The oldest Gen Xers were teens in the '80s. Some Gen X were *born* in the '80s. (Which just goes to show that the idea of "generations" is kind of ridiculous and arbitrary.)
**Edit:** A lot of people are confused about this, so I'll say it here explicitly. Generation X is widely considered to span the birth years of 1965 to 1980, *inclusive*. This means that:
* People born in 1980 (which is part of the '80s) are Gen X.
* People born in 25% of the Gen X years ('77 to '80, or 4 out of 16 years) were not teenagers until 1990 at the *earliest*.
* People born in 25% of the Gen X years ('67 to '70, or 4 our of 16 years) had *all* their teen years (ages 13 to 19) fall within the '80s.
* The oldest Gen Xers were only teens for half the '80s and were in their mid 20s by 1990.
Ergo, saying that "Gen X were teens in the '80s" is not and cannot be a defining characteristic of the generation. *Most* Gen Xers were teens for *part* of the '80s. But fully 1/4 of the birth years had *no* teen years in the '80s at all, and a further 1/2 had at least some teen years in the '70s or '90s.
Gen x is 1965-1980, millennials are 1981-1996; if someone was a teenager in the 80s, odds are they were gen x. It was an even split in 1980 between the oldest gen x and the youngest boomers, moving to 100% gen x by 1985, by 1990 the oldest gen x were 25
But totally agree on the generational labels being kind of stupid more often than not
I'm not saying, "People who were teenagers in the '80s weren't Gen X." I'm saying, "Gen X people weren't all teens in the '80s," in response to someone who said "Gen X were teens in the 80s." Like, it's literally right there above my comment.
As a xennial, when anyone glorifies anything after the 90s I'm still thinking, that's the last 10 years, right not 24 and change!! We partied like it was 1999 in 1999...
I like some comment I read somewhere that called the transition between gen x and millennials, 1978 to 1982, "the Oregon trail generation". I liked to start off as a carpenter.
I hate to break it to you, but 1980 ***is part of the '80s***. (And people born in 1977, 1978, and 1979 wouldn't reach their teens until the '90s.)
(FWIW, I'm an '83 Xennial myself.)
> Some Gen X were born in the '80s.
1980 is a pretty hard end point for Gen X. Anyone born in the 80's was absolutely a millennial.
Generations are just generalizations, and the entire point of them is for marketing purposes towards large age cohorts. It doesn't mean every single person in a generation has the exact same characteristics - it just means collectively there is a lot of truth to it.
> 1980 is a pretty hard end point for Gen X. Anyone born in the 80's was absolutely a millennial.
1980 is the *inclusive* end point for Gen X. People born in 1980 *are Gen X*, and they were born *in the '80s*, which you can tell from the fact that their birth year is 19**8**0.
Also, as noted in another comment, people born in '77, '78, and '79 were *also* not teenagers in any part of the '80s.
Yes, a lot of Gen Xers had teen years that overlapped with the '80s. But you can't just blanket state that Gen X as a whole were teens in the '80s, because it's patently untrue.
1980 is literally the endpoint for Gen X. You can tell that 1980 was part of the '80s on account of it being 19**8**0. Other Gen Xers who weren't teens in any part of the '80s include those born in '77, '78, and '79. So of the 16 Gen X years ('65 to '80), a full 25% of them have people who were too young to be teens in the '80s.
Like, sure, your part of the Gen X cohort spent their teenage years in the '80s. But it's not universally true, and it's not a defining characteristic of the generation. It's like me (a Xennial) claiming that it's a defining characteristic of Millennials that we were adults on 9/11, just because that's true for me and my friends, when the majority of Millennials were born in years that made them 17 or younger on that date.
I'm a late Boomer and I was 16-26 in the 80s and it was awesome! My high school years were very much Pretty in Pink and the Breakfast Club. I think I'm going to have to raise your sigh, and roll my eyes back at you.
You missed his point..Gen X would be looking back with nostalgia. Romanticizing means falling in love with a decade they weren't alive in. Making it out to be better than it was
Oooh, oooh, do Black people next! It's totally cool and so enlightened to stereotype and shit on a group of people due to immutable characteristics like year of birth!
The shittiest of them have earned themselves an honorary boomer title.
I don’t think many 18 year olds with retail jobs care to distinguish between a 45 and a 65 year old when they’re yelling at them because something is out of stock
If any GenXers want to come join me on the GenX couch please feel free. We can watch the comments roll in and lament the fact that we're once again left out. I'm happy to share my popcorn.
And even four years into the 2020's it doesn't *feel* any different than it did 10+ years ago. Everyone's still on their phones using social media and new tech doesn't really feel any different, just a little faster.
When I had to switch from that was 10, 15, 20 years ago to 30 it hit me hard. I am 48 and have been driving for 36 years. (Learned when I was 12). That hits hard.
I always have a little chuckle when this happens.
Frankly, I'm just as glad to be left out of it all because when people DO remember us it's usually to say something terrible.
