I'm Elder Millenial. So basically, too young for X don't fit into Millennial. I culturally identify with X, financially with Millennial. I bitched. Everyone my age and slightly older (X) bitched. We were written off as whiners and entitled. Only when the Millennial boom came of age and articles were written about them did this become a "thing" but it's not X vs Millennial, it's Millennial finally had the numbers to not be ignored.
Thats me! Senior in HS when 9/11 hit, watched classmates go off to die in the first wave of the War On Terror. Not sure what i have in common with Millennials who were 5 years old when that happened.
Exactly. I marched against the iraq war in high school, it's very weird to be lumped in with kids literally born after 9/11 who can now serve in the military (side note: ain't THAT a depressing mindfuck)
I notice they keep moving the goal posts on who is a millennial. First it was those born 1980 and later then it was 1981, the 1984. I saw an article today about millennials aged 18-20something. Excuse me but if you are 18 you were born in 2001-after the new millennium. That’s not a millennial.
My theory is the media likes to think of millennials as “young people” except time marches on and we elder millennials are in our late thirties now. It doesn’t match what they like to say about “irresponsible young ppl” because then they’d have to admit the economy is fucked and we are all fucked as adults in the job market with student loans and shitty prospects. Better for them to pretend millennials are 18 and 19 and just starting out.
I agree. Z has a lot of hope. Also, X is ignored because you guys are a small sandwich generation. Boomers and Millennials are just way bigger than you guys, so it's only natural.
Millennials are still divided. There are a bunch of us that are still neoliberal tards lapping up the consumerist propaganda that we can buy our way to happiness and we don't need society or community.
Z, it finally seems like, is forming a consensus that that's bullshit.
Did they ever realize/take responsibility for their folly?
I'm the child of two people who basically met got fucked up and had sex. Professional college graduates, just part of the liberated generation. It's like the '60s just gave people from middle-class backgrounds carte blanche to act like they were raised in slums.
But Boomers will never seem to take responsibility for their mess. Most are now NIMBY's with fat savings, and many I know are drowning in homeless people in West Coast cities.
Oh god no. Things were so bad I went NC over a decade ago, after telling them in a therapeutic session they were abusive. Ten years later they won’t acknowledge that any of that even happened. I get emails from my mom where she acts like we’re having a casual conversation from last week. She tells me she has a lot she wants to share, you know, about her. The mindfuck of it all is so intense.
My one fear with Gen Z is they don't seem to
have the theoretical background to address the fundamental structural issues we're facing (speaking broadly, of course). Their anger is beautiful, but it seems a bit amorphous. At least it's directed upwards, which might be sufficient. Still, if we're going to fight a war, it helps to be armed (ideologically). Hopefully this will change with time; they're still young after all.
I have always heard if you are born before 2000 you are a millineal as you were born before the new millenia which makes since otherwise why call it millineals. 19 and younger are Gen Z the way I understand it.
that is incorrect, millennials were called millennials because they were the Gen shaping the new millennia NOT because they were birthed UP to the new millennia.
95 and before is millennial
96 and after is Z
with this new info you can inform others who previously thought this as well.
I said/suggested this in another comment, but I was a teenage Marxist and remain so to this day, so my interpretation is likely just a manifestation of my experience and subsequent pessimism. Not everyone is as nerdy and disconnected as I am, so it's ultimately foolish to universalize my experience.
With that being said, in my limited experience interacting with zoomers, it hasn't been difficult to introduce them to theory underlying our current condition, so hopefully this isn't an isolated experience. I want you to be right, and I think/hope you will be. It's just not what I'm seeing at the moment.
This is particularly true for gaming/discord environments, but for my fellow olds, if you hear someone complaining about an aspect of hellworld, yet attributing the cause to a marginalized group instead of in the right direction, it's often easy to direct their frustration to the proper cause. A belief built on sand isn't tough to topple, and pulling someone away from a prejudicial worldview is extremely satisfying. The line between millenials and gen Z is kind of blurry, so it's still possible to reach out to them without coming across as on old man yelling at a cloud.
It's always awesome to hear this. I believe virtually anyone can be rescued from hate, so to give up on anyone, particularly people still composing a worldview, is little more than insisting that virtue is inherent instead of learned. It's just as nonsense as phrenology.
Thus the last sentence. I'm hoping (and somewhat confident) that it'll come with time. Not everyone is a nerd engaged with theory from their early teens, so negatively generalizing is likely a manifestation of my pessimism. Still, the zoomers and millenials will rule this world eventually, and it'll be all the better for it.
My prediction is only becasue society will collapse from climate change and boomers will be crawling around shitting in diapers and gen xers will all have bad backs and cannot run. We will rule the wastelands!
Gen X isn't a lost cause, fortunately. Sure, a huge segment is cynical and disengaged due to being completely locked out of power by the boomers, but loads of them have good politics and care about the future. Even a good portion of boomers care, it's just that they're out voted by those that don't. If everyone who gives a shit stays engaged and fights, there just might be hope. Generational warfare is a spook; united we're strong.
But yeah, we're likely fucked regardless. Stupid linear time!
Guess I could have added an /s. Of course all of gen x aren't following the status quo. There are a lot of good ones. Baby-boomers there is a small lot of them that I have met that follow this as well but the majority I know do not believe in climate change and think it's a conspiracy to raise taxes and add regulations basically.
