Jfc how are people still talking about generations?
Exasperation, not a genuine question ^
Because it is an effective distraction from the actual problem which is class war.
Billionaires and their followers are the problem, not people of a certain age, gender, skin colour etc. etc.
In all seriousness, it is mostly cis men doing this.
edit: this was meant to be a joke, but honestly the amount of mansplaining in this thread and the responses below this comment has unfortunately altered this into a true statement. What have you all done?
Since men are still getting angry and messaging me:
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
As a cis white man, I’m just glad to finally get credit for something. DEI and woke has made it really difficult for me to be rewarded for other people’s progress in spite of my mere passive existence being an active stumbling block in the path of those who made the poor choice of being born as they were.
I’m sorry that you’ve just now realized you exist in a system that connects you to a social order you have little power over, next few months are going to be rough on you I tell’ya.
Although, I wonder if there’s a word for the conditions that someone would have to exist under to make it possible to come this far in life without ever being forced to learn about this because of their advantageous position in that system. 🧐
I appreciate your apologies. Few people realize how hard it is to be given every advantage, but not have everything.
Ok, I’m done. These sarcastic comments are making me sad.
The answer was “privilege”
Well, corporations created generational division to blame what corporations were doing.
Corporations created anti-union sentiment for obvious reasons.
Before the Internet it was a bigger deal bc culture was different but yeah basically just a distraction
People like to have identities tho and like for this person maybe being GenX means something. Like distrust of systems
It is exactly the opposite because the Internet is and mostly has been a way to connect with like minded individuals. Generations are a new concept to divide us. They are less than a century old.
Before generations we had time periods that united us. We all knew what it meant to live through the 90s, the 80s, fuckin disco. It was commonality with your fellow man. Despite absolutely everyone knowing someone wearing skinny jeans in the early aughts - now it’s a “stupid Millennial” trend.
https://worldhistory.medium.com/where-did-generations-come-from-e2fb73931a88
There will always be the need to have some societal construct for the grouping of people. People in the same generation were generally subjected to similar living conditions at similar points of their life so it makes it a valid grouping.
If not generations, then what? There is also sexual orientations, political beliefs, race… the list goes on.
Realistically you can’t have 8 billion plus classifications for every distinct person, so at some point there needs to be a generally agreed upon roll up.
If not generations, then what?
Income, average household size, cost-of-living, religious preference, level of education, geography… lots of ways to slice up that poll data once you correlate each polling place with other data. The key here is that it’s possibly more valid to correlate with information that is closer to the election date than birthdays that were decades ago.
Oh yeah, you think everyone born in the late 1940s had similar enough lived experiences to universalise them? That’s incredible that there’s so little variation despite drastically different socioeconomic positionalities, almost like you’d have to dismiss certain experiences that inevitably deviate from that imagined norm to allow it to exist. Of course, there’s only so many ways to account for everyone, so we will have to accept these dominant constructions of human experience as something inevitable as well.
I wonder if there’s a word for that.
You completely missed my point. Generation is a valid grouping even if you don’t like it. Yes there are others that may work, some may be better, some may not. But it is still a unifying thread. Take Xellenials (micro-generation between X and Millenial), it’s described as an “analog childhood and digital adulthood” that is somewhat that pretty much everyone in that generation was subject to, so yeah it was a “similar enough lived [sic] experience to universalize them”.
I don’t think it’s similar living conditions but more of significant world events in their lives. With say Boomers you have Vietnam, Civil Rights, and Reagan as examples that shaped their world views. Not all are shaped the same way but it affected them. Like with Millennials, we have the proliferation of the internet, 2001, and 2008. These have seriously affected how we think and act to differing degrees in the USA.
Lmao, “microgeneration.” You don’t even believe in what you’re saying, it’s just the language you’ve been given.
Fucking so wild how many men responded to this without ever considering that their experiences are not universal.
Love the rhetorical question clarification
I got like three dudes genuinely trying to explain it (with wrong answers) within a few minutes. So, seemed necessary so as to not suffer the mansplaining.
That wasn’t sarcastic, or not directed negatively at you anyway. Love to see clarification, hate that it’s needed
Because ideologies are a team sport now. And people need to feel like they’re part of something- regardless of its relevance.
sneering distrust of unions
sneering distrust of science
sneering distrust of socialism
sneering distrust of wikipedia
I’d say their sneering distrust of everything has brought us to where we are now.
Nihilism isn’t witty or crafty.
South Park is a real grabbag, but they really hit the mark with Gen X yankees dismissing green energy and environmentalism for being “gay (pejorative)”. You could update that same episode and only need to swap out the last line for “that sounds woke”
You can trust unions. They’re there to make money and acting in your interest is acting in their best interest.
While you can trust science overall, there’s a hell of a lot of capitalism in there, muddying the water. Well-reviewed studies are generally pretty safe.
There is nothing inherently trustworthy or untrustworthy about socialism; it’s an economic and political philosophy that is only as trustworthy as the people implementing and operating within it.
