**NEW** Including Micro-generations, which generation do you belong to?

Still Gen X, representing.

Millenial 1. But I grew up with SNES, N64, Quake, etc., so I feel that is a little misplaced.

Xennial and it was a awesome time to grow up no stupid smart phones or social media also music was amazing back then.

@plageus900:

Good feedback!

Yeah, I tried to put the experiences about when they would have the most impact but people can experience some things like videogames earlier or later then what I mention depending on their upbringing. Thanks!

Still Gen X. Pretty much nailed my childhood. Parents split up, latch key kid, arcades were awesome and MTV was the shit. We grew up playing Atari 2600, Colecovision and Intellivision before NES dropped though.

NES and N64 in my case. Friends that used to see during summer when we stayed at my grand parents place had SNES. Donkey Kong!!!

Xennial, although I hate that word and this my first time seeing it.

@JustPlainLucas:

Trust me, its been around alot.

Also called Generation Catalano after Jared Leto's character in My So-Called Life, and Oregon Trail Generation after the video game, which I guess was played alot then. Heres some links:

Generation Catalano

Oregon Trail Generation

My So-Called Life aired in 1994 a year before the Windows '95/internet technology craze and was always noted for its realistic portrayal of Xennials by actual Xennials (well, main protagonist Claire Danes was, Leto was GenX) who lived through that time. Pretty much the story of high school through the eyes of a 14 year old girl. How it only lasted just one season is crazy but it gave Claire Danes and Jared Leto their start. When it was pumped up on MTV late in the 90's it gained a lot of traction and popularity, but another great show like Freaks and Geeks that ended way too soon. But the word is Claire wanted to move on to movies after that first season, and she was pretty much irreplaceable in that role.

I would say its the forerunner of the movie "Thirteen" for GenZ.

Oh yeah, Oregon Trail was all the rage.

Funny, I don't remember that game, but then again I was 2 generations ahead and couldn't afford an Apple II at the time. Apparently it was very popular though around your time. I didn't get a PC until January 1997.

Born in 93 but I feel like more a millennial 1 than a 2. I was the youngest of 6 and since mum at the time worked for Telstra we had internet but my computers until I got older where always a gen or 2 behind so I had 95 when 2000 was out and 98 when XP then Xp finally when vista came out.

Xenial

Yeah, being the youngest of 6 you probably relate better with M1 than M2 in any event.

We had Oregon Trail in computer lab at school around 1982-83. I was a horrible hunter and lost many a family to sickness and starvation.

Yeah, I think the games been around a long time and somehow I missed it, in '82 and '83 I was just past high school and stationed in England while in the Air Force. At that time I was playing games like Defender at the Airmans club when I had free time. Mastered that puppy.

Apparently though it was a really big thing for Xennials (hence the Oregon Trail Generation moniker for them), perhaps it was re-released or something but one of my co-workers (an Xennial, 1979) remembered that game very well and said something about a fresh release with it.

So I guess that was the point of the game, make it across the States using your skills?

@AFBrat77: The goal was to get your family to the west without killing them all. I had a success rate of 0%.

I prefer "Oregon Trail Generation" myself, I also take offense to "Xennial".

@lamprey263:

Sorry, if I could go back and change it I would. But Xennial is the most common name for that generation anyway. But I agree, coming from a microgeneration myself, they need better names.

Just for fun, I'd like to give Oregon Trail a go, I'm sure it's free.

Had a little time to kill today so I thought I'd make a list of some famous personalities born out of and kind of representative of each generation, about 10 for each. I'll start with a sub-generation within Baby Boomers, the Shadow Boomers ( 1955-1959, who differed from the classic Boomers as they were too young for Vietnam and Woodstock), and list some for each generation up to Millenials 1 which is about as far as I can make a good list. Feel free to add on:

Baby Boomers represented by Shadow Boomers (1955-1959) are usually lumped in as part of Gen Jones, but I still see them as more Boomers, good group though, I would be proud to put them in GenJones (my generation), MJ included:

• Bill Gates
• J.K. Simmons
• Bruce Willis
• Tom Hanks
• Mel Gibson
• Bryan Cranstan
• Alec Baldwin
• Gary Oldman
• Michael Jackson (RIP), Prince(RIP), Madonna (1980's icons all)
• Bill Maher

Generation Jones (1960-1964)

