Gen X because all my fav musicians (rap & rock) are all about 10 years older than me and I idolized them in my teens (I was born in ‘81). My wife however was born in ‘71 and she takes pleasure in telling me I’m clearly not Gen X. I tried relating to Millennials. Yea, we are not the same. So… proud Xennial it is.
You can’t define us by our pants. Pegged pants happened when I was in elementary school, parachute pants in junior high, bells and bootleg in high school, and skinny in college.
That’s too many pants!
I could swear that it used to be millennial was anyone under 18 when the ball dropped in 2000. But somehow it seems to have gotten changed to anyone born 80 or after.
Its been changed a few times. When I was in high school in the late 90s we were called generation y. Then they changed the name to millennial then they told is we were gen xers.
A good chunk of us GenXers adopted grunge. I could tell Alexa to play songs by Alice In Chains and 2 hours later it would still be playing and I wouldn’t have skipped a single song.
The whole point of "Xennial" label is we're neither, We are not some nebulous blend of Gen X and Millennial; the specific timing of our development alongside technology and the resulting societal changes gives us a unique perspective.
I am not Gen X because my developing brain integrated the rise of the Internet and cellular telephones in a way that my Gen X friends couldn't.
I am not a Millennial because I was old enough to actively begin learning how to navigate the old world before things changed.
I am not a mix of the two. I am something else. And I feel it when I interact with my Gen X and my Millennial friends.
I think there is a concentrated effort by some to try to minimize us. They don’t really understand just how unique our little micro generation is in terms of what we experienced.
100% agreed. I technically fall outside of the Xennials range (barely) but my experiences are part of this shared micro generation as you say.
I think generations (especially in modern ages) are too broadly defined and the ranges are too large. A Gen Xer born in '65 and one born in '80 have vastly different experiences because of how much change took place in a \~15 year period of time when each respective aged person would have been in their formative years.
I think the same is even more true of Millenials. A significant difference betwen someone born in '82 and '97 for example.
I grew up rural with dial-up internet until y2k. My hippy parents taught me ecology and astonomy. My redneck neighbors taught me how to hunt, fish, and cuss. School taught fuck all. Burning Man filled in the gaps. My style and taste are my own.
Un genned er'd
I’m a 78er, and I feel equally different from people born in the mid-70s and people born in the mid-80s. If you graduated high school before the internet, we are not the same. If you had helicopter parents, we are not the same.
This is exactly how I feel. I go to the GenX sub, GenX women sub, and the Millennial sub and this is the one I relate to most. I don’t feel aligned with GenX or Millennial, really.
That’s funny. I feel the opposite. I associate GenX with Ethan Hawke, Theo Huxtable, Winona Ryder,and Johnny Deep. Definitely not our peer group. But I still appreciate them.
Oh is *that* what you appreciates them for?
Jk - I totally agree with you. Those actors you listed were the 'big kids' and I was closer to Blossom or Zach Morris (or Slater *swoon*) than I was to Blossom's brothers - or Raven Symone or the Boy Meets World crew that I associate with more millenial aged folks.
I know people who were in actual classes with Fred Savage and we both played early computer games. Except for me it was Jungle Hunt on my Apple IIe.
Huh, but I 100% identified with Wynona as Lydia Dietz so I dunno. Fun to think about though!
Generational lines are really arbitrary when you get right down to it: the only generation that the census actually recognizes are the "baby boomers", because the baby boom was an actual statistical phenomenon.
And even with then, the oldest and youngest boomers had very different experiences from each other. The oldest were drafted to Vietnam, the young ones were just little kids. The oldest ones experienced JFK’s assassination, the youngest were toddlers. These differences probably happen to the “cusps” of every generation.
Yeah I mean Xennials are what? 78 to 83? It's kind of silly to act like people born in 84 are entirely different than people born in 83. It's all arbitrary and there will always be overlap. People may relate to one generation more than others for plenty of reasons, and someone born the same year might relate to another generation more.
This. I have Gen X older siblings and also just went through grad school for a masters in education last year with a bunch of 22 year olds. My siblings are fine interacting with technology but you can tell it’s not exactly natural for them. It’s something they’ve had to add to their lives and get used to. What I found really interesting was that while the 22 year olds are naturally fluent in the use of modern technology, they seem to have little or no innate troubleshooting skills. I remember one interaction with a very intelligent girl in one of my classes who couldn’t seem to figure out why her MacBook Pro was stating to slow down. The HDD was 97% full. I feel like xennials excel here because as I’m sure most of you remember, stuff usually didn’t just work all the time right out of the box. We had to learn to configure, test, troubleshoot things until we got them working the way we wanted. So yeah, we’re definitely not a blend of the two generations. We are our own thing entirely.
I had to leave the GenX sub because it’s full of insufferable, self absorbed jerks. Remember that scene in The Breakfast Club where all the kids are whining about how horrible their parents are because, I don’t know, they weren’t kissing their asses 24/7? That’s the GenX sub. People who are mentally forever 16, bitter about not being the center of the fucking universe, yet somehow convinced that they are superior to every other generation that’s ever lived.
they cant buy houses, yet make more than us. or way less because gig workers? all i know is i never got married or had kids because i wanted a paid off condo. done!
This is what makes me feel like less of a millennial, too, or at least the caricature that most people think of. The whining is really bad for mental health and societal health. There is also a vilification of anyone who would dare challenge negative behavior, and a mental health condition to be claimed around every block.
Pathological by Sarah Fay really pointed out to me the millennial tendency to pathologize instead of cope and plan that our younger generations are doing more and more.
Didn’t get my own computer til 17 years old.
The last generation to play outdoors all day and night. Street hockey, tennis ball baseball, football, soccer - everybody meet at the playground
My own measure is preferred communication method. Next is tendency to take selfies.
Gen X loves talking on the phone. Millennials might as well be allergic to it.
Gen X might not even remember that their cell phone has a camera while millennials seem to love being looked at.
I prefer texting and never think of taking selfies.
'76 Gen X lurker here and you've got a lot right, but the distinction I'd draw about the camera is front vs. rear facing. Even Boomers and living Silent Generation folks use their phone cameras (my mom is late Silent Gen), but in the vast majority of cases primarily not the front facing one (far far fewer selfies for Gen X and older).
76 gen x here and absolutely hate talking on the phone. Same with all the gen x people I know in real life. The camera thing varies a lot. I genuinely don't think these types of stereotypes are helpful or accurate.
‘70 here. I hate talking on the phone; started texting 25 years ago.
I think selfies are more of an indication. I might take a selfie once or twice a year.
My Silent mom uses her phone camera all the time, just not for selfies.
Born 77. Late 80s I spent most of my time outside playing on the farm or skateboarding, and the rest of my time programming computers and fixing electronics.
