The myth of millenials

I think it's time we start talking about something so we can stop talking about it.  The term "generation" as a macro-unit has no real basis.  There are historical events that contribute to the collection experience of a group of people.  However, if we think about that for a moment, we will realize why the term "generation" is of little use.

Let us take the "Greatest Generation".  Now depending on what system you use for breaking up "generations" (after all it's completely arbitrary), you may choose to group everyone born between 1910 and 1924 in this group.  You can choose large and smaller groups if you wish.  The grouping does not separate into socioeconomic background, locality, or any other measure.

If we choose to consider this "group", it includes a male born in Harlem, New York in 1924 and a female born in Oklahoma in 1910.  Is there any way we can realistically consider this the same group of people?  However, as everyone else seems to be, let's continue.  The defining historical events in the United States that would have effected these people's lives were the Great Depression and two world wars.  Someone born in 1910 may very well have seen their older siblings leave for the Great War.  Their childhood would have been peppered with influenza outbreaks.  In 1929, when they were just starting to build their adult life, the economy and agriculture would collapse.  A person born in 1924 would be 4 or 5.

A child growing up hungry or with parents looking for work would not remember much else.  They would not look upon the New Deal as an uplifting, they would be children.  We must also remember that not everyone was out of work.  Millions of people all having their own experiences.  Even labeling them the "Greatest Generation" it is still a disservice.

And so let us, go forward.  A male born in 1924 would likely have been headed to war.  Again, however, not everyone did.  Let us, however, assume that somewhere between 1941 and 1945 this individual was shipped out.  Did he volunteer?  Was he an officer or enlisted?  Which front did he serve on?  I think we can all agree that the experiences of a fighter pilot stationed in Europe and a Marine sent to Okinawa would tell two very different stories with the commonality of "awful".

Even if we consider all war stories equivalent.  A women born in 1910 would have experienced the war very differently.  She would probably have children by 1941.  She may have even had teenagers talking about the war in her living room by the time it ended.  I can only guess at this woman's story and hope that she has gotten the opportunity to tell it.

Now, it is 2017.  The number of people in the United States and on the planet has skyrocketed in the last 50 years.  People who like labels are now grouping the people born between 1980 and 1994.  Again, there is no separation based on socioeconomic group or any other measure.  People write articles about this "group" as if they all share one personality.  It is as asinine as astrology and has as little actual data to back it up.

Why would anyone claim that a child growing up impoverished and a child of the aristocracy ever have the same experience?  Why would you pay for this "market research"?  How can someone who was 7 years old have had the same reaction to 2001 as someone who was 21?  How can you compare the reactions of someone that watched the Internet take shape to someone that has always had access to it?

And what has this "market research" brought us?  All I've seen is a collection of stereotypes thrown around.  The same stereotypes that have been thrown at the young for generation after generation.  I was born in 1976.  Depending on which arbitrary nomenclature you use, I am either Generation X or Generation Y.  In either case, we were "self-entitled" or "self-absorbed" just 15 years ago.  15 years before that, a group of people were labeled the "Me Generation".  You can find op-ed pieces penned in the 1920's that indicate the same about our forebears (although with some Puritan rhetoric thrown in).

People are not different simply based on the year they were born, anymore than they are different based on the month they were born.  I am not Gen X or Gen Y anymore than I a WASP or a Gemini.

You want to know what an individual born between 1980 and 1994 is like?  Talk to that individual.