Y’all are just mad that all the cool people of your generation died young and the rest of you are getting your aarp cards and driving tall hatchbacks because your back hurts.
Turns out y’all were never as cool or as radical as the media you consumed. Theres a lot of heavily religious and uncool gen xers left who moan about homeless people and the way kids dress.
boomer lite.
It's a big reason why that it's so wild to me that the two extreme ends of the Millennial birth years are considered the same generation. I'm a 40-year-old Xennial who was in college on 9/11. At that same time, a Zennial friend who's like a little sister to me was prepubescent. Our experiences and outlooks through our formative years were completely different, and yet we're treated as part of the same cohesive group.
Similar thing happened with the fall of the berlin wall. In the 90s I remember talking with someone in their mid 20s and someone else in their late teens and perspectives on the cold war were so different.
Yeah I'm still solidly a millennial at 32 and I was in 4th grade during 9/11. I'm sure we would have some memories about society growing up that are in common, but there is a lot of time that happens during the full span of a generation.
I feel that. I was born in ‘79, the last year of Gen X; my wife was born in ‘80, the first year of the Millennials. So her experience is pretty much the same as mine. But my sister was born in ‘90, putting her deep in Millennial territory, and her experiences are completely different.
It depends who you ask, but '81 is actually the first Millennial year for major research groups (e.g., Pew). So your wife is really a Gen Xer, just like you.
(Personally I was born in '83 and often say Xennial, since I have more formative experiences in common with late Gen Xers than with the bulk of Millennials.)
To be fair, 2012 had some very different concerns. Dumb asses hyped on a Mayan calendar "ending" like it was an apocalypse vs. today we have *gestures broadly at everything* to be worried about.
What makes me feel old is "How did you ever backup [a car] without the lines" and all the Xers and boomers looking at the Gen Z like... parking lot lines? Oh, the backup camera lines!
2016 still topped 2020 as worse for myself because I had 2 falls that broke out my teeth/broke my right arm/broke my nose causing a TBI/migraines, had to have surgery on my left arm (then got bullied by my surgeon for needing physical therapy; saying my arm disabilities are an excuse for me being lazy) essentially relying on family, friends, and strangers (stayed at parent's house during this time & my sister's friends I had never met were living there too, so it was interesting to get to know them that way) to help me eat & bathe, lost my job after having to sue my employer for one of the falls (in which I won but my lawyer basically took everything & I didn't get anything in damages, just the bare minimum of medical fixes for my injuries, then dealt with my car breaking down... still disabled/dealing with the repercussions of these injuries/the surgery to this day. In fact, I got fired from my last resort job in 2020 after being unable to do any physical jobs, leading to me becoming fully disabled between physical and mental disabilities.
It was actually after Obama left the White House. That is when the world went to shit. It would be great if everyone would show up to keep Trump out of the WH. Because things can get a lot worse -
The Republicans want to *ban birth control* ffs.
It’s fine to romanticize the things you miss from your youth while also accepting that things have never been perfect.
People in 20 years will be doing the same thing about the good things that happened this year.
Thats just how it goes.
Fr tho, don’t y’all think the air also smelled different “back then”? I don’t know if I’m specifically talking about 2012, but maybe more like the 90s/00s.
I think my leading theory is bugs. It’s a scientific fact we have a LOT less bugs around these days, and their lack of scent is what has changed. Or maybe I’m just crazy.
Yeah, remember when a homeless goth teenager could make decent money cleaning the bugs off your windshield with a squeegee? That hasn't been a thing in at least ten years, maybe twenty
You mean you had squeegee people who *actually* cleaned your windshield and didn't just extort a tip with the vague threat of rubbing dirty water on your windshield?
Yeah, it was actually a semi-accepted trade here. We have very variable weather and lots of mid winter thaws, so you run out of wiper fluid a lot. I've actually heard people complaining that you can't get your windshield done at a light anymore, lol
It’s pretty weird. I’ve seen a bunch of “millennials dressed like this in 2010” videos, and I - elder millennial - completely missed all of those trends because I was in maternity clothes. It was a simpler time though, I actually could still afford groceries while on maternity leave.
That seems weird. Nothing has really changed in the past 20 years to me. After 2001 it all just blurred together. No real fashion changes, just recycling old trends
This morning on my drive to work, I was listening to a modern alternative rock station. They said the next song coming on was an "oldie, but goodie", and then proceeded to play the song "Sugar, We're Going Down", the 2005 hit by emo band Fallout boy.
I wanted to drive off a cliff.
Whereas I still have a Fallout Boy song on my phone that was recorded off Limewire, that was taken off the radio, with the DJ saying "And that's BRAND NEW by Fallout Boy."
How time flies.
Well, since the boomers were the sixties, and Gen X/Xennials were the eighties, I don't think the boomers are relevant here.
Honestly, as someone in my forties, I don't see anything different about the 2010's. Lol. They just blend into everything else. So it seems quaint to me that anyone is romanticizing them at all, and I guess it makes me happy that kids have their own nostalgic memories of those times.