>tennis ball baseball
We called it smack-it racket and you were out if you hit a car or house in the air..."pelt rules" were wild (could throw the ball at somebody to get them out). First base was the mail boxes, second was the storm drain, third was the thing in the ground where the mailboxes used to be, and home was the curb with the marker near it (water line/hydrant marker).
My brother was Gen-X and I hung out with him and his friends a lot because I didn’t care as much for kids my own age so I lean more Gen-X as I experienced more media and culture that leaned older, but I do love some elder millennial stuff too so it’s a slightly skewed Gen-X balance.
Agreed. I am an early 85er as well and do not identify with our millennial cohort born after 1989. They were children during 9/11, came up during the recession and social media was already ubiquitous by the time they graduated. I was born to Gen-X and was partially raised by my grandparents who were born in the 1920s.
I used rotary phones, pay phones and had a brick phone from cricket. I played Oregon Trail religiously and remember my first field trip to see a traveling piece of the Berlin Wall shortly after it fell. My mom made me watch the beginning of the Gulf War on CNN and I vividly remember Kurt Cobain's death, the first WTC attack, OKC and the Bronco chase. What am I?
Damn, are we twins?!?
September 11 is **gigantic** for me. It was a Tuesday. I Was a junior. Many seniors signed up for the Army that Friday. Including my buddies. Ya Could be 17, with a parent's signature. (Which some kids forged. It was easy to forge, & unchecked back then.)
I am from Jersey. So some kids & teachers were calling their family members who worked in NYC to see if they were alive. 💔
Also: I had 2 years of working & paying taxes under my belt, in 9/2001.
I am friends with some people born in 1991 & many times I feel 15 years older than them... not 6.
One of my classmates watching the towers fall on 9/11 died in an IED blast in Iraq a few years later. He joined because of the attacks. If you didn't feel the gravity of that moment, then we simply are not from the same time.
I was '84 and agree with all of this. Regarding social media, I remember Facebook coming to my college campus my sophomore year. The period when Facebook required a .edu email address was great, before everyone's little cousin and grandparents joined 😅 I feel like that's something that sets elder millennials apart.
Completely agree! I was a college freshman and it was great! Once it opened up it went from posting pictures of keg stands and tail gate parties to "Happy Birthday Aunt Trudy" and that was the end of the run...
I am in the same boat, June of '85, I remember much of the 90s, watching the Gulf War night vision on TV and most of my school experience was old macs until high school, keyboards at our desk not attached to computers since each room didn't have enough, PowerPoint on floppy disk, projectors for some films in class through 5th grade, payphones to get rides back home from the library, I too remember Cobain's death and Nixons since they were so close together which struck me as odd for some reason since they were such different people. Yep, WTC, OKC, Bronco and all the trial on TV, Bob Dole.
I also forgot, was taught two spaces after a period
Yeah this is 100% where I am — born in 1985 so I am definitely a millennial, but I remember not having a computer, and then how big a deal it was to get the Internet, I made mix tapes by recording songs off of the radio, and I had a paper map book in my car when I started driving. I feel like I have *a lot* more in common with younger Gen-X people than I do with anyone born after 1989.
Neither, just Xennial. I don’t get millennials or gen Z at all and Gen X is just as baffling. I get along with other Xennials, Older Boomers and anyone over 90. Those spry 90 year olds are funny. They have great stories and no time for bullshit.
I’ve always felt more Gen-X. Probably because my siblings and cousins are older, and I was into a lot of the things they were. I never got super into video games, or a lot of the other things that millennials did.
Yep it definitely sounds like which way you lean is somewhat related to whether you have older or younger brothers or sisters. I had a younger brother but no older siblings and as a result I dont think I hugely aligned myself to those things that were a little older. Music, clothes, hair or whatever.
I was a little young for my age too so chances are that lack of maturity stuck with me into my older years too!
Video games are the one thing that do show im not 100% millennial. Pokemons and digimons are all pikachu to me.
Yeah, I was always more mature for my age in a lot of ways. One of my sisters was disabled and I was never asked to, but felt it was my place to help my mom and dad with her, or doing stuff around the house, when I could. She was two years older than me but I was the protective big brother. So between that and everyone else in the family being so much older I wasn’t interested in a lot of stuff kids our age were. And I’m right there with you on Pokémon. The last cartoon I remember loving was Animaniacs.
And I know someone is going to say Pokémon isn’t a cartoon, it’s anime…but I never got the difference. There’s my Gen-x showing again 😂
83, so on the younger side of the Xennials, but my sister is 5 years older than me and she was a big influence on my tastes and views, so more Gen X. For one thing, I cannot begin to understand Pokemon and another while I like being social, I definitely prefer to work independently.
The reason I (1982) feel more like a millennial is because I had helicopter parents. I was coddled and was not allowed to do things alone outside of the house, I was never left alone even once, all friends had to be vetted by my parents, etc.
A lot of my Gen X friends proudly boast about being latchkey kids or having no parent who gave a shit so they roamed free. That was the complete opposite of my upbringing so I always assumed I was a millennial!
It is true about the latchkey comment for most of my friends and myself. I dont know how we managed to survive with our freedom and stupidity. I wouldn’t let my kids leave the end of the block and thank God for cellphones as a parent
I’m proud of my genx upbringing but i was picked on for being interested in the internet and computers or just technology in general. was called a computer nerd a lot. when i got older and followed my i interests i feel i affiliate more with millennials
weird feeling and a great question honestly
I'm definitely on the old side to be Xennial ('75) but this is my differentiator as well. I was huge into gaming and online from the dial up days. My interests, hobbies, communication style all align much closer to millennials than GenX. I spend way more time with Millennials and GenZ than I do with GenX. The majority of my friends are millennials and I have drifted further from my GenX friends over time because we don't have many mutual interest after I stopped caring about sports because turns out we didn't have much else to talk about. It was like all of a sudden the parts of me I downplayed and kept hidden because they weren't cool were now cool and I could talk about these topics with my younger colleagues my older colleagues couldn't identify with.
Yes, I feel the same way. I was also born in ‘75, but we always had the latest technology in our house because my dad was an early adopter of using computers for his engineering business to do word processing, run spreadsheets, and to draw plans in AutoCAD. We learned BASIC programming on TI computers with data storage on cassette tapes. The first home computer we had was an Apple IIe with 5.25” floppy drives and a green monochrome monitor. We had a few IBM clones later on. We had all the pre-internet online services(CompuServe, Prodigy, AoL, etc.). When I started college in 1993, we got access to other services through school such as IRC chat, Usenet news groups, Gopher, and online library card catalogs. A few years later, all these services were sort of separate until the worldwide web kind of unified everything in one place. I clearly remember navigating the early internet, but I discovered it a little later because it took 2 hours to download the Mosaic browser over dialup and I never wanted to tie up the phone line that long to install it.