• Barrack Obama
• George Clooney
• Eddie Murphy
• Nicholas Cage
• Tom Cruise
• James Hetfield and Dave Mustaine (Metallica and Megadeth!)
• Jim Carrie
• Brad Pitt
• Quentin Tarrantino
• Johnny Depp

Generation X (1965-1976)

• Hugh Jackman
• Matthew McConaughey
• Jay-Z
• Uma Thurman
• Matt Damon
• Elon Musk
• Leonardo DiCaprio
• Tupac Shakur (RIP), Snoop Dog, Eminem
• Jared Leto
• Ben Affleck

Oregon Trail Generation (1977-1981, the artists formerly known as Xennials)

• Ashton Kutcher
• James Franco
• Kobe Bryant
• Katie Holmes
• Heath Ledger (RIP)
• Jake Gylenhal
• Tom Hardy
• Claire Danes
• Ryan Gosling
• Christina Ricci

For Millenials 1, 2 and Generation Z I don't feel qualified to do a list, so please feel free to add names if you want. But for me play time is over for now, back to the real world.

Millennials 2.

Gen Z.

I think a little differently on that breakdown as I think the major generations are 10-16 years (sorry, but you can't have kids in the same generation anyways, thats how I see it, unless you were a Boomer, born in '46 and had a kid at 13), and the 5 year micro-generations are very real as its a time of rapid change and people born then aren't a real neat fit to either generation they border, growing up one way as they hit their teens, but another before they leave high school. They are sometimes the most noteworthy generations of all.

I see Millenials 2 (the Social Media generation) as a micro-generation between Millenials (the Internet Generation, grew up with internet becoming and being populated) and Z ( the fully digital generation, BORN after internet was up and busy) and I don't have a good name for them, but Millenials understand there is a division right there.

As for Z, 1997 is a very common placement for when their generation starts....basically whole life after internet, smart phones were ubiquitous before they reached high school, and no knowledge of 9/11 unless of course a family member died then, then a slight possibility. 1997 is a good placement, 9/11 happens before they reach Kindergarten. As for how long Z is, I would say 10-14 years but no idea when, lets see if there are big markers when Alpha reaches high school.

Hmmmm...it looks like Millennials 1 (M1) still leads the charge here, equalling it's 2 tied neighbor generations M2 and OTG (Oregon Trail Generation). It seems the 1982-1991 gang has always been the majority at GS, not surprising since they basically came of age with the Internet and this site, which I believe used to have another name. I imagine they remember the Greg Kasavin days.

Anybody else want to chime in? Don't be shy 😉.

There's no such thing as a micro-generation. Go home, boomer.

@theone86:

not going to get caught up in your bs, I know how you are. So I ask nicely to stay off my threads.

@AFBrat77: Wow, a boomer trying to shut down a millennial opinion, NEVER seen that before!

"Get off my lawn thread you rotten kids!" LOL!

So, it seems that most people on here (or at least the largest generation) are 28-37 year old (Millenial 1) right now. I do get the feeling that Gamespot is passe for GenZ and they have their own sites for such things. It doesn't bode well for Gamespot but then again this is just one board and I'm sure there are people that are exclusively on the Politics and System Wars boards.

1992 so I fall into millienial 2 from this list, but relate more to the description for millienial 1, played all those games as a kid, had a flip phone, still have my aol email, its my trash email now, 9/11 was in 5th grade

@jeezers:

Theres a lot more I could add to Millenials 1 and 2, I think M1 grew up with the Star Wars prequels which isn't a surprise when you consider their parents (mostly 1955-1964 born) were in college, high school, and junior high when the original Star Wars movie (now called A New Hope) came out. I'm sure they took their kids to the prequels partially because the parents wanted to see the movies also.

M2 grew up I would say a little bit more with the Harry Potter movies which were something new. They also could have been seeing the Star wars movies but were fairly young.

But back to what you were saying....like the Star Wars prequels you could experience some tangible things that still exist like a previous generation but the previous generation grew up at the heart of those things when they were new.

@AFBrat77: yeah I saw attack of the clones in theaters for my bday as a kid

Gen X, but I started on Atari 2600 and IBM PCjr. Atari 5200, Colecovision, Amiga, C64, Apple IIe, etc were all around but I'd play they at friend's houses. I got the Atari 7800 and Lynx (both gens) when they came out. NES/SNES was later.

