The Greatest Generation & Boomers to Millennials & Gen Z

[hst43102]

The 'offended by everything' tag is a myth, ironically perpetuated mostly by boomers who get offended over near enough every progressive change society has.

I think it's amplified by boomers and people from the 60's and 70's, but it's true that there's a lot more change happening now than ever before, and I would argue that the 'offended by everything' is true. For example : a recent showing of a climate change documentary at my university came with the disclaimer that some students might be offended or upset by some dead animals in the documentary. Some of the students were, and left.

 

[Horizon22]

As has sharply rising actual life expectancy, without a concomitant rise in work life expectancy to pay for it!

Well this will be a further issue for the younger generations - paying for the social care of their parents and lacking the pension reliability of their parents. The former is an issue that those parents have had to grapple with (millenials' grandparents) but there isn't such a gap in funding as there will be in next 15-20 years.

 

[mikeg]

Yawn. The idea that someone is better because of the generation they are or that one generation is better is stupid. Imagine the outcry if this thread said: the great race from blacks to whites, from Amerindians to Ashkenazim.

Generalisation is pointless. It may certainly be argued that some have it easier than others (on average, mind) , but greater? Utter hogwash.

 

[backontrack]

I think it's amplified by boomers and people from the 60's and 70's, but it's true that there's a lot more change happening now than ever before, and I would argue that the 'offended by everything' is true. For example : a recent showing of a climate change documentary at my university came with the disclaimer that some students might be offended or upset by some dead animals in the documentary. Some of the students were, and left.

Not liking dead animals doesn't mean you're offended by them...

It's just compassion innit

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I'm one of the last Millennials to be born (1995) and to be honest, there is quite a bit of difference between me and early Gen Z'ers. I'm probably the last born of the "young people" to remember the old world before the boom of smartphones-mum having to get out the yellow pages and ring round shops to see if a toy I wanted was in stock, now you just buy it on Amazon. Taping TV shows, having change in your pocket in case I needed to use a phone box when I first went to vist my aunt by myself, the joy of "double bills" on TV, when you went on the internet when there was something specific to look at before flat download fees etc, etc. A lot of Gen Z'ers I've spoken to found this world rather quaint, it really is amazing the speed of change since about 2007 onwards.

 

[backontrack]

I'm one of the last Millennials to be born (1995) and to be honest, there is quite a bit of difference between me and early Gen Z'ers. I'm probably the last born of the "young people" to remember the old world before the boom of smartphones-mum having to get out the yellow pages and ring round shops to see if a toy I wanted was in stock, now you just buy it on Amazon. Taping TV shows, having change in your pocket in case I needed to use a phone box when I first went to vist my aunt by myself, the joy of "double bills" on TV, when you went on the internet when there was something specific to look at before flat download fees etc, etc. A lot of Gen Z'ers I've spoken to found this world rather quaint, it really is amazing the speed of change since about 2007 onwards.

The first year I really remember (in terms of thinking "this year is 2021!") is 2007. I have all sorts of 2000s memories. It really was such an interesting time, and I think it spills through in the way that I connect to a lot of music from the 00s especially. Stuff like Gorillaz, Interpol, Arctic Monkeys, even early Coldplay.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

The first year I really remember (in terms of thinking "this year is 2021!") is 2007. I have all sorts of 2000s memories. It really was such an interesting time, and I think it spills through in the way that I connect to a lot of music from the 00s especially. Stuff like Gorillaz, Interpol, Arctic Monkeys, even early Coldplay.

Interesting you said that because I've heard from other people 2007 was a particuarly great year-especially since Halo 3 came out. Sadly, I remember virtually nothing from that year for some reason. It wasn't a great time at school which was probably why, but I do remember it feeling different from the rest of the 2000s.

It might be the age we are, because it was 2009 when I was 14 when I first thought "this year is 2009". I don't know what it was about that year, but it felt exhilarating. I remember hearing Lady Gaga for the first time and thinking Poker Face sounded out of this world.

I know what you mean by music. I still listen to loads of my old music from 2009-2010. The reason, I found out, was because music sounds the best at age 14 because apparently, it stimulates the same hormones in your brain from snorting cocaine. It's so true though, listening to music from age 14-15 was a hell of an experience. It was like experiencing it with all five senses

 

[backontrack]

Interesting you said that because I've heard from other people 2007 was a particuarly great year-especially since Halo 3 came out. Sadly, I remember virtually nothing from that year for some reason. It wasn't a great time at school which was probably why, but I do remember it feeling different from the rest of the 2000s.

