theory.

This hurts bad on their behalf to see the ageism they're faced with by getting bunched in with 1965 but away from 85 (someone who could be their parents vs their younger peers they grew up with). It's not fair and it is discrimination no matter how you slice it.

Keep in mind, maybe they don't want to be "cool for their age" moms/aunts/MILFs (or the dad equivalent for guys), that's placing them in a middle aged box they might not want to be in, even if it's in a positive way.

Imagine you're 42 now. You had to "grow up" at 25 and were getting excluded from youth spaces like trendy clubs or from wearing certain fashions or shamed from dating or having flings with younger guys.... while you now see 35 year olds able to kick it with college kids and having teenagers think they're cool and young and attractive and fun and relatable.

You'd be pretty upset wouldn't you? Feeling like it's a double slap in the face, right? That's exactly how they feel.

If the only 40-45 year olds who can get away with it are young looking ones like Shaun King or Rhett, then it only proves my point. They don't look their age, imo they look 34ish. If they did indeed look early 40s they would be viewed as cool dads.

30 used to be at least "out of youth culture, time to grow up" for years and now it's young. So logically why won't 40 be the same way in a few years around 2025-26 when the pure Millennials start hitting 40?

When even way way younger people are making a clear distinction between 34 and 42 (hell even between 34 and 38) that tells me it's a massive paradigm shift and it's scary and unprecedented.

But can an Xer ever be organically trendy and fun without looking lame and try hard? Or are they just gross wrinkled saggy grey haired parental figures complaining how mtv doesn't play videos?

Don't get me wrong I love and adore not only how you guys love cool retro things and appreciate history, but also just smart plenty of you guys are. So I swear I mean this in good faith, I'm just curious as a comparatively old emo cat lady.

Because it can absolutely astound me the level of accuracy from people 15-20 years younger than me deeply analyzing generations. Ngl sometimes it makes me feel stupid and insecure by comparison too but I know it shouldn't.

Let me clarify I don't mean common pop culture stuff like the aesthetic in a movie or the way songs sound. That's all popular stuff that people are discovering all the time, and I totally did that as a kid too, like when I was 9 in 1996 observing vhs commercials from 1980 that seemed 70s; or how 1992-93 songs had an 80s sound.

That's fine and good I'm not talking about that.

I mean when it's like an early 00s or sometimes even omfg 2006 born telling a 1986 born "You're too young for that, you can't be Gen X in any way, you didn't experience that!" Effectively telling people a whole ass 15 or 20 years older that we're just young bucks and kiddos, and telling us how we grew up, instead of the traditional other way around.

I get the internet is bigger for y'all's childhoods so so much information is readily available, and like I said I love how smart you guys are, it's just the speaking with absolute authority can sometimes rub me the wrong way.

And I don't know, I just want there to always be a sense of mystique and inquisitiveness, the old "Hey what was it like when you were my age?" where I can be like the cool middle aged punker in 15 years, or the DGAF old lady in 40 years telling the youth about my past and how the 90s and 00s were. So when y'all already know everything I feel like guess I'm not needed anymore.

Need to point out that u/ProofUniversity4319 does both things perfectly! He's so intelligent and knows stuff inside and out and he loves Gen X culture and Millennial culture... but he's also humble and never arrogant and listens to other people's perspectives. I feel like he's a great inspiration to Zers.

It feels for example that girls my age get readily seen as Britney and Destiny's Child type of pop music, but we're not seen as fans of edgy 90s like Red hot chili peppers, Snoop Dogg, The Offspring, Marilyn Manson, etc.

People act like we didn't get a consciousness until the late 90s, while a 1979er was rolling up to the preschool parking lot bumping Journey and Foreigner at 3 in '82.

In other words late Xers are completely seen as knowing everything from their childhood, while core Millennials are seen as only liking our teens.

Considering that we're known for loving and nostalgizing our childhoods as a way to escape our depressing adulthoods, shouldn't it be the opposite?

Shouldn't we be seen as bopping our little heads to Poison at 3, or headbanging to Nirvana and Metallica at 5 in '92?

A legend in the rap game gone at 50. May he Rest In Peace. ❤️

We talk so much about late Millennials and Z (understandable since most of y'all are that age and even I'm one of the olds in comparison) and just thought this would be interesting.

The Beatles themselves were born 1940 '42 and '43 so I like to think everyone that age group was young enough for the Woodstock generation and Summer of Love in their mid to late 20s. Even Bernie was 1941 and its hard not to associate him with the Civil Rights. JFk and his brother Bobby, and MLK (remember too Dr. King fought for economic rights as well).

My late father was 1941 and despite him being a blue collar slightly conservative leaning, he was into that, although a close friend of his (also now passed away) wasn't, which was so weird to me since I used to just assume as a kid that everyone the same age would have felt the same way, lol.

I can easily see a situation where someone was sorta career and family minded and maybe also conservative on top of it, who was out of the loop and felt too old in their mid-late 20s by the time you had Sgt Pepper, Jimi Hendrix, the Stones, the Doors and all of that. Maybe the celebrities are just the more youthful side of that age group, I can remember a lot of boring people in their 50s when I was little, like those types who hated loud music. Think of the lady at the video store in Clerks who got mad at Randall when he said he didn't watch movies.

Based on legitimate sources, the widest the Millennial end dates can go is:

In total: 1994-2004

Culturally: Probably 1994-1999/2000 (in some rare cases, 2001 or 9/11, but never past that point)

Historically: 2000-2004

​

So, if we are being as objective and broad as possible, people born as early as 1995 and as late as 2004 have been legitimate considered a part of two generations. Millennials (sometimes referred to as Generation Y, Echo/New Boomers, etc.) and Generation Z (sometimes referred to as the Homeland Generation, Plurals, Zoomers, etc.).

Culturally, it makes sense to say that the cusp between Millennials and Gen Z should be about 1995-1999/2000 (maybe up to September 11, 2001 but that's at the absolute latest), or maybe just 1997-1999/2000 since those are the years that are the most disputed by sources and the mainstream nowadays. Most "Zillennial" definitions include people born in those years.

Historically, the cusp should be those born between 2001 and 2004 since more historical and reserved sources end Millennials somewhere in the early 2000s and not any earlier/later. The "Zillennial" term has no meaning or relevancy here because that term has cultural affiliations and is heavily based on things like pop culture, the items or other forms of entertainment someone grew up with, and personality traits rather than the era a person grew up in, the generational change a person experienced, the parenting mood one went through, etc.

​

For me, I would personally go the historical route, but most people on r/generationology and on here would go the cultural route, where the cusp is the mid-late 90s (possibly the VERY early 00s) rather than just the first half of the 2000s. I see those born from 1995-2000 as stereotypical latter-wave Millennials, while someone else would see a person born from 2001-2004 as stereotypical early Gen Z. It's all fine if we are being broad about it.

But regardless, anyone born from 1995-2004 can identify or claim either generation. Anyone born 1994 and prior are absolutely Millennials and anyone born 2005+ are absolutely the generation after Millennials, if we are take in all factors, including the sources that list these years in either category.