@Byshop:

Yeah, and I remember those systems, that was my mistake. If I could correct that I would. I should have left SNES completely out for X growing up, more an Xennial era system.

Ok boomer.

Xennial (first time i've heard the term - I like it). Grew up without computers - didn't even own one until I was 23.

The world was a much saner place before the internet.

@AFBrat77: If I knew then what I knew now I'd have had a standard PC/AT/XT with an EGA card, an Amiga, and an NES instead of the 7800.

If you don't seem to neatly fit into these "micro-generations" it's probably because they're completely fabricated. Notice how there's no consistency to the actual number of years that each micro-generation occupies. The first three are about thirteen years long, then one is four years long (WTF?), then eleven, four, nine, and four. I know that there are issues with categorizing generations exactly, but the term is generally taken to mean people who were born, grew up, and raised a family at about the same time, which means you would need at least twenty years and probably closer to thirty (which is, coincidentally, how long the actually recognized generations are approximately) to correctly categorize one.

In short, the whole micro-generation concept makes no sense whatsoever. Basically, the TC used to make a habit of coming in here to criticize millennials and talk about how we were ruining the world. When some of us started to push back and point out that boomers did plenty wrong in handling the world he got extremely defensive and made up "Generation Jones" in order to make it look like he was part of a generation that did everything right and nothing wrong. "Generation Jones" invented computers, punk rock, and burned their draft cards because they had been pushed into the Vietnam war by boomers and their parents. Boomers created the tech and housing bubbles and wrecked Wall Street, but "Generation Jones" of course, wasn't involved in that. They only come up with useful inventions and get victimized by other "micro-generations." This entire concept is just his way of trying to rationalize a delusion that he's not actually a boomer.

@theone86:

Thanks for bumping up my post with your garbage :). I suppose if the boom continued from '46 - '85 they would all be Boomers right? Because that's all that holds them together. Microgenerations are real, you aren't born 1 day after the previous generation and become another generation. By your idiot "logic" last day of 64 you are completely a hippie Boomer, first day of '65 you are suddenly transformed into MTV video gamer X. No chance. Think! Boomers is not a 20 year generation.

And by your "idiot logic" one generation lasts thirteen years, the next one four, and the next one eleven, how does that make sense? Generations as officially classified last an average of 25 years, with subsequent ones usually not varying from the next by more than a couple of years. Boomers are, in fact, one of the smallest recent generations. If anything, Gen X and the pre-silent Generation should be made smaller and the Boomer generation should be made larger. Twenty years is enough time for the people born at the beginning of a generation to experience roughly the same events as the people born at the end of a generation, albeit at different stages in their respective lives.

I fall in between Boomer and Doomer most of the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-04kM8KJIzY

Still don't understand those zoomers tho, They alright i guess....

@theone86:

You need to learn to count....none of the microgenerations are 4 years, each is 5 as I stated. None are eleven. My point is, you aren't born on the last day of say Baby Boomers and those born next day are Generation X, that's ridiculous. They are way too different. Same goes between X and Millennials and Millennials and Z.....there are real generations between. I can easily be called Gen X also, as 1961 is also used as an X starting point. But Generation Jones is a real thing and we know it. Even the Boomers know we aren't part of their hippie/Vietnam/I love JFK crowd, we came of age in the late 70's and yeah we were the generation at the vanguard of the PC movement. We had nothing to do with those born late 40's.

Ditto for Xennials, grew up with analog until high school and things went digital.

Generations caught between.

What about Gen Y? I get all confused with a lot of these smaller breakdowns. I think I'm somewhere between Gen X and Gen Y.

@jeezers: The kids give me hope for the future. Honestly, when I get really depressed from fighting with Boomers I usually think to myself: at least the next generation is turning out alright.

I think you need to learn to count. 1959-1946=13 years; 1964-1960=4 years; 1976-1965=11 years.

I think most people realize that not every person born in a given year will exactly fit into that generation. In fact, most people realize that at the years closest to a generational border people are less likely to fit into one generation or the other. Most people say that President Obama is Gen X in spirit, even though he's technically a Boomer. That doesn't mean that we can invent these nonsensical and inconsistent categories to try to shoehorn people into, it doesn't solve the problem.

