Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory

Full Version: 1995
You're currently viewing a stripped down version of our content. View the full version with proper formatting.
Pages: 1 2
(02-22-2019, 04:23 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: [ -> ]The current pop cultural definition seem to be:

Xennial 1978-1985
Millennial 1986-94
Gen Z 1995-2009
Gen Alpha 2010+

They base it on things like type of cartoons and toys one experienced in childhood. 1995 was chosen as the beginning of gen Z because Internet Explorer was launched back then.

Chuck Haidt and others have noted a new kind of undergraduate appearing on college campuses around 2014, and suggests 1995 as a breakpoint. The millennial/GenZ divide has been linked by some to social media and smart phone adoption.

There is a difference between cultural/psychological generations, such as those Pew gives: Millennial 1981-1996, GenZ 1997- and historical/political generations such as those S&H talk about. The former evolve in response to the social milieu in which children grow up. The latter is based on the historical events going on when a group of cohorts come of age.

The cohorts born in the early 1980's are different from those born in the 1970's because the political and economic world into which they came of age was different. Contrast the tech go-go years of the late 1990's through early 2001, which the immediate aftermath of 911. The market fell after 911, and a crash was avoided by the president taking the unusual move of closing the stock market. As it turned out the recession was mild, although the Fed was talking about trying to avoid depression in 2002. Six years later we had a financial panic, something virtually no living American had ever seen during their adult lifetimes.

Over this same time American began to transform into a police state and in 2016 it elected an apparent caudillo. This transformation of the political and economic environment since 2001 has produced a different political/historical generation that contains members of both the millennial and GenZ cultural generations. This historical generation is the type the S&H model in concerned with.
(08-17-2019, 07:03 AM)Mikebert Wrote: [ -> ]
(02-22-2019, 04:23 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: [ -> ]The current pop cultural definition seem to be:

Xennial 1978-1985
Millennial 1986-94
Gen Z 1995-2009
Gen Alpha 2010+

They base it on things like type of cartoons and toys one experienced in childhood. 1995 was chosen as the beginning of gen Z because Internet Explorer was launched back then.

Chuck Haidt and others have noted a new kind of undergraduate appearing on college campuses around 2014, and suggests 1995 as a breakpoint. The millennial/GenZ divide has been linked by some to social media and smart phone adoption.

There is a difference between cultural/psychological generations, such as those Pew gives: Millennial 1981-1996, GenZ 1996- and historical/political generations such as those S&H talk about. The former evolve in response to the social milieu in which children grow up. The latter is based on the historical events going on when a group of cohorts come of age.

The cohorts born in the early 1980's are different from those born in the 1970's because the political and economic world into which they came of age was different. Contrast the tech go-go years of the late 1990's through early 2001, which the immediate aftermath of 911. The market fell after 911, and a crash was avoided by the president taking the unusual move of closing the stock market. As it turned out the recession was mild, although the Fed was talking about trying to avoid depression in 2002. Six years later we had a financial panic, something virtually no living American had ever seen during their adult lifetimes.

Over this same time American began to transform into a police state and in 2016 it elected an apparent caudillo. This transformation of the political and economic environment since 2001 has produced a different political/historical generation that contains members of both the millennial and GenZ cultural generations. This historical generation is the type the S&H model in concerned with.

Pew begins Gen Z in 1997, not 1996.
(08-16-2019, 12:58 PM)Ghost Wrote: [ -> ]
(08-16-2019, 11:19 AM)gabrielle Wrote: [ -> ]
(02-22-2019, 04:23 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: [ -> ]The current pop cultural definition seem to be:

Xennial 1978-1985
Millennial 1986-94
Gen Z 1995-2009
Gen Alpha 2010+

They base it on things like type of cartoons and toys one experienced in childhood. 1995 was chosen as the beginning of gen Z because Internet Explorer was launched back then.

I see these definitions shared on social media and find it rather annoying.  A span of 14 years, let alone 7 years, is hardly a "generation."  Especially since the people insisting on these definitions don't seem to feel the need to subdivide older generations in this way.  In fact, young people on social media rail against "baby boomers" without mentioning other generations at all, as if they see anyone with gray hair on their head as a baby boomer.

