1981 millennials

[PeanutButterSmoothie]

I was surprised to find out the other day that my sister (born Jan '81) is technically considered a millennial.

She won't accept this as she, like myself, regards millennials as the hipster generation, revelling in wokeness etc. She remembers renting VHS tapes, owning a Sony cassette walkman, watching MTV, and the introduction of the world wide web.

Gotta say I was surprised and my first thought is that lots of people in their early 40s probs don't regard themselves as millennials.

Generations were covered in my degree in the dying days of the 20th Century 😂
They do have value for describing broad socio-economic trends and generation values. It's more recently that they've been picked up in popular culture.

Values will be affected by things like job security, disposable income, if saving is beneficial or there's more incentive to spend now or use credit. Wider politics. Backlashes against parental values. I grew up with a parent that experienced rationing from early childhood until teen years- my attitude to "waste", hoarding and making do with inadequate items because they exist is different. However I still like tangible items such as books and CDs rather than everything being streamed.
Younger generations are backlashing against their binge-drinking parents as a general trend.

It doesn't mean that every individual follows tends or conforms to clichés but there are broad patterns of behaviour that can be useful to read in to.

My husband is 40 and I’m 35 and our shared childhood/teenage experiences are similar, despite growing up in very different countries. We both watched Johnny Bravo and Dexters laboratory. We rented videos. Listened to cds. He’s not old enough to be gen x, we didn’t listen to 80s pop or dress in 90s or 80s fashion like grunge. Also despite being the prime age for it I didn’t use the internet, my space etc as I grew up quite poor and couldn’t afford a laptop until I was 19 and got a bursary from collage. I think I missed out on a few defining millennial moments.

The reason these labels have emerged is because marketing professionals use them as demographic markers.

If they weren’t successful and fairly accurate, they would have stopped using them I guess.

Gen X here and the description sums me up pretty neatly.

If you binge-watched Buffy one box set at a time from the video rental store, you’re Xennial.

I'm a slap bang mid Gen X - very grateful tbh.

Just wish my Baby Boomer parents would let me inherit from them

Wondering WTF "The future's bright, the future's Orange" meant...
01 Day when the area codes all changed. Relearning the Saturday morning phone number going from 081 8118181 to 0181 8118181. Sending a SAE to get a fact sheet pre-email.

There is absolutely no way you remember the moon landings or the challenger if you were born in 1988, since they both happened before you were born. Unless by “88” you mean 1888, in which case I’m impressed.

you are close to my age and I remember 9/11 clearly but nothing else, and I’ve got an excellent memory.

How old are the xennials then? When do they go from??

Last week of Dec 1981 here & defo not a millennial since I turned 18 & entered adulthood in the last millennium, not this one. I say 1982 onwards is a millenial

You are fed up hearing about something you have only just heard of?

“Revelling in wokeness”

Fucks sake OP.

I remember before VHS & Betamax, remembering not having a home phone (too expensive).

Busby anyone??

Channel 4 being launched, EastEnders being launched. Getting a Walkman, CDs being launched.

Computers being 1 BBC thing for the whole class at school.

First to sit GCSEs!

My DB likes to wax about his young work-shy millennial employees, thinking he was a Gen xer - except he was born in 1983 🤔 and a little bit of a twat .

Xennials are anyone born in 77-83.

I agree with the posters saying she's probs mixing up millennials with Gen Z.

That said, whichever generation they're in I also find the woke demographic pretty tiresome tbh. It's not like we weren't already a pretty liberal society. The cancel culture of recent years is pretty toxic IMO, and many universities now seem to be places where debate is no longer encouraged and a certain view is expected - slight hyperbole but true nonetheless IMO.

I'm 84 and considered a Xennial, we had an analogue childhood and a digital adulthood.

I consider myself millennial.

Nothing modern about it. People have been doing it for a long time. The baby boomers weren't given that name by younger generations they were given that name by their predecessors. As for complaining about younger generations that has been going on for thousands of years at least!

I can’t believe people are still confusing millennials with Gen Z. Most millennials are in their thirties.

I think the label obsession has defo intensified though since the 00s.

We used to have styles like dnb/house/techno etc, and whilst there were sub genres like liquid dnb etc, it wasn't like now where have liquid trapwobblestep etc. It seems like many genres could almost previously have just been different styles of tune on the same album.

I find the term ‘woke brigade’ insufferable.

It reminds me of a generation that harp on about how people are so ‘offended’ all the time but forget they lost their shit when Russel Brand offended Andrew Sachs. Literally 1000s who only complained cause that rag told them to.

I feel like gen x never get mentioned what was that gen all about?

Apart from being the parents of gen z that is

The “woke demographic”? They’re not giving themselves that label and every generation has people who wish to stand up for injustice. It’s just that the likes of the Daily Mail have decided to give them the name woke.

it’s not unique.

As for cancel culture - it’s all froth whipped up by the Telegraph and Daily Mail.

Maybe you just can’t keep up 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yeah no one gives a shit about gen x 🤷‍♀️

I'm an Xennial too. Neither one thing nor another.