Over on X, Dylan Smith (@heaveninterface) notices the stark differences between kids born in the 90s and those born in the aughts.
He’s not wrong. Except about calling people born in 1996 “Zoomers”.
Related: Lost Generations
A model’s worth is dependent on its predictive value.
As we’ve seen, demographic models that lump people born in 1996 in with those born in 2010 is neither predictive nor accurately descriptive.
The solution is obvious: Acknowledging that we’re talking about two separatre generations, at least in the formative and behavioral senses.
If only someone had come up with a generational progression that accurately describes reality.
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It’s worth noting that the Pew Research group didn’t declare 1996 as the start of the Zoomer generation until 2019. In contrast Stauss and Howe set 2005 as the start of the Homeland generation (their name for the post Millennial generation.) Thus throughout the 2010’s it was the received wisdom that anyone born 1996-2000 was in fact a Millennial. People treat these years as absolutes, but the reality is that even the “official” end points have been chosen recently and arbitrarily.
Sounds like the same exit where Gen Y was forced off the highway by the 70s Lincoln Towncar driven by the boys from Marketing.
Generation Jones got the same treatment. A mutual on X replied to my post there, saying this was the first he’d heard of Gen Jones.
Can confirm
Models like this are rare.
Demonstrating Witch Test-like trends in results.
Interesting comparison. Whenever this comes up in conversation and I (someone right at the cusp of either Gen X/Gen Y in this model or Gen X/Millennial in the Authorized Model) mention Gen Y, my sister (only three years younger) is quite adamant that “Gen Y doesn’t exist.” It’s never been an issue I’ve felt was really worth pushing back on in conversation, but the vehemence of the denial remains striking.
It’s always the people who never looked into this stuff at all, or even considered it in the first place, that fight the hardest against it.
Fact of the matter is that this model is a spectrum. You do not suddenly fall into a personality box because you were born in 1967 instead of 1968. The point is that because of shared cultural conditions and the overwhelming might of mass media, people born in specific periods of the modern age have radically different formation. Gen Y will have similarities with Gen X and Millennials depending on when in the spectrum they were born, but neither have anything in common with Gen Z or Gen Jones and you will never hear one say they do.
The whole project is meant to chart the course we started from and where we ended up through the course of modernity. Denying there is any pattern to find is just denial of reality, even more so when the same people blindly rejecting this believe the same experts who have admitted to making the dates up at random.
There is a reason you still hear people going on about “Older Millennials” and “Younger Gen Z” and is clearly because the current model is wrong. It’s really that simple.
This. I’m online friends with a guy who was an overseas military base brat in Europe for his adolescent and early teen years, watching old reruns of TV on AFN. Temporally a Gen Y, but he has a Gen X outlook and attitude.
The 10-year break out you and Brian use for cultural differences has to be distinguished with the 20-year temporal cycle for most people before they get it.
Yes, that clarification gets around the two main obejctions, viz. “But Wikipedia!” and “Ten year-olds don’t have kids!”
After Pew Research’s updated definitions Generation X (1965-1980) Millennials (1981-1996) and Zoomers (1997-2012) are all 16 year generations. So the even with the muh Wikipedia definitions the claim that we need to define generations so that each generation is the children of the last only makes sense if we set the average age for parents at 16.
When the average age of parents is now, if memory serves, twice that.
“Gen Y doesn’t exist! You’re all millennials, meaning that you grew up using the internet in grade school, with cell phones, with no knowledge of what VHS or cassette tapes are!”
“But none of that describes me at all.”
“Wait, were you born in the early 80’s? That makes you a Geriatric Millennial.”
“If you admit my experiences are different and you even have a different name for my group, why can’t we just say that I’m part of a different generation? Say, Generation Y?”
“You’re a Millennial though!”
Many such cases.
It’s wild to me that anybody considers kids born in the mid 90s “Zoomers.” That’s some top tier public consciousness gaslighting right there.