That's actually 15 and 8 years.

If there were actually 7-year microgenerations, this breakdown would be the best to work with:

1970-1976: Nintendo Generation (probably the main Nintendo crowd of the 80's)
1977-1983: Oregon Trail Generation (name is a very obvious synonym to Xennials)
1984-1990: Recession Generation (they were the ones most affected by the Recession)
1991-1997: Electropop Generation (electropop teens/adolescents)
1998-2004: Club Penguin Generation (people born during this 7-year range were probably the majority of Club Penguin players)
2005-2011: iGeneration (born during the rapid digitalization from the start of Web 2.0 to the point where iPhone sales overtook PC sales in 2011)

I agree with these because these are defined by actual events, especially the recession generation which I identify with more than the other descriptions.
(08-17-2019, 07:18 AM)Ghost Wrote: [ -> ]Pew begins Gen Z in 1997, not 1996.

Thanks. Fixed it.
1994 is a better year to start Homelanders than 1995 in my opinion. In fact, it actually seems like a decent starting point for Homelanders/Gen Z had it not been so early:
*They were the first to start elementary school after the Columbine Shooting, arguably a turning point for parenting and the entire school system.
*They spent most of their elementary school years after 9/11.
*They didn't start middle school until after the demise of Nickelodeon Studios, the debut of YouTube, the peak of Blockbuster, and the start of Web 2.0.
*They started high school after the start of the Recession.
*They graduated college after the legalization of gay marriage.
(09-04-2019, 05:57 PM)Ghost Wrote: [ -> ]1994 is a better year to start Homelanders than 1995 in my opinion. In fact, it actually seems like a decent starting point for Homelanders/Gen Z had it not been so early:
*They were the first to start elementary school after the Columbine Shooting, arguably a turning point for parenting and the entire school system.
*They spent most of their elementary school years after 9/11.
*They didn't start middle school until after the demise of Nickelodeon Studios, the debut of YouTube, the peak of Blockbuster, and the start of Web 2.0.
*They started high school after the start of the Recession.
*They graduated college after the legalization of gay marriage.

I have never seen consumer technology as the defining difference between generations. If the electric light (expanding the time of productive activity)  and automobile (giving far more flexibility in travel), arguably the consumer technologies that most changed life in America could not separate generations, then nothing can. 

A technology such as the Internet allows people to do things that they used to do by other means, whether in research or mindless entertainment. Nickelodeon Studios and Blockbuster Video collapsing? Does anyone really care now?

Same-sex marriage still affects a minority of lives, and Obergfell vs. Hodges  legalizing same-sex marriage affects fewer people than did Brown vs. Board of Education or even Loving vs. Virginia.  I'm not saying that same-sex marriage is suspect or trivial, but let us recognize what matters to far more people more directly. The sesqui-year economic meltdown was as serious after a year and a half as the economic meltdown beginning with the Great Stock Market Crash, but the earlier meltdown had three  years in which to inflict far more damage. Maybe the timing of the Great Depression (the Lost had far more to lose than did GI's) could define the divide between the Lost and GI's -- but so did World War I, which defined the Lost against all other American generations. 

Also worth noting -- Civic generations have hardscrabble childhood and teenage experiences in contrast to Adaptive youth... really -- GI childhood was materially deprived by standards of any subsequent generation... and I have yet to see kids born in the late 1990's  as better off as they attain adulthood than kids born in the early 1990's.

Howe and Strauss use wartime service as the divide between the GI and Silent generations, with the deciding difference in that GI young adults could be involved in heroic battles and make rank, and parlay such into economic dominance as the Silent could not. Sure, the Silent  may have served in the war, but they did not do so in time to define themselves as the Greatest Generation. They did occupation duty instead of battle in WWII.  