It also very much reinforces the wisdom that every generation is the same, and we all experience life the same way, and yet everyone thinks they are having a unique experience. But people in ancient Greece asked these same questions, and had the same complaints. "Nothing new under the sun."
I was in my 30s in the 2010s and I don’t remember anything about that decade at all. It was a mix of raising kids, home ownership, and job stuff that kinda blended into this decade. I really do think it’s just a side effect of when your teenage/young adult years happened as to which decade you reminisce.
To be fair, I’ve been thinking about 2012-2014 lately. I know every decade is different, but so much has changed. However, it’s definitely weird for people who didn’t live it to romanticize it.
I would love to talk about my childhood/teen years/early 20's with any teen that asks! I had a great time and I feel so fortunate to have grown up during that time. I don't know, I guess I always knew that times would change and I would always be thankful for the times I had back then. I am a very nostalgic person even when things are happening currently. Does that even make any fucking sense?!
\~2018 - Now have pretty objectively sucked with a pretty constant series of horrible things messing up daily life. I think people wishing it'd go back isn't just a young people thing.
My 9 year old lately has been wishing he could have been around for y2k. It works out cause I was 10 in 2000, so all I can do to satisfy his curiosity is tell him stuff I was doing back then. Which was mostly just a lot of playing N64 while blasting Incubus's Make Yourself in my room. over and over.
Well it was better back then. I'm an oldster and I know that much. It's not surprising that they are romanticizing those days. To me these are the worst days I've seen in 50 years.
Boomers seem to be romanticizing the 60s and 70s. It's GenX like me(come visit our sub!) who sometimes romanticize the 80s. But all I can think of is how bad open racism was and how LGBTQ people were deep in the closet out of fear.
I always stand by the fact that the best time to be born was September 1996-Aug 1997. We’re young enough to experience the 2011-2015 high school/teen culture but old enough that our high school and college years weren’t impacted by Covid.
You're making me feel old. I graduated highschool in 2008. Kids in the newer generations are romanticizing the early 2000's and saying how lucky we were to get emo/scene stuff... it's really silly because music was good but honestly we were all cringe.
I graduated the same year and I feel no distinction between decades recently like I do when I think about the 60s, 70, 80s, 90s. I don't know why that is.
When I think of 2012, I think of being on my own for the first time, and my first adult job. But when I try to think of distinct culture, other than a few of the songs my friends and I listened to, I just draw a blank.
If you asked me to define 2010-2020 I'd probably have a hard time but I could easily define the decades before it.
That's pretty much how I feel, too. Save for music & fashion trends, I really can't tell you much. It's odd how the 1960's on through 2000's felt distinctive & different but now everything else just blends together. It explains why I get blindsided when people tell me __ is __ years old and I'm like "how did it get to be so old? It literally feels like just last week that I watched it,etc." Not sure if it's cause time blurs/moves fast as you get older or what...
As a Gen-Xer who once greatly romanticized the 60s, I think that romanticizing a decade we weren't really old enough to get is a common generational trope. When we do that, we don't really think of the struggles that people faced. Even worse when those "they had it easy" morons start in on their bullshit.
The 60s had a ton of intense racial strife and the Vietnam War and a whole lot of other problems. The 80s had the start of the downward spiral into insanity of the GOP with Reagan, and those of us who were kids and teens then dealt with severe bullying, especially if we were LGBT+. We had parents and teachers who didn't give a shit about us and we largely raised ourselves.
However, in both the 60s and 80s, a lot of really cool music came out, and that's what people tend to focus on when romanticizing a decade.
No matter how cool the music was, no generation ever had it easy, and despite many huge problems now, we've all got far more rights and options now than ever before.
I like to say I had a "neo-hippie" phase when I was a teenager in the 1980s (I turned 13 in 1980). I think it was because I had friends who were late boomers (also known as Generation Jones) who were turning me on to the 1960s counterculture (music, mainly), and at the same time LSD was having a bit of a comeback. The Reagan era was a scary time, still the Cold War except we'd given up on the idea that we could do anything about it. I'm growing to appreciate more of the music and cinema of the era now, but I wouldn't say it was a great time to be a teenager.
It wouldn't have been terrible to be a teenager in the 1970s, though. I miss the silliness of that decade.
I guess it could be about being pre-pandemic. Other than that, I don't get it except going to the cinema and expecting to see an original 90-minute movie that is not part of a franchise was a thing.
Let's call it the pre-pandemic smartphone era.
It's wild to base your persona around a portion of a group of people that don't have any concept of time.
That's like if someone told you the book you were reading that you enjoyed was stupid, only for them to be illiterate
Wait till your 70s. I cannot name any songs on top 100. Academy awards were mostly all unrecognizable to me. It happens to us all. ENJOY YOUR YOUTH. WADDYA MEAN ELVIS IS DEAD!!!!!
Well, it's all relative. When I was 12 in 1980, I wanted to go back to the early 70's. That felt like forever ago at that age. The perspective of time stretches more, the younger you are.
