The problem with no name: The election of Barack Obama marks the closing of a door, and the entry into a new corridor. The era of the Boomer generation is over, and the Cusper era is upon us: no shock to those of us who read Howe and Strauss, and who became enlightened as to "the problem that dare not speak its name" among us ( we hated Boomers, but thought we were Boomers. We weren't.) : http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/12/23/salzman.trends/
Hic rhodus; hic salta!
3 comments:
I was born in 1962 and never felt like a Bomer or an Xer, so I've been glad that our lost generation finally has a name: Generation Jones.
And not "cuspers"! Eccchh. Yuk. After all these years of being denied a collective name, the last thing we should get is name that defines us by our neighbors, ie. we should be defined by who we are, not who we aren't. Cuspers implies we are not really our own generation, just a segment on the cusp between real generations. Moot point, since Cuspers has never caught on at all, while Generation Jones has already established itself as very popular with a national following. Google Cuspers and you'll see that virtually nobody uses that term for the generation between the Boomers and Xers. Cuspers was proposed as a name for this generation 10 years ago when Boomers and Xers were the two dominant generations, but it never caught on at all, and anyway, doesn't even make sense at this point, since now people between GenX and GenY, and those born between GenY and GenZ, are called cuspers.
By contrast, google the term Generation Jones, and you'll see that it's gained a big national following...it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from numerous top publications and networks (New York Times, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) are specifically referring to Obama, born in 1961, as part of Generation Jones. While literally no prominent voices use the term cuspers for this age cohort, a long list of prominent names regularly use the term Generation Jones for it.
I think the reason I'm passionate about this is because I care about our generation finally having our collective voice heard, and been so glad that we finally have a name that has caught on--Generation Jones--that I'm annoyed by this distraction of any other terms which obviously are not going to catch on.
We are Generation Jones, and let's get on with the business of fixing this country.
There is a great op-ed in today's USA TODAY about exactly this topic: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/01/stuck-in-the-mi.html
Hello, and thank you so much for your reply, which was informative and impassioned. You are correct, both in the sound of the respective names ("Hi, I am a Cusper"--Yuk!) and in the fact that it defines one only in relation to the other two generations. (Boomer and X) Jones it is! And you are right, there is work to do. Thanks for your visit.
By the way, thanks for the link: that's a great OP-ed piece.
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