Gen Alpha

new Gen just dropped

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Alpha

even a newer one than that, apparently:

Generation Beta (often shortened to Gen Beta) is the proposed name for the demographic cohort succeeding Generation Alpha. Futurist and demographer Mark McCrindle (who also coined the name Generation Alpha) defines the cohort as those born from 2025 to 2039.

shoulda gone w/ Betamax

I was going to ask, seriously, who decides these things, but now I know: Mark McCrindle.

The word "Beta" has been used as an insult meaning someone who is weak or passive, leading some to suggest that a different name may be chosen for the generation.[2]

Generation Beta? pfft

Generation Gamma, often shortened to Gen Gamma is the demographic cohort succeeding Generation Beta and preceding Generation Delta.

https://generationss.fandom.com/wiki/Generation_Gamma

also, if you are a hipster then there is a cool obscure generation that most of your peers probably haven't heard of:

This isn't a coined definition but is used by people who don't think 2010-2012 is Generation Z, but doesn't think It's Generation Alpha

https://generationss.fandom.com/wiki/Generation_Zero

Generation Beta will inevitably lead to beeta/bayter pronounciation confusion, new name required pls

blank generation

do other people around the world use these things? Or is this just a insular western obsession

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Skaggs_Alpha_Beta_-_1979x.svg/250px-Skaggs_Alpha_Beta_-_1979x.svg.png

I was going to ask, seriously, who decides these things, but now I know: Mark McCrindle.

A lot of the way Americans think about generational cohorts is based on the work of William Strauss and Neil Howe (who coined the term "Millennial"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory

somehow i don't feel like i've lived through 5 or 6 generations but maybe that's just me

It doesn't really make sense that they're defined now in terms of roughly 15-year increments when the median age at which women in the U.S. give birth is 30.

otm

Technology shifts faster though.

I feel like there's a narrow gap between Boomers & Gen X.. like if you're born in 1962, what are you?

You could have really long generations when no one had made serious improvements on the wheel but kids who grew up with Facebook dominant basically live in a different world from the TikTok ascendant generation.

Gen X easy

xp

No way, I was born late 63 and I am The Last Boomer

my least favorite genre of youtube videos: Dad shows kid an old rotary phone, and the kid asks "what is that? I've never seen such a thing!"

Drives me batty

xp if you were too young to go to Woodstock and/or Watkins Glen, you aren't a boomer

this disqualifies my wife who is 1955 ;)

she wanted to go to Watkins Glen, her dad was like "no fucking way girl"

wage stagnation/death of the middle class kicks in hard around 1979, feel like that should be the capping event for - if you were 18 in '79 you're a boomer, if you were 17 you're X.

boomer/x cusp takes you to being 18 in 1983 when shit got real fucked up

wtf @ this historical denial, I am '66 and smack in the middle of Gen X

"were you a teenager during Reagan" is the central Gen X characteristic imho

I feel like there's a narrow gap between Boomers & Gen X.. like if you're born in 1962, what are you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones

^^ that makes sense to me, I am older Gen X and my wife is full on Jones

wtf @ this historical denial, I am '66 and smack in the middle of Gen X

More at the vanguard:
Generation X, also known as Gen X, is a demographic cohort typically defined as those born between 1965 and 1980

64 has always been the year I’ve heard for the end of the Boomers

as long as we have the Jones option I can accept that categorization xp

"were you a teenager during Reagan" is the central Gen X characteristic imho

Agree 100% (but I would; I was 16 in 1988).

Real question is when did anyone outside the US start caring about naming generations? I don't recall being 'Gen X' when I was growing up in the UK in the 70s & 80s. Also only the US had a baby boom, hence boomers. In merrie olde England it was lard rationing up until the Beatles happened and the infant mortality rate wasn't much better than Victorian times.

it's a capitalism thing iirc

so are we calling them gen A or what’s the deal cuz i’m not about to be calling a bunch of little kids “alphas” that’s a loaded word

the implication that one generation is just a testing ground for the next one is pretty funny tho and perhaps a little too on the nose

xp hey some of those kids are 15 now, show some respect ;)

I've seen so many articles that are like 'what Gen Z thinks of the boomers' or 'why boomers have a problem with gen Z' , it's like Gen X never existed which I guess I'm fine with

The group of writers and intellectuals that, amongst other things, introduced the realist influences of Flaubert and Balzac to Portuguese fiction, were known as "the 70's generation", meaning the 1870's, but that was just them, an average joe from the same generation wouldn't have identified.

Think examples must abound but be related to specific things like wars or epidemics, not just "ppl born in this random timespan".

xposts

I think this is a convincing argument re: generation categorisation

Generational lingo guide:

Anyone younger than you: Zoomer

Anyone older than you: Boomer

There are no other generations, because none of them sound as good to say. pic.twitter.com/ZIJumQXOKy

— stricture (@bog_beef) May 1, 2025

Gen X was coined in the early 90s in a book by now-forgotten writer Douglas Copland

Coupland

...and he was talking about the cohort that is referred to as "Jones" above. What is now called "Gen X" he called "Shampoo Kids" or something.

I just looked it up, he called them "Global Teens".