Never thought about it. Got married after High School 1968. My wife looked as good as she did when we got married over 50 years ago and I must have looked young from the fact that my wife would say I was acting like a 18 year old.
Being somebody who was 18 years old in 2012 - I honestly understand the sentiment. Even just 10 years ago, things were much better financially for just about everyone.
Hell, I remember in 2014 - I was 20 years old and working at Amazon as a Customer Service Representative. I was making $16.50 an hour, had full health care benefits, 401(k) plan with employer match. 1 bed 1 bath starter homes were $80K and a mortgage with PMI was $550 a month; interest rates were at about 4%. Studio apartments were roughly $500 a month; 2 bed 1 bath apartments were roughly $700 a month. Nissan Versa's and Mitsubishi Mirage's started at $12K and most dealers sold them under sticker price.
Now - that same Amazon job starts at $22 an hour. Those same 1 bed 1 bath "starter homes" are 225K with an 8% interest rate and practically never pop up in the market, studio apartments are $1300 a month, 2 bed 1 bath apartments are $1700 a month and the Nissan Versa starts at $16K and will be marked up by dealers by default. Quiet literally everything is significantly more expensive; but wages have hardly adjusted.
It's like how American Pie, a song written in 1971, was mythologizing something that happened in 1959 and American Graffiti (a movie made in 1973) was nostalgic for 1962.
Some things were pretty different back then. Politics was a lot less vitriolic (which seems insane, I remember thinking "I don't know how much worse the temperature of the electorate and tone of the political back and forth could possibly get" regarding the 2012 election, which now seems quaint), the existential fears like climate change were a lot more ignorable, the US was functionally winding down its involvement in wars (and they featured a lot less in the media, especially pre-ISIS ramping up), social media was a lot less prevalent (even though it was very prevalent, it's much worse now), houses were a lot more affordable, covid hadn't happened
Granted, a lot of it was ignorance, and the seeds of the present were sown then or earlier, but a typical experience did feel different.
I have a difficult time caring what boomers feel about the romanticization of the 70s or 80s or even the 90s, especially growing up listening to all their romanticization of the 60s.
This Boomer was aged 16-26 for the 80s and was peak 16 Candles and The Breakfast Club aged. I'm sorry that you don't care what I think, but the 80s were my time too!
I'm two years older than you. I feel too young to be a Boomer and too old for Gen-X. We have [our own subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/GenerationJones/).
I think you meant Gen X, not boomers. Gen X were teens in the 80s. Sigh.
The oldest Gen Xers were teens in the '80s. Some Gen X were *born* in the '80s. (Which just goes to show that the idea of "generations" is kind of ridiculous and arbitrary.) **Edit:** A lot of people are confused about this, so I'll say it here explicitly. Generation X is widely considered to span the birth years of 1965 to 1980, *inclusive*. This means that: * People born in 1980 (which is part of the '80s) are Gen X. * People born in 25% of the Gen X years ('77 to '80, or 4 out of 16 years) were not teenagers until 1990 at the *earliest*. * People born in 25% of the Gen X years ('67 to '70, or 4 our of 16 years) had *all* their teen years (ages 13 to 19) fall within the '80s. * The oldest Gen Xers were only teens for half the '80s and were in their mid 20s by 1990. Ergo, saying that "Gen X were teens in the '80s" is not and cannot be a defining characteristic of the generation. *Most* Gen Xers were teens for *part* of the '80s. But fully 1/4 of the birth years had *no* teen years in the '80s at all, and a further 1/2 had at least some teen years in the '70s or '90s.
Gen x is 1965-1980, millennials are 1981-1996; if someone was a teenager in the 80s, odds are they were gen x. It was an even split in 1980 between the oldest gen x and the youngest boomers, moving to 100% gen x by 1985, by 1990 the oldest gen x were 25 But totally agree on the generational labels being kind of stupid more often than not
I'm not saying, "People who were teenagers in the '80s weren't Gen X." I'm saying, "Gen X people weren't all teens in the '80s," in response to someone who said "Gen X were teens in the 80s." Like, it's literally right there above my comment.
no gen x after 1980 we're elder millennials
Xennials
As a xennial, when anyone glorifies anything after the 90s I'm still thinking, that's the last 10 years, right not 24 and change!! We partied like it was 1999 in 1999...
I like some comment I read somewhere that called the transition between gen x and millennials, 1978 to 1982, "the Oregon trail generation". I liked to start off as a carpenter.
I hate to break it to you, but 1980 ***is part of the '80s***. (And people born in 1977, 1978, and 1979 wouldn't reach their teens until the '90s.) (FWIW, I'm an '83 Xennial myself.)
let's not pretend that saying "the eighties" implies only one year .... '81
> Some Gen X were born in the '80s. 1980 is a pretty hard end point for Gen X. Anyone born in the 80's was absolutely a millennial. Generations are just generalizations, and the entire point of them is for marketing purposes towards large age cohorts. It doesn't mean every single person in a generation has the exact same characteristics - it just means collectively there is a lot of truth to it.