The Crisis is not over, and a Civic-Adaptive divide has yet to establish itself.
(09-05-2019, 09:58 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]
(09-04-2019, 05:57 PM)Ghost Wrote: [ -> ]1994 is a better year to start Homelanders than 1995 in my opinion. In fact, it actually seems like a decent starting point for Homelanders/Gen Z had it not been so early:
*They were the first to start elementary school after the Columbine Shooting, arguably a turning point for parenting and the entire school system.
*They spent most of their elementary school years after 9/11.
*They didn't start middle school until after the demise of Nickelodeon Studios, the debut of YouTube, the peak of Blockbuster, and the start of Web 2.0.
*They started high school after the start of the Recession.
*They graduated college after the legalization of gay marriage.

I have never seen consumer technology as the defining difference between generations. If the electric light (expanding the time of productive activity)  and automobile (giving far more flexibility in travel), arguably the consumer technologies that most changed life in America could not separate generations, then nothing can. 

A technology such as the Internet allows people to do things that they used to do by other means, whether in research or mindless entertainment. Nickelodeon Studios and Blockbuster Video collapsing? Does anyone really care now?

Same-sex marriage still affects a minority of lives, and Obergfell vs. Hodges  legalizing same-sex marriage affects fewer people than did Brown vs. Board of Education or even Loving vs. Virginia.  I'm not saying that same-sex marriage is suspect or trivial, but let us recognize what matters to far more people more directly. The sesqui-year economic meltdown was as serious after a year and a half as the economic meltdown beginning with the Great Stock Market Crash, but the earlier meltdown had three  years in which to inflict far more damage. Maybe the timing of the Great Depression (the Lost had far more to lose than did GI's) could define the divide between the Lost and GI's -- but so did World War I, which defined the Lost against all other American generations. 

Also worth noting -- Civic generations have hardscrabble childhood and teenage experiences in contrast to Adaptive youth... really -- GI childhood was materially deprived by standards of any subsequent generation... and I have yet to see kids born in the late 1990's  as better off as they attain adulthood than kids born in the early 1990's.

Howe and Strauss use wartime service as the divide between the GI and Silent generations, with the deciding difference in that GI young adults could be involved in heroic battles and make rank, and parlay such into economic dominance as the Silent could not. Sure, the Silent  may have served in the war, but they did not do so in time to define themselves as the Greatest Generation. They did occupation duty instead of battle in WWII.  

The Crisis is not over, and a Civic-Adaptive divide has yet to establish itself.
But what are your thoughts on the other things I talked about (the Columbine Shooting, 9/11, the Recession) regarding why 1994 is probably the earliest possible year to start the Homelander generation?

Or what about my other idea of 1994 to 1999 being the "between the shootings" generation (starting elementary school after the Columbine Shooting but graduated before the Parkland Shooting), or probably being the "between the eyes" generation (spent most of their elementary school years after the release of the iPod but before the release of the iPhone)?
(08-17-2019, 07:03 AM)Mikebert Wrote: [ -> ]
(02-22-2019, 04:23 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: [ -> ]The current pop cultural definition seem to be:

Xennial 1978-1985
Millennial 1986-94
Gen Z 1995-2009
Gen Alpha 2010+

They base it on things like type of cartoons and toys one experienced in childhood. 1995 was chosen as the beginning of gen Z because Internet Explorer was launched back then.

Chuck Haidt and others have noted a new kind of undergraduate appearing on college campuses around 2014, and suggests 1995 as a breakpoint. The millennial/GenZ divide has been linked by some to social media and smart phone adoption.

There is a difference between cultural/psychological generations, such as those Pew gives: Millennial 1981-1996, GenZ 1997- and historical/political generations such as those S&H talk about. The former evolve in response to the social milieu in which children grow up. The latter is based on the historical events going on when a group of cohorts come of age.

The cohorts born in the early 1980's are different from those born in the 1970's because the political and economic world into which they came of age was different. Contrast the tech go-go years of the late 1990's through early 2001, which the immediate aftermath of 911. The market fell after 911, and a crash was avoided by the president taking the unusual move of closing the stock market. As it turned out the recession was mild, although the Fed was talking about trying to avoid depression in 2002. Six years later we had a financial panic, something virtually no living American had ever seen during their adult lifetimes.

