A Generational Outburst

Daniel H
Daniel H
Sep 8, 2018 · 5 min read

I understand why we have the urge to broadly categorize generations. I absolutely feel that same desire to form descriptive theories about the results of a time-period and the influence of its unique environmental factors on human behavior and temperament. I can derive as much joy as the next guy out of situational outrage at baby-boomers and how unbearably slow they are at operating computers, caught up in anxious hesitation to try and click anything on the screen unless they’ve been told exactly what it does (seriously, just start clicking stuff and figure things out for yourself. Don’t ask me to help you find something and then insist that I watch as you move the mouse impossibly slowly while I die inside.).

I respect many of the conclusions that are reached in analyzing what happens when, for example, an entire section of the population shares something in common like having lived through the Vietnam War and Civil Rights Era, or has never known a time when the U.S. was not actively at war, or had access to the internet from a very young age. That has to have enough of an impact on a group’s collective psyche to make at least moderate ripples in the zeitgeist. So often, the base-level observations made in response to the raw data can be plenty insightful.


Where I see real problems is with how we try to use this information and the conclusions that are reached. The biggest point that I want to make is that most of the time, the way I see leaders suggest we act on this information is extremely misguided, unless you happen to work in advertising.

Firstly, I suspect that a vast majority of the people who are deriving conclusions from and consuming this type of analysis are generally hampered by a pretty severe bias- the fact that they are old and grumpy, and the people they’re trying to analyze (and probably socially engineer) are young and obnoxious. Here is a huge problem. There is so much trifling, tribalistic value-judgment wrapped up in how old people view young people that the resultant conclusions frequently come across as personality indictments, losing all sense of objectivity, and coming across as this weird form of pop-science mudslinging.


The age at which people draw the line between Millenials and Gen-Xers varies hugely between different observers. This is fine, because generational observation are based on reflections of long-term trends rather than easily observable disparities. Being in my early 30’s, the resulting gray area basically gives me an opportunity to pick sides. I know a lot of people my age who like to talk trash about The Millenials, which I find amusing. But if I have to pick sides, I would pick the younger one. I choose the Millenial label, because I identify much more with criticism of the older generation than I do with criticism of the younger. My wife is the same age as me and refuses to believe she’s a Millenial. I feel like it should be obvious how contrived these distinctions between generations actually are when you try and apply them to individuals in the real world.

Secondly, when you foist these generational generalizations on a body of people with as much authority as ‘You People’ love to do, you are committing a pretty obvious infraction against the science by mistaking trend-based data for individualized descriptive analysis. When you try and tell me that us Millenials are just a bunch of fragile, gender-ambiguous, godless, polygamous, participation-trophy hoarders with no respect for institutions, my first response will probably be “of course I have no respect for institutions if those institutions are run and represented by inflexible, un-scientific sectarians like you”. The terms of the inevitable inter-generational culture war, just like the terms of most contrived conflicts, are dictated by the most boisterous and misguided- the least likely to actually be understanding what the data actually means.

I’m also going to be insulted by your generalizations, because generalizations are insulting when applied specifically. Furthermore, Most of them simply do not ring true in daily experience. Those people who are telling us that kids these days are so fragile are at the same time wringing their hands about how offensive they find kids these days. Their motive is transparent. They just don’t like kids these days (just like their Grandparents), and they absolutely love to misinterpret data to support that feeling that most kids give most old people.


Lastly, there is the issue of the point of all of this. Who is putting the most time and effort into identifying generational differences? As a self-proclaimed Millenial myself, and thus inherently mistrusting of institutions, I suspect that the only reason that institutions actually care what “we” are like is motivated largely by their clumsy attempts at social engineering. I would guess that much of this research is supported by attempts to advertise and sell products and policies, and much of it is funded by the desire to motivate people to behave a certain way (be more productive, etc.). Applying this type of trend-based shotgun approach to audiences makes sense for advertising, where you can have a ‘win some lose most’ approach and a 3% click-through rate would be amazing. It works ok when you’re looking at shaping the ecosystem of a large institution- where you’re trying to shape trends in larger populations, which is why applying it to military institutions makes at least some sense. There is a line though. It does not make sense for management of your people- at all. You can’t just let 97% of your people fall through the cracks. You cannot apply broad data to small populations. You can’t do it. It’s a bad idea. Please stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.

Management is personal, and your ideas about generational trends would be very poorly applied here. I have seen the application attempted many many times, and the younger ones always smell the insincerity on a speaker’s sweat. I have seen many a disingenuous presenter, trying his best at relevance at the expense of honesty, devour his own credibility right there in front of his audience.

This has been fun, but I should really get back to work. I know that there are looming Boomers about, watching and waiting eagerly for every little confirmation of their insulting ideas about my generation, and I try really hard not to feed their delusional biases.

*note: I am aware that a large amount of what I just wrote is based on some mildly offensive generalizations. These were made in jest.

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