sociology

[titusnowl]

I've never been happy with the labels "Generation X" and "Generation Y," mainly because I fit into both and neither.  Generation X is people like my sister, who grew up during the 80s and all that, and Generation Y is kids younger than me, who've never known a world without the Internet.  I remember the Cold War; I remember the fall of the Berlin Wall; I remember a time when internet access was restricted to geeks with the money to build a machine that could access it, and I've watched technology become increasingly more available to the point where when I think about it it's really kind of mind-boggling. 

I think people in my age range, the people who are in their mid-20s right now, fit into our own generation - a generation that's actually pretty similar to the people who were too young to fight in World War 2, but too old to be Baby Boomers. 

A quote from TIME magazine editor Gerald Clarke, who was 32 in 1970:

"We are renters still, taking as our own the values of both old and young—and not thoroughly comfortable with either. Many of us now feel quite at ease with pot, rock and permissive sex; many of us reject the youth culture categorically. Most of us, however, occupy the unhappy position of being undecided: we want to enjoy, but deep down in our pre-Spock psyches, we feel we shouldn't. We puff marijuana at parties when we would be happier with Scotch or gin; we don bellbottoms when we would rather be in tweeds; we jump into affairs when we would rather be at home in bed—asleep. The visible result often is a compromise: the staid Wall Street lawyer, in vest, rep tie and cuffed trousers in the daytime, who turns Bloomingdale hippie in the evening, donning tie-dyed pants and tank top to weed the garden."

I think that description - adjusted for the time period - fits me and a lot of people I know very well.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this thought, it's just thinking aloud, really.

Comments

[mylesk.livejournal.com]

I thought today's twenty-somethings were the Millennials.

[anyamartinez.livejournal.com]

I always wondered too. I know how old i am but i don't think i'm a y, and i think i missed x by several years.