It might be the age we are, because it was 2009 when I was 14 when I first thought "this year is 2009". I don't know what it was about that year, but it felt exhilarating. I remember hearing Lady Gaga for the first time and thinking Poker Face sounded out of this world. Must be something to do with the hormones in your brain-it's either euphoria or misery.

Maybe! I went to the cinema for the first time I can remember in 2007 (Ratatouille).

Demon Days by Gorillaz (2005) is my favourite album, and it's aged exceptionally - it's basically timeless and just gets more and more relevant - but it also reminds me a lot of the 2000s. A song like Feel Good Inc. really takes you back to the time when TV adverts were predominantly trying to sell you things made out of plastic in shops on the high street. That album had a lot of cultural impact as well, so maybe I heard some of it when I was little and it permeated my subconscious.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Maybe! I went to the cinema for the first time I can remember in 2007 (Ratatouille).

Demon Days by Gorillaz (2005) is my favourite album, and it's aged exceptionally - it's basically timeless and just gets more and more relevant - but it also reminds me a lot of the 2000s. A song like Feel Good Inc. really takes you back to the time when TV adverts were predominantly trying to sell you things made out of plastic in shops on the high street. That album had a lot of cultural impact as well, so maybe I heard some of it when I was little and it permeated my subconscious.

It is a good album, although I discovered a bit late in 2010. You seem to have a better memory of the 2000s than me though. Spent most of it terrified of nuclear/biological terrorist attacks-which the media seemed to suggest was a matter of "if/not when". Even till this day I have 9/11 inspired dreams-the 2010s were much nicer in comparison!

 

[backontrack]

It is a good album, although I discovered a bit late in 2010. You seem to have a better memory of the 2000s than me though. Spent most of it terrified of nuclear/biological terrorist attacks-which the media seemed to suggest was a matter of "if/not when". Even till this day I have 9/11 inspired dreams-the 2010s were much nicer in comparison!

Aha, I'm a bit luckier in that respect. 2002 child.

It's pretty terrible though, all the same. The 2000s were a really bad time in the main. So much rampant consumerism, financial collapse, war and climate inaction...

 

[najaB]

The 2000s were a really bad time in the main. So much rampant consumerism, financial collapse, war and climate inaction.

That pretty much describes any decade from the 1900's onward.

 

[roversfan2001]

I'm one of the last Millennials to be born (1995) and to be honest, there is quite a bit of difference between me and early Gen Z'ers.

I agree, same as there's a lot of difference between the early Gen Z'ers like me and those born in the mid-2000's. People my age tended to not own our own phones until we were in high school and we still have a faint memory of life before technology really took over, whereas those born just a few years later have had phones for as long as they've been able to walk and have always had digital toys to play with.

A lot of Gen Z'ers I've spoken to found this world rather quaint, it really is amazing the speed of change since about 2007 onwards.

Fully agree with this too. I can remember a little bit from 2007 and it feels worlds apart from now. To add to the music conversation, a lot of the music I like is from the 00s (the pinnacle of indie music), even if I didn't really get into it until the past 5 years or so.

 

[birchesgreen]

As a Gen X'er i regard the pinnacle of indie music as the late 80s and early 90s before all that Britpop rubbish ruined it

 

[GusB]

As a Gen X'er i regard the pinnacle of indie music as the late 80s and early 90s before all that Britpop rubbish ruined it

As another from Gen X, it makes me thoroughly depressed to see these youngsters reminiscing about the 2000s!

 

[najaB]

As another from Gen X, it makes me thoroughly depressed to see these youngsters reminiscing about the 2000s!

I now understand the look my on my dad's face when I talked about things that happened in the 60s and 70s as historical events.

 

[backontrack]

As a Gen X'er i regard the pinnacle of indie music as the late 80s and early 90s before all that Britpop rubbish ruined it

Britpop's a mixed bag, actually.

Blur and Pulp? Yes please!
Oasis and Suede? No, thank you.

 

[roversfan2001]

Britpop's a mixed bag, actually.

Blur and Pulp? Yes please!
Oasis and Suede? No, thank you.

Controversial! Oasis aren't what some people make them out to be but I'd have them ahead of Blur and Pulp personally (though I do like all 4).

 

[backontrack]

Controversial! Oasis aren't what some people make them out to be but I'd have them ahead of Blur and Pulp personally (though I do like all 4).

