My personal cut off for ‘are you a Millenial’ is ‘do you know in significant detail where you were and what you were doing when 9/11 happened?’
If no, because you were too young, you’re a Zoomer, Gen A, etc.
Yep, my definition of Millenial is mass psychic trauma based.
This is basically correct imo, the typical definition is from '81 through '96, you could probably roughly have a decently vivid memory of your parents freaking the fuck out from yourself as a 5 year old.
But anyways, yeah, I was born when the Soviet Union existed, but I don’t consider myself an 80s kid, as I was born at the tail end of that decade and … don’t really remember experiencing much of it, directly.
The term Millenial orginally and specifically, academically and etymylogically in general usage… refers to generational cohorts of USAmericans.
As does Baby Boomers. As does Gen X.
You can maybe make an argument than Gen Z / Zoomers and Gen A / Alpha are more globalized, due to the massive proliferation and normalization of digital culture… but they are again still based off of a naming convention schema describing USAmericans.
So yes, I am using a US-centric definition for a US-centric term.
If ya’ll want to come up with your own terms, I’m all for it, the US has long had and still does have waaaaayyy too much influence over many aspects of general internet culture, global culture in general, the other economies and societies of the world, etc.
I don’t agree with this at all to be honest. I’m French, and the baby boom was very much a thing there. The term might have been coined in the US but the demographics events behind it very much happened in much of Europe post-WW2, and for example my parents referred to themselves as such long before we started having a shared online global culture. As for millennials, I’m pretty sure the entire world changed millennium at the same time, why would only Americans be allowed to use the very obvious term?
I've encapsulated my gigantic response so as to not further blow up the formatting of this thread.
Yep, the baby boom happened in many places… the term ‘baby boom’ and ‘baby boomer’ and then ‘boomer’ are very much US-centric if you look through newspapers, academic publications.
Also… you’re telling me your French speaking parents referred to them as ‘baby boomers’, as in… a loan word, from English, as opposed to something that might more naturally arise from French?
bébé d’expansion?
Granted, I do not speak French, that particular guess may be wildly unrealistic in some way, but I would think that general linguistic and etymylogical concepts apply generally.
Assuming google translate is doing a decent job of translating that to English for me, I am fairly confident this literally says the French term “baby-boom(er)” is a loan term, from English, specifically from the US.
Anyway, I am not saying that people should not be free to use or adapt terms from other languages, that would be stupid and also impossible to enforce, especially stupid coming from an English speaker such as myself, with English essentially being a bastard mutant step child of at least three different languages smashing into each other.
I would be unable to go to the karaoke bar, sing a song about a latent gestalt consciousness, grab a bahn mi to much on, and then further discuss the relative ‘lingua franca’ status of varying languages of the world, all whilst doing my best to stave off ennui.
What I am saying is that criticizing my US Centric definition of a US Centric term on the grounds that the definition itself is too US Centric… that is stupid.
…
Is ‘millennial’ a commonly used generational cohort word present in many languages right now?
Of course.
However… I would argue my definition still holds.
If you can remember 9/11 happening, generally, you are some kind of a millenial, you would identify as such, you would use that term.
Yep, 9/11 happened to the US.
And it was the biggest news story on the planet at the time.
Governments around the world reached out to the US with formal announcements of sympathy.
Newscasters and print media ran the story for days, weeks, in many countries.
It was a pretty big deal, the world hegemon having its financial center directly attacked.
Markets all the world freaked out, to varying degrees.
And I could casually argue that generally, roughly, though of course not as directly traumatizing to non USAmericans, it was a bigger deal in countries that were culturally/economically connected to the US, and thus inhabitants of those countries were/are more likely to later use a fairly direct equivalent of ‘millennial’ as a generational cohort term… as a loan word, from our media’s intial popularization of the term, to decry our avocado toast habits and whichever stagnant and poorly operated line of shitty franchise restaurants we are apparently responsible for murdering.
Why not use the local language word for ‘millenium’ as a basis, instead of adopting one from English?
But to further nuance this, I am sure you would point out that the English word millennial is of French origin, and you would be correct.
So sure, this obviously makes more sense as a wholly and truly French word, we English speakers did after all, more or less borrow something like 70% of our vocabulary from French.
But then we can refer back to my actual proposed definition:
I bet you do actually remember 9/11 being on the TV, in the papers, being discussed, to at least degree, if you are a millennial, who speaks French, and was roughly 5 years old or older, in France, when it happened.
Yes, I fully agree with the point about remembering 9/11 as a millennial, and wasn’t commenting about that, I just disagree about the one where you said generational terms are a US-only thing :)
And yes, we use the English term for baby boom, it’s a loan word, just like you say “croissant” (or at least, attempt to, haha).
Hah, my mangled attempt at correct pastry pronounciation is something like:
Kwah-san(t).
I am sure that is a bit butchered by proper French standards though, haha!
Unfortunately, if you try to pronounce loan words properly, by the rules of the language they come from, most Americans (very wrongly imo) consider this to be you acting pretentious.
