Were you born between 1977 and 1983?

[tvp2003]

I came across a new word/concept this past week: xennials

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xennials

Xennials (also known as the Oregon Trail Generation and Generation Catalano) are the micro-generation of people on the cusp of the Generation X and Millennial demographic cohorts, typically born between the late 1970s and early 1980s. People who identify as such may feel they do not fit within the typical definitions of Generation X or Millennials.

I'm guessing there are a few of us on CP that fit into this "category" -- not quite a generation Xer and not quite a millennial. it's been described as having an "analog childhood, digital adulthood" where you grew up without social media but were still young enough that when the digital era hit you were able to adapt and not be left completely in the dust.

You also might be a xennial if you grew up reading the newspaper, calling friends using landlines (and having their parents pick up), and then entered the working world by searching online job postings. You may have rocked a Walkman as a kid before saving up enough money to afford a Discman; then ditching both when you could download everything through Napster.

To put a Flames spin on it, you would have been young enough to hate Gretzky and the Oilers, win a Cup in 1989 without realizing how monumental it was, have the heartbreak of 1990 to 1994 harden you as an adolescent Flames fan, and then party on the red mile as a young adult (age 21 to 27) in 2004.

Related articles for your Friday:

https://www.mamamia.com.au/xennial-generation/

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/anna-...94890116328538

[Bunk]

I'm an 81er who definitely fits this description, but also feels that generation definitions are mostly useless - as people are born every year and there's a gradual transition. Often, the back half of a defined generation would likely have more in common with the leading half of the next defined generation, than others in their own supposed generation in certain respects. This is likely true of those at the end of the baby boom/beginning of Gen X too...

[RT14]

Originally Posted by tvp2003

I came across a new word/concept this past week: xennials

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xennials

I'm guessing there are a few of us on CP that fit into this "category" -- not quite a generation Xer and not quite a millennial. it's been described as having an "analog childhood, digital adulthood" where you grew up without social media but were still young enough that when the digital era hit you were able to adapt and not be left completely in the dust.

You also might be a xennial if you grew up reading the newspaper, calling friends using landlines (and having their parents pick up), and then entered the working world by searching online job postings. You may have rocked a Walkman as a kid before saving up enough money to afford a Discman; then ditching both when you could download everything through Napster.

To put a Flames spin on it, you would have been young enough to hate Gretzky and the Oilers, win a Cup in 1989 without realizing how monumental it was, have the heartbreak of 1990 to 1994 harden you as an adolescent Flames fan, and then party on the red mile as a young adult (age 21 to 27) in 2004.

Related articles for your Friday:

https://www.mamamia.com.au/xennial-generation/

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/anna-...94890116328538

Everything you wrote there describes me to a tee! Except partying on the Red Mile because I moved to China that year and missed all the excitement here.

[dobbles]

I agree bunk. I think a lot of it is just how fast technology and culture changes. It makes it difficult to lump together people for more than a few years. So as someone born in late 81, this micro group at least sounds a little more like me than any of the traditional groups.

[FlamesAddiction]

Who decides where generations begin and end? And is there actually a science behind it?

I always thought it was a just a way of organizing people for marketing purposes.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by tvp2003

I came across a new word/concept this past week: xennials

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xennials

I'm guessing there are a few of us on CP that fit into this "category" -- not quite a generation Xer and not quite a millennial. it's been described as having an "analog childhood, digital adulthood" where you grew up without social media but were still young enough that when the digital era hit you were able to adapt and not be left completely in the dust.

You also might be a xennial if you grew up reading the newspaper, calling friends using landlines (and having their parents pick up), and then entered the working world by searching online job postings. You may have rocked a Walkman as a kid before saving up enough money to afford a Discman; then ditching both when you could download everything through Napster.

To put a Flames spin on it, you would have been young enough to hate Gretzky and the Oilers, win a Cup in 1989 without realizing how monumental it was, have the heartbreak of 1990 to 1994 harden you as an adolescent Flames fan, and then party on the red mile as a young adult (age 21 to 27) in 2004.

Related articles for your Friday:

https://www.mamamia.com.au/xennial-generation/

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/anna-...94890116328538

I'm not part of that generation but experienced everything in that list as a damn as a young adult


Chances are that generation was still applying for jobs out of the classified ads section of the papers. Yup there were walkmans that went to PCD, but remember that generation would have still had boom boxes and cassettes.



i honestly don't remember much about winning the cup, because I was completely loaded. I got kicked out of two bars on electric avenue for buying and handing beers out to people on the street. Got into a scrap with an idiot, and pretty much blacked out my memory before Lanny's goal.

[tvp2003]

Originally Posted by Bunk

I'm an 81er who definitely fits this description, but also feels that generation definitions are mostly useless - as people are born every year and there's a gradual transition. Often, the back half of a defined generation would likely have more in common with the leading half of the next defined generation, than others in their own supposed generation in certain respects. This is likely true of those at the end of the baby boom/beginning of Gen X too...

Another term I learned (man, they have names for everything these days) describes this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusper

I agree that "naming" generations may not have a lot of practical utility other than for marketing; I've also seen it in the workplace (i.e. learning about different generations so they can work better alongside each other).

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by tvp2003

Another term I learned (man, they have names for everything these days) describes this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusper

I agree that "naming" generations may not have a lot of practical utility other than for marketing; I've also seen it in the workplace (i.e. learning about different generations so they can work better alongside each other).

The last company I worked for made us take "Millennial Training". It was of course taught by "millennials". The gist of it was that millennials in the company felt that they were not moving up fast enough and that older people did not believe in them enough.

