At some point, a clever media article increments the previous letter, or since everything was not planned well from the beginning and the letters have run out, stamps a poorly conceived label on a group of people.
These ‘generations’ are based on ambiguous date cutoffs, are engineered retroactively, and don’t really align with any actual zeitgeist of a period. Because discrete vs continuous and other reasons. But any good scapegoat requires a convenient label.
Begun, the generation wars have.
The older generation is blamed for the world’s problems since they were ‘in charge’. The younger generation is blamed for being impulsive or wild, just not working hard enough, and maybe having too little respect. Also toast wrecks the economy or something?
The older generation is perplexed by the fracas since the people who were actually in power were supposed to be taking care of the big problems, while they were working a job, raising kids, and hoping to retire some day. They had no direct power and could not make decisions of a magnitude that would change much of anything in society.
The younger generation is equally perplexed because they have little money, status, or power, and are also working a job or three, waiting to start a family perhaps, and have often given up on retiring someday.
Everyone has been fed a steady diet of fabricated hopelessness, dysfunction, and outrage from the media for decades.
Only a few will realize the whole ‘generation’ thing is fabricated to keep you distracted. Who benefits from the scapegoating, infighting, and status quo? Someone is driving it, and benefiting from it, but it is not you.
The field has been flooded with content that’s often sold as research but is more like clickbait or marketing mythology. There’s also been a growing chorus of criticism about generational research and generational labels in particular.
Generation labels are BS.
At some point, a clever media article increments the previous letter, or since everything was not planned well from the beginning and the letters have run out, stamps a poorly conceived label on a group of people.
These ‘generations’ are based on ambiguous date cutoffs, are engineered retroactively, and don’t really align with any actual zeitgeist of a period. Because discrete vs continuous and other reasons. But any good scapegoat requires a convenient label.
Begun, the generation wars have.
The older generation is blamed for the world’s problems since they were ‘in charge’. The younger generation is blamed for being impulsive or wild, just not working hard enough, and maybe having too little respect. Also toast wrecks the economy or something?
The older generation is perplexed by the fracas since the people who were actually in power were supposed to be taking care of the big problems, while they were working a job, raising kids, and hoping to retire some day. They had no direct power and could not make decisions of a magnitude that would change much of anything in society.
The younger generation is equally perplexed because they have little money, status, or power, and are also working a job or three, waiting to start a family perhaps, and have often given up on retiring someday.
Everyone has been fed a steady diet of fabricated hopelessness, dysfunction, and outrage from the media for decades.
Only a few will realize the whole ‘generation’ thing is fabricated to keep you distracted. Who benefits from the scapegoating, infighting, and status quo? Someone is driving it, and benefiting from it, but it is not you.
Vote dammit
Exactly. Also, It’s being used as a marketing cohort and therefore to be despised and reviled. In this lexicon, you are the product.
Also, vote, dammit. Unite.
Pew Research Center recently commented on this https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/05/22/how-pew-research-center-will-report-on-generations-moving-forward/