this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2025
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All I hear about is "boomers" this, "Millennials" that, "Gen Z" that, etc.

Why no one talk about Gen X? What happened to them? They just vanished like in Infinity War? Or are we mistaken Gen Z by Boomers?

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[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

It's the working class vs the 1%, not generation vs generation

[–] NONE_dc@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Totally agree, comrade ✊

[–] eldain@feddit.nl 4 points 2 hours ago

Someone has to write all these shitty articles how bad the other generations are.

[–] mwproductions@lemmy.world 11 points 4 hours ago

You could call them The Silent Generation.

...

No, wait...

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Boomer is honestly just used as a generic term for older people who are out of touch in one way or another. Millennial was a generic term for young people the speaker didn't like, but it's finally been replaced by zoomer which is more age appropriate, but it took a long time. It's not that people are ignoring Gen X, it's that most of the time when people use the term they just mean older/younger people in general.

TLDR, Gen X is probably lumped in with the term "boomer" (obviously the context matters, but this is the TLDR).

[–] AngryRobot@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Don't lumo me in with them!

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not lumping you into with anyone. I'm just explaining how people use the term boomer.

[–] kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago

Don Lumo is in with them!

[–] eli@lemmings.world 6 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

For some reason, the internet has mistaken gen X for boomers with the "ok boomer" meme. Anyone over 40 is a boomer to the young. Completely unbeknownst to the fact that real baby boomers are literal senior home elderly people

[–] Putykat@lemmy.world 5 points 5 hours ago

Not really. 60 is the youngest boomer. People in their 60s are still on the workforce.

[–] ThisIsAManWhoKnowsHowToGling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

There is another theory I've heard that I like:

  1. The parents of the millenials were the boomers. The parents of gen z was gen X. Millenials and boomers are fairly equally disliked, and gen alpha seems to be shaping up to follow that trend.
  2. If you have been paying attention to legitimate complaints about each generation, you'll notice similarities between the kids and their parents. Both millenials and boomers get hate for being terrible parents and workaholics, and the hate gen z is currently getting for having no work ethic sounds very similar to the hate gen X got back when they were in their 20s for being supposedly lazy and stupid becuase of MTV.
  3. This implies that we are seeing not one pendulum of overractions to generational trauma, but two. The Millenials and the Baby Boomers, if you trace it back, descended from the humbly named Greatest Generation which fought in WWII and set the wheels of modern American culture into their current tracks. Gen Z and Gen X descend from the Silent Generation, who were best known for being conformist and pretty much nothing else.

Here's the conjecture part of the theory: the Boomer lineage has been taught that what matters is what you do and if you don't achieve you have no value, whereas the Silent Generation lineage has been taught that good people are good to their family and community and being a workaholic is bad for that. The poop-throwing you're seeing online is simply an expression of a conflict between opposing values.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 points 5 hours ago

Both millenials and boomers get hate for being terrible parents and workaholics, and the hate gen z is currently getting for having no work ethic sounds very similar to the hate gen X got back when they were in their 20s for being supposedly lazy and stupid becuase of MTV.

Millennials were definitely called entitled and lazy.

[–] shawn1122@lemm.ee 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Very generous outlook on Gen X, who are mostly seen as boomer lite in my experience.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 0 points 5 hours ago

They behave about how you would expect a boomer to act. It is their turn to extract value, well at least those who are in any position to do so, which are obviously a minority but not are they working hard at it right now.

Just parasitic bahvior serving the owner class to get their mcmansions and 401ks loaded aka boomerism

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 12 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe they're just lying low so nobody will blame everything on them.

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[–] deadcatbounce@reddthat.com 6 points 8 hours ago

We're just waiting. See you soon.

[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 28 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Ronald Reagan happened to GenX.

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[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 12 points 12 hours ago (6 children)

Gen X is a conspiracy. None of them actually exist.

My Canadian girlfriend (well, now wife) is from Gen X - I swear.

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[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 18 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Nah we are here, just staying out of the drama I guess. Busy working. My guess is we aren't enough of a market - not the desirable-to-marketers 18-30 age group, and not a huge group with money like the boomers. So we are not targeted as much.

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[–] win95@lemmy.zip 16 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

Love y'all, but on bluesky gen X has been behaving like boomers more and more often. Maybe it has to do with hitting a certain age and becoming "get of my lawn"?

[–] TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 hours ago

This is my experience with them as well. I guess we all suck when we get old.

[–] getoffthedrugsdude@lemmy.ml 14 points 14 hours ago (2 children)
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[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 14 hours ago

"The forgotten generation" strikes again!

[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 68 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (18 children)

A lot of gen x got theirs. College was paid for and was cheap, lots of opportunities while they were young, got a house, a family and are just living. They will get a fair inheritance if their parents die on time, but they are also the first to see that huge nest egg disappear to the current healthcare system.

Their vote never counted. Too many boomers.

They were the first to figure out their parents had it incredibly easy, although it took them a long time. Sometimes they didn’t see it until their own kids struggled with costs and employment.

A lot are conservative but probably because they have assets and don’t like social welfare taking from them, even though their parents set it up for them to lose.

They aren’t as tech savvy as millennials.

[–] Quicky@lemmy.world 13 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

They aren’t as tech savvy as millennials.

Yeah, this is nonsense. Gen X were the generation that had to adapt to emerging technology in the workplace, when that technology itself wasn’t designed with user-friendliness at its core, and usually without an education that prioritised that. They worked with obscure hardware and obtuse software. They then continued to adapt as the Internet became prevalent and software within offices evolved. They saw the most change, and remain in the workforce.

As time has gone on, technology has simplified for the user. As such, Gen X are absolutely the generation that taught their parents how to solve their IT issues, and the ones that continue to teach their children, with Xennials being the peak of that curve.

Anecdotally, my teenage kids fly around an iPhone, but still think a computer is the fucking monitor.

[–] ganymede@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

I wonder if the context of 'tech person' vs average person is what they meant?

A genx tech person in their field is going to be on avg further along than millenial in the same field - because they've literally been doing it longer, more experience, learnt more, exposed to more fundamentals.

imo the distinction is the average (non-tech) genx probably will have less tech exposure than avg millenial, millenials were coming up during the shift of the average person thinking "computers are for geeks" to "tech is cool".

disclaimer: generation names are kind of arbitrary divide and conquer bs anyway.

[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago

Kids of today certainly lack a lot of “background” tech troubleshooting skills, but understand some of the more nuanced details of modern systems. It’s both interesting and frustrating to watch.

[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 24 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (5 children)

They aren’t as tech savvy as millennials.

I'm GenX. If you ask my group of friends "who here has built their own PC from components?" every hand is going to go up. Including the teacher, the administrator and the financier.

Ask a group of Millennials who knows what the command line is for and see what reaction you get.

GenX is the generation that does tech support for its parents and its children.

[–] Wojwo@lemmy.ml 14 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Kind of... It's really that weird bridge period between the two generations. 1980 seems to be the sweet spot. The further your birth year is from it, in either direction, the less tech savvy they seem to be.

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[–] davel@lemmy.ml 23 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (4 children)

They aren’t as tech savvy as millennials.

We built the tech. I was there, three decades ago.

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[–] 4grams@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

I think I’m technically gen-x but I definitely feel more kindred with millennials, but goddamn, you nailed it. Describes exactly how I see my slightly older peers.

[–] krelvar@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

Pushing my kids towards Linux. Helping them when they get stuck. Winshittification has just gotten so bad...

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[–] itsgroundhogdayagain@lemmy.ml 31 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (4 children)

We took the brunt of everything the Boomers could throw at us. You're welcome. Its your turn now, we're tired.

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