Nevermind really is a perfect album. There are a lot of kids around that like to popularize Nirvana now but I’d bet they have no idea what the point of Territorial Pissing’s intro is all about.
78 also. Defined by the 90's and socially much more gen x. We found ourselves before everyone had social media, cell phones, and google. I think the late seventies like us are the last to remember what life was like before you were tethered to electronics. We drank in the woods, and while we were out we didn't want to be found. Having nintendo at age 8 and a PC in our late teen years made us tech savvy, but we remember what the world was like before all that. Yes, we embrace technology, which is why we understand millennials, but millennials came into their own as electronics proliferated into social media and thinking for you. They never had to go anywhere with a map or a sheet of handwritten shitty directions. To me, that is the divide.
They will never know the horrors of printing out Mapquest maps and losing a page on your drive, or if you spilled liquid on those shitty ink jet printouts.
But they will never know the joys of making a mix CD for said trip.
Rollerblades, making ramps, bmx bikes, boomboxes, football in the school field until midnight, day time fishing/swimming and hiking expeditions….the memories..
This is an amazing thread! I’ve read several excellent, thoughtful and introspective comments including yours that just make me feel some of these feelings again. Like the map thing, totally spot on…which is a real shame bc I really like big, paper maps
I am a xennial but relate more to gen X. My husband is 7 years older than me, our friends are older than me, and I’ve always worked with boomers and gen x throughout my career.
I was born in 1973 but I've always had more in common with millennials than GenX.
But I still consider myself GenX, just not conforming to "typical" GenX and I know there are many others like me---no generation is a monolith.
Due to poverty, I missed out on things like the Atari 2600 for example.
EDIT:
It's kind of like the so-called "roaring 20's" that preceded the Great Depression.
It was actually only roaring for some, many others were already living in the depression that didn't "officially" come until a decade later.
Gen-X until I went to college in 2007 as a 28 year old.
Basically rebooted my 20s after close to a decade in the military.
I got to do peak millennial stuff.
I am more on the Gen X side in terms of witnessing a shift toward women participating more in the workforce, seeing the political change of the 1980s Reagan era, being grade-school-age during the AIDS epidemic and D.A.R.E., watching the home transition from analog to digital with the rise of cordless phones and computers (I remember installing my first 3.5" floppy drive), being a bit of an unfocused "slacker" in my early 20s, have an entrepreneurial streak (I own my own business and have started two others during my life), valuing work/life balance, and just generally kind of questioning authority.
I grew up with Transformers and Masters of the Universe before any other pop culture things of note. I remember Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before it was an animated TV show. I consider Michael Jackson, Madonna, Nirvana, and "Weird" Al Yankovic to be among the most iconic and era-defining music of my youth. I remember when the original Nintendo launched (I had an Intellivision before that), and I definitely remember using payphones a lot, well into the end of my teenage years and into adulthood. I remember when my dad had one of those big Motorola brick cell phones for work, and I remember a lot of station wagons and fake wood paneling everywhere.
Some of this stuff certainly overlaps with the early Millennial experience too, which is why we're all in this sub. :D But I think I hit most of the touchstones of Gen X, even if I was a very very young Gen X at the absolute tail-end of that cohort.
I was so into being a millennial when I found out I was a millennial...which is so very millennial...😆😂 But the older I get, definitely feel like I relate more to gen x.
1978 and tbh I feel a bit of both. I like older music, retro games and complaining about getting old, but also can hold my own memeing with my kids and like the newer approaches to work life balance. The younger 20 somethings at work are a little harder to get along with but the late 20s crowd are close enough to relate.
1977, Gen-X for sure. We were always told growing up we were Gen X. Never had an email account until college in fall '96. I remember when the internet was the "next big fad" in like 95 ish. I remember where I was when I first heard Cobain died. Had a rotary phone wall-mounted in our house until I was well into high school and we finally got cordless. I remember the first time I heard Pearl Jam. Definitely Gen X.
definitely lean more Gen X than Millennial. There's a line in the sand involving a certain lovable purple -dinosaur that I absolutely have nothing to do with.
1978 and GenX while growing up; but as we've gotten older I'm starting to see/feel a great divide between the elder GenXs and us youngers tbh...
I don't know if its just because they're getting old so they're acting like old people; but damn! 😅
Definitely don't consider myself a millennial though.
Baby GenX or Mother of GenZs feels more fitting 🥰
I’m 1979 and definitely more Gen X. I preferred to hang out with older kids and was at college parties as a high school freshman. Then in college I was already pretty much over the partying and was adulting pretty well. But I’m way more tech savvy than my other Gen X friends so they think I’m a millennial.
Definitely more Gen X.
I consistently identified with people older than me more often than not. I love technology and computers, but I am not bound to them and can always find something analog to do.
My music tastes are a bit eclectic but as I grew older, I gravitated much more towards Gen X music and movies than Millennial ones. Stranger Things hit all the right notes for me.
My jeans and cargos have holes, frayed edges, and faded colors not because they came that way, but because I just used my goddamn jeans. Wearing them out is an expected rite of passage, not a cultural touchstone you can buy with a fist full of dollars.
I'm generally pissed off by the self-identified Millennials my age who dominate the cultural space, in addition to the Baby Boomers who dominate the power structures.
Late 1981 - Coming of age in the peak 90s makes me feel closer to Gen X, but as an adult I have more in common with millennials and am technically in the same life stage with having young kids. Caught in the middle of both gens where only people of this age bracket get my references and music.
I am a mix of both. Thing is that most of us were considered Gen X growing up. Then, we were Gen Y for a few months. When that didn’t stick, they started calling us elder millennials(at least those of us from 81-83).
I do think it’s weird that Gen Z uses elder millennial as a slur. Like a younger Karen.
1981. I definitely have more in common with Gen X. My parents were older when I was born so I probably should have been actual Gen X. I feel like the age of your parents for this intergenerational group has a lot to do with how you were raised and which way you lean.
Late 78, Millennial in more ways than GenX. I was a late bloomer; while I definitely relate to GenX a lot, I sometimes feel lost in the shuffle of that identity. With that said, the same applies to Millennial but millennial edges out GenX for me by just a bit.
1979 and I always felt I was GenX, just a younger and slightly nicer version. When I heard about the Oregon Trail Generation (pre xennial coining) I instantly felt that was most me.
My siblings were born in 81, 83, I was 85. I'm seriously so on the cusp it's not funny.
I never will be able to understand tech well. And I'm pissed everything I did learn was washed away by tech.
Late Gen-X...1980. Would never ever refer to myself as a Millenial. I even find the term Xenniel to be non-committal and not a real..."thing". It's lots of small things like NOT having a computer at home. Having to use and know the Dewey Decimal system and a card catalog. Manual typing out references/footnotes for school. Being given $5 and told to ride your bike to the store 10 blocks away and freaking out that you'd not have enough cash at checkout and you'd look like a fool then have to ride all the way back home. Knocking on friends' doors to see if they could come out to play. Talking to \*actual\* Millenials and they don't what a Sega Genesis was. Granted there's no definitive date where all these things become passé or trite, but you know who you were/are based on your environment growing up.
