The Silent Generation. Baby boomers. Gen X. Millennials. Gen Z. Gen Alpha. Social science and pop culture commentators have spent decades grouping and analyzing the different generations, assigning various qualities, habits and tendencies to each age group.
But some people don’t identify with their generation, or at least these particular categories of them. Those on the cusp between two generations often feel like neither aligns with who they are..
That’s where Generation Jones comes in.
Like the Xennials that straddle Gen X and millennials, Generation Jones are not quite boomers but not quite Gen X. For most of their lives, those born between 1954 and 1965 have been lumped in with the baby boomers, but culturally they’ve never quite fit. They were too young to be involved in the major civil rights, women’s liberation and Vietnam war movements of the 60s, instead witnessing those social upheavals through children’s eyes. But they were also too old to identify with the Gen X latchkey kid angst.
Jonathan Pontell is the television producer, director, and writer who named Generation Jones and explained what made them unique. “We fill the space between Woodstock and Lollapalooza, between the Paris student riots and the anti-globalisation protests, and between Dylan going electric and Nirvana going unplugged,” he wrote in Politico in 2009.
He also explained why Gen Jonesers make good leaders:
“What makes us Jonesers also makes us uniquely positioned to bring about a new era in international affairs. Our practical idealism was created by witnessing the often unrealistic idealism of the 1960s. And we weren’t engaged in that era’s ideological battles; we were children playing with toys while Boomers argued over issues. Our non-ideological pragmatism allows us to resolve intra-Boomer skirmishes and to bridge that volatile Boomer-GenXer divide. We can lead.”
Many Generation Jonesers have never felt like they had a generational home and are thrilled to learn they actually do have one. Check out how Upworthy readers responded with glee upon discovering they were a part of Gen Jones:
“Thank you! As a definite Gen Jones, I completely relate to this. To young to be a hippy, therefore was never a yuppy, but too old to be Gen X. Gen Jones works just fine.”
“I have said for decades that I must be a transitional person into Gen X, because I don’t relate to boomers! I appreciate them, but I am not one of them. I am glad someone finally named my generation!”
“There are definite differences between people born in the 1940s/1950s and those of us born in the early 1960s. Most of us born in the early 1960s do not remember the JFK assassination and we were much too young to participate in Woodstock. The older Boomers were already established in their careers and as homeowners with families in the 1980s when we were in our 20s just starting out and ready to buy our first home. While the older Boomers experienced reasonable mortgage interest rates, the early 1960s Boomers faced mortgage interest rates averaging 14 percent in the 1980s which made it more difficult for us to buy our first home. We definitely need an additional group between Boomers and Gen X, and Generation Jones fits the bill.”
“I was born 6 days before 1960…. I’ve felt out of touch with a lot of the boomer life descriptions, and not Gen X enough to fit in there. I’ll take Generation Jones.”
“1957 here, with older siblings born before 1950. I definitely did not have the same experience growing up that they had. I feel I can identify a little with Boomers and a little with the Gen X experience, so there’s some overlap. (BTW, Gen X needs to stop claiming that they’re the first to have experienced all the things we grew up with. Kids, you didn’t invent drinking out of the garden hose or playing outside until the streetlights came on. Sheesh!) Glad to be a Joneser.”
“Of course there is a difference between people raised in the 1950’s and people raised and coming of age in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Society changed a lot in those three decades.”
“This is my generation but I never knew we had a name! The description fits perfectly.”
Congrats on finding your people, Gen Jones. It’s your time to shine.