Over this same time American began to transform into a police state and in 2016 it elected an apparent caudillo. This transformation of the political and economic environment since 2001 has produced a different political/historical generation that contains members of both the millennial and GenZ cultural generations. This historical generation is the type the S&H model in concerned with.

That would make Gen Z begin in 1996, not 1995.
(08-17-2019, 07:03 AM)Mikebert Wrote: [ -> ]Over this same time American began to transform into a police state and in 2016 it elected an apparent caudillo. This transformation of the political and economic environment since 2001 has produced a different political/historical generation that contains members of both the millennial and GenZ cultural generations. This historical generation is the type the S&H model in concerned with.

I predict that Trump won't seem nearly as important as he seems now. If he loses next year, he will be just an episode, the guy who slowed down the Inclusivist and Digital transformations by 4 years.
(09-05-2019, 03:22 PM)Ghost Wrote: [ -> ]
(09-05-2019, 09:58 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]
(09-04-2019, 05:57 PM)Ghost Wrote: [ -> ]1994 is a better year to start Homelanders than 1995 in my opinion. In fact, it actually seems like a decent starting point for Homelanders/Gen Z had it not been so early:
*They were the first to start elementary school after the Columbine Shooting, arguably a turning point for parenting and the entire school system.
*They spent most of their elementary school years after 9/11.
*They didn't start middle school until after the demise of Nickelodeon Studios, the debut of YouTube, the peak of Blockbuster, and the start of Web 2.0.
*They started high school after the start of the Recession.
*They graduated college after the legalization of gay marriage.

I have never seen consumer technology as the defining difference between generations. If the electric light (expanding the time of productive activity)  and automobile (giving far more flexibility in travel), arguably the consumer technologies that most changed life in America could not separate generations, then nothing can. 

A technology such as the Internet allows people to do things that they used to do by other means, whether in research or mindless entertainment. Nickelodeon Studios and Blockbuster Video collapsing? Does anyone really care now?

Same-sex marriage still affects a minority of lives, and Obergfell vs. Hodges  legalizing same-sex marriage affects fewer people than did Brown vs. Board of Education or even Loving vs. Virginia.  I'm not saying that same-sex marriage is suspect or trivial, but let us recognize what matters to far more people more directly. The sesqui-year economic meltdown was as serious after a year and a half as the economic meltdown beginning with the Great Stock Market Crash, but the earlier meltdown had three  years in which to inflict far more damage. Maybe the timing of the Great Depression (the Lost had far more to lose than did GI's) could define the divide between the Lost and GI's -- but so did World War I, which defined the Lost against all other American generations. 

Also worth noting -- Civic generations have hardscrabble childhood and teenage experiences in contrast to Adaptive youth... really -- GI childhood was materially deprived by standards of any subsequent generation... and I have yet to see kids born in the late 1990's  as better off as they attain adulthood than kids born in the early 1990's.

Howe and Strauss use wartime service as the divide between the GI and Silent generations, with the deciding difference in that GI young adults could be involved in heroic battles and make rank, and parlay such into economic dominance as the Silent could not. Sure, the Silent  may have served in the war, but they did not do so in time to define themselves as the Greatest Generation. They did occupation duty instead of battle in WWII.  

The Crisis is not over, and a Civic-Adaptive divide has yet to establish itself.
But what are your thoughts on the other things I talked about (the Columbine Shooting, 9/11, the Recession) regarding why 1994 is probably the earliest possible year to start the Homelander generation?

Or what about my other idea of 1994 to 1999 being the "between the shootings" generation (starting elementary school after the Columbine Shooting but graduated before the Parkland Shooting), or probably being the "between the eyes" generation (spent most of their elementary school years after the release of the iPod but before the release of the iPhone)?

What forces lasting changes defines generations. Consider the last completed Crisis Era: the Gilded ethos that persisted in America became untenable after three years of economic meltdown that ripped apart the idea that so long as the common man had complete loyalty and faith in profits-first capitalism, that all would go well. The shattering of the credibility of old institutions marks the Crisis at its start, and the establishment of new institutions marks the end of the Crisis.

