Peeling Sticky Labels

Why claim allegiance to a completely heterogeneous group of individuals born within the same 15-20 year timespan?

I’d always been intrigued by the use of generational labels. I remember feeling surprised when I first heard the term “baby bust”, which logically refers to the drop in birth rates after the baby boom. Yet I’d only ever known that age cohort to be labeled gen x- whatever that meant. For myself, I’ve always felt a fairly equal mix of shame and pride being a “millennial”- feelings that are definitely not unique to me. Then, around 2018, I had another thought: why were we still using the adjective “baby” to describe a bunch of adults? Eventually, during the early months of the pandemic, I asked myself why we use any of these labels at all.

I’d originally been intrigued mainly because it’s not common for people to talk about their age without being self-defeating. Here was a trendy way people could identify with how long they’d been around for, without having to say a number which would rise every year. The rising number is a fact of life and math, and seems to bring a varying level of sorrow to a large number of people. A neat narrative of the different generations is so seductive because the normative view of age and aging can be so harmful, and therefore repelling. In an attempt to remedy some of the suffering modernity has attached to the ideas of age and aging, I want to consider how and why generational labels are simultaneously so enticing and so harmful. 

Division between the young and old-whether perceived or real- has been a popular topic of interest since the beginning of time. This most recent incarnation, with multiple splits and fancy labels, has been percolating for decades. The sentiments of this 1993 Fortune Magazine article subheadline are more popular now than ever: “There's a new generation gap, and it can hurt a company's effectiveness. To overcome the tension, begin by understanding each side's point of view.” The title of the piece? “Why Busters Hate Boomers.” 

These generational labels and their meanings have evolved since then, becoming full-blown identities as well as cruel insults. Back in 2018, when I was questioning the use of “baby” in the title baby boomers, others must have been asking the same thing. Soon enough, the “baby” fell to the wayside and the retaliation “OK Boomer” spread on social media, followed by the nickname “Boomer Remover” for the pandemic. Suddenly, the extreme cultural loathing that was the underbelly of these labels was being revealed. 

Blatant bullying aside, I believe the current structure of generations comes partly from the deep-rooted hetero/monogamous norm that lineages of families must breed. In other words, generations are the nuclear-family-focused society’s new broods coming about every fifteen years or so. It's not surprising, then, that the white, socioeconomically advantaged population, whose power depends on this norm, are these generational stereotypes’ most staunch adherents. This support further embeds them into the cultural milieu, making the mainstream societal fixation unavoidable. In critiques of generational labels, journalists and authors will still name them, adding dates, and highlighting defining characteristics- in essence, continuing to spread the very ideas they are calling into question.

Bobby Duffy’s book The Generation Myth (2021) is full of arguments simultaneously for and against these boxes. Duffy insists there’s value to generational thinking, yet it's currently misguided. He says age segregation is becoming more severe, yet he also provides an immense amount of data separated by each generation. From his TEDx talk: “Ditch the misuse of the label, but try to keep hold of the bigger thinking of generational differences, because when you’re born does matter… Generations are really important to understand because they do change society... What we’ve got to do is ignore most of the generational analysis...”  So according to Duffy, generational divides, and the labels themselves, are only useful when looking at the right type of data for the right reasons. 

In her Aeon article Against Generations (2015), Rebecca Onion takes a much stronger stance against generational labels. She says they’re “ridiculously reductive” and “a simplistic way of thinking about the relationship between individuals, society, and history.” I agree. The labels are way too clunky to have the potential to be put to good use. The dividing lines themselves are debatable. Those born close to the cusps have to choose one identity or forever straddle between the two. Choosing a label and the supposed corresponding identity could arguably help someone feel like they belong. It also gives the opportunity to go young at the price of perceived maturity, or go old to gain it. The labels can also be ignored altogether,  or used simply as synonyms for “old” and “young”. Their popularity and supposed meanings, from political stances to sock choices, are so far-reaching and spread so thin, that it's luckily easy to completely bypass the nonsense altogether. 

When taken seriously, though, generational labels are like a hack job to the fabric of society. When we box everyone up into broad categories, we lose out on letting ourselves and others be free to change over time. We lose out on being able to have an age without anything attached to it, and we lose out on the ability to accept the nuanced (or extreme) differences between people within each category. We miss the opportunity to mix across differences in age, race, class, and ability, ultimately deterring contact between different affinity groups and rendering solidarity near impossible.

These labels were neither a spontaneous creation nor an organic one: they were developed for specific reasons at specific periods of time. Even though they’re so ingrained in the culture, they’re a relatively recent phenomenon and a product of capitalism. Marketing, for the next gadget or the next war, becomes a lot easier when individuals fit into a mold and what they buy into is measurable. According to an entry in Investopedia, “Generation gaps play big roles in businesses. Companies must find ways to balance the needs and views of individuals from different groups to sell to them.” This opinion is why books like Ann Arnof Fishman’s Marketing to the Millennial Woman exist, whose front cover says it all: the outline of a caricature of a woman, looking at her phone, with a bullseye on her head. The divisive content in these publications are overgeneralizations of much more complicated economic, political, and social issues.

Despite his attachment to the labels,  Duffy does a great job explaining just how intricate this topic really is. Yes, when you were born and when you experienced your childhood will have some impact on who you become, which is called the cohort effect. Yet there are other impactful experiences which also make a difference: world-altering events that affect everyone, no matter their particular age- this is called the period effect. Additionally, as a person moves through different stages of life, there are certain realities about their changing minds and bodies which will factor into their ever-changing personalities - the lifecycle effect. Categorizing generations grasps at an imperfect solution to this complex formula of effects.