JD’s graphic above is bang on. But in casual conversation, I find a good way to explain it is with 9/11 as the touchstone event. On 9/11:
– Gen Y were teenagers
– Millennials were in elementary school
– Zoomers were newborns or not born yet
That makes it pretty intuitive and easy to grasp the difference for the average person.
Good heuristic.
“A Zoomer is someone with no personal memories of 9-11” works well to drive the point home.
Let alone Hurricane Katrina for those who live n the south. Lots of zoomers I know were born after that incident.
I greatly enjoy your blog Brian. Lot of good information, especially your theories on the various generations.
I have an idea : Sev from Founding Questions has a glossary for his various terms. Have you considered doing the same? It would be great to look up your various definitions of generations, especially since modern search engines suck. Even a master post with links to other posts for aid in defining your various theories would be great for any newer readers coming along. I understand it would be a lot of work for little gain and the frequent flyers know what you are talking about. I have a bunch of your posts saved, as I have had to go back to find old posts and dig through search engine pages. But a newbie that comes along might get overwhelmed, especially if they are trying to look up posts and getting nowhere.
Come to think of it, that could draw unwanted attention. Eye of Sauron, the tik tok grifter crowd and fake right. Might not worth it. And everybody here knows how to find your older stuff.
Never mind then.
Hey, thanks anyway.
No worries. Thank you for reading all that though. I like to help young men out in the real world, sometimes I hop into the arena without thinking it through all the way. Sev and others have to be very careful with their blogs to keep from being infiltrated.
I always prefer your model on Generations, i know no model is prefect but honestly a 10 year gab makes a lot more sense.
I have 3 questions
1. The GI and the Lost Generations if they could also be broken into 4 generations as well?
2. The other things is that since the Strauss–Howe generational theory lumps Gen Y with Milllennials and the baby boomers starting at 1943 and lumping in Gen Jones, unlike your model. Does that mean the theory of the Fourth turning is wrong or at least the timing and which generations should be in what Archetypes?
3. Does Race and immigration play a factor and affect the generation theory or at least mess up the data? I mean if say the theory is base on White Americans and a lot of immigration from South America, Asia and Africa come in, well they are different and will behavior differently. (I also think they have their own Generations stories that is different, for example is China and their baby boomers, they were the child and teenagers of the great leap and Cultural_Revolution)
As mentioned above once you internalize that the generaitonal model as shown in JD’s chart is cultural and behavioral, not strictly chronological, every question answers itself.
I’ve noticed personally what this article says as well. Without getting too specific, I was born a shortwhile after the initial invasion of Iraq was finished. My sister was born a few years later. I have no personal recollection of the events following 9/11; I remember doing some news-related school assignment about the death of Osama Bin Laden, so that must’ve been in 2011.
My situation is a bit unique because the Netherlands had two high-profile assassinations in 2002 & 2004 (Pim Fortuyn & Theo van Gogh respectively) which, while not directly related to 9/11, did have something to do with the fallout from that event. Especially Fortuyn’s death (who was essentially the first major Dutch populist figure) lead to some serious political fallout from which we’ve still not recovered. As a result of this (and several other factors), I tend to have a certain interest (can’t really call it ‘nostalgia’) for things that came out around the turn of the millennium, whilst my sister doesn’t have this at all.
The main distinction which exists is primarily tech-related, as older Zoomers where the very last generation to have their first years without any sort of social media. I was already on earth for some time before that happened, so outside of YouTube I’ve never really used any other social media platform. Meanwhile, my sister uses apps like Instagram and TikTok consistently every single day.
My daily internet experience consists of jumping between various different internet forums (for games, hobbies, work, you name it…) on my laptop/PC, whilst my sister only has a laptop which she uses for studies and spends most of the time on her smartphone watching ‘the feed’.
In short, there’s definitely some sort of distinction, though drawing up boundaries for what you’d consider a ‘Zoomer’ is already pretty difficult. I’d personally have it be something like 2001-2013, which would have things end at the rise of identity politics and movements such as BLM. But that’s just my two cents on the matter.
I remember the van Gogh affair. Stateside Con Inc. media used it as another log thrown on the fire to fuel America’s transition to making Islam the post-Cold War bogeyman.