Talk:Generation Jones

Tweener is not a term which has any significant usage as a synonym for Generation Jones

I’ve heard this cohort between the Boomers and X’ers referred to as Generation Jones many times, but never as Tweeners. Out of curiosity, I just spent some time researching this today, and found that my experience with this is matched by the research. The term Generation Jones has been used many hundreds (maybe thousands?) of times across a large number of major media outlets, including The New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, Time Magazine, Associated Press, NBC, CNN, etc. Many notable individuals have used this term Generation Jones as well, including numerous major business, political, and entertainment figures. Moreover, many online dictionaries include the term Generation Jones to describe this cohort between Boom and X.

By contrast, the term “Tweeners” has hardly ever been used for this cohort. There are a few usages in very minor media publications, like small blogs, but no serious usage anywhere that I could find: in the media, among prominent individuals, or anywhere else. Many online dictionaries include the word “Tweener” but not with this meaning. Instead, they define Tweener to mean other things, like young people between childhood and adolescence, players who are in between two different positions in a sport, people who feel in between two different cultures, etc. None of these Tweener definitions in dictionaries, with one minor exception, make any reference to Boomers/X’ers. Even the website tweeners.org doesn’t define it that way. And looking back over the many years of contributions to this Generation Jones Wikipedia articles, I couldn’t find anybody, except Scarpy now, who has ever suggested that the term “Tweener” should be used as a synonym for Generation Jones.

Scarpy, I assume you come from a place of good faith, and care about accuracy in Wikipedia articles. From what I’ve seen of your contributions to Wikipedia, you seem like a serious contributor who has made numerous helpful and accurate edits. If you believe I’m wrong vis-a-vis my above research, please cite references in this Talk section that would back up the idea that “Tweener” has been used as a synonym for Generation Jones enough in the public to warrant that positioning in this Wiki article. Otherwise, I respectfully submit to you that it should not be included in this article. It’s not accurate to use it here, and it creates confusion in relation to the ways that the term Tweener is actually used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CultureMaven2000 (talk • contribs) 22:59, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Other names for Generation Jones

After seeing this edit, I searched for "Trailing-Edge Boomers" on Google, and a few other search engines. It has very little usage; much less than "Generation Jones". So I removed it for accuracy sake. -- 23:48, 11 June 2021 69.3.119.202

Too Pontell Centric, other voices needed

This thing includes very specific opinions for this cohort generation, all attributed to Pontell. E.g. Trump's statements about Biden's age, that is not a generational opinion. His views are not dispositive even if he coined the term. It's a dumb one, I was born in 1964 and have only heard the term "Jones" rarely and that was on tv, and never used it. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by Sychonic (talk o contribs) 15:58, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes. In general, the media coverage of this idea has been far too deferential to Pontell, his gimmicky terminology, and his specific window of 1954-65. If this were accurate, the Baby Boom would be, at most, 8 years long, 1946-53 -- which is absurd on its face. The website BabyBusters.org presents a more compelling case for 1958-68. Johnlumea (talk) 16:16, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't know anything about Pontell, but my rough-and-ready definition is "people none of whose high school years occurred during the 1960s" (see below on this page). AnonMoos (talk) 13:26, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

The term Baby Busters has some limited usage, but almost always as a synonym for Gen X. It is not used to describe the generation between Boomers & Xers. One person, many years ago, wanted to use Baby Busters for the gen between Boom & X, using the birth years 1958-1968, and put up a website to promote that idea. He was unable to garner any support. For example, no media outlet, even very small ones, ever wrote about his idea. If you google it, you’ll see, after over 25 years since he put up his Baby Busters site, that the term Baby Busters has no usage at all to describe the gen between Boom & X. Moreover, no experts, media or anyone else have agreed with the birth years 1958-1968. If his Baby Busters site made a “compelling” case for 1958-1968, why is it that nobody except this one guy supports the 1958-1968 birth years, after over 25 years of him trying to convince people that he is right? The term Baby Busters and 1958-1968 birth years aren’t remotely notable, they’ve gained no support at all, and certainly don’t belong in this Wikipedia article. It was vandalism to put Baby Busters in this article, especially in the lead paragraph! Ridiculous.

