Comments

1

YOU know what STTA's letter (about there being some girl out there that Dan could fall in love with and have straight sex with) reminded me of? That dreadful, painful, Nasty and narcissistic old saw that all I Lesbian needs to become straight is a REAL MAN. It was not true then, and it is not true now. You morons like STTA need to shut the F--- up!

2

Agreed @1. That's why I hate it when people say "there's no such thing as straight, everyone is somewhere along the spectrum." They think they're being so progressive, but they are actually saying "there's no monosexuals." And monosexual includes straights, gay men, and lesbians.

So yeah, it's a good thing to realize sexuality is fluid and that a spectrum exists. But there really ARE people who identify as 100% into one gender. (There's also people who identify as 100% Asexual... So they aren't "somewhere on the sexuality spectrum" either.)

Ok end rant, everyone have a nice weekend ;)

3

I realized I might just be reiterating something I head Dan say once on the SL podcast... Oops. Oh well haha. Point still stands! :)

4

No way people born in the early 1960s are GenX. However culturally alienated they may feel from Boomers, if you were in workforce during the Reagan Administration, you are not a GenXer.

5

I am a boomer (1950). I and other boomers have survived polio epidemics, AIDS epidemic, Red Scare, Viet Nam war, Nixon/Watergate, Reagan/Bush/Bush and many more unfortunate events. Does anyone really think we are going to wither and break out crying because some snot nosed kid says "OK Boomer"? Nah, I am going to continue to enjoy my pension/401K/health care and reminisce that I paid $47 a quarter to attend university.

6

I was born in early '63, and always referred to those a few years younger/older as "Brady-something." If you watched The Brady Bunch in its original run (and were the age of the youngest kids), then you're of a different generation than the Boomers or GenX.

7

I've had many surgeries, and other than the scars, I haven't kept any "proof" that I had the surgery. That sounds weird.

8

By all means, let's spend even more time and effort than we already do obsessing over arbitrary generational categories, and assigning traits to the people we stuff together into them. It's a great thing for society.

9

@4, I was in the workforce during the Reagan administration and I am a Gen Xer. You apparently don't know what years Reagan was in office.

10

@4 Kurt Cobain, who is the absolute stone cold definition of Gen X, was born in 1967. Courtney Love in '64. Flea was born in '62; Brad Pitt '63; Matt Dillon '64 and so on.

11

There are two types of people in the world: those who put people in categories, and those who don't.

12

Biker- Those who claim they don't are eligible once they claim it. Those who don't and don't claim may still be the passive aggressive type.

13

Baby Boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964. These boomer put downs are ageism in disguise.

14

LG @13

Slamming Boomers for belonging to a populous generation is also blaming them for something over which they had no control, aka being born!

So … technically, the sins of the father/mother....

15

It’s a weird as Helenka. You’ve got Mark billionaire Zukerman at thirty five. Don’t go blaming us for this mess, it’s maintained by younger people more astute and greedy than many of us ever were.

16

@9/Parah Sailin: Please don't be pedantic, Baby Boomers have been defined to be children born through 1964, so sure children of the mid-1960 have always been considered part of GenX, and if you were born in the spring of 1965 or 1966, got out of college in June 1987 or June 1988. In November 1988, I was voting for Reagan's successor, so yeah, I remember that time well. And yes, Reagan flew off from the Capitol grounds on January 20, 1989, but seriously, the four or five months many of those grads worked during the Reagan Administration isn't what I am talking about.

17

"Nah, I am going to continue to enjoy my pension/401K/health care and reminisce that I paid $47 a quarter to attend university."

This is exactly what "ok boomer" is implying, and you're agreeing, just so we're all clear, right?

18

Is there a word like Xennial to describe people like Dan who are on the boomer/GenX cusp? Sounds like there should be. I agree Dan is culturally GenX, as are the celebrities Sporty mentioned.

19

Also, Dan, you can't have Kristen Stewart, she's mine. Guess you're back to 100% gay. :)

20

@18: You mean a title that indicates you were born as one generation but identify and live your life as another? I'm pretty sure we'd burn if we named it.

21

"if there was one I could see myself falling for... it would be her...our relationship would be platonic"

Platonic. I think we misunderstood what Dan meant when he talked about her.

