14 ms·

No one can really even define what a Millennial is, or who falls in to Generation Y/Z. Even "who is a Boomer?", and the tropes of what a Boomer is, fail when lo

by Klinky 7y ago

No one can really even define what a Millennial is, or who falls in to Generation Y/Z. Even "who is a Boomer?", and the tropes of what a Boomer is, fail when looking at my anecdotal data. Also often activist children are heavily influenced by their activist parents. Generational classification and "analysis" is almost as bad as stereotypes.

cabalamat 7y ago
> Generational classification and "analysis" is almost as bad as stereotypes. Sometimes there genuinely are very big changes between generations. E.g. Brexit, which is much more widely supported by old people than young people.
sanbor 7y ago
Well said. Not to mention that where you where born (geographically) and what social sector makes lots of cultural differences. For example, in late 90s in Argentina my mother washed clothes by hand and didn't own any game console. As you can imagine, even if I was a teenanger during the year 2000 my culture and life experience was differrnt than a middle class American of my same age.
ensignavenger 7y ago
This comment is being down-voted, and I sort of understand why, as it comes off as overly abrasive. Obviously demographers use different years to define generations depending on the study. But I think the last part about stereotyping is worth discussion, even if the comment is overly abrasive. I was born in a year that traditionally was generally not considered "millennial" by demographers, but since it also did not fit with the years they used for previous generations, modern definitions tend to include my birth year as "millennial". This irritates me, because myself and most of those that I know who are my age don't fit the usual descriptions of "millennials" and we don't like the association. Now, I happen to like millennials. My wife is solidly in the millennial years. I have many friends who were born in the millennial years. But I don't like having the label applied to myself and I don't fit the descriptions at all. In the end it isn't a big deal. I have no plans to ever call myself a millennial. But it is worth cautioning against stereotyping individuals because of the year they were born, as I unfortunately see many people do.
- planck01 7y ago
  Generations are basically agegroups that share for a part the same cultural experience, e.g. the same mass media, cartoons, educational trends, etc. Research shows that these overlaps in culture lead to several predictive trends in behavior and opinions. It's normal you don't associate personaly with every trend. Especially if you lived in some local bubble or if you are on the edge of some defined group. That doesn't matter and I would just ignore it. This isn't about any specific person.
  - logifail 7y ago
    > Research shows that these overlaps in culture lead to several predictive trends in behavior and opinions What kind of research? Can you give references?
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    If you divide people into generations, most of them are not in the center and maximally separated from the adjoining generations. The thing about talking of generations is that it implies being near the boundaries is much less common than being far from the boundaries, which isn't true. Being out of step with your peers is a separate issue.
- LocalH 7y ago
  Millennial has turned into a slur, so at this point I think the terminology needs to be superseded. The term originally meant birth between 1982-2004, with the caveat that the end of the generation might be up for discussion while the next generation was still growing. Now all of a sudden you have people calling anyone born in the 80s a "millennial", usually as a means to disparage them.
  - SamReidHughes 7y ago
    When I first heard the term, it seemed to be describing people born around 1988 or later. But I think it depends on locality, and my impression is the line is when cell phones became quasi-universal during high school.
caseysoftware 7y ago
Think of mixing colors. If you mix 50/50 red & blue, obviously that's purple. When it's 80/20 red & blue, that looks more red than blue but looks purple but not the same as above. When it's 20/80 red & blue, that looks more blue than red but looks purple but not the same as above. It's a classification using a gradient, not an integer so yes, the boundaries are hard to tell but are still there.
- kgwxd 7y ago
  Wavelength values are linear. The labels cause all the arguments.
  - throwaway744678 7y ago
    *Continuous
    - kgwxd 7y ago
      That sounds righter. I'm not a math person :/
stuaxo 7y ago
Millennial is anyone 35 or younger.
- mrrrgn 7y ago
  As the namesake suggests, "millenials" are ideally people who were young-adults around the 00's. That generally means born from the early/mid 80's to mid-90's. Gen z were/are young adults during the '10s. Gen alpha will be young adults during the '20s. Generally a person's pre-teen/teen/early 20's are very formative so the shared experiences that a generation will have probably do form a real connective tissue within the age cohort that separates them from those with different experiences. A binary (anyone less than x years old is a y) isn't so useful to describe such a phenomenon.
  - excalibur 7y ago
    Generations are supposed to be longer than 10 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - mrrrgn 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials 1982 - 1996, that is more than ten years. But the people in that range would have shared formative experiences during the '00s. Thus the moniker millenials.
derefr 7y ago
Unlike horoscopes, where a computer wouldn't be able to predict a person's "sign" from e.g. tweet data any more often than chance, generations really do work as a predictor for some behaviors (or vice-versa.) Think of it this way: if 10% of every other generation does X, but 40% of a particular generation does X, then that generation really should be known for doing X, even though the majority of members of that generation don't do X! Don't let the easy availability of anecdotal counterexamples to a trend fool you; a trend in a population is a trend even if not literally everyone in that population is a part of it. Of course, there might well be a better way to divide up the population that serves as a better predictor for the trend, and so "explains away" the generational effect. E.g. changes in racial composition (and so culture) due to immigration over the years; or growth of subcultures as self-reinforcing memetic entities, apart from any generational proclivity toward them; or economic effects pushing people to have different emotional needs (e.g. a change in gender-balance of the workforce will see different types of businesses created to offer self-care to tired workers.) But, by another lens, all these other effects are "part of" the generational effect; they're the composition of the narrative the generation will tell about itself, and so be remembered for.
- kgwxd 7y ago
  That's why I think "era" is a better view for this kind of categorization. It doesn't slap a label on the individuals and individuals can discuss living through that era without implying they did X.
  - derefr 7y ago
    Sure. All "generation $foo" is supposed to mean is "the set of people who grew up in the 15-year era $foo". Saying things about a "generation" is saying things about the effect that that era had on the people who grew up in it.
    - kgwxd 7y ago
      Supposed is right. But I'm pretty sure, just going off my own initial instincts (which I treat as a ranting racist), the terms used for generations triggers immediate bias in everyone, no matter how woke they are. It's just a bad way to categorize things. Not good for constructive conversation. "Grew up in" is vague enough, then there's a ton of follow up questions: "Exactly how old?", "What country?", "What city/suburb?", "What neighborhood?", "Family income level?", etc., etc. Most people just assume the answers to all those based on where they think people lived at the time, their assumed nationality, their current assumed income level, and a million other things. Only truly interested parties will take the time to resolve all those assumptions in a conversation, assuming they have the time. 2 people trying to have a conversation about their respective "generations" aren't likely to portray anything, even themselves, accurately to each other. Putting individual people, others or ourselves, in camp X, Y, or Z is a bad way to start, period. Talking about trends is great, but pigeonholing any one individual into anything, no matter how accurate, is going to induce immediate rage in them. Doesn't matter if that rage stems from perceived false accusations ("I'm not that thing you think I am") or patriotism ("You say that like it's a bad thing"), it's just not good.