On that note:
I have spent a good amount of time doing karate and so have spoken with a good dreal of native Japanese speakers…
Karaoke is not carry-oh-kee.
It is kah-rah-oh-ke.
Karate is not kara-tee.
It is kah-rah-tay.
… I frankly have no fucking clue how we managed to fuck up karaoke as bad as we did.
Easier yes, but also more confusing, causing terms to lose specificity and accuracy.
I am the kind of person that complains every time I see people incorrectly using any term adopted from another language, culture, academic field, whatever.
So… yes, I can and do complain about things lile that.
…
To pick a random example: Almost no one uses the term ‘black swan event’ properly.
Its from Nassim Taleb, meant to describe… a kind of risk of an event that would have been impossible to predict, due to said risk being completely unprecedented, outside of the possibility of conceiving.
But, most people just use ‘black swan event’ to mean… a thing that is fairly uncommon, but certainly has been studied, has a precedent, has known situations in which it arises.
Thats not a black swan event. Thats a predictable but uncommon event, not a wholly unprecedented and totally unpredictable event.
Yes and no, I heard about it in the UK but it didn’t mean much. I was about 10 at the time. Usually when people talk about it online people of a similar age in the US seem to have had more of an impact.
It wasn’t something we talked about, teachers didn’t put it on or have a talk with all of us about it. Just heard about it on TV the next morning as the TV was on and oh that’s a thing.
No it wasn’t. Not in a per day basis. It’s significant because of how much Americans talk about it yet, when so little people died compared to any bloody war since. Any dead is too many sure, but the response was to kill way more innocents so… I don’t care.
The 9/11 attacks were significant here in Australia. It was all over the news for ages and also directly led to other major changes such as a real stepping up of our airport security measures, a swathe of legislation in the name of anti terrorism, and us getting dragged into the war in Afghanistan.
Well they weren’t in Spain. They were on the news ofc but not so much that I would remember what I was doing the very day they happened. I don’t remember what I was doing in one of the several bombings we have had in Spain with our local terrorists even! They really have blown the thing our of proportion, really.
Then you would be using a different term than ‘Millennial’, or you would be using that term… as a loan word, from a culture that was/is deeply influential across the world, and was also massively affected by 9/11.
My personal cut off for ‘are you a Millenial’ is ‘do you know in significant detail where you were and what you were doing when 9/11 happened?’
If no, because you were too young, you’re a Zoomer, Gen A, etc.
Yep, my definition of Millenial is mass psychic trauma based.
This is basically correct imo, the typical definition is from '81 through '96, you could probably roughly have a decently vivid memory of your parents freaking the fuck out from yourself as a 5 year old.
But anyways, yeah, I was born when the Soviet Union existed, but I don’t consider myself an 80s kid, as I was born at the tail end of that decade and … don’t really remember experiencing much of it, directly.
… Well, beyond mullets, ‘big’ female hair, and… 80s styled glasses.
That is very US-Centric though.
The term Millenial orginally and specifically, academically and etymylogically in general usage… refers to generational cohorts of USAmericans.
As does Baby Boomers. As does Gen X.
You can maybe make an argument than Gen Z / Zoomers and Gen A / Alpha are more globalized, due to the massive proliferation and normalization of digital culture… but they are again still based off of a naming convention schema describing USAmericans.
So yes, I am using a US-centric definition for a US-centric term.
If ya’ll want to come up with your own terms, I’m all for it, the US has long had and still does have waaaaayyy too much influence over many aspects of general internet culture, global culture in general, the other economies and societies of the world, etc.
I don’t agree with this at all to be honest. I’m French, and the baby boom was very much a thing there. The term might have been coined in the US but the demographics events behind it very much happened in much of Europe post-WW2, and for example my parents referred to themselves as such long before we started having a shared online global culture. As for millennials, I’m pretty sure the entire world changed millennium at the same time, why would only Americans be allowed to use the very obvious term?
I've encapsulated my gigantic response so as to not further blow up the formatting of this thread.
Yep, the baby boom happened in many places… the term ‘baby boom’ and ‘baby boomer’ and then ‘boomer’ are very much US-centric if you look through newspapers, academic publications.
Also… you’re telling me your French speaking parents referred to them as ‘baby boomers’, as in… a loan word, from English, as opposed to something that might more naturally arise from French?
bébé d’expansion?
Granted, I do not speak French, that particular guess may be wildly unrealistic in some way, but I would think that general linguistic and etymylogical concepts apply generally.
https://www.etymonline.com/fr/word/baby boom
Assuming google translate is doing a decent job of translating that to English for me, I am fairly confident this literally says the French term “baby-boom(er)” is a loan term, from English, specifically from the US.
Anyway, I am not saying that people should not be free to use or adapt terms from other languages, that would be stupid and also impossible to enforce, especially stupid coming from an English speaker such as myself, with English essentially being a bastard mutant step child of at least three different languages smashing into each other.