[GGG]

I think that this group exists as it’s before Facebook, texting, and digital cameras were a thInfo when you were in university. (Thank God) but had computers around you your whole life.

I think a generation is created by the technology / Social setting that exists from when you start high school to being done your highest level of schooling.

[TorqueDog]

The year range isn't well defined, I've seen it as high as 1987.

[GreenLantern]

Ya I definitely check all those boxes. I haven't really felt left behind in the digital age, more so just disinterested with a lot of the newer forms of social media.

I can navigate twitter, snapchat, instagram etc.. I just don't want to.. lol

I also disagree with the 87 cap, I've got siblings born between 83-87 and I definitely see a lot more Millennial traits in them than those of us 83 and before.

[troutman]

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern

Ya I definitely check all those boxes. I haven't really felt left behind in the digital age, more so just disinterested with a lot of the newer forms of social media.

I can navigate twitter, snapchat, instagram etc.. I just don't want to.. lol

I also disagree with the 87 cap, I've got siblings born between 83-87 and I definitely see a lot more Millennial traits in them than those of us 83 and before.

I'm an 85-er, and I tick off a ton of the 'Xennial' boxes.

I've actually taken to using Instagram more, while I have dramatically reduced my use of Facebook -- I unfollowed literally EVERYONE on my friends list, which causes Facebook to struggle to populate the front page with anything. Snapchat's deleted, my Twitter is effectively disabled, though I kept the account just to secure my username. LinkedIn is basically Facebook for your dad (people, stop posting political memes to goddamn LinkedIn).

I basically just use Instagram at this point to follow style and fitness folks... or to post pictures of my cat.

Spoiler!

Okay, pretty much just posting pictures of my cat.

[activeStick]

Chalk me up as well as falling into this group and that it was hard for me to identify perfectly with the other generations in either side that we knew about before.

- had to call friends up on landlines
- had to agree on a time and place to meet that was into the future ahead of time and trust that people would meet as agreed
- had to do all research for school assignments and reports in a library
- used those machines in the library where you'd place 'slides' under a light and look through a lens to read the content (I'm sure someone here remembers what these are called)
- listened to the radio a lot at home
- first computer used was in school and they were Apple desktops, before the PC took over the industry
- watching the TV and reading newspapers was the only way to get news
- read every print article on the Flames and spent a lot of time studying the stats and the standings
- parents purchased flight tickets through travel agencies only

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

The year range isn't well defined, I've seen it as high as 1987.

Agreed. Seems like 83 is too low by several years as the cutoff.

[Wood]

People are desperate to not be labeled a millenial.

Even kids growing up in the 90s experienced all the things listed. In the 90s the only real difference was growing up with a computer if you were lucky and experiencing the early AOL dial up younger

Things like calling your friends on the landline was commonplace until the mid 2000s. I was born in 1992 and I had a walkman, and I remember my first discman. I got all my Flames news from the Calgary Sun, I remember checking the scoring leaders and the scores every morning, and sometimes seeing that they didn't have the final score for the late games and not knowing who won until there was a game on TV that night

I think millenials get a bad rep, mostly because people don't know what age millenials are. Even the youngest millenials didn't have cell phones until high school

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Who decides where generations begin and end? And is there actually a science behind it?

I always thought it was a just a way of organizing people for marketing purposes.

It's not like there's any official body out there saying where these generations begin or end or what they should be called, but often there is statistical validity to the groupings. It would be arbitrary if we had a flat birth rate, but as it is, these labels are trying to capture trends in the birth rate: baby boomers, obviously, representing a huge boom in the birth rate, and millennials, an echo of that boom, while the Silent Generation, Gen Xers, and Gen Z represent relatively low birth rate periods. The problem comes when we try to assign traits and experiences to these generations. It's really more useful for things like public policy than marketing, where simple age and numbers are more important than experiences and traits.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by activeStick

- used those machines in the library where you'd place 'slides' under a light and look through a lens to read the content (I'm sure someone here remembers what these are called)

Microfiche?

[tvp2003]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

The year range isn't well defined, I've seen it as high as 1987.

Sorry, the max range I've seen is 1975 to 1985. Now bugger off you dirty millennial

Seriously though, I don't think anyone is suggesting that there are or should be rigid rules when it comes to a (mostly trivial) thing like this. However, I also agree with octothrop that there are statistic/demographic measures that support certain groupings. For example, millennials are defined as:

Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the generational demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. There are no precise dates for when this cohort starts or ends; demographers and researchers typically use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years. Millennials are sometimes referred to as "echo boomers" due to a major surge in birth rates in the 1980s and 1990s, and because millennials are often the children of the baby boomers. Although millennial characteristics vary by region, depending on social and economic conditions, the generation has been generally marked by an increased use and familiarity with communications, media and digital technologies.

I think it's also safe to say that as technology has evolved, and as (western) society has evolved (including parenting and other norms), certain patterns do emerge.

At the same time, I'm not suggesting everyone born after a certain year fits within the "special snowflake" stereotype... so sorry to offend any of you snowflakes and non-snowflakes out there

[GGG]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

I'm an 85-er, and I tick off a ton of the 'Xennial' boxes.

I've actually taken to using Instagram more, while I have dramatically reduced my use of Facebook -- I unfollowed literally EVERYONE on my friends list, which causes Facebook to struggle to populate the front page with anything. Snapchat's deleted, my Twitter is effectively disabled, though I kept the account just to secure my username. LinkedIn is basically Facebook for your dad (people, stop posting political memes to goddamn LinkedIn).

I basically just use Instagram at this point to follow style and fitness folks... or to post pictures of my cat.

Spoiler!

Okay, pretty much just posting pictures of my cat.

Switching to Instagram is a millennial thing to do.