Forget about trailing edge Baby Boomers. Forget about Generation Jones. Now it's Generation O.
Culturalists and columnists are putting a new tag on President-Elect Barack Obama and the legions of his supporters. Though technically born within the demographic swath of the Baby Boomers, Obama, 47, sees himself as anything but a Boomer. His election as president, the way he was elected and how he'll likely conduct himself in office have given popular rise to the term Generation Obama ... Generation O.
The term goes back fairly early in the campaign. CNN's Anderson Cooper, in his 360 Blog in February, talks of being invited to a Generation O event: “ 'Generation O' was the name of a series of fundraising and networking events hosted nationwide in support of Sen. Barack Obama" he said. "These fundraisers targeted a younger audience, relying on what the Obama camp termed 'friendraising' as opposed to fundraising."
The New York Times, in writing about Generation O last week, said Baby Boomers might be skeptical:
"Many baby boomers are unlikely to be comfortable with this generation’s technological boosterism and ease with blurred identities and mixed ethnicities. Peter Wolson, a psychoanalyst and former dean of the Los Angeles of Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies, said the crucible of the 1960s helped give baby boomers a deep suspicion of 'the other.' Their world was bifurcated: pro-war versus antiwar; communist versus capitalist."
Las Vegas Review Journal columnist Geoff Schumacher sees three tenets of Generation O: tolerance, teamwork and technology. He said:
- Generation O is multiracial.
- Generation O is more interested in group achievement than individual glory.
- Generation O embraces the power of technology to bring people together and to solve problems.
It is likely to be a generation identified as much by a new attitude than necessarily by age.
Comments
If this is true, then Generation O will be just beautiful.
You're completely missing the point of generation O (or Obama). GenO is an alternative name for Generation Y or the Millenials. The NYTimes article you reference uses the term exactly this way. The Generation Obama events that the Obama campaign put on throughout the last year and a half were specifically for 20-somethings (ie. GenY/Millennials).
Generations were traditionally viewed as around 20 years. That changed in recent years, as experts pointed to the acceleration of culture as one of several reasons why generations are getting shorter, these days to around 10-15 years in length. No serious generation expert anywhere would say that a generation could be the length that you are proposing, ie. that would include GenJones/GenX/GenY...approximately 45 years!
I suppose you could use the term generation not with its actual sociological meaning, but just as a very broad symbolic paintbrush. But that would never replace real generations...ie. WWIIGen/SilentGen/Boomers/Jonesers/Xers/Yers.
So forget Generation Jones? Certainly not. No one, not even Obama, would say that he, at 47 yrs old, is in the same generation, as say, someone who is 22 yrs old. Obama will continue to be part of Generation Jones, as so many top experts have been repeatedly been saying.
And anyway, I doubt that the name Generation O will ever really catch on for GenY; it is quite precarious to name a generation after a person, especially a politician, not knowing how that person will be remembered in history, and in light of the fact, that roughly half the country voted against him.
And further...I just noticed your last line: "It is likely to be a generation identified as much by a new attitude than necessarily by age". What on earth are you talking about? Words have meanings, and cultural generations have a very specific meaning, which as literally every generations expert will tell you, is based exclusively on birth years.
Otherwise, there would be no meaning to the concept of generations. If it was based on attitudes, who would determine which attitudes fit which person and generation? Each person would have to decide themselves, so, for example, if I was born in 1950, but felt like my attitude was more like a WWII Gen person, then that means I'm part of the WWII Gen?! Or if I related more to GenY, than I'd be part of GenY?! Even though, born in '50, I'd be a 58 yr old, claiming to be in the same genration as 20 year olds?! Absurd.
And on what possible basis could you claim that Jonesers, Xers, and Yers share the same attitudes? Have you ever done even a little bit of research on this topic?! These three generations are so fundamentally different in their collective attitudes and personality, that is mind-boggling to imagine anyone with any actual knowledge about this topic could possibly believe that people born during this 45 (!) year period are part of the same generation.
When is this silliness going to stop? When each indiviudal has their very own generation? Meanwhile real issues are being ignored, slighted, trivialized, obscured, buried. Our democracy is becoming shallower. Our future is becoming increasingly insecure. And our media is flipping generational tags around like hamburgers. Are we really this shallow? Now that’s a stupid question.
When is this silliness going to stop? When each indiviudal has their very own generation? Meanwhile real issues are being ignored, slighted, trivialized, obscured, buried. Our democracy is becoming shallower. Our future is becoming increasingly insecure. And our media is flipping generational tags around like hamburgers. Are we really this shallow? Now that’s a stupid question.
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