By contrast, the term Generation Jones and its 1954-1965 birth years have gained huge support globally, and are used by millions of people around the world. This website gives a sense of its widespread usage (and features over 100 prominent thought leaders discussing, and identifying with, Gen Jones)... https://GenJones.net It’s not a question of whether Pontell’s opinions should be prioritized, it’s the fact that so many experts, every-day people, prominent thought leaders, and hundreds of media outlets, etc, etc agree with, and use, the Gen Jones/1954-1965 model. [BTW, many experts believe the Baby Boom Generation began earlier than 1946; many, including Pontell, Strauss and Howe and many others, begin the Boomers in 1942/1943.] GlassLadyBug (talk) 15:50, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

I take exception to GlassLadyBug's contention that my recent edit referencing Anthony Brancato's "Baby Busters" model was "vandalism." Brancato and Jonathan Pontell are coming at the same generational phenomenon with slightly different approaches. But, Pontell doesn't have a corner on the basic idea of an underacknowledged generation in between the Baby Boomer and what has come to be known as Generation X just because the media fell in love with his catchy name for it ("Generation Jones").

One big reason why "Generation Jones" — both the name and Pontell's 1954–65 window — has become the preferred media reference is that Pontell is better at branding and marketing than Brancato is. (It's what Pontell does for a living.) It doesn't mean that Pontell's ideas are better.

Something else that made it easier for the media to embrace Pontell's construct is that it doesn't challenge 1965–80 as the dates for Gen X.

But, those dates for Gen X represent a later shift that defers to the almighty 1946–64 for the Baby Boom.

"Baby Busters" was a synonym for Gen X. But it was a synonym for the earlier Gen X that Douglas Coupland was talking about before the term was recast to refer to people who came of age under Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton: not 1965–80 but, rather, the actual Baby Busters born when birth rates began and continued an 11-year decline from 1958 to 1968 — "the generation born in the late 1950s and 1960s," as Coupland's publisher described it in the original promotional copy for the book.

I see Brancato as trying to reclaim the earlier meaning of Gen X with the original synonym "Baby Busters." As the term "Generation X" has gone off the rails of its earlier "immediately post-Baby Boom" meaning, Brancato jettisons that term altogether. In his construct, Baby Boomers are 1940–57; Baby Busters are 1958–68; and Post-Busters are 1969–80.

For my money, Brancato's analysis is more nuanced than Pontell's. But, Pontell's is more palatable to a media culture that has no interest in fundamentally challenging a 1946–64 Baby Boom and a 1965–80 Gen X. In fact, media can take or leave Pontell's argument that what he calls Generation Jones is its own generation — opting instead to consider "Generation Jones" just a new moniker for late Boomers.

Ultimately, it would be more honest to title this article something like "Post-Baby Boom Generation" and position "Generation Jones" as what it really is: one person's heavily branded, marketed, and promoted construct for explaining a generational reality that is understood and explained in other ways, too — even if those other ways have not benefited from the same media buzz and exposure courtesy of pundits and reporters content to keep looking at the issue through Pontell's lens. Johnlumea (talk) 22:00, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I’ll address here your comments made about Baby Busters in the last several days:

(1) It’s not that Baby Busters “was” a synonym for Gen X, it’s that Baby Busters IS a synonym for Gen X. If you google it, you’ll see that almost all usage of the term Baby Busters is as a synonym for Gen X. If you type Baby Busters in Wikipedia, it redirects to the Generation X article.

(2) The name Baby Busters never caught on because it’s a lame name. It only caught on for Gen X in a very minor way. It appeared before Coupland’s book was published, but was completely eclipsed by Gen X once that book came out. It’s not the kind of name that members of a generation would proudly refer to themselves as (it’s hard to picture people proudly proclaiming “I’m a Buster!”)

(3) Beyond the fact that it’s just not a moniker which sounds good, has appealing connotations, etc., it’s a completely unworkable synonym for Gen Jones. The whole point of Gen Jones is that it’s separate from the Boomers and Xers. How could it possibly make sense to use a synonym for Gen X to separate from Gen X? It’s absurd.

