In your opinion, what year was the final year for Gen Y (Millennials) and the start of Gen Z (Zoomers/iGen/Etc)? Why?

[rcmaehl]

Hi all. Recently, I've noticed that a lot of people don't really agree on the exact year Gen Y ended and Gen Z started, so I thought I'd ask in a few places. When do you think Gen Y ended and Gen Z began?

[PlayStation 2]

1997, because they're the last year that whines about being lumped in with the early 2000s kids.

[harryk]

A good test I like is that if you have memories of 9/11/01 then you're a millennial, if you were too young to remember or not born yet you're a Gen Z

[Worstcaster]

I picked other due to my intense lack of interest.

[Arika]

I feel like these days Millennial is a personality/mentally as opposed to a generation 

[vanished]

The entire idea of generations is fundamentally absurd and nonsensical.  You're taking a continuous thing (and one that varies significantly by person mind you) and drawing arbitrary lines as if those divisions have meaning.

[WereCatf]

8 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

The entire idea of generations is fundamentally absurd and nonsensical.  You're taking a continuous thing (and one that varies significantly by person mind you) and drawing arbitrary lines as if those divisions have meaning.

I was just coming here to say this exact same thing: lumping people into these completely fucking arbitrary boxes based on what year they were born is idiotic, short-sighted and demeaning to literally everyone involved -- including the people doing this lumping to begin with. It's just yet another way for people to spew hatred at other people while patting themselves on the back for being great and wonderful and oh-so-much-better than the other groups.

 

I fucking despise people who do this.

[Teddy07]

I think the whole concept is stupid. I am born 1986 so I am supposed to be a millenial but I don´t feel like one.

[dalekphalm]

15 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

Hi all. Recently, I've noticed that a lot of people don't really agree on the exact year Gen Y ended and Gen Z started, so I thought I'd ask in a few places. When do you think Gen Y ended and Gen Z began?

The official metric for Millennial (Gen Y) is 1981 to 1996.

 

Of course, people refer to Millennials in all kinds of ranges, including for kids that are like, 15 right now (and thus weren't even alive before the last Millennium). But the figure above is the official range.

[wasab]

These naming scheme are mostly devised by American social scientists because different generations tend to have large socio-economic or political differences. 

 

For example, gen z are shown to have increased rate of depression and anxiety than the generations before. They have not experience 9/11 so their attitudes on political issues might differ from earlier generations as well. 

 

In any case, these category can be use as a tool to predict future cultural and political trend so not entirely useless. Most generation z have reach voting and working age so will be the bulk of the future work force as well of voting constituencies. As a result they are under the watch of both economists and politicians alike. 

[Ithanul]

1 hour ago, wasab said:

These naming scheme are mostly devised by American social scientists because different generations tend to have large socio-economic or political differences. 

 

For example, gen z are shown to have increased rate of depression and anxiety than the generations before. They have not experience 9/11 so their attitudes on political issues might differ from earlier generations as well. 

 

In any case, these category can be use as a tool to predict future cultural and political trend so not entirely useless. Most generation z have reach voting and working age so will be the bulk of the future work force as well of voting constituencies. As a result they are under the watch of both economists and politicians alike. 

Yep.  Even Pew Research stats this in their articles that the generation ranges are tools for them to use in analyzing the population.  And, the ranges are not hard set as new data can redefine the range.

 

Interestingly enough, in defining the Millennial range, they do use the 9/11 attack for it.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/

 

Only the baby boomer range is officially designated by the U.S. Census Bureau.

[minibois]

I feel more like a Doomer than a Zoomer, so probably the year I was born? But at the same time, I can kinda relate to what all these Zoomers are saying... But in a more passive/spectator way. As in, I experienced what they also went through, but in a different way. Not as a kid, but as someone aware of the future and past. Not just living in the present.

 

But that is something every one the edge of two generations will say; they can relate to one of generations better in certain ways...

I think it also depends where you are from. If you define for example generations by what cartoons they watch (which many 'only 90's kids remember' people do), you will leave a larger gap of people.

That is simply because it can take 2 or 3 years before a show gets aired abroad; due to checking if it is a success/dubbing/localization/getting the proper toy licenses/etc.

 

I kinda feel like 93 - 99 is a whole separate generation. One that was on the edge of millenials and Zoomers. One that saw the rise of technology and felt it going from a passive force to an aspect of your life in a greater sense.

Those who didn't grow up with smartphones as a small kid, but saw it evolve into what it is now..

Which I guess older generations also saw this, but in a different perspective. For many of the 93 - 99 era people, they saw this tech evolving in a very meaningful period of their life.