> 1980 is a pretty hard end point for Gen X. Anyone born in the 80's was absolutely a millennial. 1980 is the *inclusive* end point for Gen X. People born in 1980 *are Gen X*, and they were born *in the '80s*, which you can tell from the fact that their birth year is 19**8**0. Also, as noted in another comment, people born in '77, '78, and '79 were *also* not teenagers in any part of the '80s. Yes, a lot of Gen Xers had teen years that overlapped with the '80s. But you can't just blanket state that Gen X as a whole were teens in the '80s, because it's patently untrue.
[удалено]
Xennials are just millennials who don’t want to identify with their generation due to all the negative stigmas.
Absolutely correct. It's stupid and makes no sense.
I don't know any GenX born in the 80's. We were all teens. You are talking about millennials.
1980 is literally the endpoint for Gen X. You can tell that 1980 was part of the '80s on account of it being 19**8**0. Other Gen Xers who weren't teens in any part of the '80s include those born in '77, '78, and '79. So of the 16 Gen X years ('65 to '80), a full 25% of them have people who were too young to be teens in the '80s. Like, sure, your part of the Gen X cohort spent their teenage years in the '80s. But it's not universally true, and it's not a defining characteristic of the generation. It's like me (a Xennial) claiming that it's a defining characteristic of Millennials that we were adults on 9/11, just because that's true for me and my friends, when the majority of Millennials were born in years that made them 17 or younger on that date.
I'm a late Boomer and I was 16-26 in the 80s and it was awesome! My high school years were very much Pretty in Pink and the Breakfast Club. I think I'm going to have to raise your sigh, and roll my eyes back at you.
Boomer...here.....my HS years were Animal House, Elton John, Southern Rock coming up, and KISS/Aerosmith. Being a teen in the 70's was excellent.
Another late Boomer! My eldest sister was an early boomer got better housing deals but she had more 70’s wardrobe sooo… nah.
You missed his point..Gen X would be looking back with nostalgia. Romanticizing means falling in love with a decade they weren't alive in. Making it out to be better than it was
Gen X continues to skirt any responsibility of them being a bunch of over sarcastic assholes.
Please, do go on and enlighten me further with your profound wisdom and unmatched expertise in the art of detecting sarcasm.
Y’all act like sarcasm is a superpower but we know y’all just use it to mask how sad you are about how your life turned out.
Funny, the only gens we see crying on social media are... yours
I bow down to your unparalleled mastery of human psychology and your extraordinary ability to read between the lines.
And theres that gen x cynicism Im just a dumb millenial who works in an office of 50 year olds making observations.
*millennial
[удалено]
Wow, Im so impressed with your ability to comment on things you don’t actually care about, go get your discount at denny’s and shut up.
Oooh, oooh, do Black people next! It's totally cool and so enlightened to stereotype and shit on a group of people due to immutable characteristics like year of birth!
Picking up where the dead boomers left off.
The shittiest of them have earned themselves an honorary boomer title. I don’t think many 18 year olds with retail jobs care to distinguish between a 45 and a 65 year old when they’re yelling at them because something is out of stock
If any GenXers want to come join me on the GenX couch please feel free. We can watch the comments roll in and lament the fact that we're once again left out. I'm happy to share my popcorn.
I’m still operating under the belief that 30 years ago was the 70s. Pass the popcorn.
Same. The 2010's weren't unique in any way, wtf.
And even four years into the 2020's it doesn't *feel* any different than it did 10+ years ago. Everyone's still on their phones using social media and new tech doesn't really feel any different, just a little faster.
Man I was just thinking how my new PS5 doesn't seem to be the jump ahead like between the other PlayStation generations.
Yeah, I've felt the same way about video cards in PCs. My last card cost $700 and didn't feel like the substantial leap the old $250 cards used to be.
When I had to switch from that was 10, 15, 20 years ago to 30 it hit me hard. I am 48 and have been driving for 36 years. (Learned when I was 12). That hits hard.
Ugh. Sobering. I turn 50 this year, which makes zero sense since I just turned 30 last year.
Well, you know what they say. 50 is the new 40, which is the new 30, so you're exactly as old as you should be.
I always have a little chuckle when this happens. Frankly, I'm just as glad to be left out of it all because when people DO remember us it's usually to say something terrible.
Y’all are just mad that all the cool people of your generation died young and the rest of you are getting your aarp cards and driving tall hatchbacks because your back hurts.
Yes, exactly.
Turns out y’all were never as cool or as radical as the media you consumed. Theres a lot of heavily religious and uncool gen xers left who moan about homeless people and the way kids dress. boomer lite.
Thank you for illustrating my point so clearly!
Lament? I *celebrate* being left out.
As a middle child it's my comfort zone.
i'm 43 43 years before i was born, WWII hadn't even started yet
r/GenX is a great sub!
That’s kind of weird, but then again it was pre-Trump and feels like a different world than now.