I would be unable to go to the karaoke bar, sing a song about a latent gestalt consciousness, grab a bahn mi to much on, and then further discuss the relative ‘lingua franca’ status of varying languages of the world, all whilst doing my best to stave off ennui.
What I am saying is that criticizing my US Centric definition of a US Centric term on the grounds that the definition itself is too US Centric… that is stupid.
…
Is ‘millennial’ a commonly used generational cohort word present in many languages right now?
Of course.
However… I would argue my definition still holds.
If you can remember 9/11 happening, generally, you are some kind of a millenial, you would identify as such, you would use that term.
Yep, 9/11 happened to the US.
And it was the biggest news story on the planet at the time.
Governments around the world reached out to the US with formal announcements of sympathy.
Newscasters and print media ran the story for days, weeks, in many countries.
It was a pretty big deal, the world hegemon having its financial center directly attacked.
Markets all the world freaked out, to varying degrees.
And I could casually argue that generally, roughly, though of course not as directly traumatizing to non USAmericans, it was a bigger deal in countries that were culturally/economically connected to the US, and thus inhabitants of those countries were/are more likely to later use a fairly direct equivalent of ‘millennial’ as a generational cohort term… as a loan word, from our media’s intial popularization of the term, to decry our avocado toast habits and whichever stagnant and poorly operated line of shitty franchise restaurants we are apparently responsible for murdering.
Why not use the local language word for ‘millenium’ as a basis, instead of adopting one from English?
But to further nuance this, I am sure you would point out that the English word millennial is of French origin, and you would be correct.
So sure, this obviously makes more sense as a wholly and truly French word, we English speakers did after all, more or less borrow something like 70% of our vocabulary from French.
But then we can refer back to my actual proposed definition:
I bet you do actually remember 9/11 being on the TV, in the papers, being discussed, to at least degree, if you are a millennial, who speaks French, and was roughly 5 years old or older, in France, when it happened.
If I am wrong about that, please let me know.
Yes, I fully agree with the point about remembering 9/11 as a millennial, and wasn’t commenting about that, I just disagree about the one where you said generational terms are a US-only thing :)
And yes, we use the English term for baby boom, it’s a loan word, just like you say “croissant” (or at least, attempt to, haha).
Hah, my mangled attempt at correct pastry pronounciation is something like:
Kwah-san(t).
I am sure that is a bit butchered by proper French standards though, haha!
Unfortunately, if you try to pronounce loan words properly, by the rules of the language they come from, most Americans (very wrongly imo) consider this to be you acting pretentious.
On that note:
I have spent a good amount of time doing karate and so have spoken with a good dreal of native Japanese speakers…
Karaoke is not carry-oh-kee.
It is kah-rah-oh-ke.
Karate is not kara-tee.
It is kah-rah-tay.
… I frankly have no fucking clue how we managed to fuck up karaoke as bad as we did.
Easier to just co-op your terms and make them global. Not like English speakers can complain about that
Easier yes, but also more confusing, causing terms to lose specificity and accuracy.
I am the kind of person that complains every time I see people incorrectly using any term adopted from another language, culture, academic field, whatever.
So… yes, I can and do complain about things lile that.
…
To pick a random example: Almost no one uses the term ‘black swan event’ properly.
Its from Nassim Taleb, meant to describe… a kind of risk of an event that would have been impossible to predict, due to said risk being completely unprecedented, outside of the possibility of conceiving.
But, most people just use ‘black swan event’ to mean… a thing that is fairly uncommon, but certainly has been studied, has a precedent, has known situations in which it arises.
Thats not a black swan event. Thats a predictable but uncommon event, not a wholly unprecedented and totally unpredictable event.
9/11 was significant global news…
Yes and no, I heard about it in the UK but it didn’t mean much. I was about 10 at the time. Usually when people talk about it online people of a similar age in the US seem to have had more of an impact.
It wasn’t something we talked about, teachers didn’t put it on or have a talk with all of us about it. Just heard about it on TV the next morning as the TV was on and oh that’s a thing.
But it wasn’t some shared trauma thing
No it wasn’t. Not in a per day basis. It’s significant because of how much Americans talk about it yet, when so little people died compared to any bloody war since. Any dead is too many sure, but the response was to kill way more innocents so… I don’t care.
The 9/11 attacks were significant here in Australia. It was all over the news for ages and also directly led to other major changes such as a real stepping up of our airport security measures, a swathe of legislation in the name of anti terrorism, and us getting dragged into the war in Afghanistan.
Fuck Rupert Murdoch
Well they weren’t in Spain. They were on the news ofc but not so much that I would remember what I was doing the very day they happened. I don’t remember what I was doing in one of the several bombings we have had in Spain with our local terrorists even! They really have blown the thing our of proportion, really.
Or just lived in third world country where nobody cares about 9/11
Then you would be using a different term than ‘Millennial’, or you would be using that term… as a loan word, from a culture that was/is deeply influential across the world, and was also massively affected by 9/11.