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Comment by YuriNiyazov | Hacker News Reader

Annoying - I keep on seeing different standards for X and Y, and never know which one I belong to, because I was born at the end of 1981. I am XY I guess.

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'79 - feel more like a Y than an X. But isn't the idea that we can draw hard-lines around generations the very problem here? It's these hard-line definitions that enable articles like the WSJ one to exist in the first place.

Change happens gradually and continually, but if you sample it at a frequency of ~20 years then you see all sorts of artifacts.

A lot of times what makes these lines be drawn is generation gaps. They supposedly make lines possible. Bob Dylan's generations' message to the preceding . The Clash to Dylan's. I don't think us Ys have a clear line with the previous generation. Maybe we'll find it at some point, but the pattern hasn't changed so much.

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.

Also 1981 here. A lot of people consider the border between Gen X and Millenials (usually 1981-1982, but sometimes as early as 1979 or as late as 1984) to be a distinct generation, with characteristics of both. Wikipedia calls it the "Cold Y Generation".

Most would consider you Y, although leading edge.

You missed entering the workforce during the early nineties, (recession) so you probably share more things in common with Yer's than Xer's.

That annoys me as well. I was born in May '81, so I'm voting you up instead of one of the poll options.

Someone below made a comment that they can't remember not having a computer at home. If you ask me, that should be the litmus test.

I didn't have a computer until I was in the third or fourth grade.

My favored litmus test is if you can remember the Berlin Wall.

Also end of 1981.

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 was born in 82 and have way too much in common with kids in HS. Perhaps this is because my first job was for a high school social network and my wife is a Young Adult Librarian.

Mid-1982 here, but I agree with you...

I don't particularly identify with, say, someone born in 1990.

I was born in April '82, and I have several friends that are 18-19. Not too many younger, but that's just because I don't hang out where you'd meet kids still in high school.

I also have friends that are retired old folks, so I guess I relate well across generations :)

Dec 1981 I guess I'm XY too.

Same here, 1979. Dont feel quite an X guy. More X than Y though.

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