22

I had a vasectomy, years ago, and kept no paperwork. It was several health plans and health providers ago. I don’t recall the doctor’s name. But he did a good job and there’s no scar that I can find. So, not so easy for me to prove. So whoever sent sent you that judgmental comment can stuff it.

23

Are those born in the first half of sixties baby boomers or Gen X? Depends who you ask. American sociologists seem to define baby boomers generally as 1946-1965, but outside of the US many argue for 1946-1960.

To me, it seems weird to lump hippies and punkers together as one "generation". So 1946-1960 sounds more convincing to me than 1946-1965.

24

Strange reasoning RE. Hippies came out of US affluence and punk out of English poverty. It’s like saying how could there be The Beatles and The Stones ar the same time.
‘When you’re going to San Fransisco, be sure to wear a flower in your hair..’ many boomers did try to change things. Corporate world was too seductive and too strong.

25

Ms Kindness - I wholeheartedly endorse everything in #2 except:

[And monosexual includes straights, gay men, and lesbians.]

I really don't know why it seems to be the general consensus that we are no longer entitled to a noun (let alone an exclusive phobia).

26

The Boomer cutoff is supposedly AFTER 1960? Why? The post-war baby boom actually started with the US entry INTO the war, as people were humping a lot before shipping out and/or cheating on absent spouses off fighting, not just spouses they were happy to see returning, in celebration of victory, etc. And generations are basically 20-year periods that generally but not in all cases capture cultural shifts, so we can simplify by just making them vicennial: 1900-1919, nearly all dead, not relevant to advertising or scorching hot takes; 1920-1939, Silent; 1940-1959, Boomer; 1960-1979, Gen X; 1980-1999, Millennial; 2000-2020, Gen Z (which is more fun if you say "zed" per English-English).

Depending on what one wishes to describe, the cultural association could make more sense. For example, as an early Millennial, I have more in common with latter members of Gen X than people born in the second half of the 90s (cassette tapes, both video and audio; Cold War; remembering TWO major crises of capitalism in our lifetimes; not being constantly supervised by parents; periods of time, however brief, when the USA was not at war; Bill Clinton's impeachment hearing; the Y2K panic; a world before smartphones; at one point laughably believing that we could stop the climate crisis; etc.).

27

@5: You do you, Boomer. No problem. I need some avocado toast before I'm off to kill another worthless industry. Uhh, running out of stereotypes. Oh, yeah, retire or die already so I can have a job! With in-office emotional support animals!

28

@16: Are you assuming everybody went to college, perhaps even grad school? Right now only 20% of USA adults have academic college degrees, <10% graduate degrees. So around 80% of the workforce entered the workforce around age 18 (some portion in their teens, some later); the cutoff would have to be 1970 to exclude most people who weren't in the workforce for more than a few months while Reagan was in office (he left in January 1989).

One of the terms you're using does not mean what you think it means.

29

Good choice Dan. Kristen’s Mother is from Queensland, so there’s a bit of Aussie in Kristen. Accounts for the bite maybe.

30

Avocados have been so cheap here this season, and I do live in its growing territory. My son and others have it over Vegemite on toast. No thank you. Bit of lemon, salt and black pepper.
@5 sounds arrogant and one hopes they give generously to those less fortunate.

31

As someone who lived in California, the idea that "avodado = elite" confuses me. It's just a thing that goes well on toast or in a sandwich, and it's pretty cheap if you live in the right area. You might as well be like "oh those snooty cheese-toast-eating elites!"

32

I also agree that most the people being "cancelled" were people the "cancellers" were already pretty sick of. I know one close relative who keeps going "I lost my sister to Social Justice," and I just shrug, but the truth is that "SJW Sister" is still pretty good friends with her brother who, while not a full MAGA, does support a lot of Trump's policies, and she also has lots of long-term female friends. Poor "lost-my-sister" lady, OTOH, is in her late 30's and does not have a single long-term female friend (relative or not, trump-supporting or otherwise) - just casually cordial relationships with her current neighbors and the wives/girlfriends of her current husband's friends, so... yeah. Don't think it was trump that broke you two up, hun.

