What's with the arbitrary length of "generations"? Shouldnt the same timeframe be considered a "generation" or the word has little meaning. It's just a categorizing tool to look at specific age groups after all. Instead they vary in length. Most between 15 and 18 years mostly. But then we're wishy washy about when gen alpha begins and will end and the greatest generation is a whopping 26 years! Wth? And if it as all just arbitrary, who is deciding when one generation ends and another begins?
Because generations are culturally defined, I think they're created by shared cultural events. You're a Boomer if you can remember Kennedy getting shot and the moon landing, but not the end of WWII. You're a Millennial if you remember the fall of the Berlin Wall but not Reagan getting shot. You're Gen Z if you don't remember 9/11 but do remember COVID.
You'd have to be a very early millennial to remember the fall of the Berlin Wall since the upper end of being a millennial is somewhere between 1993 - 1996. They were not even born yet. The distinguishing event might better be 9/11.
I mean, the linked Wikipedia article literally describes for many of them who coined the terms and, in some cases, why. “The Greatest Generation” is the title of a contemporary book about the people who fought in World War 2 (and their cohort), and the name became popular as a way to describe people of that cohort.
Yeah, a generation is just not (entirely) defined by a specific timeframe but by the things that happen(ed) to them and that concern(ed) them as a societal group. That's the reason why Gen Alpha is not entirely defined yet, and also why generational lines might differ depending which continent you look at.
who is deciding when one generation ends and another begins?
Whoever writes the article. I was born in 77 and find it gets left out or overlaps on many definitions. While my older brothers are decidedly in 'x' they wouldn't let me hang out with them, and I had much more in common with the 'millennials' and even married one. It's not a science, very much like defining artistic periods.
I've heard my cohort called 'the lucky generation' because I caught the very tail end of housing affordability, spent most of my mortgage with very low interest rates and have it just about paid off now as things are swirling the drain. My friends even 5 years younger than me have none of that luck and it's complete bullshit. Eat the rich.
Gen X is the post-boomers. Millennials are the boomers kids. Gen Z and alpha and millennials are all very samey because we didn't have a world war or a post war boom to define us. We vaguely "grew up with computers"
It’s not arbitrary. Just take a good history book, look out for the years and try to think why that year was chosen. You might even look if the generation time spans are different in the US and Europe.
Because it's all made up in the end. And now used by the corporate media to drive yet another social wedge, this time between "boomers" and "millennials".