# Am I The Only One Who Prefers To Be Called A Millennial?



## marked174 (Feb 24, 2010)

It seems like every generation wants to name the succeeding one after themselves. The Baby Boomers started calling the next gen Baby Busters before it became Generation X, and now it seems like history is trying to repeat itself by labeling Gen Y and Gen Z. Each generation deserves its own identity, one which doesn't owe its predecessors. Am I the only one who has this pet peeve?


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## Glenda Gnome Starr (May 12, 2011)

The demographers called Generation X "baby busters," when the birth rates started going down in the mid 1960s/ Later, Generation X gave that name to themselves. 
If you want to use a specific title for your generation, go right ahead. The title is your choice.




marked174 said:


> It seems like every generation wants to name the succeeding one after themselves. The Baby Boomers started calling the next gen Baby Busters before it became Generation X, and now it seems like history is trying to repeat itself by labeling Gen Y and Gen Z. Each generation deserves its own identity, one which doesn't owe its predecessors. Am I the only one who has this pet peeve?


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

Actually Gen Y (at least my end, the children of the 80s, and by some sources people born as early as 1976 or 77) are considered a "Baby Boomlet" that is a group of people who were the rising crop of Cabbage Patch kids birthed by those "career type" Boomer ladies who waited until their late 20s or 30s to have children, and even the Generation Jones younger Boomers who were having kids in their traditional early 20s. Because so many liberated women had children in their 30s starting in the 80s, plus their younger sisters having traditional families in their 20s, I guess there was a relative rise in the birth rate in the 80s.

Sometimes I think everyone on this forum would be happier divided into ten year age groups. It's easier to identify to your ten year age group. That's why I tend to only date people usually within that range, ha.

Too bad generations range from 15-25 years on average (the approximate amount of time it takes for the previous generation to begin duplicating itself).

Of course generations aren't a neat little package. It's not like 10 million babies were born in 1960 then they all gave birth again in 1980. If it were all that neat and tidy then there'd be less arguing about who we identify with.

But generations change slowly over decades and people are born every minute of the day of the year, so it's a messy business, and is based in relative social or technological or political trends. Or "shifts in consciousness."

The only time I feel good about being called Gen X is when Strauss Howe says I was born during a time of "Consciousness Revolution." Hoo boy doesn't my Fi/Ni find that deeply exciting!

But alas I don't relate to a lot of people to pledge allegiance to Gen X, except for remembering certain songs or tv shows as a child, and I find the overall attitude of sarcastic acceptance and near despair kind of disturbing. Something about Gen X honestly kind of creeps me out. I never feel "nostalgic" to watch Kevin Smith films or wear flannel. EVER. When I watched that movie Young Adult I couldn't stop thinking about how pathetic it was, even if I felt mild elated surprise hearing the Teenage Fanclub song for the first time in like 20 years.

People are wrong if they think I think Boomers in general are narcissistic because I'm Gen X, because I think Gen X is just as annoying as the Boomers, if not in some ways more depressing, even though Boomers are narcissists and take credit for things their Silent Generation predecessors actually did.

I'm pretty sure I hate every generation equally, just for different things, now that I think about it. 

Oh but I don't care if someone calls me a Millennial though I think it's an odd thing to call someone born before the late 90s. It seems more like it should apply to Gen Z.


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## peabrane (Nov 1, 2009)

I don't think I could care less. Much as I adore categorization in general, generational categorization in particular is both boring and, in my experience, inapplicable.


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