- Boomers are having their last dance in charge.
- Gen X leaders are stepping up to replace the last of them.
- Younger leaders are taking charge of politics and corporate giants such as Boeing, HSBC, and Costco.
Uh i wouldn’t boast about Boeing lol
Thanks for this post. It’s been entertaining reading.
I’m fully in support of Kamala, but she’s not Gen X. Close, but no cigar. She was born in 1964.
She’s Generation Jones. So am I (b. 1963)
Damn, they even have her picture on the page 😆
Generation Jones is noted for coming of age after a huge swath of their older siblings in the earlier portion of the Baby Boomer population; thus, many note that there was a paucity of resources and privileges available to them that were seemingly abundant to older Boomers. Therefore, there is a certain level of bitterness and “jonesing” for the level of doting and affluence granted to older Boomers but denied to them
This reminds me of the Xennial generation that fell between X and Millennial. This also sort of shows how little we can really actually equate from these 20+ year generational spans. Really I am just happy she’s not old enough to collect SSI yet.
I turn 40 in September. I don’t like it!
Hard cutoff dates for generations has always been a stupid concept. Imagine believing that an Xer born in 1980 has more in common with an Xer from '65 than a millennial from '82.
Family context also plays a role. My wife and I are “officially” Xennials, born a year apart in the late 70s. I have a brother seven years older than me, and she was the first born. I skew way more Gen X than she does, to the point where she doesn’t see any point in describing herself as anything other than a Millennial.
Yeah, I was born in 84 but I identify pop culture wise much closer to my step brothers that are 1.5 and 3.5 years older as Xennails than I would my millennial counterparts.
The dates for these generations are not set in stone. Lots of organizations use 1965 to 1980 but the US SSA uses 1965 as the start.
People born around the transition points are going to have more in common with each other than with people born earlier in the date range. Especially when you consider families having kids a few years apart but each is apparently a different “generation”.
I can’t tell if she looks young for her age, or if she looks super young compared to everyone else on stage wirh her
Probably a combination of three things. First hate ages you terribly, example Laura Loomer, Alex Jones. Second she is a child compared to Biden/Trump. And third and finally as clichè as it is black dont crack
Also, and this is a biggie, she didn’t have kids. Kids harvest your life force in order to grow.
Gen X is too small to matter. Millennials are stepping up and will compete with Boomers for a little while until they finally take over. Thing about Millennials though is that it is a very K shaped generation. About half have had decent success and are conservative/liberal and the other half have been absolutely crushed so it’s kind of a mixed bag and as long as the Boomers have any influence not much is likely to change. GenZ is bigger than Millennials though and should be right behind them. They are very different and much more politically radical, on both the left and right. Things are likely to change with them.
It’s almost like generational distinction is meaningless and it’s actually about class.
And life stages
One thing I’m looking forward to with millennial leadership is just people that finally fully understand the power of the internet, big data and what truly distinguishes the information age. If you didn’t grow up with it, it’s hard to grapple with just how much it truly upended … fucking everything. They mostly still don’t understand that a computer can basically read their mind now, just through indirect data gathering and comparing them to all of the other people. We all get that at a more intuitive level, we’ve spent too long around these algorithms and seas of semi-anonymous others.
Of course we’ll be in some quantum AI room-temp-superconductor age by then, so, y’know how it goes. But we should at least have a better handle on the information age problems, so that’ll be nice.
But we should at least have a better handle on the information age problems, so that’ll be nice.
Technology keeps creating new problems. The problems don’t stay still and wait to be fixed.
Not to be contrary, but the problems aren’t technology’s fault. That’s all on us.
There’s apparently 65.2 million Gen Xers vs 75 million millenials. Smaller, but “too small to matter” seems like a really weird take.
Spoken just like the boomers. Heads up your own asses just like them.
65 million X compared to 72 millennial. Wow. Carry on.
Whatever.
Are you ok
Are you?
I am not, but I think that’s unrelated. Mostly. Or not at all.
In an existential sense?
I’m absolutely spiffing, thanks for asking! Yourself?
Adequate.
Fair to middling?
Sufficient to acceptable. Not good—but not bad! I’m… fine.
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I’m worried about the Alphas and younger Zs who weren’t paying attention until after Covid. The news doesn’t talk about Trump’s laundry list of controversies or extremism. They just yell about the economy and the border and point at Biden.