They're still OK, but...for me it's harder to enjoy She's Electric when you realise it's two different Beatles songs welded together.

Also, I don't like Noel. And while I really despise Alex James, he's easier for me to compartmentalise.

One thing for sure though: I'd rather have Blur vs Oasis than the current rubbish on our radios!

 

[roversfan2001]

They're still OK, but...it's harder to enjoy She's Electric when you realise it's two different Beatles songs jammed together.

I'd rather have Blur vs Oasis than the current rubbish on our radios!

Oasis are heavily influenced by The Beatles, but at least the Gallaghers admitted it.

Agreed, there's plenty of really good indie bands out there at the moment but they don't get any radio airplay whatsoever. Even dedicated stations like Radio X revert to the older stuff.

 

[backontrack]

Oasis are heavily influenced by The Beatles, but at least the Gallaghers admitted it.

Agreed, there's plenty of really good indie bands out there at the moment but they don't get any radio airplay whatsoever. Even dedicated stations like Radio X revert to the older stuff.

Yeah, it's a real shame, to be honest. There's so much good music but it just doesn't get through.

I can't help but feel that the advent of the internet has kind of sealed off the mainstream. Indie bands tend to remain in online circles. It's a shame, really.

 

[roversfan2001]

Yeah, it's a real shame, to be honest. There's so much good music but it just doesn't get through.

I can't help but feel that the advent of the internet has kind of sealed off the mainstream. Indie bands tend to remain in online circles. It's a shame, really.

The online streaming boom has both helped and hindered bands outside the mainstream I feel. Far more people will be listening to their music, but they'll be being paid less for it as their fans are using Spotify rather than buying the CD (or vinyl, though vinyl is coming back to the fore). The listeners are also likely to already be fans of them, or similiar bands, whereas radio would bring their music to people who otherwise wouldn't listen to them.

There's a bit of a tenuous link there back to the subject as we've veered quite far off topic.

 

[xotGD]

We all remember the good music from every era. However, when you watch an old episode of Top of the Pops on BBC4 you realise that there was an awful lot of rubbish too.

I guess that i am now part of the "Hey kids, what's this? It's got a good beat!" generation.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The labels are ridiculous but I think a lot of kids are familiar with the term "boomer" but don't know what the term "boomer" means, or where it came from; they probably think it means someone who is over the age of, perhaps 50. I also think a lot of kids had not heard of this term, or at least didn't use it, until the phrase "OK boomer" became popular which was only quite recently.

I'd understood that to have (a bit) more comedic thought behind it: For example if your classmate can't work out how to do something on their smartphone, you say "OK Boomer".

That's what my niece tells me anyway!

 

[Calthrop]

Although per my date of birth, I suppose I belong to the accurately-recognised "boomer" generation; the term in that sense is, and always will be, spoilt and obscured for me by other and earlier associations concerning the word. On seeing or hearing "boomer": my mind unfailingly goes, to kangaroos and / or nuclear submarines .

 

[ABB125]

I'd understood that to have (a bit) more comedic thought behind it: For example if your classmate can't work out how to do something on their smartphone, you say "OK Boomer".

That's what my niece tells me anyway!

I've never come across the term used like that (although I've never actually heard it being used at all!), which is all the more surprising considering that my phone usage (both in terms of what I do and how I go about it) would be considered... rather peculiar by pretty much everyone of a similar age: for example, I type using only my right index finger (in a rather clunky way), whilst holding the phone with my left hand. Very much the stereotypical older person style!

On the subject of music, most modern stuff (at least, the stuff that most people seem to listen to) is rubbish (and seemingly exclusively about "I love you, but you left me" type subjects). I don't really listen to much music (and never have; another seemingly alien concept to others my age, who almost exclusively have headphones attached to their cranium), but I seem to recall music from approaching a decade ago was better! However, it could be that I just have an odd taste in music: classical, film and television, musicals etc, and I'm partial to a bit of stuff from the 1970s/80s if it's going. It could be that being a musician has influenced my preferred genres. (As I type this, I'm listening to music from Game of Thrones, because I played a sequence of chords on a piano earlier which sounded exactly like something from the programme, but I have no idea what! Best listen to said music to try ad find out... .)