The school shootings have not caused us to make drastic changes in the nature of K-12 education, have they? We have not yet established what sort of economic norms replace those of the Unraveling.
(11-30-2019, 05:08 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: [ -> ]
(08-17-2019, 07:03 AM)Mikebert Wrote: [ -> ]Over this same time American began to transform into a police state and in 2016 it elected an apparent caudillo. This transformation of the political and economic environment since 2001 has produced a different political/historical generation that contains members of both the millennial and GenZ cultural generations. This historical generation is the type the S&H model in concerned with.

I predict that Trump won't seem nearly as important as he seems now. If he loses next year, he will be just an episode, the guy who slowed down the Inclusivist and Digital transformations by 4 years.

I wouldn't be so sure.  Trump isn't important as a solitary figure, but as the primary symptom of what ails the world.  How many others in his mold are moving into prominence? You Brits have one -- two, if you think Jeremy Corbin no better than Boris Johnson.  Most of the rest are worse, though less powerful: Bolsonaro in Brazil, Duterte in the Philippines, Erdogan in Turkey, Orban in Hungary to name just a few.  Obviously, Putin in Russia and Xi in China are much more dangerous, but isn't that the point?  This is a worldwide phenomenon, triggered by the greed of the international wealthy and powerful, and never fully addressed after the 2007-8 financial collapse.  

So no, Trump is not unique, but what he represents certainly is an enormous moral and political hazard.
Perhaps in the future, "Gen Z" will come to refer not to the next generation after Milllennials, but to the cusp group between the two.
(12-01-2019, 11:03 AM)gabrielle Wrote: [ -> ]Perhaps in the future, "Gen Z" will come to refer not to the next generation after Milllennials, but to the cusp group between the two.

I think that even with that definition, the Gen Z label will still fade away. The bridge zone between Millennials and Homelanders will probably be called something like the "Club Penguin generation" or the "Wii generation".

If there were microgenerations after the famous Xennial one, they would probably look like this:

1984-1990: Recession generation (those who were the most impacted by the Recession)
1991-1997: Electropop generation (probably the majority of electropop fans fall under here)
1998-2004: Club Penguin generation (probably the majority of Club Penguin players fall under here)
(12-01-2019, 10:04 AM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]
(11-30-2019, 05:08 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: [ -> ]
(08-17-2019, 07:03 AM)Mikebert Wrote: [ -> ]Over this same time American began to transform into a police state and in 2016 it elected an apparent caudillo. This transformation of the political and economic environment since 2001 has produced a different political/historical generation that contains members of both the millennial and GenZ cultural generations. This historical generation is the type the S&H model in concerned with.

I predict that Trump won't seem nearly as important as he seems now. If he loses next year, he will be just an episode, the guy who slowed down the Inclusivist and Digital transformations by 4 years.

I wouldn't be so sure.  Trump isn't important as a solitary figure, but as the primary symptom of what ails the world.  How many others in his mold are moving into prominence? You Brits have one -- two, if you think Jeremy Corbin no better than Boris Johnson.  Most of the rest are worse, though less powerful: Bolsonaro in Brazil, Duterte in the Philippines, Erdogan in Turkey, Orban in Hungary to name just a few.  Obviously, Putin in Russia and Xi in China are much more dangerous, but isn't that the point?  This is a worldwide phenomenon, triggered by the greed of the international wealthy and powerful, and never fully addressed after the 2007-8 financial collapse.  

So no, Trump is not unique, but what he represents certainly is an enormous moral and political hazard.

Erik von Kuehnelt Leddihn once called this phenomenon "great old men", and all men he enumerated were Missionary. Likewise all figures you list are boomers. And I agree that Corbyshenko is as bad as BoJo, though he has a better hairdo ;P

So maybe we could divide the 4T into two stages:
-stage 1: Inclusivity vs Market (climax ca 2011 with Occcupy)
-stage 2: Inclusivity vs Nationalism, with the money men siding increasingly with Nationalism
Pages: 1 2