@Vagabond Elf They're calling us "Xennials" now. I'll take it, if it means not getting lumped in with either the X'ers or the Millennials.
I sympathize with this, being forever impaled upon the cusp between Boomer and X. On the one hand I was a miserable failure at Trivial Pursuit "Baby Boomer" edition, and on the other I don't know any lyrics to the Animaniacs song. But I did ride my bike all over the place unattended and drink from the garden hose, so maybe I can just stand in the grass quietly outside a window at GenX Manor.
You may be "Generation Jones." I think that was the first time they observed this phenomenon.
Huh. Yeah. Thanks for that. No one size fits all, but this describes my formative years better than the other categories. Wasn't a latchkey kid but had friends who were, and I guess the only reason I wasn't one was that every day I walked from school to the downtown shop where my mom worked and stayed there until closing time. Good thing we didn't have smartphones and streaming back then or I would have probably just watched this show called Star Trek all afternoon.
Yeah, one thing that seems to be missing from most of these generation-categories discussions is birth order. My wife and I are only about two months apart in age, but our life influences were very different not so much because of being opposite sexes but because I was the oldest of three and she was the youngest of five.
In childhood, she was well-versed in the Beatles while all I knew was the Yellow Submarine cartoon. Her older siblings brought back news (and friends) from college; my view of higher education came from skewed depictions in sitcoms.
I watched whatever I wanted on TV most of the time, while her viewing was continually controlled by six other family members.
My parents-in-law were the same generation as my grandparents, so while Mrs. Just a Bill was watching Lawrence Welk and The Hound of the Baskervilles with her dad, I was listening to Neil Diamond with my mom. (Both households did watch Trek, though, at least in early syndication.)
I guess my point is, a person's birth year matters but so do those of their parents. The Just a Bills might both be technically Gen Jones, but my parents were Boomers while hers were The Greatest/Silent Generation.
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My problem with Generation Jones, which I may have gone into before but I'm too old to remember that far back, is that as a 1963 geezer I feel a lot more connection with my sisters born in 1964 and 1972, or my late wife who was born in 1968, than I do with anyone born in the late 1950s.
I was born in ‘59. I feel better connected to folks born in the early to mid sixties than the 50s
Same. Same year and same sentiment.
'63 baby also, and my brothers were born in '67 and '70. I too have a weaker connection to the people who remember the "Kennedy-Camelot" time period. Even when they are only 5-10 years older than me, they feel like a different generation.
Just spitballing here, but maybe there's some kind of a generational clustering that would roughly correspond to those who, as kids, remember on Saturday mornings watching In the Know/In the News and Schoolhouse Rock when they were still pretty new. Kids older than us who were born in, say, '54-56 were probably getting ready to graduate from high school when those shows were starting, but I was still in the elementary grades. In any case, I still love Schoolhouse Rock to this day; compared to most children's programing, it remains an uncommonly bright nexus of craftsmanship and usefulness that still feels like a timeless classic to me. A real comfort food, if you will.
Same year but opposite connection. I was an only boy with three sisters, and I remember spending time mostly with my mother while my sisters had each other. We would watch "old" movies together, so, I feel more connected with the 1930's thru the 1950's, i.e. my mother's generation. I still love watching old movies.
I'm Canadian, so my pop culture references would be a bit different. I was 12 by the time we moved somewhere where we could reliably watch American channels.
And speaking of being Canadian... I had our old black and white TV starting in my second year in residence at university (Canadian for college dorm, I believe) in 1982 and the CBC was showing Warner Bros movies from the 1930s to the 1950s at midnight, Sunday to Thursday. I saw so many great movies then. And then another channel showed a few of the Thin Man movies, and I saw Double Indemnity somewhere... a lot of my all-time favourite movies are from those days.
speaking of music, it's sad how music has become a secondary, even third or fourth interest in the hierarchy...for Boomers and especially Gen X , music was such an integral part of our upbringing. Rick Beato talked about this in a recent video. And when he mentioned it, it made perfect sense...
whatever music we identified with as teens/young adults, in many ways, it defined who we were as people and influenced us socially as well...
Punk fans: dressed like "Punks", skinny Jeans, "Anarchy" T shirts, etc..