As usual, they make rationalists look alarmist.
Generational cohorts are all just made up nonsense. It just exists to distract the working class from what we have in common with each other and what separates us from the working class. I, a millennial, have much more in common with a working class baby boomer, than I do with a rich and powerful millennial.
Stop encouraging these artificial divides. Build solidarity across the working class of all ages. And stop playing into the media’s narratives.
I think you’re conflating two different things. There are a variety of social factors that affect age cohorts differently, and a lot of that comes down to the experience during formative years. We are a product of our environment in many ways, and it’s not nonsense to study and opine on these shared experiences and how they shape us. Class solidarity is an entirely different subject. You likely do have more in common with your social class across generations, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have anything in common with wealthy millennials. I wouldn’t let lazy journalism own the concept of generations itself.
The lived experience of people differs as much, or more, within age cohorts, as it does between age cohorts. They are lazy and hasty generalisations, with very little benefit outside of garbage op-eds and zombie statistics.
Do you often get your personal beliefs from garbage op-eds?
If you would like to learn about generational cohorts from a higher quality source, I recommend The Fourth Turning, a rather prophetic book on generations.
Oh, great, let’s swap garbage op-ed’s for garbage airport pop-science books. Why not recommend Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, next? Or maybe Rich Dad, Poor Dad?
Some lovely reviews about The Fourth Turning:
many academic historians dismiss the book as about as scientific as astrology
cyclical theories tend to end up in the Sargasso Sea of pseudoscience, circling endlessly (what else?). *The Fourth Turning is no exception.
their predictions about the American future turn out to be as vague as those of fortune cookies
as woolly as a newspaper horoscope
I haven’t read those books, so I don’t have an opinion on them. You haven’t read The Fourth Turning, so maybe you shouldn’t be so set on your opinion of the book.
I’ll just wait for the If Books Could Kill episode, I think.
Yep, it’s similar to Astrology where certain psychological characteristics are attributed to the signs of the zodiac.
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Wiki says Gen X is 1965 - 1980. Kamala was born Oct 1964. Boomer.
Cool great so if we’re making generalisations, the generation who was nothing but snarky, cynical, and too lazy to stand for anything is taking over from the spoilt brat boomers.
At least it’s a slight improvement.
As a millennial (only just though) maybe we should just skip Gen X and millennials and hand everything over to Gen Z. Maybe a generation who are generally consuming less and care about the environment would do a much better job of making sure the world doesn’t burn.
Turn on, tune in, drop out.
Boomers? Biden wasn’t even a Boomer!
There are still plenty of us Xers who are complete and utter cunts. Don’t let your guard down.
us Xers
Already I see a lot more self awareness versus the boomers, so it looks like a net positive in any event
Not really, you also see a lot of boomers calling out other boomers.
Yeah, people act like there aren’t progressives and conservatives in each generation. My retired Boomer parents still think a lot of bigoted and reactionary old people are the reason we can’t have nice things. My Silent Generation grandparents were happy to label Republicans as mostly irredeemably evil even when the political zeitgeist favored treating them as intellectual adversaries with earnest beliefs about the best ways to run society for the good of everyone.
And on the other end, the proud boys were a Gen Z / Millennial phenomenon.
It’s true that people tend to become more set in their ways as they get older. OTOH, that sometimes means that the militant socialist just gets grumpy and complains instead of remaining a hopeful activist. It doesn’t always mean that people start becoming right-wing and conservative.
As a Gen Xer I’m heartened to see Gen Z stepping up to literally save the world. Seeing the swell in support for Harris and in voter registration numbers, I for once am feeling hopeful. I hope they can accomplish what the forgotten generation couldn’t.
Gen Z reporting in. Above comment’s point was not to generalize an entire demographic as ‘doing good’. & it was a good one. Don’t assume that of us either.
Judging entire groups of people as a monolith is always bad. I’ll add ‘good’ is subjective of an individual’s values. Expect future generations to mock us for what we believe acceptable.
Gen Z unfortunately seems to have stepped back on the gender equality front. I hope it shifts back but self-identified feminists are down compared to millenials and misogyny is up. I’d be happy to attribute most of that to economic stress though.