You cannot trust anything on the internet, including Wikipedia or even this very post. There are actors with an agenda that can make every article better or worse. There is no verifiable truth, only facts through lenses, and Wiki, being a moderated system, is as fallible as anything else. Much like socialism, it is at least designed to make it more fair.
No. And it may have contributed to the anti science and anti vaccine shit that has been floatung around. Just being a contrarian isnt helpful
Gen X contrarianism is some stupid boomer shit. Its no wonder so many of them are divorced maga conspiracy morons now.
The biggest fear that Gen X has is that their parents might disapprove of them.
At least millennials trust in science.
Let me tell you about how watching the X-Files as a kid made me interested in science - AND the occult!
mostly made me interested in bigfoot. turns out my gran has a costume and her siblings all took turns borrowing it to use out at the cabin or whatever. put a little whimsy in the kids’ lives. family lore is that bigfoot’s name is larry.
That’s brilliant
So do genxers…
Sure don’t vote like it
Not in my country, they don’t. Not on average, at least.
You just don’t have to be so smug about it, also Millennials have been trying to warn you fucks for years that your blasé attitude towards shit was going to fuck us over one day and look where we are… Gen X fucking us over with the boomers.
and Gen Z is trending in their direction, we’re fucked.
every generation except mine bad
Civilization peaked in 1999, what can I say. Disclaimer: I don’t actually mean that, the 1990s were a lot more racist.
The Nazis are back. The late 90s weren’t significantly more racist than today. Words were thrown around more. Fewer people had black bags thrown over their head before being deported to El Salvador.
That’s right, we’ve made very little progress in 30 years. Some on the queer front, but not the LG part.
Since the 90s, the political left wing of the USA have stood up to private prisons and monied interests.
For a good example of the timeline of this change, in 1995 Joseph Biden passed a crime bill with a Crack to Powder Cocaine sentencing disparity of 40:1, which disproportionately impacted black communities. In 2003 he was among those who banned PAC money from politics (which wouId be overturned by Citizens United 7 years later). In 2009 he was Vice President to America’s first black President. 2010 he was giving a speech in congress asking, begging even, for that sentencing disparity to be removed. In 2022 and 2023 he was pardoning THOUSANDS of marijuana convictions.
I think in the 90s both parties were moderately bad, but now we’ve got one who are fucking psychopaths but we also have one who can and will save us if we can give them the chance.
The openly nazi people are a society-wide extinction burst. In the 1990s they didn’t need to be openly contrarian, because the consensus agreed with them.
A few years ago I believed that.
Now that the fascists have taken over…not so much anymore.
The OG fascism was also a result of similar circumstances. If you look at history reactionary movements always form in the response to civic progress, and for long term progress what matters is the progressive side keep fighting until the progress is fully internalised by society. This doesn’t mean it won’t get worse before it gets better.
Yeah, but the music was better.
But no, it was a lot more racist and homophobic.
I think every generation sucks in its own special way
Maybe it’s just Americans, brah.
Our youngest President (by a 15 year margin!) was Barack Obama who was a late Baby Boomer. If/when Trump does, Vance will become the first Millenial president.
Meanwhile in Congress, Gen X only this year achieved a plurality in the House at 41% (versus Boomers at 39% and Millenials at 15%). In the Senate, at 28% we’re still far behind the Boomers with their 61% and Millenials are far behind at only 5%.
I’m honestly appalled at how many of us Gen Xers broke for Trump (even more than Boomers), but with our smaller numbers (65 million vs 74 million Millenials), we weren’t enough to push him over the finish line alone.
Sorry my generation hasn’t done more to make the world a better place, but honestly we’re getting fucked more than we are doing the fucking.
GenX has never held any type of power, nor will they ever - not political, not economic, not financial. The Boomers were always like “Wait your turn”, but they never bothered turning anything over regardless of what we fought for, or how hard.
And now the Millennials have come up on the other side. And I’m just so tired of fighting to make things happen, or even just to try to preserve things, that that’s okay. I did what I could to make things better, and I’m happy for a less weary cohort to take over.
I have fought for over three decades. Never got anywhere. The more effort I put in, the less I eventually got back.
I’m out. Throwing in the towel. Not fighting more unwinnable battles only to then be slandered by the very people you fought to protect.
It’s one big free for all since we lower class types seem to be fundamentally incapable of organising.
Only war is the class war, but as long as there are those who want to forgo that for a culture war we have to fight on that front as well. Fucking capitalists.
So, the new Silent Generation (which only got its first and only president in 2021)
Got any examples of millennials trying to warn us “fucks” for years?? Because I don’t recall any millennials I know trying to warn anyone any more than my generation was.
Additionally, I don’t recall ever having people prefix their discussions with:
“So, I’m a [generarion] and here’s my take!”
So I’d imagine you’d be hard-pressed to find any evidence what to support this claim.
