Tuesday, June 3, 2008

More "Age Wars" as Gen Xers Attack Boomers

Last week Gen Xer Meghan Daum penned an Op/Ed for The Los Angeles Times called "The millstone of Boomer milestones."

It's a doozy. Some snippets:

As a member of Generation X, I should know -- I've been strong-armed into an appreciation of '60s and '70s pop culture my whole life. There are an estimated 76 million boomers (10,000 babies a day on average, born between 1946 and 1964), while we Xers (born between 1965 and 1982) number a paltry 48 million. So boomers set the tone for everyone. Their tastes, needs and values are considered America's default setting. They turn 60, and it warrants magazine covers. They get a cold, and the world sneezes with them.

So privileged is this group, they've been allowed to change generational labels the way they changed their (always "groundbreaking") clothing styles. They've been known, in whole or in part, as the Dr. Spock Generation, the Free Love Generation, the Generation That Changed America, the Me Generation, Hippies, Yuppies, Bobos and, to certain members of Gen X, "moronic aging hippie posers." Despite having grown out of the category years ago, they remain, thanks to a certain iconic TV show, etched in the popular imagination as forever "thirtysomething."
But wait, there's more. The piece generated a firestorm of mail -- almost from Boomers, navel gazing and complaining.

We find this "war of the ages" amusing. Under someone loses an eye.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Meghan Daum is channeling Christopher Buckley's Boomsday. Let's hope Civic Engagement gets out in front sooner rather than later, before she and other Gen Xers get too much traction.

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