Also, on the subject of years I remember, I have notable memories of 2012: London Olympics, Queen's diamond jubilee, (royal wedding? or was that later?), first overseas family holiday for years (to Sweden; also the first time I'd ever been on a plane!), moving from first school to middle school (3-tier system where I live).
I don't really remember much from 2007, other than there were floods! You probably saw aerial shots of Tewkesbury Abbey surrounded by water... not far from where I live! On whatever day it was when the flooding started, my older brother and I were collected from school by our dad, not much different to normal. However, getting home involved going through water getting on for a metre deep at one point*. Luckily, at the time my dad had (amongst other things) a long-wheelbase Land Rover Defender (don't ask me any details; I have no idea! It was grey though... ). No problem going through the water, accompanied by the unusual experience of water seeping into the vehicle through the obligatory holes in the floor!

*We didn't actually have to go through; plenty of alternative routes with a lesser degree of flooding exist. However, my dad being himself, we went straight through the worst local flooding point, because we could!

Anyway, enough reminiscing! I'm not actually sure what generation I'm part of (born 2002), but I certainly wouldn't class myself as a "snowflake". I'm perhaps a bit too controversial for that...

 

[backontrack]

It's less "they don't understand what boomer means" and more that 'boomer' doesn't just refer to the baby boomer generation now, it's cultural shorthand for something different as well.

It's not that young people are wrong or that the elder generations know better.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Not liking dead animals doesn't mean you're offended by them...

It's just compassion innit

To be pedantic, I'd say that's squeamishness, not compassion. Compassion would be more like, wanting to help an animal if it's suffering or seeking to avoid harming animals. I'm pretty sure I feel that sense of compassion, but that wouldn't stop me watching a video that teaches about climate change - bearing in mind that watching the video or walking out will have precisely zero impact on any (already dead) animals depicted in it.

The 'offended by everything' tag is a myth, ironically perpetuated mostly by boomers who get offended over near enough every progressive change society has.

I'm pretty sure it's not a myth that these days a lot of people choose to get offended by viewpoints they don't agree with, rather than simply accepting that other people disagree with them. There are more than enough instances of that floating around online and on the news. You could argue about how much that's correlated with age though.

 

[quantinghome]

I'm pretty sure it's not a myth that these days a lot of people choose to get offended by viewpoints they don't agree with, rather than simply accepting that other people disagree with them. There are more than enough instances of that floating around online and on the news. You could argue about how much that's correlated with age though.

There are simply more outlets for people to express offense. Previously limited to letters to newspapers, now offense is easy to register and amplify through social media.

The biggest problem is a lack of self-awareness. Those who complain most about 'people getting offended' tend to get offended rather easily themselves.

The problem with assigning generational 'cohorts' is where there is no clear boundary. The boomer generation is fairly easy to define by birth rate (hence the name) from the end of WWII to the introduction of birth control. Other generations are more difficult to split.

Where it is useful perhaps is in understanding the political and economic systems which form different generations' worldviews, particularly if there is a clear point of history which divides people's experiences. Boomers grew up in the post-war economic boom and the post-war consensus. The Cold War was a significant influence on Gen-X and there was a harsher economic climate. Millennials have no memory of the Cold War and I think that does make a difference. I suspect the divide between Millennials and the next cohort (Gen-Z?) will be whether you remember politics being more centrist before the 2008 financial crisis caused a significant radicalisation of both left and right.

 

[RichT54]

There are simply more outlets for people to express offense. Previously limited to letters to newspapers, now offense is easy to register and amplify through social media.

I think the role of social media has a lot to do with the increasing divisiveness in society, including the labelling of other age groups as "not us".

I am currently reading a book called "Zucked" by Roger McNamee who describes how the algorithms developed by Facebook are deliberately designed to feed its users with stories that increase their feeling of offence, because offence causes more engagement with the users than other emotions and more engagement means they stay on the site longer and get to see more adverts, which earns Zuckerberg his billions. Other social media platforms are likely doing the same. The problem with social media is not just the gathering of immense amount of personal data, but the way they are manipulating and changing peoples' behaviour for the worse.

 

[backontrack]

To be pedantic, I'd say that's squeamishness, not compassion. Compassion would be more like, wanting to help an animal if it's suffering or seeking to avoid harming animals. I'm pretty sure I feel that sense of compassion, but that wouldn't stop me watching a video that teaches about climate change - bearing in mind that watching the video or walking out will have precisely zero impact on any (already dead) animals depicted in it.

Well no, because some people feel animals' suffering more than others. It isn't massively complicated