New Wave fans: teased up their hair and wore avant garde clothing
Metal Heads: wore denim and spiked bracelets and band T shirts, grew long hair etc...
early Rap had it's fashions as well
again I didn't give this much thought until he mentioned it and then realized that it was pretty accurate...he cites the year 2012 as the turning point with the advent of 4g and the launch of more and more complex algorithms and their influence, particularly on younger demographics....
There is also a doc called 'The last blockbuster' which is about the last store that was still in operation (somewhere in Oregon)...This is a clip where teens/young adults were told that Blockbuster was a staple in the lives of their parents....Friday night, you'd get Pizza or Chinese Food , hit Blockbuster and make a night of it...and all the kids thought that was so "weird" as now instant access is the norm.
whatever music we identified with as teens/young adults, in many ways, it defined who we were as people and influenced us socially as well...
Punk fans: dressed like "Punks", skinny Jeans, "Anarchy" T shirts, etc..
New Wave fans: teased up their hair and wore avant garde clothing
Metal Heads: wore denim and spiked bracelets and band T shirts, grew long hair etc...
early Rap had it's fashions as well
again I didn't give this much thought until he mentioned it and then realized that it was pretty accurate...he cites the year 2012 as the turning point with the advent of 4g and the launch of more and more complex algorithms and their influence, particularly on younger demographics....
There is also a doc called 'The last blockbuster' which is about the last store that was still in operation (somewhere in Oregon)...This is a clip where teens/young adults were told that Blockbuster was a staple in the lives of their parents....Friday night, you'd get Pizza or Chinese Food , hit Blockbuster and make a night of it...and all the kids thought that was so "weird" as now instant access is the norm.
Bend, Oregon, and it's still open for business. It's an easy day trip for us, and a fun nostalgic indulgence. I always thought they should bill themselves as The Last Blockbuster on Earth ... fittingly dramatic for a place that's all about movies. But maybe the corporation still thinks it can make a comeback.
Sadly the Schlotzky's Deli there in Bend is no longer in business; Blockbuster and Schlotzky's was a nice throwback double feature.
well they had their shot, Netflix offered to sell to them back in the day for $20M and Blockbuster said "No Thanks..."
Honestly, I can relate, though not so much because of what franchises are doing — because really, they’re only doing what they’ve always done — but just because of getting older and changing. In my 57th year, I’ve been shocked to realize that I just don’t care anymore about whatever’s going on in DC/Marvel comics, which I followed semi-obsessively for a good forty years; and that Doctor Who, not even the modern stuff but just good old classic Hartnell/Baker Doctor Who, suddenly feels like it’s for someone a great deal younger (which it always was, of course, but suddenly I feel that way); and that while sure, I’ll follow Trek as long as it’s around, mine was done by the end of 1991; and that I don’t actually need anymore Star Wars. One doesn’t want to outgrow things, but sometimes I guess one does, kicking and screaming as may be.
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I apologize for the tangent, but do you remember the TV show "Get a Life" where it's early season 2, Chris moves out, they play the hippie song, and there's a montage of him acting all innocent and free, and later drinks from a garden hose... ...that's connected to a giant tanker labeled "toxic waste"? Now that needs to be on a card for "Trivial Pursuit, the 8675310th Edition".
Just found this thread, haven't read it all. Yet.
I am also 57 and certainly remember the days before TNG. And even before TMP!
Which I caught twice in its original theatrical run in the Christmas season of 1979.
Other movie memories from that winter include The Black Stallion, 1941 and The Black Hole.
What a great time to be an eleven-year old!
cheers
The Black Stallion is a forgotten gem. And 1941 may not be Spielberg’s best by a long shot, but it’s got a great score.
John Williams never disappoints.
What a great cast too! Ned Beatty destroying his own house is almost worth the price of admission.
And yeah, it's far from Spielberg's best, but it's hilarious. Even now I still laugh out loud watching it.
Also: Star Trek connection ---
The USS Bozeman from TNG's "Cause and Effect" bears the registry NCC-1941.
This was a homage to Steven Spielberg's movie 1941, for which Star Trek model maker Greg Jein provided miniatures.
cheers
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