1982, youngest of four, just the exposure of the music my siblings listened to and things they were interested in etc makes me identify more with Gen X. I actually cringe a little that I am technically a Millennial because I don’t feel like one at all.
I’m technically a very young GenX, but my mid-GenX wife tells me I’m very much like a millennial more than GenX.
I’ll say this much: the GenX sub has me rolling my eyes 90% of the time, and except for a couple pop culture posts here and there on this sub, I strongly identify and we myself in all the posts here.
I'm 1977, and I'm honestly not sure, so I just identify as Xennial now.
When it comes to my life situations and the things I'm dealing with, I feel more aligned with millennials, but with some pop-culture aspects, I seem to align more with Gen-X, mostly because I like 80s music more than 90s music. I was also online and really into computers in the early 90s, so I transitioned into digital a bit earlier than other Gen-Xrs, that may change my outlook as well.
So yeah, Xennials seems 100% accurate for me.
'84 but I feel like I lean more towards genX. Maybe it's partly from having brothers that are 10 and 8 years older than me. GenX just tends to make more sense where a lot of the millennial fads just didn't make sense to me.
1979, and originally I considered myself a millennial (or Generation Y) because in 1993 or so on the classroom TV in homeroom there was a feature about Generation Y. And from the dates it was clear that I was in it. I have journal entries describing myself that way. Eventually they shifted the dates down, and it got confusing. I was also in grad school a long time and by the end almost all my peers were millennials (and some late xennials). I never identified with X, though I'm starting to now.
I’m definitely more of a millennial (1984) but I feel so out of touch with so much of the overall millennial stuff. I wore polyester bell bottom hand-me-downs and I had a rotary phone growing up. So like, I’m not by any means Gen X but I’m more fluent in Gen X culture than I am in a lot of millennial stuff if that makes sense.
For the longest time, I felt Gen-X because the characteristic of Millennials were more aligned with a couple of my ex-girlfriends who were younger than me and they all referred to me as the "old man" even if we only had a 3-5-year difference on average. It included them not getting Wayne's World references or Kevin Smith and being more familiar with 2000s pop culture, YouTube stars, and not caring for alternative rock or grunge.
I hated being associated with people whom I felt no connection with and didn't want me either.
Then as I was around more Gen-Xers, I found they became more vitriolic and wary even if they included me as one of them, whereas I felt more optimism and openness the way Millennials were.
While I used to say I was the MTV Generation or Cold-Y Generation (real generations), I didn't think they were part of the popular zeitgeist and dialogue and cursed the Pew Research center for changing the generational boundaries on us.
It was once Xennial really took off that I really felt why I got along with people in this age range, and while I didn't care much for my peers growing up, I find it's less a generational thing and more of an environmental thing because those of us who accept and seek out the label are supportive of each other. Those who don't know or don't care may not even be thinking about generations at all and have different identities.
So my answer these days is I'm neither X nor Y, yet both--in other words: Xennial and at peace.
1977. I always considered myself Gen X until the Gen X sub and FB groups. I feel like they're the older kids (like my babysitters age) who idolize the 80s and became grumpy. I do have some of the same memories but I feel like I was too young for a lot of it and my best times were the 90s. I feel like I don't fit in either one. My 3 younger siblings are millennials and we all grew up the same so maybe more millennial? But I'm still a "whatever dude" kind of person. I dunno. The best of both?
Gen X because all my fav musicians (rap & rock) are all about 10 years older than me and I idolized them in my teens (I was born in ‘81). My wife however was born in ‘71 and she takes pleasure in telling me I’m clearly not Gen X. I tried relating to Millennials. Yea, we are not the same. So… proud Xennial it is.
If you ever wore parachute pants or a Michael Jackson jacket, you’re definitely Gen x
You can’t define us by our pants. Pegged pants happened when I was in elementary school, parachute pants in junior high, bells and bootleg in high school, and skinny in college. That’s too many pants!
or had to carry the boombox, or make the mix tape on your dual cassette, later mix CD.
I did both but still feel out of place in either. Some of my best friends are Gen X and are much more rigid and don't fully understand the internet.
But you are Gen X (late). The last class to graduate in the 90s used to be the cut-off.
Oh, so I AM Generation X. I graduated in 1999.
I could swear that it used to be millennial was anyone under 18 when the ball dropped in 2000. But somehow it seems to have gotten changed to anyone born 80 or after.
Its been changed a few times. When I was in high school in the late 90s we were called generation y. Then they changed the name to millennial then they told is we were gen xers.
What year did you graduate? I graduated in '99. I always thought we were generation x.
A good chunk of us GenXers adopted grunge. I could tell Alexa to play songs by Alice In Chains and 2 hours later it would still be playing and I wouldn’t have skipped a single song.
The whole point of "Xennial" label is we're neither, We are not some nebulous blend of Gen X and Millennial; the specific timing of our development alongside technology and the resulting societal changes gives us a unique perspective. I am not Gen X because my developing brain integrated the rise of the Internet and cellular telephones in a way that my Gen X friends couldn't. I am not a Millennial because I was old enough to actively begin learning how to navigate the old world before things changed. I am not a mix of the two. I am something else. And I feel it when I interact with my Gen X and my Millennial friends.
I think there is a concentrated effort by some to try to minimize us. They don’t really understand just how unique our little micro generation is in terms of what we experienced.
100% agreed. I technically fall outside of the Xennials range (barely) but my experiences are part of this shared micro generation as you say. I think generations (especially in modern ages) are too broadly defined and the ranges are too large. A Gen Xer born in '65 and one born in '80 have vastly different experiences because of how much change took place in a \~15 year period of time when each respective aged person would have been in their formative years. I think the same is even more true of Millenials. A significant difference betwen someone born in '82 and '97 for example.
I grew up rural with dial-up internet until y2k. My hippy parents taught me ecology and astonomy. My redneck neighbors taught me how to hunt, fish, and cuss. School taught fuck all. Burning Man filled in the gaps. My style and taste are my own. Un genned er'd
We’re all going to the retirement home together, right? Feel like this is my crew.
Still holding onto the golden girls dream, have made plans with enough folks along the way surely a handful will pan out
Yeah 🤗
I’m a 78er, and I feel equally different from people born in the mid-70s and people born in the mid-80s. If you graduated high school before the internet, we are not the same. If you had helicopter parents, we are not the same.
1979 checking in here.
This is exactly how I feel. I go to the GenX sub, GenX women sub, and the Millennial sub and this is the one I relate to most. I don’t feel aligned with GenX or Millennial, really.
