Rethinking the Generations — Part 2 of 2

There Are Only Two Generations

The higher and lower sides of a social reality (Source: Piqsels).

In an earlier article, “Rethinking the Generations - Part 1 of 2,” I suggested a better way to think about generations. I mentioned then that it was a first step in rethinking generations. I was inspired to return to the topic after reading yet another corporate media article that explains to us what generations mean. An accumulation of such mass-produced, ultra-processed fiction about generations reached a tipping point within me.

The Lazy Corporate Media

This latest lazy journalist threw up their contribution with the bold beginning that they were going to explain the deep divide between “millennials” and “Gen X.” By the end of the article, though, the lazy journalist had to admit there are so many exceptions that “it is a muddled picture.” In other words, the lazy journalist had to admit they were trying to create much more of a difference than there is. I won’t link to the story because it doesn’t deserve the clicks.

Central to corporate media today is abbreviating the complexities of reality to crude labels. Demographic characteristics are boiled down to labels like “millennials” and “Gen X,” erasing the individuality of millions of people and subordinating real people under putative avatars.

Permit me a brief tangent to vent. What passes for journalism today is the product of the downward trajectory of lazy thinking. Some fool says something on TikTok, other fools repeat it, and the fake journalists write stories about what the fools are saying. Easier than actually researching issues; it probably pays more, too.

Phony Avatars

It’s easy if you are a social media “influencer” to make a snarky video about the differences between “Gen This” and “Gen That.” If you are sufficiently snarky, you’ll get a ton of views and maybe even get mentioned by a lazy journalist.

As I wrote in my earlier article, there are no “millennials,” there is no “Gen X,” or “Gen Y,” or “Gen Z.” These are avatars — crude labels standing for demographic fictions expressing the wishful thinking of marketers, who abbreviate the complexities of people by means of demographic categories. They don’t pitch advertising to people; they pitch advertising to “Gen That.” The avatars are phony, with little to no meaning in the lived experiences of actual people.

The absurdity of generational avatars has continued despite the marketers running out of alphabet. The latest putative avatar is “Generation Alpha.” So, if you give birth today, your baby is that generation regardless of any reality about said child. Be sure to sacrifice your child’s individuality to the corporate marketing machine.

Before I become too snarky about these absurdities, I admit, as I did in my first article, that there is a basic truth to the idea of generations. What is false is the fiction that marketing labels like “Gen X” are social realities. Real people are influenced by real events — like the Kennedy assassination, 9/11, and COVID-19 — influences that have particular power on people in their formative years between the ages of 5 and 17. The generational avatars gloss over the relations people have to their world and to other people.

Real Generations?

I stand by my earlier table of generations because it connects with reality rather than marketing memes, but I now realize an additional way to look at generational differences. It’s a different perspective that takes into account another dimension of lived experiences. No snark, no marketing.

Really, we can say that there are two generations — older people and younger people. Both misunderstand and complain about each other. That’s not an abbreviation or an avatar but a social dynamic that has endured for, dare I say, many generations.

More than 2,300 years ago, Plato wrote about older people complaining about younger people. The young people didn’t respect their elders, they have contempt for authority, and they are lazy and gluttonous. I’m sure we could dig up even older Sumerian tablets that expressed the same complaints. Undeniably, those basic complaints have been repeated by older people about younger people many, many times over the many subsequent centuries.

Older people have no monopoly on complaining, of course. Young people surpass their elders in this, fueled by that combination of youthful enthusiasm and naive egoism. Older people are dull, closed-minded, and tyrannical and don’t understand younger people.

My point is that, regardless of everything else that happens, what remains constant is older people and younger people talking past each other. Whether today, a century ago, or a millennium ago, people are people, and there’s little new under the sun. If anything in this dynamic relationship has changed, it’s the ease and speed of technology that facilitates the complaining. What older people and younger people have in common is not feeling understood and respected by each other. People feel the need to complain about and feel better than other people, and that need helps drive all forms of prejudice, including toward people older and younger than oneself.

“Gen X” doesn’t exist, as I’ve said. Actual people exist who happen to be the ages of whatever marketers think their fictional “Gen X” avatar signifies. About those people, we can safely say that they have and continue to complain about people older than them and younger than them. They do that just like their parents and grandparents did and like their children do. It’s part of the human experience true of every generation in every century.

What It Means

If my only goal in writing this was to be snarky, I’d stop there. But I like to close what I write with the reason why these ideas matter. Understanding the reality of this dynamic of generational tension can help us not only soothe senseless arguments but also build social cohesion. Older and younger people can learn a lot from each other. As a professor, I learn a lot from my students (and having taught for more than 20 years, I don’t see much that is different in college-age people between when I began and now). There are generations in that people are affected by different events, but people are people first.

In general, people benefit from togetherness more than from divisiveness. Marketers are one group that tries to divide us, generation avatars being one such effort. Division is also an easy path for social media “influencers” and lazy journalists. It’s kind of amazing how life gets better when you stop baying attention to marketing, social media snark, and corporate media.

There will be tensions between older and younger people, and there are many legitimate reasons for those tensions. Working through those tensions through collective sharing of lived experiences will help all involved. Older and younger people can learn from each other. That effort will be much more useful than another snarky TikTok video or lazy corporate media article explaining the deep divide between “millennials” and “Gen X.”