The boomers were defined by a demographic shift and the millennials (gen y, because Y comes after X and also because "y2k" ) were defined by being young-ish around New year's day 2000. Meanwhile X, z, α, and allegedly now "β" are just arbitrary postmarks who's locations are malleable and variable by the person you're talking to.

This is one of those cultural things that I tend to get grump and annoyed about because it's stupid and people pretend that it's real.

[–] Takumidesh@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

This is why people 'forget about gen x' imo, it's because there wasn't a single cultural event that aligned people in the gap between boomers (the baby boom, which resulted in a lot of people being a similar age to form a cohort) and millennials (wide spread access to rapidly developing internet, 9/11, and the dot com bubble happening during formative years)

That's just my opinion though, I know lots of stuff happened in that time, but I think those examples are standout events. (This is my perspective from the US, so things like the Berlin wall, I think had a less significant immediate effect on people here, culturally)

[–] superkret@feddit.org 1 points 2 weeks ago

Gen X had their formative years at the height of the cold war, when it felt like the world could end at any moment due to a dumb mistake.