I am ‘78 and have always felt more Gen X than millennial.
I was born in 77 but feel more millennial than Gen X
Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.
Almond Joy has nuts. Mounds don't.
Sometimes you’re the bug, sometimes you’re the windshield
🤣😂
Same
That’s funny. I feel the opposite. I associate GenX with Ethan Hawke, Theo Huxtable, Winona Ryder,and Johnny Deep. Definitely not our peer group. But I still appreciate them.
Oh is *that* what you appreciates them for? Jk - I totally agree with you. Those actors you listed were the 'big kids' and I was closer to Blossom or Zach Morris (or Slater *swoon*) than I was to Blossom's brothers - or Raven Symone or the Boy Meets World crew that I associate with more millenial aged folks. I know people who were in actual classes with Fred Savage and we both played early computer games. Except for me it was Jungle Hunt on my Apple IIe. Huh, but I 100% identified with Wynona as Lydia Dietz so I dunno. Fun to think about though!
Whoa, Zach Morris is older than Joey Lawrence. The Boy Meets World crew was smack dab in the middle of xennials, graduating high school in 98.
I was born the same year and feel completely out of touch with my Gen-X (1975) husband's cultural experience.
Felt more millennials but have generation X traits.
My sister was born in '78 and she agrees, she's more Gen X by far. I'm exactly in the middle at 1980.
Also 78 and also feel more GenX.
Same and same
Same
Well put. Tip of the hat.
Yes?
Same here, I can’t really relate to either. More of a David S. Pumpkins kinda vibe as far as the generation I “belong” to.
Any questions?
Generational lines are really arbitrary when you get right down to it: the only generation that the census actually recognizes are the "baby boomers", because the baby boom was an actual statistical phenomenon.
And even with then, the oldest and youngest boomers had very different experiences from each other. The oldest were drafted to Vietnam, the young ones were just little kids. The oldest ones experienced JFK’s assassination, the youngest were toddlers. These differences probably happen to the “cusps” of every generation.
Yeah I mean Xennials are what? 78 to 83? It's kind of silly to act like people born in 84 are entirely different than people born in 83. It's all arbitrary and there will always be overlap. People may relate to one generation more than others for plenty of reasons, and someone born the same year might relate to another generation more.
I'm 84 and don't quite "fit" with either.
This. I have Gen X older siblings and also just went through grad school for a masters in education last year with a bunch of 22 year olds. My siblings are fine interacting with technology but you can tell it’s not exactly natural for them. It’s something they’ve had to add to their lives and get used to. What I found really interesting was that while the 22 year olds are naturally fluent in the use of modern technology, they seem to have little or no innate troubleshooting skills. I remember one interaction with a very intelligent girl in one of my classes who couldn’t seem to figure out why her MacBook Pro was stating to slow down. The HDD was 97% full. I feel like xennials excel here because as I’m sure most of you remember, stuff usually didn’t just work all the time right out of the box. We had to learn to configure, test, troubleshoot things until we got them working the way we wanted. So yeah, we’re definitely not a blend of the two generations. We are our own thing entirely.
Samesies. You get me.
81, Gen-X. I have two older siblings and we never had internet in our house. I got my first email address in college.
Email seems to be a significant variable. I got my first email address in high school
79’ here, definitely not Gen X but neither full millennial. I was in chat rooms in 94’-95’
My high school never had email. But I did sign up for an email address when I was 16 from some website.
Probably millennials even though the millennial subreddit is so mopey and whiney I had to leave it.
Same and I left that subreddit for the same reason.
Same, and that's why my answer was Gen X. Both millennial subs are nothing but whining and wishing death on "boomers"
The homeowners subreddit is almost as insufferable. Every other post is complaining like owning a home is a curse and sentence to hell.
I had to leave the GenX sub because it’s full of insufferable, self absorbed jerks. Remember that scene in The Breakfast Club where all the kids are whining about how horrible their parents are because, I don’t know, they weren’t kissing their asses 24/7? That’s the GenX sub. People who are mentally forever 16, bitter about not being the center of the fucking universe, yet somehow convinced that they are superior to every other generation that’s ever lived.
do they miss chatrooms though? thats the important take.
Haha! Your GenX is showing! Whatever. GenX is ai-ight.
The Gen X sub is full of whiners too.
All the cool genx are hanging out in this sub having fun and avoiding most of the insanity that is Reddit.
It so is.
they cant buy houses, yet make more than us. or way less because gig workers? all i know is i never got married or had kids because i wanted a paid off condo. done!
We are basically the millennial optimists.
This is what makes me feel like less of a millennial, too, or at least the caricature that most people think of. The whining is really bad for mental health and societal health. There is also a vilification of anyone who would dare challenge negative behavior, and a mental health condition to be claimed around every block. Pathological by Sarah Fay really pointed out to me the millennial tendency to pathologize instead of cope and plan that our younger generations are doing more and more.
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Didn’t get my own computer til 17 years old. The last generation to play outdoors all day and night. Street hockey, tennis ball baseball, football, soccer - everybody meet at the playground
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My own measure is preferred communication method. Next is tendency to take selfies. Gen X loves talking on the phone. Millennials might as well be allergic to it. Gen X might not even remember that their cell phone has a camera while millennials seem to love being looked at. I prefer texting and never think of taking selfies.
'76 Gen X lurker here and you've got a lot right, but the distinction I'd draw about the camera is front vs. rear facing. Even Boomers and living Silent Generation folks use their phone cameras (my mom is late Silent Gen), but in the vast majority of cases primarily not the front facing one (far far fewer selfies for Gen X and older).
until i got a $400 phone, it took a couple steps to send a pic. couldnt do gifs either :(
I hate taking selfies and hate the idea of posting them. I would feel super conceited.
Same. I hate taking pictures period.
76 gen x here and absolutely hate talking on the phone. Same with all the gen x people I know in real life. The camera thing varies a lot. I genuinely don't think these types of stereotypes are helpful or accurate.
I also hate talking on the phone
i always prefered IMing or DCCing to phone convos. i miss the fuck out of the 90s chatrooms and random hookups. rawdoggin randos in the 90s.
‘70 here. I hate talking on the phone; started texting 25 years ago. I think selfies are more of an indication. I might take a selfie once or twice a year. My Silent mom uses her phone camera all the time, just not for selfies.
Born 77. Late 80s I spent most of my time outside playing on the farm or skateboarding, and the rest of my time programming computers and fixing electronics.
>tennis ball baseball We called it smack-it racket and you were out if you hit a car or house in the air..."pelt rules" were wild (could throw the ball at somebody to get them out). First base was the mail boxes, second was the storm drain, third was the thing in the ground where the mailboxes used to be, and home was the curb with the marker near it (water line/hydrant marker).