It's about a group I call the Global Teens. They're all under 25 and their greatest tribal identifier is great hair and great clothes. And they're as alien to X as X is to baby boomers.
— Coupland, The Globe and Mail, 1991

The few 13 and 14 year olds that I see on Discord have about the same level of maturity as the 16 and 17 year olds did when I was their age. It's eerie.

that's really interesting

the strongest characteristic of Gen X in my opinion is that we really liked to get loaded

kids these days are fairly prudish by comparison

How are you going to sneak in a flask and fingerbang your crush at the movies when it’s a Drafthouse and there are fucking waiters coming by all the time?

The few 13 and 14 year olds that I see on Discord have about the same level of maturity as the 16 and 17 year olds did when I was their age. It's eerie.

Speaking for myself “Great hair and great clothes” has never been my experience of Generation X, er, “Global Teens”

Those are millennials

or XY cusp

still no great hair or clothes, though

I saw a new music video with whale tail and that is definitely not a trend I expected to make a comeback

Agree with milo, I've always read that the Boomer generation was 46-64. Today I learned I'm actually from Generation Jones!

First half Boomers = Classic Rock
Second half Boomers (Gen Jones) = Post-punk

that's about right

The wikipedia article makes some good points.

My siblings span the two halves of the boomer generation. My older siblings had much different experiences than I and my younger sister did. My oldest sister became a candy striper (remember them?) and then a nurse because that was what girls did. My older brother was drafted during the Viet Nam war. My next older sister became a seeker, moving from an ashram to a kibbutz to a job as an au pair in Paris. Those all sound like clichés I know

I like saying “Gen Zed” cuz it sounds punchier and you get the assonance, plus I find the word “zoomer” annoying when not referring to somebody really hopped up on caffeine or other stimulants

'gen zed' sounds like a character from Zardoz

This is not a drawback

Just say no to Britishisms

xp I help mod a band fan server, no bad stuff going on.

I find the word “zoomer” annoying when not referring to somebody really hopped up on caffeine or other stimulants

it makes me think of these kids, who are probably close to my age
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS8dO6RBvRk

Aren't gen z-ers called zoomers because zoom has become the preferred method of group communication and because it rhymes with boomers? It's a pandemic name. Why would you want to change that

I hate zoom fwiw. We had family meetings over it during the pandemic but we all got really sick of it. I have a friend who still has family zoom meetings every Saturday morning and all I can think is that they must be a really boring family. I can only tolerate it for occasional meetings with my book club or with my financial advisor

I did learn to bake amazing sourdough bread from my brother-in-law's cousin's husband though from a couple of zoom meetings during the pandemic, after he sent me some yeast flakes. That was my best zoom experience!

Mazda generation

I don't think people call Gen Z "zoomers" because of Zoom. According to Merriam-Webster, "zoomers" was used to refer to Gen Z as early as 2016. Dictionary.com added it to their slang dictionary in January 2020.

Gen X was coined in the early 90s in a book by now-forgotten writer Douglas Copland

― Bangel, Bangel & Bangel (Boring, Maryland)

my favorite thing about generation x is that the term was originally used in 1964 to refer to... boomers. god it is just so perfect in that way. anyway yeah i'm on team "thank god people nobody acknowledges the existence of 'gen x'". when i refer to myself in generation terms, i just call myself a boomer. the idea that people my age are in some way _categorically distinct_ from boomers is... insufficiently supported by evidence, imo. i'm middle-aged, i'm out of touch, i'm not going to pretend otherwise, i'm not going to pretend i know more than younger people, i try not to be too much of an asshole.

i still double-space between sentences but you can't tell because ilx converts it to a single space. that's my generation.

I belong to the X Generation
but I can take it or leave it each time

i still double-space between sentences but you can't tell because ilx converts it to a single space. that's my generation.

lol same <3

my favorite thing about generation x is that the term was originally used in 1964 to refer to... boomers. god it is just so perfect in that way.

Haha, more hand-me-down culture!

Born in 65 so technically first year Gen X but ended up schooling with those born in 64. "Cuspy" doesn't mean much when one side is the Boomer generation.

Why are you talking to kids

― Bangel, Bangel & Bangel (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 7 May 2025 22:24 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

fp

so we just found out it’s a cardiacs chat, huh?

I learned when looking up "zoomers" last night that that term also originally referred to Boomers -- Boomers who are "especially active" lol.

I just think it’s really weird that we have stuck with this alphabetical thing after Gen X. Like that’s going to be the most enduring cultural contribution of the cohort. “why did we start using the alphabetical letters? Oh right it was those Nirvana kids.”

Active Boomer, my favourite radio format

Why are you talking to kids

― Bangel, Bangel & Bangel (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 7 May 2025 22:24 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

fp

Active Boomer, my favourite radio format

was bound to happen

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/08/cringe-how-millennials-became-uncool

we're not going to get to inherit anything except the Guardian lifestyle section

a key distinction here
While millennial humour is, typically, self-deprecating and relatable, gen Z are more absurdist, ironic, and meta.

I feel like the age of your parents and the age of your siblings makes a huge difference in your perception of your own generation.

If you are born on the leading edge of one generation but have an older sibling in the prior generation or younger parents, you will have significant ties to those prior generations and their cultural references that a similarly aged person who is an only child of older parents will not.

I’m a Xennial, is that still a thing, or do we just pick whichever generation on either side is more appropriate? I guess I’m X. I feel more kinship with the weirdo depressed Gen Z kids I work with than the anxious tryhard social media managers of the 2010s.

Do generations alternate between good and bad, like Star Trek movies?

Generations are all bad like Marvel movies.