Poll: Which Generation Are You?
What generation do you identify with? What do you see as the defining characteristics of that generation? What about defining moments?
Date ranges taken from Generations via Wikipedia.
Date ranges taken from Generations via Wikipedia.
Which leads me to a defining moment. In the 1970s Hot Wheels (or was it GI Joe?) tried to create an animated series based on their brand. The government stepped in and said: "No way. You can't have a 30 minute commercial for your product and pretend that it's entertainment."
When Reagan was elected, they said: "Ah, forget it, make as many brand-based TV shows as you want." And thank god they did, because we got lots of awesome 80s entertainment.
I read somewhere recently that a writer had produced a screenplay aimed at teens. The studio's advice was to put more name brands in the script, but only the ones that the kids think are cool. The coolness factor is supposed to bleed over from the brands to the film.
I'm not sure if these trends are good or bad, but I think it does have a big influence on what my generation likes, and the type of work they do. How many of us became graphic designers, advertisers, and branding experts? How many of us are creating a brand for ourselves?
Earliest memories feel like an old Italian movie (spent 1980 there). I can clearly remember Oliver North, the cold war, and my family's first microwave and VCR. (I wasn't all that well off). In grade school we had three lessons from a "computer guy" and were able to spend an hour every week or so on Apple II's.
EDIT: OH! And how could I forget the day we got a Colecovision! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColecoVision)
High School through the early nineties...we all still had big hair. Used a black and white Macintosh to write a program in Turing. For my class project, I had graphics of a missle blowing up a house if you got the question wrong, since I skipped ahead to the back of the book and read the appropriate section. I remember how scared people really were during desert shield. We thought it could be WWIII. Saddam's army was the 4th largest in the world.
Joined the army in the mid nineties. I remember seeing a buddy's 486 with windows 95 on it and thought that this internet thing was pretty cool, but not as cool as the GPS's we got to play with. I did my time and got out, went back to school and got into IT just as the dot com boom was at its height. Never made the mounds of cash others did.
Been stuck behind a computer in one form or another ever since.
You missed entering the workforce during the early nineties, (recession) so you probably share more things in common with Yer's than Xer's.
I don't particularly identify with, say, someone born in 1990.
I also have friends that are retired old folks, so I guess I relate well across generations :)
Change happens gradually and continually, but if you sample it at a frequency of ~20 years then you see all sorts of artifacts.
I imagine a lot of that is written as history is written, not based entirely in reality.
Anyway, I get this feeling that these 'generations' that can be characterised are not inevitable & constant. There were just a few that were.
I've got a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit (haven't got anything off the ground yet, though), and I'm pretty sure that if I was five years older, I'd be a ex-Porche owner :)
I didn't have a computer until I was in the third or fourth grade.
I think 9/11 is a pretty defining moment. I was in 6th grade that year, so I was old enough to understand what was going on but not old enough to really be interested in politics, so I became politically aware in a world with a war on terror and patriot act.
Wikipedia seems to refer to Gen Y and Gen M though for some reason?
I was the last in my class to get a computer at home, around grade 6, but I am the second most tech savvy person at my school.
I remember my first experiences with a computer. It was at my elementary school, on an old black and white Apple.
How times have changed.
RHCP headlining, and a few other regional (northwest) bands opening: Nirvana, and Pearl Jam. Everyone was quite into RHCP, but weren't so sure that Nirvana was that great.
Me, I was (am) more into Fishbone, who are, incidentally, still a going concern.
Me, I'm happy that I'm still able to see bands like Buffalo Tom and Local H perform.
Not having that is one of the things that scares me about going back to the US. We have a small daughter, so big cities are not as interesting as they once were, and smaller towns in the US can be incredibly homogeneous compared to what I'm used to.
I think most of the comments here support this general self-assessment. (God knows that anyone in Gen X was all-too aware of the fact.)
P.S. Obama, born in 1961, is on the X/Baby Boomer cusp. But given his single-parent upbringing and general awesomeness, I have always considered him our first Gen X big-time leader. The biggest unspoken issue of the 2008 campaign is our movement away from a Baby Boomer or GI Generation president in a very very long time (Eisenhower was our last Pres not from GI/Boomer Generations). McCain, born in 1936, would be the FIRST member of the Silent Generation to become President, ever (Bush II: Boomer; Clinton: Boomer, Bush I: GI; Reagan: GI; Carter: GI; Ford: GI; Nixon: GI; LBJ: GI; JFK: GI; etc.). The real question of this election is: do you want someone from the old school that can't logon to a computer leading us in the 21st Century, or would you give that task to one of the do-nothing, lazy, slackers that you have come to know and love?
For example, the Gen-X stereotype would be some lazy, self-centered kid listening to 90's grunge music, while blaming his parents generation for fucking up the world, while wearing a flannel shirt and ridiculously long sideburns.
I feel pretty much nothing in common with that stereotype, fucking hate grunge music, and am far more interested in how we (my "generation" or whoever) can change the world, than in assigning blame to others.
(Generation X, btw.)
Not proud of it. Don't apologise for it either. Come to think about it, never really thought about it that much.
I spend lots of time with people from age 4 to 92 and never think about which "generation" they're in. Frankly, I think it's a giant non-issue.
I do know that we didn't have all this cool technology when I was in college, but I sure am glad we do now. Having suffered with earlier stuff makes me appreciate what we have today that much more.
Now stop worrying about stuff that doesn't matter and get back to work.
As the primary account-holder of the future which your generation has mortgaged, I would kindly request that you address all future payments to us, directly.
Additionally, it has come to our attention that your account is more than 90 days past due, and we must inform you that if you do not begin making payments immediately, we will be forced to turn over your debt to collections. If you do not respond, your future may be repossessed without further notice.
Sincerely,
Generation X
As always, Fuck You and thanks for the $700 Billion. We'll also be interested in changing more laws to make sure we don't retire and that you can't get promoted into the executive level jobs that you have waited for. We got them first, nyah nyah. Any attempt to disagree with the way we run things we be met with our votes, which will always outnumber yours.
Oh yeah, make sure you pay our kids right. Even if it's more than you ever made and bankrupts your company.
Yours,
Boomers.
I guess I'll stick to threads about boring stuff like data base structures, algorithms, scaling, or adoption rates.
It's getting a little too hot in this one.
We all have our faults, but if you can't laugh at them, you're lost.
Lumping me in with bandits in the same age group makes as much sense as blaming you for the shitty code I have to clean up because you happen to be a programmer.
Witty comment based on no logic whatsoever. Fail.
Sometimes it's hard to tell in writing.
Or maybe you struck a nerve.
</apology>
Saw this in your profile - experienced entrepreneur. :) amusing. Did you start something in your backyard for the toddlers when you were 2 or 3 ?
I prefer to think of myself as from the "Beverly Hills, 90210" generation. Dylan McKay is my soul mate.