[Spotty]

7 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

The official metric for Millennial (Gen Y) is 1981 to 1996.

 

Of course, people refer to Millennials in all kinds of ranges, including for kids that are like, 15 right now (and thus weren't even alive before the last Millennium). But the figure above is the official range.

Before reading this thread I thought millennial was the young kids today. I thought it was kids that grew up in the new millennium, hence the name millennial. Kids who got an iPhone for their 10th birthday or do fortnite dances.

 

Shows how much attention I pay to this sort of thing.

[seon123]

Smartphones as we know them really came to the market in about 2008, with phones like the HTC G1. People born in about 1995 would be at the start of the teens at that point, so they probably wouldn't consider smartphones as a part of their childhood as much as people born later.

 

Of course, this definition is very arbitrary, and even I see several issues with it.

[wasab]

55 minutes ago, seon123 said:

Smartphones as we know them really came to the market in about 2008, with phones like the HTC G1. People born in about 1995 would be at the start of the teens at that point, so they probably wouldn't consider smartphones as a part of their childhood as much as people born later.

 

Of course, this definition is very arbitrary, and even I see several issues with it.

Generation borne after the 2010s will be a generation that will never know what a "dumb" cell phone looks like. 

[Mark Kaine]

On 11/27/2019 at 2:10 AM, rcmaehl said:

Hi all. Recently, I've noticed that a lot of people don't really agree on the exact year Gen Y ended and Gen Z started, so I thought I'd ask in a few places. When do you think Gen Y ended and Gen Z began?

Hello, it's funny you say that, I've seen the definition for "millennials" changed (including changes of the "Wikipedia" entries) several times over the last years, so people can't even agree on that.

Some say it's people born *around* the millennial,  which makes sense given the name,  but the initial definition was people that "reached maturity at or around the millennial" which of course also makes sense and just happens to be the idea that created the term initially. 

Ironically it's often millennials who use the incorrect definition I've noticed.  

 

 

 

As for your question as per definition I'd say 1990-1995... 

 

 

10 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

The official metric for Millennial (Gen Y) is 1981 to 1996.

 

Of course, people refer to Millennials in all kinds of ranges, including for kids that are like, 15 right now (and thus weren't even alive before the last Millennium). But the figure above is the official range.

Which keeps changing depending on who last edited the Wikipedia...

 

 

On 11/27/2019 at 3:17 AM, harryk said:

A good test I like is that if you have memories of 9/11/01 then you're a millennial, if you were too young to remember or not born yet you're a Gen Z

That might not be quite correct but I like this definition regardless. 

 

 

[dalekphalm]

4 hours ago, Spotty said:

Before reading this thread I thought millennial was the young kids today. I thought it was kids that grew up in the new millennium, hence the name millennial. Kids who got an iPhone for their 10th birthday or do fortnite dances.

 

Shows how much attention I pay to this sort of thing.

Millennial here - when I was 10 years old, smartphones were in the form of the IBM Simon, and PDA's were cutting edge - and iPhones were a distant glimmer in Job's eyes - more than 10 years away still. Most people didn't have cellphones at all, let alone having features like texting.

 

People who grew up with Fortnite are Generation Z.

[kirashi]

On 11/26/2019 at 5:10 PM, rcmaehl said:

Hi all. Recently, I've noticed that a lot of people don't really agree on the exact year Gen Y ended and Gen Z started, so I thought I'd ask in a few places. When do you think Gen Y ended and Gen Z began?

I'll just leave this here... Not saying that generations literally don't exist, but we humans end up hurting people inadvertently because we feel the need to justify our own feelings by labeling everything and everyone different enough than ourselves.

 

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, kirashi said:

I'll just leave this here... Not saying that generations literally don't exist, but we humans like to hurt people with labels instead of trying to understand their problems.

 

Humans like to box things to make it easier to ascertain threat.  It has nothing to do with hurting people.  No one sets out to do that.

 

 

Studying generations is primarily an effort in trying to understand things, not just problems but everything.   We see traits that are more unique to people born in the 70's and we see other traits that are more common to people born in the 90's.     Labeling the generations is simply a way of describing a subset of people without having to list copious amounts of data points.

 

 

Some of the biggest arguments and confusions between generations stems from the simple fact that time only goes one way,  the older generations will always have more experience and the younger generations are always fighting for dominance in a world run by those who came before them.   This is not an oppressing thing, it's just par for the course.  Each generation runs the world they see it best run and as they pass over the reigns to the next generation they will do the same.