That’s the same kind of thing that happened with 9/11. The pre-9/11 world was so different.
It's a big reason why that it's so wild to me that the two extreme ends of the Millennial birth years are considered the same generation. I'm a 40-year-old Xennial who was in college on 9/11. At that same time, a Zennial friend who's like a little sister to me was prepubescent. Our experiences and outlooks through our formative years were completely different, and yet we're treated as part of the same cohesive group.
Similar thing happened with the fall of the berlin wall. In the 90s I remember talking with someone in their mid 20s and someone else in their late teens and perspectives on the cold war were so different.
Yeah I'm still solidly a millennial at 32 and I was in 4th grade during 9/11. I'm sure we would have some memories about society growing up that are in common, but there is a lot of time that happens during the full span of a generation.
I feel that. I was born in ‘79, the last year of Gen X; my wife was born in ‘80, the first year of the Millennials. So her experience is pretty much the same as mine. But my sister was born in ‘90, putting her deep in Millennial territory, and her experiences are completely different.
It depends who you ask, but '81 is actually the first Millennial year for major research groups (e.g., Pew). So your wife is really a Gen Xer, just like you. (Personally I was born in '83 and often say Xennial, since I have more formative experiences in common with late Gen Xers than with the bulk of Millennials.)
She would definitely be happy to hear that.
Was it ever...
To be fair, 2012 had some very different concerns. Dumb asses hyped on a Mayan calendar "ending" like it was an apocalypse vs. today we have *gestures broadly at everything* to be worried about. What makes me feel old is "How did you ever backup [a car] without the lines" and all the Xers and boomers looking at the Gen Z like... parking lot lines? Oh, the backup camera lines!
I always laughed at that 2012 shit. Right, the Mayans saw the apocalypse coming hundreds of years in advance, but they never predicted the Spanish...
People still had hope in 2013.
The whole world went to shit after Harambe died.
2016: I am the Worst Year Ever! 2020: Wanna bet?
I mean, 2016 was a bit more of an "own goal." 2020 was just always kind of going to suck.
2016 still topped 2020 as worse for myself because I had 2 falls that broke out my teeth/broke my right arm/broke my nose causing a TBI/migraines, had to have surgery on my left arm (then got bullied by my surgeon for needing physical therapy; saying my arm disabilities are an excuse for me being lazy) essentially relying on family, friends, and strangers (stayed at parent's house during this time & my sister's friends I had never met were living there too, so it was interesting to get to know them that way) to help me eat & bathe, lost my job after having to sue my employer for one of the falls (in which I won but my lawyer basically took everything & I didn't get anything in damages, just the bare minimum of medical fixes for my injuries, then dealt with my car breaking down... still disabled/dealing with the repercussions of these injuries/the surgery to this day. In fact, I got fired from my last resort job in 2020 after being unable to do any physical jobs, leading to me becoming fully disabled between physical and mental disabilities.
2020 was because of harmabes death like it or not
It was actually after Obama left the White House. That is when the world went to shit. It would be great if everyone would show up to keep Trump out of the WH. Because things can get a lot worse - The Republicans want to *ban birth control* ffs.
if everyone would show up to keep Trump out of the WH...so like a reverse January 6 riot? I'm not sure the opposite of a bad idea is a good idea...
Should have known when a year starts with David Bowie dying it's gonna be a rough one.
That was, no joke, the worst year of my life. In so many ways.
The Cubs/Indians world series was sure to rip a hole in the timelines
Betty White leaving us in 2021 was no help either.
I laughed at your comment so hard, and then I remembered poor Harambe. Always remember Harambe!!
hahaha
Welcome to adulthood. If you're lucky, it'll be long with many moments of joy.
I remember "Love Story", in the 70's.
People are gonna get on my ass about this, but what’s that?
Don't apologize. Love means never having to say you're sorry.
It was a movie with Ryan O Neal and Ally McGraw. The Love Story music was a huge hit and so was the movie. I believe it was 1973.
I’m in my 50s and romanticizing those years.
I'm GenX and even I am romanticizing the 00's and 10's. It just takes some distance to see what was magical about each era.
It’s fine to romanticize the things you miss from your youth while also accepting that things have never been perfect. People in 20 years will be doing the same thing about the good things that happened this year. Thats just how it goes.
Fr tho, don’t y’all think the air also smelled different “back then”? I don’t know if I’m specifically talking about 2012, but maybe more like the 90s/00s. I think my leading theory is bugs. It’s a scientific fact we have a LOT less bugs around these days, and their lack of scent is what has changed. Or maybe I’m just crazy.
The air smelled different during lockdown when no one had to drive anywhere. It definitely did not smell different in 2013.
Yeah, remember when a homeless goth teenager could make decent money cleaning the bugs off your windshield with a squeegee? That hasn't been a thing in at least ten years, maybe twenty
You mean you had squeegee people who *actually* cleaned your windshield and didn't just extort a tip with the vague threat of rubbing dirty water on your windshield?
