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The reason why I write many of the texts in this section of my web site is usually: a) frequent topic in social media that I have to answer to or b) clarifying my thoughts on the issue which is quite puzzling. With naming and classifying it is a bit of both, I see in social media some friends suggesting that using generation names is wrong and bad stereotyping on the other hand I see otherwise smart and courteuos friends acting in quite rude and unpolite manner in questions that can be directly explained looking at generation stereotypes. Rant that follows tries to rationalise their behaviour and make sense of backgrounds of stereotypes, this is in reply to very specifically older people using language that is no longer acceptable and feeling entitled about it but is in general just overall rant about the topic.
It is quite commonplace in the social media to talk about generations of humans as stereotypes to joke about and so on. That is most commonly the generation of boomers and X (or Xoomers) vs. generations of millennials and Z. A lot of people I know try to ignore these generation specifications as inaccurate stereotypes, but I think it pays off to study them enough to understand how and why people of certain ages act the way they do; these are valid stereotypes in scientific sense of the word that they encompass significant majority of people in a way. Majority of stereotypes you find on internet are based on the English-speaking world and culture, so they get skewed a bit in terms of years and specifics applied to people not from UK and Ireland, USA and maybe Australia and New Zealand.
One of the common features in these generational debates that is usually the starting point is the kind of things that older generations joke about that younger generations find more harmful. The phrases to look out for in internet discussion are like: poltical correctness has gone too far (boomers and gen x about gen x and millennials) or woke is gone too far or virtue signalling (boomers, gen x and elder millennials about millennials, gen z and gen alpha) or just you cannot say anything these days, everyone’s too sensitive (everyone about everyone). The main issue with this is that, of course you are rarely if ever in the right when saying such things, there’s nothing good in insulting and antagonising other people and you shouldn’t feel entitled to that. Perhaps a point can be made of humor that is based on being offensive but it really only works within a context and if you cannot restrict your context then you should avoid it altogether. The reason why I put Says up in the summary table below is because indeed the most pertinent thing between generations is what slurs they feel entitled to say, what way they feel that insulting or demeaning other people is ok. Naturally we can understand that it is never nice to make fun of someone else in that way, that is precisely why this mind-boggling gap between generations is what I try to rationalise myself about in this rant. Here’s a list of things I’ve come up which are kind of in order of ages as well:
Here’s a helpful summary table that I open up in following sections:
| Name | Birth years | Grown up with | Says | Gays |
| Baby boomers | 1946–1964 | Rock, TV | N-words etc. | Illegal and mental |
| Generation X | 1964–1983 | Music Television | T-word | Changing legality and mental classification |
| Millennials | 1983–1994 | Metal/Grunge, computers | Fat, Queer | Illegal to marry or adopt |
| Generation Z | 1995–2011 | Internet | ? | Legalised |
| Generation alpha | 2011– | Social media | ? | Yes |
There’s a theory in culture that people stop accepting new stuff when they turn about 30-something, this is another explaining factor in trying to understand your older generation folks insistence on being offensive and rude. People generally feel entitled to act like they were taught up until they turned approx. 35, if that includes using N-word for baby boomers or not respecting peoples’ pronouns for generation X it really is quite hard to argue against when dealing with one of them, so mostly no point in trying.
By the way, I am elder millennial, but also grown up as a gay in a city in a city in Finland with wonderfully supportive friends, purely on empirical evidence I often associate with millennials better in such English-speaking contexts than gen-X. One of the things that is curious in comparing the generations is, of course gays and other sexual and gender representations have been there forever, it’s almost merely the words used to describe them that changed, and the legal status in society, that makes the difference.
For all intents and purposes baby boomers are the oldest generation now in the early 2000s (sure there are some older still alive but mainly not very actively in our circles). They are known at current the old people who are still in power and claiming that youth ruined everything, a concept that never changes throughout history. Them being old enough they are kind of joining forces with generation X (collectively Xoomers), the main offensive of the early 2000s is against millennials and maybe generation Z (collectively snowflakes). Now, baby boomers grew up in times before computers and internet, they still use mainly printed newspapers and broadcast television. When baby boomers were growing up, it was both illegal to be gay and it was a serious mental disease. It is important to understand that in many Western contexts people are very naively law-abiding and even if law updates when you are older you do not update your underlying judgment (this was illegal and therefore bad when I was growing up so it is still bad while some people have forced the law to accept it). In US context racial inequality was quite common as far as I know, in Europe for example Ireland even seeing other races was quite rare. From this point, baby boomers feel entitled to use all kinds of outdated language to describe non-white people as well as people from other countries, as well as all non-cis non-straight people. A good example of what baby boomers find acceptable can be seen in the TV of that time, All in the family in the US or e.g. Benny Hill Show in UK gives an idea of the kind of humour they enjoy. That is to say, humour that is racist is and male chauvinist is the best
Generation X is the generation that was born before invention of home computers and the internet, and was old enough to see the development of both home computers and the internet. Particularly with the Internet, gen xers were adults before Internet was commonplace, that means that they grew up mainly aware of local community, laws, people, habits etc., this has the effect that as they are old now they like baby boomers feel entitled to hold certain outdated views, use slurs and insults etc. They grew up with homosexuality still being illegal and protesting homosexuals in tv programmes was a norm. Most Generation X will see gays as negative, deviants etc., going further they will definitely make fun of other sexualities and gender representations that were also classified as illegal and mental disorders in their time. Top of the Generation X can be explained by TV shows such as Friends, Seinfeld. Married with Children and also Beavis and Butthead. This is to say that top of the humour is still male chauvinist and homophobic among others.
Millennials is the generation that grew up in the early days of the Internet and home computers, also my generation so I am biased to say we have improved somewhat but whatever. I would argue that this has had the effect that even in communities with relatively low diversity people were starting to grasp the existence of other cultures and peoples. That being said, Millennial generation still saw the time of homosexuality developing from illegal and mental disease to accepted part of the society with equal rights slowly coming in their adulthood. Most of millennials are very strictly against racism and male chauvinism for example, however with regards to homophobia they are between Gen X and Gen Z depending on factors; I have friends who are gay and ally with Gen Xers in hating gays and myself I go on the side of Gen Z fighting for diversity in sexual and gender, though being kind of aromantic, asexual and ignoring gendered clothing and so such since I was young helps to that direction. I’m not sure if I can find representative TV series we grew up with, we are the first generation to slowly give up broadcast TV in favour of the internet, perhaps a lot of our learnt toxicity stems from anime instead. Or reality tv? Millennial generation is quite often fat-phobic for example, maybe Biggest loser is behind that. Millennial generation does often also have old-dated concepts of trans and non-binary, I do not know if there is a representative tv series of these jokes?
Generation Z interestingly grew up with internet, mobile phones, etc. They have nearly not seen homosexuality being illegal or mental disorder in their life, the prominent fight of this generation is clearly of gender diversity: legalising statuses beyond gender binary, trans issues and