And lastly stop with the us vs them bullshit. We don’t need to be divided any more than we already are. Generational behavior isn’t as prominent as you think.
Part of that attitude was that Gen X never had power. The Boomers have been clinging onto power since Gen X was in high school. Gen X could have fought for power, but would it really have changed anything?
This would make sense if they didn’t vote for the people promising to fuck it up worse. (US politics only, I don’t know how generational breakdown goes in other countries)
deleted by creator
That’s called a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Gen X turned out to be more right wing than boomers, perpetuating the bullshit you all distrust.
I’m elder millennial and remember when gasoline switched from leaded to unleaded. I think GenX got exposed to the historical maximum of leaded gas fumes (in the US)
Nah, that’s boomers.
Most countries cut out leaded petrol for good when x’ers were rolling around their teens / early 20’s, boomers copped it their entire lives well into middle age. The famous reduction of violence when it started getting cut? Wasn’t gen-x’ers doing that shit in the 70’s.
I’ve often suspected it’s why we’re seeing older generations get batshit as rhey age. Lead can be uptaken into bones, and leach back out as the bone degrades. Like, say, with age
There’s been a few studies that have been looking into the effect of lead in the environment and its effects on mental acuity as the person gets older. It’s not a wide confirmation but the start that as Boomers get older, they are literally going insane from lead.
Yeah, really not surprised
There are some that literally want to kill all the younger generations because they think they’re woke. Those people need to be in an asylum.
Okay now do why Gen Z men in particular are following the exact same dead end path despite 0 lead.
Con artists are the only ones courting them.
Know that quote from Lincoln? I’ll paraphrase it. You can fool some people all the time. You can fool some of the people all the time. But eventually they’ll wisen up. That’s what happened here. It seems the Gen Z men are wisening up, slowly though with reports and statistics I’ve seen.
that would explain a lot
Gen Z has entered the chat. They’re more puritan than boomers
More puritan than the free love generation? It’s remarkable that millennials are less puritan than boomers
They were the free love until they became the Me generation…
Weren’t they the Me generation starting when they were kids? And they were able to be both, they were the hippies and the yuppies. And free love didn’t mean love, it meant “sleep around without commitment”. The hippies were interesting in part because while there were and still are genuine people committed to a lot of their higher ideals, a significant portion were the sort to pursue free love for their own pleasure and enlightenment for their own sake. All this to say they seriously pushed sexual culture towards increased freedom
So apparently you haven’t looked at demographic trends over the last ten years because shockingly middle aged dudes have become the progressives among males. Not that they’ve moved to the left, but young men have swung so far to the right, it’s terrifying.
So apparently you haven’t looked at demographic trends over the last ten years because shockingly middle aged dudes have become the progressives among males.
It’s why centrists are so keen on labeling us teenagers. It makes me feel so young.
Gen X males were the bigger supporters of the Republican party than even boomers in the last election. I’m not sure which demographics you think I’m not paying attention to.
The swing in youth is noteworthy because it was a suddenc change, and the youth rarely support Republicans to much degree. Not that they were the biggest supporters
Young people and progressives don’t vote.
The swing is a global phenomenon. It’s not just about your republican party.
I don’t know why you’re trying to argue with me. Nothing I said contradicts what you’re saying here.
But apparently me mentioning US parties in conversation about US-centric generational labels offended you somehow.
I thought we were known for apathy since we were constantly told growing up that our generation was the first for whom things would be worse than our parents. I don’t have a sneering distrust of everything, just cynicism towards massive, systemic injustice in the world.
No. You guys need to take charge. You are in your 40s. Fuck you for not taking the reins.
I think they’re all at least fifty by now. I’m in the middle of the millennial years and I’m pushing 40.
The cutoff between GenX and Millennial is usually given as 1980, which means there are some 46-year-old GenXers. Sometimes 1978-1982 is described as a “microgeneration” called “Xennials,” so if you’re making that distinction, you’d still have 49-year-old Xers from 1977.
Ok, so nearly all of them are in their 50s.
This just shows how dumb the idea of “generations” is. Someone who’s 51 will have a lot in common with someone who’s 49, even if they’re in a different “generation”. Someone who’s 30 won’t have much in common with either of them, even if they’re the same “generation”.
Self-fulfilling prophecy?
I don’t even understand this one. It’s this a thing for Gen x? I feel like Gen x is more known for complacency.
Whatever
Exactly, just watch early 90s Simpson’s older teenagers, meh. That summed up gen x in a lot of media.
That’s just a side effect from the belief that nothing important was fixable because the interests that kept them that way were too entrenched.
It’s more apathy than complacency, after years of our cynicism being fully vindicated. A cynic is just a disappointed optimist.
Big “the government doesn’t work, elect me to prove it” energy
Cynicism, nihilism and distancing oneself from everything is not going to build anything good or allow others to succeed.
So no, not correct, not good, just a terrible mindset that will drag everyone down with you.