In fact, there are plenty of people who don't fit into your categories. I was born in 86, but I grew up with mostly analog technology. And as for the emergence of the PC, Wozniak was born in 1950, Jobs and Gates in 55. You weren't the vanguard of anything, you just happened to be around when companies started selling PCs as consumer products.

I believe you need to count, shall we do it together? Do I have to spell it out for you?

1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964

How many years is that? Its inclusive. You made similar mistakes each time. Thats 5 years.

You are discrediting yourself if you don't know basic math.

We were the first group to reach adulthood with mass-produced personal computers and we bought many of them. And you are right in one respect we happened to be the first ones with hands on personal computers. Thats a generation marker and an important break. First for videogames and arcades en masse.....generation marker leads into X. First rock music fans to break from traditional classic rock (punk, new-wave, post-punk, hardcore, and a new wave of hard rock led by groups like VanHalen, AC/DC, Boston, and Rush which had no tie-ins to psychedelia [Rush could get out there but not psychedia] or vietnam)......generation marker. Who do you think bought albums from those different music genres when they came out? Thats right, we did. The first wave of Classic Rock is defining to Baby Boomers but not us.

Boomers grew up with stove top ovens, corded phones, 8-track tapes, mostly black and white TV with a few stations.....we grew up with microwaves, cord-less phones, cassette players, VCR's, Pong, and colored TV's with MTV, HBO, ESPN, and CNN on cable. A whole different world. Vietnam, LBJ, JFK, The Beatles, Charles Manson, and Woodstock were way back in the rear view window. We were just entering our teens when Watergate happened and its probably why we are so cynical about politics. We came of age in the late 70's.

Our only tie-ins with Boomers are a big birthrate, which as I said earlier, is not a marker, that could happen for 40 years, would that then make Boomers a 40 year generation? Really? Oh, and we both loved Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, but then who doesn't? GenJones parents were almost always from the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers parents were mostly from the more militant "Greatest Generation" (Shadow Boomers could be either). Big difference in parenting. Its not surprising Baby Boomers tended to rebel.

I guess we can agree to disagree. Obama was Generation Jones he said it himself. Most of my generation (1960-1964) knew we weren't a part of Boomers years ago but most gave up on that and moved on. Cultural experts have always tried to figure out where to put us, Xennials are in the same boat between the next 2 generations. Generation X, I might add also often is stated as starting in 1961 but I don't feel we fit there either. None of us there do. A partial fit with X but we were more optimistic and less "latch-key". I do like people from X though, as I do shadow boomers. I can relate to both of them. The 1946-1964 Boomer designation is an old outdated concept constructed by people in Greatest Generation and Silent Generation to lump kids together as big population targets for future advertising.

Birthrate alone is not a generation marker. That doesn't tie people together. I will agree with you that not every person per year will necessarily fit my generation description but I did my best with the Poll to make sense of it all. There is no shoe-horning, I'm basically giving an assessment on where dividing lines probably should be. If you have a different vision well feel free to make your poll if you wish.

The only generations I constructed were Rock and Roll generation and Millenials 2 and to me they both make sense. Rock and Roll generation enters into high school with Rock and Roll and thats a major generation break with the concept of the teenager as a separate entity. Interestingly, nearly all the great 60's Rock music icons were born in the Rock and Roll micro-generation. M2 is about where the '92-'96 group enters high school with social media making an impact, again, I think thats a major development and probably a big reason why your generation feels different from the 90's Millenials. The 1992-1996 Millenials (Zennials?) seem caught between 2 generations like any other micro-generation. Again, many sources have the major generations starting where I have them placed. But you don't switch major generations overnight!

Generation Jones

Generation Jones 2

But probably the best article I've seen on Generation Jones is called "Not MYGeneration" by The Chronicle of Higher Education, it explains the division. Couldn't link it.

Links above are a more liberal view of Generation Jones than mine (2nd one even includes 8-track tapes that the Shadow Boomers had), it includes the Shadow Boomers (1955-1959), I've always felt Shadow boomers were a bit of a break off from classic Boomers (1945-1954) because they were too young for 'Nam and Woodstock, but they remember the late 60's well and they always worshipped original classic Rock, many Shadow Boomers seemed to embrace Disco like Boomers, but we didn't and we were too young for the clubs then anyways....so I think the 1955-1959 group are still Boomers. They did not grow up with technology like we did.

