Labelling generations

[Wowbagger]

I've known what a Baby Boomer is for a long time, since I'm a member of that large and privileged group. My father, who contributed in no small way to the size of that specific group, described it, with a wink and a smirk that might have been a leer, as "a soldier's reaction to the relief of getting the pack off his back". I'm not sure how much pack-carrying he did, since he spent the war years as an aircraft mechanic travelling around Africa in the Monarch of Bermuda, a liner converted to be a troop ship, and then supporting Monty in his pursuit of Rommell, in which they travelled mostly by lorry. It seems that the definition of a Baby Boomer is someone born between 1946 and 1964, although I would argue that my late brother Chris was also a Boomer, even though he was born in October 1945.

In recent months I've heard references to something called "millennials" and I recently read an article which referred to a "Gen Z" as well. A google indicated that there are every generation has its label, which is news to me and may well be of USAnian origin and therefore not universally acknowledged. They are:

Greatest Generation: Born 1901-1924
Silent Generation: Born 1925-1945
Baby Boomers: Born 1946-1964
Generation X: Born 1965-1980
Millennials: Born 1981-1996
Generation Z: Born 1997-2012
Generation Alpha: Born 2013-2025

I've no idea when the "Greatest" and "Silent" generations received their titles, since they have been around all my life and I have never, before googling this article, heard of them, and I don't think I've ever heard of Generation X or Generation Alpha either. The article in question refers to AI, which is also a closed book to me.

Am I a victim of an elaborate hoax or are these labels genuinely "A Thing". If so, when did they start being A Thing, and whose idea was it?

[Karla]

Gen X is the title of a Douglas Coupland book which is meant to have popularized the term, back in the early nineties.

[Wowbagger]

It would appear that the same Douglas Coupland (again, of whom I had never hitherto heard) coined the phrase "Gen A".

[Mr Larrington]

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

[rogerzilla]

They don't really work in years, they work in generations (well, duh).  So GenXers are the children of the boomers, and millennials are the children of GenXers.  By then, any correlation with years gets muddied due to the fact that (these days) parents' ages can vary wildly.  Back in the boomer days, you were more likely to get a man in his mid to late twenties marrying a woman in her early twenties, and popping out a couple of sprogs straight away.

The "Greatest Generation" thing smells of WW2 celebratory bollocks.  I bet the Germans don't call them that.

[Wowbagger]

I'm not sure that anyone calls any of them that. Apart from media types who like convenient labels.

[Mr Larrington]

Generation X were also a popular beat combo, responsible for unleashing William “Billy Idol” Broad on a unsuspecting planet.

[Cudzoziemiec]

There was also U-Bahn X and X-Mal Deutschland, two PBCs during the teenage years of Gen X. Well, the 1980s. So, lots of Xes around, although no one was using the term Gen X at the time.

AFAICT the Baby Boomers were the first generation to be named during their own lifetimes.

[spesh]

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

You are Richard Hell AICMFP.

[Basil]

'People try to put us down - Talking 'bout my generation '

[Pingu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNfTnCN9d00

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

The only date I’m concerned about is the expiry date. Of the planet.

[Robh]

Generation X were also a popular beat combo, responsible for unleashing William “Billy Idol” Broad on a unsuspecting planet.

I used to own a paperback, "Generation X", by Charles Hamblett and Jane Deverson, published in 1965, which I'm pretty sure is where young William got the idea.

[Mrs Pingu]

They don't really work in years, they work in generations (well, duh).  So GenXers are the children of the boomers, and millennials are the children of GenXers.  By then, any correlation with years gets muddied due to the fact that (these days) parents' ages can vary wildly.  Back in the boomer days, you were more likely to get a man in his mid to late twenties marrying a woman in her early twenties, and popping out a couple of sprogs straight away.

The "Greatest Generation" thing smells of WW2 celebratory bollocks.  I bet the Germans don't call them that.

That makes no sense as that would make me a baby boomer despite being born in 1975!

[fd3]

It all seems wrong to me.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

They don't really work in years, they work in generations (well, duh).  So GenXers are the children of the boomers, and millennials are the children of GenXers.  By then, any correlation with years gets muddied due to the fact that (these days) parents' ages can vary wildly.  Back in the boomer days, you were more likely to get a man in his mid to late twenties marrying a woman in her early twenties, and popping out a couple of sprogs straight away.

The "Greatest Generation" thing smells of WW2 celebratory bollocks.  I bet the Germans don't call them that.

That makes no sense as that would make me a baby boomer despite being born in 1975!

Why wouldn’t you want to be a boomer?  We do have all the money, so I am told.

[Jakob]

It would appear that the same Douglas Coupland (again, of whom I had never hitherto heard) coined the phrase "Gen A".

Douglas Coupland is awesome and I very much identified with his "Microserfs" book. He's a fairly prolific sculpture artist as well and has several public sculptures in Vancouver.

[phantasmagoriana]

Don't forget us Xennials!

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Don't forget us Xennials!

They are biennials?

[psd]

I'm generation X. I've known what that means for years. My children are, apparently Gen Z. I don't know what that means. I think Gen X has meaning precisely because of the aforementioned published works.

[hubner]

It's all nonsense, how can an age gap of 20 years be of the same generation?

Millennials: Born 1981-1996

The oldest millennial is 42, the youngest is 27, and they are supposedly of the same generation. Likewise  77 and 58 for the so called boomers.

A young parent and their offspring would be of the same "generation".

[Pingu]

What happened to Generation Y?

[Mrs Pingu]

They don't really work in years, they work in generations (well, duh).  So GenXers are the children of the boomers, and millennials are the children of GenXers.  By then, any correlation with years gets muddied due to the fact that (these days) parents' ages can vary wildly.  Back in the boomer days, you were more likely to get a man in his mid to late twenties marrying a woman in her early twenties, and popping out a couple of sprogs straight away.

The "Greatest Generation" thing smells of WW2 celebratory bollocks.  I bet the Germans don't call them that.

That makes no sense as that would make me a baby boomer despite being born in 1975!

Why wouldn’t you want to be a boomer?  We do have all the money, so I am told.

Because I'm not an old git?

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's all nonsense, how can an age gap of 20 years be of the same generation?

Millennials: Born 1981-1996

The oldest millennial is 42, the youngest is 27, and they are supposedly of the same generation. Likewise  77 and 58 for the so called boomers.

A young parent and their offspring would be of the same "generation".

Because they're supposed to be broad social labels to identify attitudes changing by cohort, not strictly to do with family relationships.

[Basil]

Life is the name of the game.
To see you ...