Nothing irks me more, as I rise from a shameless boomer hangover, than watching nervous daytime celebs trying to distance themselves from my cohort.
They seem to believe that their well heeled and privileged existence will be overlooked or forgiven by viewers if they constantly remind us that, by a quirk of fate, they found themselves part of Generation X , and therefore not at all influenced by growing up in the late 1960s and the whole of the 1970s…
It's all tripe, of course. There has always been a generation gap. Young people have always thought they were misunderstood. Older adults have always mocked the impenetrable world of the young. The difference is that we used to have a very simple measure. A generation was deemed to be roughly thirty years , and was a moving feast.
Somebody born in the 1950s ,might expect to be having kids in the 70s , and they in turn might start to have an inkling of what goes on in the 80s and so on ad infinitum…
In our ridiculously polarised, post millennial world , we have drifted into an identification of generations by letters of the alphabet which relate to a range of arbitrary dates rather than the human life cycle.
So somebody born in 1964 belongs to a different generation than someone born the following year…
This may well mean something to presenters of a certain age who believe this will fool their younger bosses. Not so long ago, Grecian 2000 fed a similar forlorn hope.
Alternatively, they may believe that their viewers belong to a younger and fickle demographic and that their ratings depend upon NOT being seen to be a Boomer…
However,I am not a letter. It's time we ditched the alphabet.
Young people seem to have a natural acceptance of the long tail. They are able to embrace the sounds and culture of earlier decades, because they are constantly available online.
The mythical Gen Z,if we believe the media, is both work shy and introverted, and driving a Northern Soul revival . Out dancing till 4am…
Neither is strictly true , but there is probably truth to be found at both ends of this range…because young people have always had a wide range of interests and reference points.
Stop trying to label them with a letter. If you must, at least pronounce it Zed not Zee…