Basically put, Generation Jones knows the 1980's like Xennials (or Oregon Trail Generation) knew the 1990's......inside and out. Those from Generation Jones never reached their 30's until 1990.

Yeah, this term zoomer gets bandied about alot lately....I just know they are from GenZ and little else.

By the way, really liked that video......I remember alot of those songs, Back in Black and God Save the Queen were in my high school days, the 80's stuff I know for sure, Fade into You had to be one of the prettiest songs of the 1990's, I always thought the lead singer of Mazzy Star was such a hottie, her shyness made her even more so, more human.

Speaking of generations, nice to hear Metallica and Guns and Roses, those guys were mostly born from my generation. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is a great great song and "Sweet Child of Mine" is timeless.

OK, boomer. Wall of text much?

You're nit-picking on the years. There's still no consistency in your labelling of "micro-generations." One is, fourteen, one is five, and one is twelve. Your categorization is completely arbitrary and based completely on your own subjective perception of what milestones defined a generation and what ages were aware enough to have experienced them. It's a complete mess.

A large birthrate is extremely significant as it has long-reaching effects on economic trends, the health of various industries, distribution of goods, and our political system. That one generation had such a significant explosion of births in those years has shaped our society in the decades since, and will in the decades to come. I was reading a Fantastic Four comic from the sixties a while back where Reed Richards makes a comment about there being around three billion people on earth, now there's close to seven. Do you know how goddamned huge a spike like that is? Four billion people in about fifty years? It's extremely important to understand the baby boom generation in terms of the sheer numbers of Boomers who were born during that period. And they're not lumping Boomers together based on birthrate, they delineate generations in about a 20-25 year period. It's a fairly consistent metric, far more consistent than your "well, I think x cultural change happened here, so I'm going to start my new "micro-generation" here" metric.

There's no such thing as Generation Jones. I don't care if you read it in some obscure article you found somewhere that you can't even find now, it's not recognized by demographers.

OK, boomer. Wall of text much?

You're nit-picking on the years. There's still no consistency in your labelling of "micro-generations." One is, fourteen, one is five, and one is twelve. Your categorization is completely arbitrary and based completely on your own subjective perception of what milestones defined a generation and what ages were aware enough to have experienced them. It's a complete mess.

A large birthrate is extremely significant as it has long-reaching effects on economic trends, the health of various industries, distribution of goods, and our political system. That one generation had such a significant explosion of births in those years has shaped our society in the decades since, and will in the decades to come. I was reading a Fantastic Four comic from the sixties a while back where Reed Richards makes a comment about there being around three billion people on earth, now there's close to seven. Do you know how goddamned huge a spike like that is? Four billion people in about fifty years? It's extremely important to understand the baby boom generation in terms of the sheer numbers of Boomers who were born during that period. And they're not lumping Boomers together based on birthrate, they delineate generations in about a 20-25 year period. It's a fairly consistent metric, far more consistent than your "well, I think x cultural change happened here, so I'm going to start my new "micro-generation" here" metric.

There's no such thing as Generation Jones. I don't care if you read it in some obscure article you found somewhere that you can't even find now, it's not recognized by demographers.

As an aside, I find your fixation on perceived generational differences to be quite unhealthy. You seem to have an obsessive need to classify people based on your own subjective perceptions and then go into extremely minute detail about these subjective classifications. What bands each "micro-generation" liked, what video games, it's all bordering on the pathological. I'd honestly think about talking to someone about it if I were you.

@theone86:

So Xennials don't exist either? Those people born then are lumped in with X or Millennials? Because that's basically what you are saying. Jones is the same position between Boomers and X, I wouldn't expect someone born in '86 to understand those growing up in the late 70's. I gave you several articles about GenJones, and I could give you plenty more. It just isn't talked about because most in the generation don't care about it anymore. We gave up on that, but experts do realize it exists just as Xennials know theirs does.

I point for point explained to you why it exists as do microgenerations. But you are too arrogant and hateful to see that....or again you are simply trolling.

I'd appreciate it if you would troll elsewhere....and you might wanna learn basic addition. So do your lame "ok Boomer" (which doesn't pertain to me) and we're done. No feeding a troll any longer.

I couldn't care less if you disagree with me, that's your right. But if you can't be respectful on the forums you should be removed from them.