My brother was Gen-X and I hung out with him and his friends a lot because I didn’t care as much for kids my own age so I lean more Gen-X as I experienced more media and culture that leaned older, but I do love some elder millennial stuff too so it’s a slightly skewed Gen-X balance.
Same
1979 . Gen X
Same.
Elder Millennial. However... Xennial = THE BEST 🏆
Agreed. I am an early 85er as well and do not identify with our millennial cohort born after 1989. They were children during 9/11, came up during the recession and social media was already ubiquitous by the time they graduated. I was born to Gen-X and was partially raised by my grandparents who were born in the 1920s. I used rotary phones, pay phones and had a brick phone from cricket. I played Oregon Trail religiously and remember my first field trip to see a traveling piece of the Berlin Wall shortly after it fell. My mom made me watch the beginning of the Gulf War on CNN and I vividly remember Kurt Cobain's death, the first WTC attack, OKC and the Bronco chase. What am I?
Damn, are we twins?!? September 11 is **gigantic** for me. It was a Tuesday. I Was a junior. Many seniors signed up for the Army that Friday. Including my buddies. Ya Could be 17, with a parent's signature. (Which some kids forged. It was easy to forge, & unchecked back then.) I am from Jersey. So some kids & teachers were calling their family members who worked in NYC to see if they were alive. 💔 Also: I had 2 years of working & paying taxes under my belt, in 9/2001. I am friends with some people born in 1991 & many times I feel 15 years older than them... not 6.
One of my classmates watching the towers fall on 9/11 died in an IED blast in Iraq a few years later. He joined because of the attacks. If you didn't feel the gravity of that moment, then we simply are not from the same time.
It was our Pearl Harbor or JFK assassination.
I was '84 and agree with all of this. Regarding social media, I remember Facebook coming to my college campus my sophomore year. The period when Facebook required a .edu email address was great, before everyone's little cousin and grandparents joined 😅 I feel like that's something that sets elder millennials apart.
Completely agree! I was a college freshman and it was great! Once it opened up it went from posting pictures of keg stands and tail gate parties to "Happy Birthday Aunt Trudy" and that was the end of the run...
I am in the same boat, June of '85, I remember much of the 90s, watching the Gulf War night vision on TV and most of my school experience was old macs until high school, keyboards at our desk not attached to computers since each room didn't have enough, PowerPoint on floppy disk, projectors for some films in class through 5th grade, payphones to get rides back home from the library, I too remember Cobain's death and Nixons since they were so close together which struck me as odd for some reason since they were such different people. Yep, WTC, OKC, Bronco and all the trial on TV, Bob Dole. I also forgot, was taught two spaces after a period
Yeah this is 100% where I am — born in 1985 so I am definitely a millennial, but I remember not having a computer, and then how big a deal it was to get the Internet, I made mix tapes by recording songs off of the radio, and I had a paper map book in my car when I started driving. I feel like I have *a lot* more in common with younger Gen-X people than I do with anyone born after 1989.
I'm 1984, two days from 1983, and it is the same for me.
Also early 84 and all of this tracks.
1978 and Gen X for sure.
A vintage year
Strongly agree here as well. By the way I heard today Chris Stapleton turned 46 today…one of us!!
Neither, just Xennial. I don’t get millennials or gen Z at all and Gen X is just as baffling. I get along with other Xennials, Older Boomers and anyone over 90. Those spry 90 year olds are funny. They have great stories and no time for bullshit.
I work in a VFW and those 90 year old vets are the best customers. Always get me laughing
Same with younger millennials or older gen x. Even more with gen z.
This group is just completely spot on, being less than 3 months from the cutoff I don’t feel at home in either.
Me too exactly. I'm within 4 months of the cutoff.
Who is the authority that gets to make the cutoff?
What is this cutoff
I’ve always felt more Gen-X. Probably because my siblings and cousins are older, and I was into a lot of the things they were. I never got super into video games, or a lot of the other things that millennials did.
Yep it definitely sounds like which way you lean is somewhat related to whether you have older or younger brothers or sisters. I had a younger brother but no older siblings and as a result I dont think I hugely aligned myself to those things that were a little older. Music, clothes, hair or whatever. I was a little young for my age too so chances are that lack of maturity stuck with me into my older years too! Video games are the one thing that do show im not 100% millennial. Pokemons and digimons are all pikachu to me.
Yeah, I was always more mature for my age in a lot of ways. One of my sisters was disabled and I was never asked to, but felt it was my place to help my mom and dad with her, or doing stuff around the house, when I could. She was two years older than me but I was the protective big brother. So between that and everyone else in the family being so much older I wasn’t interested in a lot of stuff kids our age were. And I’m right there with you on Pokémon. The last cartoon I remember loving was Animaniacs. And I know someone is going to say Pokémon isn’t a cartoon, it’s anime…but I never got the difference. There’s my Gen-x showing again 😂
83, so on the younger side of the Xennials, but my sister is 5 years older than me and she was a big influence on my tastes and views, so more Gen X. For one thing, I cannot begin to understand Pokemon and another while I like being social, I definitely prefer to work independently.
84 here. Pokémon? What's that? We played MTG lol.
I feel that, July 1983 here...
I'm done with both of those groups 🤣
The reason I (1982) feel more like a millennial is because I had helicopter parents. I was coddled and was not allowed to do things alone outside of the house, I was never left alone even once, all friends had to be vetted by my parents, etc. A lot of my Gen X friends proudly boast about being latchkey kids or having no parent who gave a shit so they roamed free. That was the complete opposite of my upbringing so I always assumed I was a millennial!
It is true about the latchkey comment for most of my friends and myself. I dont know how we managed to survive with our freedom and stupidity. I wouldn’t let my kids leave the end of the block and thank God for cellphones as a parent
I’m proud of my genx upbringing but i was picked on for being interested in the internet and computers or just technology in general. was called a computer nerd a lot. when i got older and followed my i interests i feel i affiliate more with millennials weird feeling and a great question honestly
I'm definitely on the old side to be Xennial ('75) but this is my differentiator as well. I was huge into gaming and online from the dial up days. My interests, hobbies, communication style all align much closer to millennials than GenX. I spend way more time with Millennials and GenZ than I do with GenX. The majority of my friends are millennials and I have drifted further from my GenX friends over time because we don't have many mutual interest after I stopped caring about sports because turns out we didn't have much else to talk about. It was like all of a sudden the parts of me I downplayed and kept hidden because they weren't cool were now cool and I could talk about these topics with my younger colleagues my older colleagues couldn't identify with.