(4) The comments from the last several days are very concerned with the reasons why Gen Jones has caught on in such a big way. Those comments completely miss the point. What matters is that Gen Jones HAS caught on; it is irrelevant vis-a-vis Wikipedia WHY it has caught on. I disagree with the analysis given here in the last several days as to why, but again… it doesn’t matter why. It makes no difference. The point is that Gen Jones has become widely used as the moniker for the gen between Boom & X.

(5) You refer to the term Gen Jones disparagingly as “catchy.” Again, you miss the point. It’s not a bad thing that the term Gen Jones is catchy. A big part of why it has caught on is because it is catchy. Many people over many years have tried to come up with catchy names for Gen Jones and other generations. It’s really, really hard to come up with a catchy name, which is why so few gen monikers catch on.

(6) Yes, there have been several attempts to come up with a moniker for this gen between Boom & X. None of them caught on at all. There were a few which got a tiny bit of traction (certainly more than Baby Busters, which has gotten zero traction), but even those went nowhere. Maybe one or two articles were written about an alternative moniker, but then they immediately faded into obscurity. No moniker other than Gen Jones has gotten anything remotely close to serious attention.

(7) You mistakenly seem to think that Pontell has somehow hypnotized the media into agreeing with him. Again, you fundamentally misunderstand how this works. Reporters/columnists/et al who looks a this issue bring their own experience/knowledge/expertise to it, and they have largely seen it the same way as Pontell. Not because Pontell has somehow brainwashed them, but rather because in their independent opinions, they see it the same way.

(8) Likewise, the many sociologists and other gen experts who have largely agreed with the name/birth years of Gen Jones have done so because in their expert opinions, they think it’s accurate. It’s absurd to think that Pontell somehow has some mysterious power over them. They embrace Gen Jones because their expertise tells them it’s true.

(9) You have tried for over 20 years to get people to agree with your model of Baby Boomers as 1940–57; Baby Busters as 1958–68; and Post-Busters as 1969–80. Nobody agrees with you. No media big or even tiny has thought there was even enough merit to the idea to even write anything at all about it. With all due respect, you have a better chance of eating dinner tonight at a restaurant on the moon than ever getting any leverage for your model. It is a model that is so fundamentally flawed that it would take too long to articulate here why it hasnever, and never will, catch on.

(10) The idea that you are going to “reclaim” an obscure original meaning from 30 years ago, and somehow use that to replace the terms Generation X and Generation Jones is, respectfully, preposterous. The Gen X and Gen Jones terms are way too established by now to be replaced, especially by non-workable terms like Baby Busters and Post-Busters. In life, you need to know when to hold on and when to let go. Yes, there is value to perseverance, but at some point, you need to know when to give up. You just end up embarrassing yourself continuing with an idea that so obviously is never going to catch on. If it hasn’t caught on in all these years, why would it magically catch on now, especially when Gen X and Gen Jones have become so established? Honestly, it’s kind of bizarre that you are still trying after all these years.

(11) No, of course the Gen Jones article should not be called the Post-Boomer Generation, nor should the Gen X article be called the Pre-Millennial Generation. Gen Jones and Gen X have established far more than enough usage to be used as the titles of their articles. There are no alternative monikers for either Gen Jones or Gen X which have achieved anything close to challenging this.

(12) You seem to not have any grasp of what Wikipedia sees as notable. Wikipedia is not a platform to put in concepts/monikers which have no following with the hope that someday they will develop a following. If Baby Busters or any other proposed alternative to Gen Jones actually does gain a following, with enough reliable sources discussing it enough, etc, then it would belong in Wikipedia. But until that extremely unlikely prospect ever happens, it would certainly be vandalism to include that in this article. One guy’s idea that nobody else agrees with is not remotely appropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia. Again, no disrespect is meant here, but we need to honor the rules and spirit of Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GlassLadyBug (talk • contribs) 19:10, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Generation Jones is still baby boomer.