33

Proud to be a boomer.. never thought of it that way. I’m more proud to still be fucking alive.
68 not out. I think because the fifties was so strange, babies and a new house and it’s gadgets were so important because the war had traumatised people, they nested and copulated and out millions upon millions of us popped.
Like those spiders who carry what looks like a thousand babies around and then wham, baby spiders are running everywhere. It was a youth tsunami, and that was powerful and exciting. Ideas about everything, exploded. Politically, many many stood up to racism to the Vietnam war. Then the music. Well. Yeah. I’m proud to be a boomer so you lot starting with the put downs can fuck off as you buy your stuff cheap from amazon. Need every new iPhone as it hits the stage. C’mon.

34

There was no TV in my house until I was eight or nine.
We read books. Wrote letters. No mobile phones, so when you went off by yourself into the city, needing space, nobody could find you.

35

Dan the Man, I am proud to be among you and others representing the tail end of the Boomers generation (also born in 1964).
@6: Nope. I'm among the Boomers, too, compliments of the U.S. Census Bureau. Born the year seat belts were invented, although not taken seriously for about another 20 years.
@33 & @34 LavaGirl: Amen. Keep on rocking the house, sister!

36

Mike @20, no, a word for someone born in the couple of years window between the two generations that is variously claimed to be one or the other, and who shares some key characteristics with the generation before and some with the generation after.

RE @23, what about people like Malcolm and Vivienne who were in their 30s in the 1970s and therefore could have been both hippies and punks?
Old enough to remember the 60s sounds like a good definition for a boomer.

37

Sorry to be that young person here, but I'll raise my hand as a latter millennial. CalliopeMuse, est. 1995. I always understood the definition of millennial to be born 1980 to 1995, but recently I've heard 1980 to 1997 or 2000, which would make my brother (1997) a millennial, too, and not Gen Z, much to his chagrin.

Even though they're only 5 years younger than me, I feel so much older than people born in 2000. Though I had a flip phone from the age of 12, I didn't get a smartphone until I was well into college. I actually remember when Google was new! And before YouTube existed! And the 2000 election was one of my earliest (bad) memories. Oh, and I was in first grade when 9/11 happened. (That was real fun -- not -- living in a New York suburb. A pair of twins in my grade lost their dad in the Towers. My dad actually had to run from the cloud of debris and got stranded in the city when they shut the subway down.) I don't remember it, but apparently when I was three, someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said "Monica Lewinsky." I think you can tell what was in the new at that time. I think I thought she was just a famous person or something.

38

*in the news

39

LavaGirl @33 & 34 I hear you loud and clear, as we used to say. I was born in 1947 and had a life of white, working-class "privilege." For example, my communist father was a political prisonor of the U.S. government for defying the McCarran commission. https://www.britannica.com/story/did-joseph-mccarthy-cause-the-red-scare-of-the-1950s

After his release, we moved to Texas, where I failed to win the high school popularity contest since I was active in the civil rights battles.

Then I was lucky enough to have the imperialst Vietnam War breathing down my neck, with my draft notice arriving while I was in the hospital after major surgery; my doctor's letter got me out of that debacle.

My life was study and work, and we, like you, had no televison until I was eleven, but my parents read everything from Marx to Richard Wright, who was new at the time.

Yeah, I was lucky: not because of the year of my birth, but because my loving, caring mother and father inspired me to fight for a better world.

40

Damn! "prisoner" not "prisonor"

There may be other errors I missed in my moment of boomer passion.

41

Theoretically, I'm a Boomer, but very late 1962. I've always identified more as a GenXer... too late for polio epidemics, Vietnam, Red Scare, Nixon... too early for the AIDS epidemic and all that. And yeah, "Ok Boomer" is racist and we can't be *ist anymore.

42

Sorry, AGEist...

43

@41 tim browne
""Ok Boomer" is racist"

An "age range" is not a "race". Had you said something like "ageist" or "prejudiced" or "bigoted" you would not have been incorrect.

44

@tim browne
Sorry I was correcting you before seeing you were already correcting yourself. Well done.

45

@43 to be fair, black folks aren't boomers.

46

@45 Sportlandia
"black folks aren't boomers"

I'm curious why you would say that. I'm prepared to defer to your explanation, but I've never heard that and when I google "black baby boomers" it seems on all the links I saw like African Americans /are/ boomers.

A joke? Or is it that black people were so badly oppressed during those years that it's not fair to pretend they weren't even to the extent of including them in the generational term boomers?


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