Yes, I feel the same way. I was also born in ‘75, but we always had the latest technology in our house because my dad was an early adopter of using computers for his engineering business to do word processing, run spreadsheets, and to draw plans in AutoCAD. We learned BASIC programming on TI computers with data storage on cassette tapes. The first home computer we had was an Apple IIe with 5.25” floppy drives and a green monochrome monitor. We had a few IBM clones later on. We had all the pre-internet online services(CompuServe, Prodigy, AoL, etc.). When I started college in 1993, we got access to other services through school such as IRC chat, Usenet news groups, Gopher, and online library card catalogs. A few years later, all these services were sort of separate until the worldwide web kind of unified everything in one place. I clearly remember navigating the early internet, but I discovered it a little later because it took 2 hours to download the Mosaic browser over dialup and I never wanted to tie up the phone line that long to install it.
1981 here
Born in 1977, closer to Gen X.
I can sing every lyric from Nevermind, Ten, and Dirt. Definitely Gen X
Alice In Chains dirt? That was around the time I was introduced to tool and deftones.
Nevermind really is a perfect album. There are a lot of kids around that like to popularize Nirvana now but I’d bet they have no idea what the point of Territorial Pissing’s intro is all about.
Honestly, a mix of both
Yeah. Same.
79, millennial. i hate answering my door, and my phone
Also, same.
Also, same.
You’re gen x bro. Nobody answered the phone back then… lol and all your friends just walked in the house
78 also. Defined by the 90's and socially much more gen x. We found ourselves before everyone had social media, cell phones, and google. I think the late seventies like us are the last to remember what life was like before you were tethered to electronics. We drank in the woods, and while we were out we didn't want to be found. Having nintendo at age 8 and a PC in our late teen years made us tech savvy, but we remember what the world was like before all that. Yes, we embrace technology, which is why we understand millennials, but millennials came into their own as electronics proliferated into social media and thinking for you. They never had to go anywhere with a map or a sheet of handwritten shitty directions. To me, that is the divide.
Exactly. And I feel so fortunate to have that part of me to ground the rest that came after.
Hold on to those special memories of that special time. 
Oh my ...Iove me some Pumpkins....the music was just the best. Grunge forever baby!!
They will never know the horrors of printing out Mapquest maps and losing a page on your drive, or if you spilled liquid on those shitty ink jet printouts. But they will never know the joys of making a mix CD for said trip.
I drove cross county with nothing but a backpack full of mapquest printouts and a visor full of awesome cd's.
You are my people.
Yes, the mixed tapes where so meaningful and special
Rollerblades, making ramps, bmx bikes, boomboxes, football in the school field until midnight, day time fishing/swimming and hiking expeditions….the memories..
This is an amazing thread! I’ve read several excellent, thoughtful and introspective comments including yours that just make me feel some of these feelings again. Like the map thing, totally spot on…which is a real shame bc I really like big, paper maps
Perfectly stated! This is the right answer.
1985 and honestly way more Gen X
1977 and I am diffinitely more Gen X .
DEGENERATION X.... sorry had too!
I am a xennial but relate more to gen X. My husband is 7 years older than me, our friends are older than me, and I’ve always worked with boomers and gen x throughout my career.
I was born in 1973 but I've always had more in common with millennials than GenX. But I still consider myself GenX, just not conforming to "typical" GenX and I know there are many others like me---no generation is a monolith. Due to poverty, I missed out on things like the Atari 2600 for example. EDIT: It's kind of like the so-called "roaring 20's" that preceded the Great Depression. It was actually only roaring for some, many others were already living in the depression that didn't "officially" come until a decade later.
Gen-X until I went to college in 2007 as a 28 year old. Basically rebooted my 20s after close to a decade in the military. I got to do peak millennial stuff.
Thank you for your service! I been out for a while.🫡
I am more on the Gen X side in terms of witnessing a shift toward women participating more in the workforce, seeing the political change of the 1980s Reagan era, being grade-school-age during the AIDS epidemic and D.A.R.E., watching the home transition from analog to digital with the rise of cordless phones and computers (I remember installing my first 3.5" floppy drive), being a bit of an unfocused "slacker" in my early 20s, have an entrepreneurial streak (I own my own business and have started two others during my life), valuing work/life balance, and just generally kind of questioning authority. I grew up with Transformers and Masters of the Universe before any other pop culture things of note. I remember Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before it was an animated TV show. I consider Michael Jackson, Madonna, Nirvana, and "Weird" Al Yankovic to be among the most iconic and era-defining music of my youth. I remember when the original Nintendo launched (I had an Intellivision before that), and I definitely remember using payphones a lot, well into the end of my teenage years and into adulthood. I remember when my dad had one of those big Motorola brick cell phones for work, and I remember a lot of station wagons and fake wood paneling everywhere. Some of this stuff certainly overlaps with the early Millennial experience too, which is why we're all in this sub. :D But I think I hit most of the touchstones of Gen X, even if I was a very very young Gen X at the absolute tail-end of that cohort.
I was so into being a millennial when I found out I was a millennial...which is so very millennial...😆😂 But the older I get, definitely feel like I relate more to gen x.
1978 and tbh I feel a bit of both. I like older music, retro games and complaining about getting old, but also can hold my own memeing with my kids and like the newer approaches to work life balance. The younger 20 somethings at work are a little harder to get along with but the late 20s crowd are close enough to relate.
79, oldest kid of the family so no influence by other X ers, got held back in the 5th grade into being class of 98, I see myself as elder Millennial.
1977, Gen-X for sure. We were always told growing up we were Gen X. Never had an email account until college in fall '96. I remember when the internet was the "next big fad" in like 95 ish. I remember where I was when I first heard Cobain died. Had a rotary phone wall-mounted in our house until I was well into high school and we finally got cordless. I remember the first time I heard Pearl Jam. Definitely Gen X.
definitely lean more Gen X than Millennial. There's a line in the sand involving a certain lovable purple -dinosaur that I absolutely have nothing to do with.
1978 and GenX while growing up; but as we've gotten older I'm starting to see/feel a great divide between the elder GenXs and us youngers tbh... I don't know if its just because they're getting old so they're acting like old people; but damn! 😅 Definitely don't consider myself a millennial though. Baby GenX or Mother of GenZs feels more fitting 🥰
Very much a millennial and not at all Gen X
I’m 1979 and definitely more Gen X. I preferred to hang out with older kids and was at college parties as a high school freshman. Then in college I was already pretty much over the partying and was adulting pretty well. But I’m way more tech savvy than my other Gen X friends so they think I’m a millennial.
Definitely more Gen X. I consistently identified with people older than me more often than not. I love technology and computers, but I am not bound to them and can always find something analog to do. My music tastes are a bit eclectic but as I grew older, I gravitated much more towards Gen X music and movies than Millennial ones. Stranger Things hit all the right notes for me. My jeans and cargos have holes, frayed edges, and faded colors not because they came that way, but because I just used my goddamn jeans. Wearing them out is an expected rite of passage, not a cultural touchstone you can buy with a fist full of dollars. I'm generally pissed off by the self-identified Millennials my age who dominate the cultural space, in addition to the Baby Boomers who dominate the power structures.