Cusp years of Generation X and Baby Boomers - Generation Jones - Get off my lawn, it's better than yours! 2603:7000:B901:8500:F117:BC30:9BDE:FBC7 (talk) 15:29, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Tail-end baby boomers had different experiences from middle-of-the-bulge baby boomers -- they were in elementary school or junior high during the 1960s etc. etc. AnonMoos (talk) 07:28, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Your bulge is exaggerated, only 10 million of these baby boomers were born bettween 1940 and 1950. Most of the earnings of people having babies were in the years of 1979 to 1990. The birth numbers were slightly lower but there wasn't a ten year gap of babies being born like in the boomers case - exaggerated numbers. https://www.infoplease.com/us/population/live-births-and-birth-rates-year 2603:7000:B901:8500:845C:77C2:E3C0:C58F (talk) 01:08, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Generation Jones was sort-of seen as a compromise to moving early '60s births to Generation X. A sub-Generation was created to connect them to those born in the late '50s which they likely have things in common with. Either way Generation Jones is a sub-Generation and not a Generation of it's own.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1002:B00A:CD93:71AA:8F9D:1307:F3C3 (talk) 05:39, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

"Moving early '60s births to Generation X"? AFAICR, that was the original definition of Generation X!

For one thing, that was what all the talk was about when Coupland's original novel of the same name came out. Can't recall if it was mentioned in the novel itself, or some collateral material like back-of-cover blurbs or interviews with the author, or whatever, but that was how the then-new concept was originally defined. For another, as I recall it back in 2008-09, the media were full of articles hailing Obama as "the first Gen-X President". He was born in, what, 1961? 62?

So, whether there is a "Generation Jones" or not, if it is a sub-Generation of anything, it's of Generation X, not the Baby Boomers. And if it doesn't exist, then we're just plain Generation X-ers like the rest of them -- certainly not fucking Boomers.

There is nothing to "move"; that's where those years have always belonged. At most, move them back to their proper place. -- CRConrad (talk) 18:41, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Self-contradiction

The second sentence of the article says, "Generation Jones was first coined by the American cultural commentator Jonathan Pontell, who identified the cohort as those born from 1954 to 1965 in the U.S., who were children during Watergate, the oil crisis, and stagflation rather than during the 1950s." This sentence is self-contradictory, in that someone born in 1954 was not a "child" in 1974, when Watergate occurred--they turned 20 that year, and they were a child in the 1950s.

Also, the second paragraph says, "there was no compulsory military service and no defining political cause". This is false. Conscription in the US ended in 1973, but males aged between 18 and 25 were required to register with the Selective Service System, so someone born in 1954 would have turned 18 in 1972, and was certainly still subject to the draft. This is followed by the statement: "opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War was for the older boomers", but this is manifestly false. Anyone born in 1954 would have turned 21 in 1975. The Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 were broken almost immediately, and fighting continued until the spring offensive and the subsequent fall of Saigon in 1975. There were certainly members of this cohort, if one accepts the arbitrary start date for it of 1954, who were protesting the Vietnam War in 1970. I was one of them.

As I say, the lede of this article is confused, and contradicts itself. Carlstak (talk) 02:10, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

If you adopt the traditional definition of adulthood as 21, then the math technically works, but you're certainly correct that it's not what is ordinarily spoken of as "childhood". Also, "Men born from March 29, 1957 through December 31, 1959, were not required to register with the Selective Service System"[1], so that people born during that window were completely free of the draft.

The basic insight of the "Generation Jones" thing is that people whose high-school years were all in the 1970s had a very different cultural experience from people whose high-school years were all in the 1960s, but some of the wording and examples could definitely be improved. AnonMoos (talk) 15:15, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Most experts clearly view Gen Jones as a full generation, not a micro-generation

Gen Jones has largely been seen as a full distinct generation for many years. Only in the last few years have some people referred to it as a micro- generation, directly related to the rise in popularity of micr-generations (like Xennials, etc.) But the big majority of experts, media, and interested individuals still view Gen Jones as a bona fide separate generation. The second most popular view of Gen Jones is as a subset of the Boomer Generation. The third most popular view is that GJ is a micro-generation (and far fewer people believe this than the first two views). It is vandalism, and frankly ridiculous, to remove the two most popular opinions, and only present readers with the least popular view of the three. I reverted back to the way it was, which is far more accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.229.135.115 (talk) 12:33, 19 August 2024 (UTC)