Very good point, and I did not intend to make an argument about generations being different. Generations indeed consist wholly of individuals with their own opinions. On an individual level, age is no better an indicator of personality than your zodiac sign.
In my comment I just wanted to express that, after a long period of dread, I am feeling more hopeful after seeing so many members of the young generation getting engaged and making a difference where I personally feel we failed.
It was also meant to express appreciation and gratitude to those who are getting involved and as encouragement to those who are yet to do so.
Just remember there was leaded gasoline everywhere before 1995, and av-gas mostly still is
Expect future generations to mock us for what we believe acceptable.
I sure hope so. If future generations aren’t making fun of me for how backwards I am then we’re not progressing.
I’ll caveat that not all changes are ‘good’ changes too. The future generations might not value the things we hold dear, like the jury trial. One day maybe they’ll sadly see that as us wasting ordinary people’s time.
People in the future are not automatically our betters, but our equals, (hopefully) armed with the knowledge of our failings and armed with that of our successes.
I feel like the judge cannon stuff is a very good example of why jury trials are a thing. Corrupt judges are real yo
Every generation has plenty of those - no worries!
Yeah, they’re called “capitalists.”
This is such a gen Xer thing to say.
Ok Boomer
I guess my joke about the cynicism of genx is getting missed.
We prefer the term “hating on your X”
Whatever
Yeah. X/Mil cusper here. The elder Gen X are more like Boomers than anything, but have more anger and technical acumen.
Tucker Carlson.
If I’m not mistaken in gen X is the first generation to become more progressive as it ages
Def. I’ve only gone harder left/prog/anti-capitalist as I grew older.
saaaaame…55 and left as hell
Same. Grew up in a conservative household and shared many of the same views when I was younger. But the more the conservatives have shifted towards hating “the other” the more I’ve realized that was always what they, and their policies, were. They’re just not subtle about it now.
If you’re so confident in your world view, you shouldn’t be afraid of it being challenged, whether by speech, or people being free to be who they are, want to be, or were born into. If it doesn’t harm you, why should you care?
The fact that neo Nazis align themselves with the GOP, Trump,and MAGA, should tell you all you need to know. I’ve never donated to a Democrat’s campaign… Until today.
I didn’t change but the parties shifted for me.
Yup
As a Gen Xer, I wish that was true, but in terms of US voting patterns, it isn’t
Dang, you’re right, it’s the millennials that are changing that trend!
I hope it continues into the Millennials’ later years, but I’m feeling cynical about that…
That is true of every generation. Call it a human flaw.
As a member of Generation X, I would say that it’s not going to be much better.
Just look at, say, Elon Musk as an example of the kind of people from my generation who get to positions of influence.
Most GenX are the product of the Neoliberal era, so have interiorized the whole “lookout for numero uno” idea of how to be in society and whilst commonly aware of things like Climate Change, they’re usually unwilling to inconvenience themselves for the sake of fighting against it, quite the contrary even (just look at how well SUVs sell), and similarly when it comes to Consumerism, they seem to be the most prone to wasteful consumption (the kind of people who replace their mobile phones every year or two).
In summary, Gen X generally are more well informed than Boomers but even less principled than them.
Elon Musk as an example of the kind of people from my generation
Elon’s an Afrikkkaner fratbro social media junky with $200B to his name. That’s just not the lived experience of most Americans.
Most GenX are the product of the Neoliberal era
They’re nostalgic for the 90s, because it was a time of relative abundance. They’re not all Chicago Economics School trade globalists with a hard on for abolishing the minimum wage and privatizing social security, because none of them stand to benefit from any of that shit.
they’re usually unwilling to inconvenience themselves for the sake of fighting against it
You’ve got a selection bias. The GenXers who fought the fiercest got crushed the hardest. Prisons are choke full of social revolutionaries who got swept up in the 90s/00s Law and Order era. Hospital wards are full of GenXers pumped full of opioids to treat work-injuries and heavy metal poisoning. Morgues are full of GenXers who died in the service sector job filling lunch orders during COVID or were wiped out in the AIDS epidemic before it was treatable.
Losing doesn’t mean you weren’t fighting. It just means you were outnumbered, outspent, and outmaneuvered. For every Kamala Harris or Ron DeSantis who climbed up through the bowels of the system to live in its head, there are thousands who got crushed under its feet.