by Klinky 7y ago

cabalamat 7y ago

> Generational classification and "analysis" is almost as bad as stereotypes. Sometimes there genuinely are very big changes between generations. E.g. Brexit, which is much more widely supported by old people than young people.

sanbor 7y ago

Well said. Not to mention that where you where born (geographically) and what social sector makes lots of cultural differences. For example, in late 90s in Argentina my mother washed clothes by hand and didn't own any game console. As you can imagine, even if I was a teenanger during the year 2000 my culture and life experience was differrnt than a middle class American of my same age.

ensignavenger 7y ago

This comment is being down-voted, and I sort of understand why, as it comes off as overly abrasive. Obviously demographers use different years to define generations depending on the study. But I think the last part about stereotyping is worth discussion, even if the comment is overly abrasive. I was born in a year that traditionally was generally not considered "millennial" by demographers, but since it also did not fit with the years they used for previous generations, modern definitions tend to include my birth year as "millennial". This irritates me, because myself and most of those that I know who are my age don't fit the usual descriptions of "millennials" and we don't like the association. Now, I happen to like millennials. My wife is solidly in the millennial years. I have many friends who were born in the millennial years. But I don't like having the label applied to myself and I don't fit the descriptions at all. In the end it isn't a big deal. I have no plans to ever call myself a millennial. But it is worth cautioning against stereotyping individuals because of the year they were born, as I unfortunately see many people do.