Generational labels aren’t only reductive, they’re reactionary. It's almost always olders labeling youngers, as is the case with the supposed gen alpha who, again according to Investopedia, are still being born. Babies are being branded from birth, eventually embracing the labels with pride or shame, or a mix of both as I learned to do. The resentment towards what these labels represent is inherited, and the mistrust and division starts to flow in all directions, including towards oneself. In truth, generational labels are just another form of societal age shame, pinning meaning and worth to something we have zero control over. Ultimately, they perpetuate the idea that there are few similarities across the age spectrum and many similarities amongst each age cohort.

This thinking creates fuel for debate, as well as an imaginary wedge between different age groups. The most annoying manifestation of this wedge is the messy and disconnected stereotype that youngers are naturally progressive and olders are inherently conservative. If there’s a conflict, age difference alone is automatically assumed to be the culprit, even if the rift was caused by something else altogether. The real issues aren’t addressed often enough because these age barriers appear insurmountable.

Dividing lines aren’t only drawn within politics or while trend forecasting, though. There is a recent proliferation of games and media focusing on the stratification of ages for nothing more than entertainment. The gameshow Battle of the Generations and the card games Mind the Gap, All of Us, Gensmak!, and Trivial Pursuit Generations all use these divisions as their main ingredient for gameplay.

Then there’s the entire industry for advising companies on how to remedy these divisions, sometimes under the umbrella of diversity, equity, and inclusion. One expert claims to look at the priorities, values, and attitudes of different generations, while simultaneously asking, “How can these generations get along?” A textbook example of creating a problem to sell the solution, something I would say is at the root of this issue and within the foundation of capitalism. In fact, in Australia (the first country to have a major national anti-ageism campaign), bridging the generation gap is now being used as a marketing tool to sell lamb. 

For those who don’t want to watch the entire video, the advertisement begins with the different stereotypical age cohorts touting their unique characteristics. As they do so, literal chasms open up on the surface of the earth between each age group, creating a striking visual portrayal of the metaphorical generation gap. In the middle of these giant cracks in the surface of the earth is a lamb barbeque, whose scent reaches all the groups. As they all begin to simultaneously crave the lamb, the gaps start to shrink, which creates great excitement. The fervor leads to the different groups shouting their empathy and understanding for different points of supposed contention between the groups, including topics ranging from the expected temperature of coffee to military spending. Then, like magic, the chasms disappear and everyone surrounds the barbeque, happier than ever. So, instead of exploring how generalizations related to these labels are wrong, the message is that despite these stark differences, we can cross those divides and find common ground.

Approaches like this simultaneously complicate the issue and simplify it. The labels detract from the complex interactions of the cohort, period, and lifecycle effects, and they give the illusion that extremely broad generalizations can explain these nuanced differences. Their failure to do so is the reason why the labels “geriatric millennial”, “xennial”, and “zillennial” exist. It seems as though this is the next phase in generationism- admitting the labels are flawed, but modifying and using them nevertheless. Perhaps there’s no better example of this than the Pew Research’s Center’s approach. After decades of using and promoting the labels, and multiple instances of defending their usage, the center finally admitted they’re flawed, yet said they would still be using them regardless. 

I think there’s a potential balance between relying on these labels and not having any way to identify with when one was delivered into existence. Duffy is right- when you’re born does matter- in certain ways. For instance, growing up before versus after the release of the polio vaccine, or the internet. Yet, time is fluid, gradient: millions of people can’t be put into shoddy boxes for the sake of greater understanding. If you want to better understand, identify, celebrate, and have pride in your age, it makes more sense to identify with your birth year. It's much more precise and sturdier than a label, and it doesn’t change every year like our ages. 

This suggestion may seem counterintuitive to everything I’ve just argued. Yet I believe there’s a genuine benefit to feeling a sense of comradery with those who share a similar proximity to you in the timeline of everything. If nothing else, it creates a strength in numbers against ageism. For example, the five NY1 anchorwomen who banded together and sued the network for replacing them in favor of younger anchors while their male counterparts remained. US Social Security exists thanks in great part to the Townsend Clubs, where millions of members around the same age gathered with the successful goal of advocating for everyone over 60 to receive $200 a month. From early on in children's lives, we’re separated by our age, and these separations persist into adulthood. There’s power in choosing to connect with others in one’s age group instead of doing it because it's compulsory, or a baseless trend. 

Belonging in an affinity group with others who share a similar characteristic doesn’t just highlight shared experiences and needs associated with that identity, it highlights the vast differences within the group as well. Being more open about our birth years better reveals that everyone experiences time, aging, growth, and ageism in very different ways from one another. Time, indeed, is relative, and our body doesn’t lie. Those of us who are racially marginalized and/or experience more socioeconomic hardship tend to senesce (biologically age) faster than those of us who are more privileged. Adultification bias strips the ability to experience childhood away from kids of color, while people who come out as trans or queer or gay later in life might go through a “second puberty” in their advanced age. Ageism will hit differently based on what other oppressions you have to come up against every day, or what privileges you hold. So there’s nothing wrong with having pride in our birth year, unless it starts to snowball into rigid assumptions about entire age groups. 

Just as important, though, is spending time with people much younger and older than us, and not just people we share blood relations with. It makes a big difference: connecting over a common interest, a shared purpose, or a good story are all ways to counter the negativity bias we’re instilled with from a young age. From the Movement for Black Lives and the fight for Palestinian Justice, to other acts of solidarity in organizing, housing, and community- especially amongst Trans Women of Color- interage solidarity is hidden in plain sight everywhere.  Generational labels are a social construction of modernity, they’re certainly not biological fact or easily detectable beyond the noise of memes and soundbites. Chances are you’re already connected to people of varying ages in different areas of your life. Let’s start noticing and activating those connections, rather than assuming we have nothing in common with people who aren’t around the same age as us, and everything in common with those who are.