Generate This!

I have long been annoyed about generalizations about generations.  Millennials this and milliennials that!  Always reeks of the older folks saying "damn kids".  Speaking of generations makes sense only in terms of folks who have faced common experiences and thus have some shared perceptions/inclinations even though these shared properties are not as widely shared as averred.  So, yes, baby boomers made sense since they shared the experience of stressing the systems--the boom led to expansions of suburbs, of schools and then universities, and on and on. And they experienced, in the US anyway, Vietnam and all that came with it.

Generation x, my generation, was unified by what?  Other than contempt for the boomers?  Perhaps coming of age during the height of the AIDS epidemic?  What else?  The millennials have come of age in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq War, so that might create some shared properties, as well as being the first truly online generation.

Why am I thinking about this?  Because of this tweet:

Millennials are now the largest generation in the US: https://t.co/tmi2f7fk4q pic.twitter.com/WgFYTSVzXJ

— DataStories (@LindaRegber) March 30, 2016

 Homeland generation?  What the hell?  What does that mean?  Eleven year olds today and those younger than them will be bonded by what?  Fears of terrorism? Maybe, but maybe not.  We don't really know what shared properties they will have because pre-teens do not really have the awareness of what unifies their generation.  Whatever unifies them hasn't happened to them yet.

And homeland generation?  Yuck cubed!  Surely, we can come up with a better name that might describe what they have in common?   The best I have thus far are:

• Post-prequel as they will never really know the disappointment that was Phantom Menace and the rest.  Instead, they might be the Awakened Generation since they will all experience new Star Wars movies for the rest of their teens (and beyond!).
• The Post-Trump Generation, as the new kids will grow up in a time where there are no limits on what politicians can say?
• The Post-GOP Generation, as they grow up in a time where there is one big party and two fragments fighting for the scraps of the Republican Party?
• The Super Anti-Boomers as this generation will be paying the price for the bad decisions of the past--climate change and all the rest.  
• The Austerity Kids as they grapple with governments that have been cut to the bone, leading to reduced services, poor infrastructure, and the reality that the American dream is out of reach (damn, that is depressing).

I will stick with Post-Prequel since that is the most hopeful.  But as Doc Brown reminds us:

Update: We have a winner!!!

@smsaideman Star Wars as a cultural touchstone works. I can get behind Generation Rey.

— Stuart MacKay (@Mackay_Stuart) March 30, 2016