planck01 7y ago
Generations are basically agegroups that share for a part the same cultural experience, e.g. the same mass media, cartoons, educational trends, etc. Research shows that these overlaps in culture lead to several predictive trends in behavior and opinions. It's normal you don't associate personaly with every trend. Especially if you lived in some local bubble or if you are on the edge of some defined group. That doesn't matter and I would just ignore it. This isn't about any specific person.
- logifail 7y ago
  > Research shows that these overlaps in culture lead to several predictive trends in behavior and opinions What kind of research? Can you give references?
- perl4ever 7y ago
  If you divide people into generations, most of them are not in the center and maximally separated from the adjoining generations. The thing about talking of generations is that it implies being near the boundaries is much less common than being far from the boundaries, which isn't true. Being out of step with your peers is a separate issue.
LocalH 7y ago
Millennial has turned into a slur, so at this point I think the terminology needs to be superseded. The term originally meant birth between 1982-2004, with the caveat that the end of the generation might be up for discussion while the next generation was still growing. Now all of a sudden you have people calling anyone born in the 80s a "millennial", usually as a means to disparage them.
- SamReidHughes 7y ago
  When I first heard the term, it seemed to be describing people born around 1988 or later. But I think it depends on locality, and my impression is the line is when cell phones became quasi-universal during high school.

caseysoftware 7y ago

Think of mixing colors. If you mix 50/50 red & blue, obviously that's purple. When it's 80/20 red & blue, that looks more red than blue but looks purple but not the same as above. When it's 20/80 red & blue, that looks more blue than red but looks purple but not the same as above. It's a classification using a gradient, not an integer so yes, the boundaries are hard to tell but are still there.

kgwxd 7y ago
Wavelength values are linear. The labels cause all the arguments.
- throwaway744678 7y ago
  *Continuous
  - kgwxd 7y ago
    That sounds righter. I'm not a math person :/

stuaxo 7y ago

Millennial is anyone 35 or younger.

mrrrgn 7y ago
As the namesake suggests, "millenials" are ideally people who were young-adults around the 00's. That generally means born from the early/mid 80's to mid-90's. Gen z were/are young adults during the '10s. Gen alpha will be young adults during the '20s. Generally a person's pre-teen/teen/early 20's are very formative so the shared experiences that a generation will have probably do form a real connective tissue within the age cohort that separates them from those with different experiences. A binary (anyone less than x years old is a y) isn't so useful to describe such a phenomenon.
- excalibur 7y ago
  Generations are supposed to be longer than 10 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - mrrrgn 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials 1982 - 1996, that is more than ten years. But the people in that range would have shared formative experiences during the '00s. Thus the moniker millenials.

derefr 7y ago

Unlike horoscopes, where a computer wouldn't be able to predict a person's "sign" from e.g. tweet data any more often than chance, generations really do work as a predictor for some behaviors (or vice-versa.) Think of it this way: if 10% of every other generation does X, but 40% of a particular generation does X, then that generation really should be known for doing X, even though the majority of members of that generation don't do X! Don't let the easy availability of anecdotal counterexamples to a trend fool you; a trend in a population is a trend even if not literally everyone in that population is a part of it. Of course, there might well be a better way to divide up the population that serves as a better predictor for the trend, and so "explains away" the generational effect. E.g. changes in racial composition (and so culture) due to immigration over the years; or growth of subcultures as self-reinforcing memetic entities, apart from any generational proclivity toward them; or economic effects pushing people to have different emotional needs (e.g. a change in gender-balance of the workforce will see different types of businesses created to offer self-care to tired workers.) But, by another lens, all these other effects are "part of" the generational effect; they're the composition of the narrative the generation will tell about itself, and so be remembered for.

kgwxd 7y ago
That's why I think "era" is a better view for this kind of categorization. It doesn't slap a label on the individuals and individuals can discuss living through that era without implying they did X.
- derefr 7y ago
  Sure. All "generation $foo" is supposed to mean is "the set of people who grew up in the 15-year era $foo". Saying things about a "generation" is saying things about the effect that that era had on the people who grew up in it.
  - kgwxd 7y ago
    Supposed is right. But I'm pretty sure, just going off my own initial instincts (which I treat as a ranting racist), the terms used for generations triggers immediate bias in everyone, no matter how woke they are. It's just a bad way to categorize things. Not good for constructive conversation. "Grew up in" is vague enough, then there's a ton of follow up questions: "Exactly how old?", "What country?", "What city/suburb?", "What neighborhood?", "Family income level?", etc., etc. Most people just assume the answers to all those based on where they think people lived at the time, their assumed nationality, their current assumed income level, and a million other things. Only truly interested parties will take the time to resolve all those assumptions in a conversation, assuming they have the time. 2 people trying to have a conversation about their respective "generations" aren't likely to portray anything, even themselves, accurately to each other. Putting individual people, others or ourselves, in camp X, Y, or Z is a bad way to start, period. Talking about trends is great, but pigeonholing any one individual into anything, no matter how accurate, is going to induce immediate rage in them. Doesn't matter if that rage stems from perceived false accusations ("I'm not that thing you think I am") or patriotism ("You say that like it's a bad thing"), it's just not good.