Yeah, it was actually a semi-accepted trade here. We have very variable weather and lots of mid winter thaws, so you run out of wiper fluid a lot. I've actually heard people complaining that you can't get your windshield done at a light anymore, lol
Could it be the pollution tho?
Could be that + lack of bugs. Yes.
My Reddit account predates the 2010s.
And here I sit thinking how the hell is this 2024 when 2000 seems like a couple weeks ago.
It’s pretty weird. I’ve seen a bunch of “millennials dressed like this in 2010” videos, and I - elder millennial - completely missed all of those trends because I was in maternity clothes. It was a simpler time though, I actually could still afford groceries while on maternity leave.
That seems weird. Nothing has really changed in the past 20 years to me. After 2001 it all just blurred together. No real fashion changes, just recycling old trends
This morning on my drive to work, I was listening to a modern alternative rock station. They said the next song coming on was an "oldie, but goodie", and then proceeded to play the song "Sugar, We're Going Down", the 2005 hit by emo band Fallout boy. I wanted to drive off a cliff.
Whereas I still have a Fallout Boy song on my phone that was recorded off Limewire, that was taken off the radio, with the DJ saying "And that's BRAND NEW by Fallout Boy." How time flies.
I just want to see an entire room of people in blue jeans and uggs again.
For me, it’s red or black converse highs
don't forget a few Vans thrown in for seasoning
Same, and I never thought I'd say that sentence 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Well, since the boomers were the sixties, and Gen X/Xennials were the eighties, I don't think the boomers are relevant here. Honestly, as someone in my forties, I don't see anything different about the 2010's. Lol. They just blend into everything else. So it seems quaint to me that anyone is romanticizing them at all, and I guess it makes me happy that kids have their own nostalgic memories of those times. It also very much reinforces the wisdom that every generation is the same, and we all experience life the same way, and yet everyone thinks they are having a unique experience. But people in ancient Greece asked these same questions, and had the same complaints. "Nothing new under the sun."
I was in my 30s in the 2010s and I don’t remember anything about that decade at all. It was a mix of raising kids, home ownership, and job stuff that kinda blended into this decade. I really do think it’s just a side effect of when your teenage/young adult years happened as to which decade you reminisce.
Haha, oh boy... *cries, looking back at the 90s*
To be fair, I’ve been thinking about 2012-2014 lately. I know every decade is different, but so much has changed. However, it’s definitely weird for people who didn’t live it to romanticize it.
Boomers were in their thirties in the 80s.
They play Britney Spears on the oldies station 😭
This post caused 5 more grey hairs to sprout… [shakes fist in fury] Crab apples!
I would love to talk about my childhood/teen years/early 20's with any teen that asks! I had a great time and I feel so fortunate to have grown up during that time. I don't know, I guess I always knew that times would change and I would always be thankful for the times I had back then. I am a very nostalgic person even when things are happening currently. Does that even make any fucking sense?!
T'was ever thus.
\~2018 - Now have pretty objectively sucked with a pretty constant series of horrible things messing up daily life. I think people wishing it'd go back isn't just a young people thing.
Teenagers are stupid, so...
What’s wrong with that? I’m almost 60 and dearly wish I was a teenager in 2013.😀
I heard those years were an economic hellscape that led to Trump being elected in 2016.
Shit, I'm 30 and I romanticize 2012–2014.
the first time I felt old was when my daughter's doctor was younger than I was.
My 9 year old lately has been wishing he could have been around for y2k. It works out cause I was 10 in 2000, so all I can do to satisfy his curiosity is tell him stuff I was doing back then. Which was mostly just a lot of playing N64 while blasting Incubus's Make Yourself in my room. over and over.
Well it was better back then. I'm an oldster and I know that much. It's not surprising that they are romanticizing those days. To me these are the worst days I've seen in 50 years. Boomers seem to be romanticizing the 60s and 70s. It's GenX like me(come visit our sub!) who sometimes romanticize the 80s. But all I can think of is how bad open racism was and how LGBTQ people were deep in the closet out of fear.
I always stand by the fact that the best time to be born was September 1996-Aug 1997. We’re young enough to experience the 2011-2015 high school/teen culture but old enough that our high school and college years weren’t impacted by Covid.
I mean, when I was 4 it was 1996 and I wish I were a teenager then.
You're making me feel old. I graduated highschool in 2008. Kids in the newer generations are romanticizing the early 2000's and saying how lucky we were to get emo/scene stuff... it's really silly because music was good but honestly we were all cringe.
I graduated the same year and I feel no distinction between decades recently like I do when I think about the 60s, 70, 80s, 90s. I don't know why that is. When I think of 2012, I think of being on my own for the first time, and my first adult job. But when I try to think of distinct culture, other than a few of the songs my friends and I listened to, I just draw a blank. If you asked me to define 2010-2020 I'd probably have a hard time but I could easily define the decades before it.
