Generation generalisations

I really hate generation generalisations. I have always thought of them at annoying marketing-speak and never understood why people would willingly adopt a category that is just pigeon-holes them into a category designed to assist corporations to sell them stuff more easily.

I think that this is one of the reasons that I have always been unreasonably pleased that my particular birth year is so inconsistently allocated to any particular generation that it is impossible to reasonably label me Generation X or Y.

Personally I have no desire to be in either category. If this media is to be believed (and, I should note, this is rarely the case) then Generation X doesn't give a toss about the planet; is materialistic, boring, and illogically loyal to companies who regularly sack their work force; while Generation Y are flighty, disloyal, idealistic, lazy, unreliable, and have an unreasonable sense of entitlement. Clearly neither is true of even the majority of people who happen to have been born within a particular time frame.

Anyway, all of this is merely a segue for me to point you to a great article by John Quiggin, in which he takes on the idea of Generations and very effectively tears it apart. It is worth a read.