Gen X generally are more well informed than Boomers but even less principled
The folks you’re seeing are simply the ones that made themselves useful to the ruling class. One thing the GenX crowd was right about - the Revolution wasn’t televised. It was a war fought and lost in the back alleys and the boiler rooms and the darkest cells of solitary confinement. If the GenX capitalist class is looking extra cynical, that may be thanks to all of their relatives and neighbors they had to stack up like cordwood to reach these heights.
Probably a product more of age than of generational specificity.
You get used to your comforts, you probably have investments, you’re consumed by trying to get ahead enough so that you don’t have to die at your job, just in a nursing home what takes all of your money.
Gen X myself, and maybe an outlier, but I’ve probably become more radical as I’ve aged rather than the other way around. I’ve been stuck being poor for decades before finally “making it”, and that has really driven home the awareness of how fragile it all is. That, and just general omnivorous reading that includes a lot of depressing scientific literature regarding climate change. It’s terrifying.
I vote for the left (I would have happily voted for Sanders), support local measures and politicians that lean towards social policy and move towards things like green power, etc.
So yeah…not necessarily a thing you can just pin on a generation, though each generation will have some stronger proclivities than others in certain areas. The millennials will have to watch out, they’re next to fall for circling the wagons to protect whatever they might have, hate on their gen’s billion- or trillionaires.
We won’t be next because no one will be. Prove me wrong. Good fucking luck. You won’t acknowledge what must be done.
Gen X here, too.
DeSantis is younger than me.
That’s all I’m going to say. Gooooooooooo Millennials and Gen Z. PLEASE.
Once they hit our age they’re be equally shit. The only thing that makes us endearing is that we are a forgotten generation for the most part. No power. No numbers. But fuck me have we got influence.
I was born right on the border of Millennial and Gen X. Tory leader Rishi Sunak was younger than me.
Generation really doesn’t matter. Greedy cunts rise to the top and always will.
Today’s horrible influencers are tomorrows horrible leaders.
It’s almost like these generational names aren’t a monolith and have been divided up arbitrarily!
You could just as well replace these names of the generations with the astrological signs of the zodiac, that would be just as meaningful. It’s bullshit.
I was born in the 1990s and teenage me thought that the future would be awesome because people like me would be in power.
By now, people my age and younger have reported back, become politicians, celebrities, journalists or otherwise people with more power than me, and said “nah, we are pretty much the same as our parents were, some of us are awesome and some horrible”.
The type of people who seek power probably won’t change generation to generation… But the voters are changing rapidly as boomers die and millennials/zoomers replace them (far more progressive overall)… The voters will force the change, not the small percent that seek their own glory (ie the list you have there)
Millennials will become the largest voting bloc, and Gen Z tends to follow their lead. I predict the next decade is going to see some massive changes in governments.
The movement we see in the right, the coalition of ultra capitalists, nationalists, and evangelicals is the death throes of the GOP as we know it if they’re not successful in seizing power in the way they’re trying right now.
Honestly, given the money Gen X has, Gen Z would mostly probably do the same.
While some of our actions can be directed by principle, mostly it’s just shrinking income.
I wish we could raise wages AND use them to embrace Buy It For Life items, all while subsidizing public transportation etc etc.
But now it’s lack of money that holds Gen Z back, not principles, in my opinion.
Gen z understands that the rich are the cause of their poverty, not immigrants or libs or other poor people. That’s a big step in directing action in the right direction.
Fair, though I wonder how much of it is real change and how much is our information bubble. Hopefully mostly the former, but I absolutely do hear all those “fuck immigrants” and “I’m to blame, I just gotta work harder” attitudes around.
Yeah… I guess it’s more like, millennials were the first generation to have a majority get it, and Gen z is even better about getting it… But it’s still not 100%
I’m finally in charge!
What are yer orders boss?
Let’s eat the rich. Starting with Murdoch, Bezos, and Musk. Then let’s send the entire GOP to a for-profit state prison.
Deal, they seem to like to self flagellate. I’ve got the perfect name for it. Hear me out, we’ll call it “Florida.”
heck no. millenials can have it.
And that’s how you can tell a real Gen Xer
I’m Gen-X and I barely feel in charge of my own life, much less the direction of the nation.
Kick the Boomers out!
The median age of the senate is 65. The article is just cherry picking.