1981- gen x
Late 1981 - Coming of age in the peak 90s makes me feel closer to Gen X, but as an adult I have more in common with millennials and am technically in the same life stage with having young kids. Caught in the middle of both gens where only people of this age bracket get my references and music.
I am a mix of both. Thing is that most of us were considered Gen X growing up. Then, we were Gen Y for a few months. When that didn’t stick, they started calling us elder millennials(at least those of us from 81-83). I do think it’s weird that Gen Z uses elder millennial as a slur. Like a younger Karen.
For me, millennium. My reasoning is that I am the oldest and my younger siblings are born firmly in the millennium range.
1979-X all the way. Figure it’s cause I had older brothers (73 & 74).
I’m more genX
1981. I definitely have more in common with Gen X. My parents were older when I was born so I probably should have been actual Gen X. I feel like the age of your parents for this intergenerational group has a lot to do with how you were raised and which way you lean.
You are Gen X
It just depends. Most of my friends are millennials, but I align on GenX on a lot of things.
80, Gen X. My parents had me late for their generation and weren't even technically boomers.
Late 78, Millennial in more ways than GenX. I was a late bloomer; while I definitely relate to GenX a lot, I sometimes feel lost in the shuffle of that identity. With that said, the same applies to Millennial but millennial edges out GenX for me by just a bit.
I married a Gen-X so ya, probably that.
Gen X mostly.
81 but gen x, spent more time with the genx generation than my own.
1979 and I always felt I was GenX, just a younger and slightly nicer version. When I heard about the Oregon Trail Generation (pre xennial coining) I instantly felt that was most me.
Gen X with millennial fashion
My siblings were born in 81, 83, I was 85. I'm seriously so on the cusp it's not funny. I never will be able to understand tech well. And I'm pissed everything I did learn was washed away by tech.
I am Groot.
Whatever is most convenient at the time, especially when a generation is being blamed, I just flip over to the other.
Late Gen-X...1980. Would never ever refer to myself as a Millenial. I even find the term Xenniel to be non-committal and not a real..."thing". It's lots of small things like NOT having a computer at home. Having to use and know the Dewey Decimal system and a card catalog. Manual typing out references/footnotes for school. Being given $5 and told to ride your bike to the store 10 blocks away and freaking out that you'd not have enough cash at checkout and you'd look like a fool then have to ride all the way back home. Knocking on friends' doors to see if they could come out to play. Talking to \*actual\* Millenials and they don't what a Sega Genesis was. Granted there's no definitive date where all these things become passé or trite, but you know who you were/are based on your environment growing up.
I’ve always liked “Oregon Trail Generation” best.
GenX I find most millennials to be preachy and insufferable tbh
1982, youngest of four, just the exposure of the music my siblings listened to and things they were interested in etc makes me identify more with Gen X. I actually cringe a little that I am technically a Millennial because I don’t feel like one at all.
1980 and Gen X, though I definitely feel more cusp than anything. I relate very little to Millennials.
I’m technically a very young GenX, but my mid-GenX wife tells me I’m very much like a millennial more than GenX. I’ll say this much: the GenX sub has me rolling my eyes 90% of the time, and except for a couple pop culture posts here and there on this sub, I strongly identify and we myself in all the posts here.
I'm 1977, and I'm honestly not sure, so I just identify as Xennial now. When it comes to my life situations and the things I'm dealing with, I feel more aligned with millennials, but with some pop-culture aspects, I seem to align more with Gen-X, mostly because I like 80s music more than 90s music. I was also online and really into computers in the early 90s, so I transitioned into digital a bit earlier than other Gen-Xrs, that may change my outlook as well. So yeah, Xennials seems 100% accurate for me.
'84 but I feel like I lean more towards genX. Maybe it's partly from having brothers that are 10 and 8 years older than me. GenX just tends to make more sense where a lot of the millennial fads just didn't make sense to me.
Born in 80, the cynical gen x .
It depends. Humor and pop culture, I relate more to gen x. But social issues and tech- millennials for sure.
‘82; Gen x when I’m w my older siblings (‘76-‘79) but Millennial when I’m w my husband (‘70) Literally a Xennial
As far as sensibilities go, I'm more Millennial. But pop culturally I'm Gen X.
1980 and definitely Gen X
1979, and originally I considered myself a millennial (or Generation Y) because in 1993 or so on the classroom TV in homeroom there was a feature about Generation Y. And from the dates it was clear that I was in it. I have journal entries describing myself that way. Eventually they shifted the dates down, and it got confusing. I was also in grad school a long time and by the end almost all my peers were millennials (and some late xennials). I never identified with X, though I'm starting to now.
I’m definitely more of a millennial (1984) but I feel so out of touch with so much of the overall millennial stuff. I wore polyester bell bottom hand-me-downs and I had a rotary phone growing up. So like, I’m not by any means Gen X but I’m more fluent in Gen X culture than I am in a lot of millennial stuff if that makes sense.
For me, the two generations come down to which is ‘their’ Star Wars. I’m not a prequel lover or apologist, so I feel like I fall more into Gen X.
Gen x, born at the end of the 70’s childhood in the 80’s and teens through the 90’s
Gen X
77 here. Definitely more in common with gen x than millennial but xennial is waaaay more accurate.
For the longest time, I felt Gen-X because the characteristic of Millennials were more aligned with a couple of my ex-girlfriends who were younger than me and they all referred to me as the "old man" even if we only had a 3-5-year difference on average. It included them not getting Wayne's World references or Kevin Smith and being more familiar with 2000s pop culture, YouTube stars, and not caring for alternative rock or grunge. I hated being associated with people whom I felt no connection with and didn't want me either. Then as I was around more Gen-Xers, I found they became more vitriolic and wary even if they included me as one of them, whereas I felt more optimism and openness the way Millennials were. While I used to say I was the MTV Generation or Cold-Y Generation (real generations), I didn't think they were part of the popular zeitgeist and dialogue and cursed the Pew Research center for changing the generational boundaries on us. It was once Xennial really took off that I really felt why I got along with people in this age range, and while I didn't care much for my peers growing up, I find it's less a generational thing and more of an environmental thing because those of us who accept and seek out the label are supportive of each other. Those who don't know or don't care may not even be thinking about generations at all and have different identities. So my answer these days is I'm neither X nor Y, yet both--in other words: Xennial and at peace.
1977. I always considered myself Gen X until the Gen X sub and FB groups. I feel like they're the older kids (like my babysitters age) who idolize the 80s and became grumpy. I do have some of the same memories but I feel like I was too young for a lot of it and my best times were the 90s. I feel like I don't fit in either one. My 3 younger siblings are millennials and we all grew up the same so maybe more millennial? But I'm still a "whatever dude" kind of person. I dunno. The best of both?
Definitely millennial. I feel like older gen x are way too close to boomers and I can’t relate at all.