Boomers - The Label Shapers

For the record I was born in 1961.  For the record Barack Obama was born in 1961.  For the record Douglas Coupland was born in 1961.  How does this class of 1961 compare with the class of 1946 that include Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush?  Whatever the differences we have been classed for the last four decades or so as Boomers.

When four of those six people are all past Presidents of the United States, it adds a nasty bow tie to what the term boomers has become and what people like me do not like, which are being labelled.  Calling me a boomer is no different in my mind to racists calling me a wog and so I have no care for either label, both are products of boomers who shaped those words.

That leaves Douglas Coupland and it is Coupland whose book Generation X that inspired the name for the generation grouping after the Boomers.  Wait, a boomer was responsible for naming Generation X?  Not only that it was a boomer who is responsible for naming the Millennials.  That was Neil Howe.  Along with his co-writer William Strauss he wrote a glowing tome to the rise of the Millennials as well as naming them. 

They also wrote the original label maker back in 1991 called Generation Zero, and somehow it inspired and caught fire with marketers of that time and none of them were millennials or Gen Z as they are called today.  The two authors inspired Steve Bannon.  Please don't ask who he is, if you really don't know read the first article :

The pseudoscience that prepared America for Steve Bannon’s apocalyptic message by Tim Fernholz May 27, 2017 https://qz.com/970646/the-world-has-already-bought-into-steve-bannons-apocalyptic-ideology/

Gen Z seem to already have accepted their label, and millennials are proud of a label created by boomers, who also wrote a rather naive account of the impact they thought they would make.  Little did they contemplate that most writers 30 years later will fill ink going on an all out attack against "the boomers".  Yet we don't know this Yellow Brick Road was created by a couple of Wizards of Oz and we have been stuck in this labeling ever since, not asking a simple question which is how pointless the theory originally was and now even more increasingly so. 

If "Boomers" meant the names of the Presidents mentioned, then it means this label has been defined primarily by an American context.  There was a time since the 60's when America became very central in defining culture, as well as dominate as a superpower.  Boomer is an apt name for POWER even though its origins is the Baby Boom.  Now there is one individual who mounts a defense for boomers but his argument needs us to believe that Boomer presidents belonged either to the Silent Generation or Generation X.  He even points to Ronald Reagan, when his myth was propogated by people like Newt Gingrich and that after Bill Clinton had reversed the economic impact of Reaganomics.  Clinton and Obama are actually very bright guys, but they did not alter the benefit the boomer generation gained, that generation whose power-brokers continue to control the psyche of the West.  That defense of boomers came from Kevin Drum

Don’t Blame Boomers, Blame Their Parents by Kevin Drum                                                                             https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/06/dont-blame-boomers-blame-their-parents/

Then there is the assault on boomers - but before we view ourselves as boomers to defend this label, it is the few in power and who are still in power that have helped their generation a tonne.  In the process these label shapers screwed the young.  When we are talking about hippies (kids of rich families) and yuppies (same people) we are not talking about working class heroes - boomers are not working class heroes, boomers are label shapers from the world of people who have money and who shaped global economics, marketing and media from America.   The following articles begin the attack on this boomer generation who hold power, but none of them tell us who is accountable and responsible for politicians and power brokers paying a certain segment of this boomer generation a debt being passed to future generations. 

The Boomers Ruined Everything - Lynne  Stone                                                                                                             https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/boomers-are-blame-aging-america/592336/

At this rate, Gen X might never get to be president of the United States of America - David Dunning                         https://qz.com/836658/donald-trumps-age-how-baby-boomer-generation-x-and-millennial-presidents-would-change-the-course-of-america/

Sorry, millennials, the baby boomers' long reign isn't about to end any time soon                                 https://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/sorry-millennials-the-baby-boomers-long-reign-isnt-about-to-end-any-time-soon

Those attacks come with an unquestioned identification with these labels and in reality it is a pointless identification and even more so in a digital world where we marketers can use evidence based data rather than guesses (which is what these labels are).  It has always been an unhealthy relationship between the label makers and shapers and the consuming public who are in need of having labels.  Why not when we are a consumed society, consumed by discrimination, stereotypes and polarized politics.    Which generation out there is not conformist and in need of certainty.  If anything the generations that are arriving are more in need of certainty and blindly hold on to a label they assume is how things have been defined for generations.   How would these generations feel when the chief source of originality for these labels were boomers who held and have the power to create and foist these labels upon us all.

Defining a generation by age ranges is as stupid as defining a generation by the kind of technology they use.  Yet we love our labels and strip us off those labels and we feel the cold hand of terrifying uncertainty, as our nervous system fills with fear and dread of realizing we are being held by this veneer, this skin-deep reality - when the differences within a generational segment themselves are vast.

We waste too much time with this useless segmentation, that is practiced as if it is a holy tenant in a corporate church. That much the following article from The Atlantic underscores :

Here Is When Each Generation Begins and Ends, According to Facts by Philip Bump                                 https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/03/here-is-when-each-generation-begins-and-ends-according-to-facts/359589/

I disavow any association with boomers because the theory is rubbish - but in the name of that cohort we can see a generation that did take advantage to pay itself and engage in boom.  For that reason alone working class people are the first ones who should be raising their pitchforks, because these "boomers" did not just steal from future generations, they also stole from the poor within their own generation.   

The pseudoscience that Howe and Strauss inspired was fueled by groups who have shaped our very identities today, to the point it has warped how people look at their lives.  An example of article that shows how warped this identification becomes based solely on the definitions arising from Strauss-Howe Generalization Theory is demonstrated here with a psychologist who based his interpretation on knowing one member from the Silent Generation (Davenport) and one member from the boomer generation :

The Cultural Psychology of Generation X                                                                                                          https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mood-swings/201904/the-cultural-psychology-generation-x

It is total hogwash and in an age where everyone has an opinion (including me) it is a complete misreading of a theory. On its own Strauss-Howe Generalization Theory is quite an interesting perspective, but an interesting perspective does not necessarily make it true - and being that this theory has internalized itself into marketing practices and giving rise to culture wars including the marked difference in voting with Brexit and the Trump base, it is worth disavowing the label I have been given (i.e. Boomer) all because of the abuse of this theory :