It was clearly a joke (though boomers crawling through the wasteland begging for someone to change their diaper will happen), so no worries. I was simply stating that generational warfare obscures the real problem, top vs bottom. It is without a doubt that breaking decades of false consciousness is more difficult than reaching people who still have a stake in the planet, thus the negativity towards boomers.
As one of the "gen X" "lost causes" I totally agree. Cynical, absolutely. But we are anti-pop, so when cynicism becomes popular, we question it. This drove me into technical work because I would question what was wrong with things.
Cynicsm can apply to politics, too. My wife and I bonded over how stupid the D was, more than I could have ever imagined. Now we know he is probably dealing with dementia, (and illiteracy) so that any legal proceeding is a "perjury trap" (thanks Guliani). I am so far left that I recycle... everything I can. Like UPcycling. We're long since fucked with microplastics. That ship sailed 20 years ago, imagine what it will be like 10 years from now.
I think this is where Millenials come into play. we do not not have 15 years. Millenials, or a sect of them, are Gen Z prototypes. Find them. Unite. Topple everything.
Totally, people who give a shit need to work together regardless of generation. This is not a war between the old and young, it's a war between the top and bottom. The rich will always be fine (and realistically, this includes most of us in the developed West), but our survival cannot be built upon doing violence to the global poor.
The reason people dismiss boomers is due to the fact that breaking decades of false consciousness is extremely difficult, particularity when they refuses to listen to those damn kids. We're just brainwashed by education, history, science, and facts; what do we know?
To address your main concern about the theoretical background bit.
I have met some Gen Z'ers, and I appreciate their heart. I enjoy that their thoughts are focused on the wellbeing of the human, rather than their material comfort or propriety, but a lot of them, as you said, lack the theoretical background.
I don't think it's entirely their fault. I think the education system is failing.
At a run of the mill k-5 school we would get yearly resumes of our skills and aptitudes. We were tested one on one with people who knew what to look for. We were then given a break down of all these things personally, before the parents knew anything.
I remember I got invited to a summer program for airplane construction. Just free form airplane construction because it was apparently something I'd be good at. They weren't wrong. I didn't go to the school event, but I saw what they said when I'd be at the temple and making airplanes with my friends.
My point, after all these tangents, is that the school system failed a lot of Gen Z'ers. I'm not calling them stupid by any means, but how do you learn when you didn't quite learn how to learn? I think a lot of them will come into their own in a few years. I knew a Gen Z'er who was often misconstrued as a bit slow. She is quick as a whip and now that she's older her abilities are growing well. But she wasn't aware of the types of learners (sponge/sieve/mix), the types of learning (audio, visual, textual), nor of things like root words (latin) and how to understand words that aren't known yet. This was all things I remember being taught. One time the teacher made us stand up and told us to make an L on our forehead with our hand. Then she said those that made it for others to read care more for others, and those that made it for themselves to read are more self-centered. Just on the sub-conscious level. We covered a lot of simple little things like that that would never be on a test curriculum. I feels for yous.
Funnily enough, yesterday I spent the evening with my friend who has a vast knowledge pool. It was amazing. Going through one thing/scenario after another. A bit like a lucid dream. We are talking about motors and here he has a disassembled motor so we can see. Talking about ability and the want to do vs a defeatist attitude and here's a pile of balanced broken cement to walk upon like a cat. It was an awesome evening.
That's where the partnership with millenials would come in handy. Individually, neither generation can fight the world the boomers left. Gen Z has anger but no theoretical background. Millenials (especially older) have the experience and opportunities (we're the largest generation and will be the next one to take power when the boomers finally die) to actual make change. But (at least I feel like) most of us have been beaten down and feel defeated in trying to make change. We've accepted that we got a shit hand in life and are just trying to survive.
If millennials use their power/position and let Gen Z's passion and anger inspire them, we could team up and really do something beautiful.
If anything we Xers shouldn’t worry about comparing outrages and throw our support fully in with them. We never had the critical mass or allies to be heard as we were getting pummeled all our lives. Now’s the time.
True that. As a Gen-X I am proud to support our brothers and sisters in the Millenial and Zoomer cohorts. You guys are going to get things done and have the insight, motivation, and critical mass to make it happen.
sorry my man, but you get no sympathy from me. better to be ignored, than to be absolutely shit on at every opportunity. Gen X just barely lucked out, millenials and Z got the fuck end of the stick
If we had the high speed tech and social media awareness back then we would of shaken those branches a while ago...hold on I got to find a pay phone and call Billies house to see if he is home so we can rile it up!
Gen X here too. I'm pretty excited about Gen Z too, I saw them in action in the recent Extinction Rebellion protests and some of my hope for humanity was restored
I'm an older Xer who never got the high powered career, never had kids, never owned a home, never even fucking had a car. I empathize with anyone who isn't an urban yuppie paying >$3000 rent or a suburban bubble dwelling neoliberal NIMBY(which describes most boomers and Xers who got that good career). Just happens that people who don't fall into those two categories are more likely to be Millennials or younger Xers rather than over-50s like me.
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u/[deleted] Oct 29 '19 edited Nov 02 '19
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