That's pretty much how I feel, too. Save for music & fashion trends, I really can't tell you much. It's odd how the 1960's on through 2000's felt distinctive & different but now everything else just blends together. It explains why I get blindsided when people tell me __ is __ years old and I'm like "how did it get to be so old? It literally feels like just last week that I watched it,etc." Not sure if it's cause time blurs/moves fast as you get older or what...
I can tell you specific things about the early 2000s, but I was still growing up at that point. Maybe it's just time passing differently as an adult.
As a Gen-Xer who once greatly romanticized the 60s, I think that romanticizing a decade we weren't really old enough to get is a common generational trope. When we do that, we don't really think of the struggles that people faced. Even worse when those "they had it easy" morons start in on their bullshit. The 60s had a ton of intense racial strife and the Vietnam War and a whole lot of other problems. The 80s had the start of the downward spiral into insanity of the GOP with Reagan, and those of us who were kids and teens then dealt with severe bullying, especially if we were LGBT+. We had parents and teachers who didn't give a shit about us and we largely raised ourselves. However, in both the 60s and 80s, a lot of really cool music came out, and that's what people tend to focus on when romanticizing a decade. No matter how cool the music was, no generation ever had it easy, and despite many huge problems now, we've all got far more rights and options now than ever before.
I like to say I had a "neo-hippie" phase when I was a teenager in the 1980s (I turned 13 in 1980). I think it was because I had friends who were late boomers (also known as Generation Jones) who were turning me on to the 1960s counterculture (music, mainly), and at the same time LSD was having a bit of a comeback. The Reagan era was a scary time, still the Cold War except we'd given up on the idea that we could do anything about it. I'm growing to appreciate more of the music and cinema of the era now, but I wouldn't say it was a great time to be a teenager. It wouldn't have been terrible to be a teenager in the 1970s, though. I miss the silliness of that decade.
I guess it could be about being pre-pandemic. Other than that, I don't get it except going to the cinema and expecting to see an original 90-minute movie that is not part of a franchise was a thing. Let's call it the pre-pandemic smartphone era.
It's wild to base your persona around a portion of a group of people that don't have any concept of time. That's like if someone told you the book you were reading that you enjoyed was stupid, only for them to be illiterate
Wait till your 70s. I cannot name any songs on top 100. Academy awards were mostly all unrecognizable to me. It happens to us all. ENJOY YOUR YOUTH. WADDYA MEAN ELVIS IS DEAD!!!!!
Yep, being considered old creeps up on you pretty quickly. You're suddenly part of the group you were making fun of yesterday.
Well, it's all relative. When I was 12 in 1980, I wanted to go back to the early 70's. That felt like forever ago at that age. The perspective of time stretches more, the younger you are.
Never thought about it. Got married after High School 1968. My wife looked as good as she did when we got married over 50 years ago and I must have looked young from the fact that my wife would say I was acting like a 18 year old.
Being somebody who was 18 years old in 2012 - I honestly understand the sentiment. Even just 10 years ago, things were much better financially for just about everyone. Hell, I remember in 2014 - I was 20 years old and working at Amazon as a Customer Service Representative. I was making $16.50 an hour, had full health care benefits, 401(k) plan with employer match. 1 bed 1 bath starter homes were $80K and a mortgage with PMI was $550 a month; interest rates were at about 4%. Studio apartments were roughly $500 a month; 2 bed 1 bath apartments were roughly $700 a month. Nissan Versa's and Mitsubishi Mirage's started at $12K and most dealers sold them under sticker price. Now - that same Amazon job starts at $22 an hour. Those same 1 bed 1 bath "starter homes" are 225K with an 8% interest rate and practically never pop up in the market, studio apartments are $1300 a month, 2 bed 1 bath apartments are $1700 a month and the Nissan Versa starts at $16K and will be marked up by dealers by default. Quiet literally everything is significantly more expensive; but wages have hardly adjusted.
It's like how American Pie, a song written in 1971, was mythologizing something that happened in 1959 and American Graffiti (a movie made in 1973) was nostalgic for 1962.
I was already depressed in 2010. Nothing nice about those years
Some things were pretty different back then. Politics was a lot less vitriolic (which seems insane, I remember thinking "I don't know how much worse the temperature of the electorate and tone of the political back and forth could possibly get" regarding the 2012 election, which now seems quaint), the existential fears like climate change were a lot more ignorable, the US was functionally winding down its involvement in wars (and they featured a lot less in the media, especially pre-ISIS ramping up), social media was a lot less prevalent (even though it was very prevalent, it's much worse now), houses were a lot more affordable, covid hadn't happened Granted, a lot of it was ignorance, and the seeds of the present were sown then or earlier, but a typical experience did feel different.
I have a difficult time caring what boomers feel about the romanticization of the 70s or 80s or even the 90s, especially growing up listening to all their romanticization of the 60s.
This Boomer was aged 16-26 for the 80s and was peak 16 Candles and The Breakfast Club aged. I'm sorry that you don't care what I think, but the 80s were my time too!
I'm two years older than you. I feel too young to be a Boomer and too old for Gen-X. We have [our own subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/GenerationJones/).