Voter's unfavorable view of Trump...

[Septua]

..has improved, from 63% to 51%. (source: All In)

[onecaliberal]

1. What?!?

[Septua]

2. Well, gas prices were lower...

..with Trump.

[Poiuyt]

3. This may or may not change once public hearings of the 1/6 start

People are so entrenched that even the hearings may not change people's minds.

I've said it before: Trump will control half the country until he dies. He has some kind of Svengali like charm over these people.

[Patterson]

4. You idiots will deserve what you get.

[Silent3]

10. "You idiots"?

It's is collective punishment if Trump or someone too much like him ever gets back into power, it's not just suffering for those stupid enough to fall for the bullshit.

[Septua]

18. Idiots?

Would you expand on that? Why are we idiots? What do we deserve?

[Celerity]

5. Morning Consult Poll, here is the link

https://assets.morningconsult.com/wp-uploads/2021/12/21214204/2112154_crosstabs_POLITICO_RVs_v1_SH-1.pdf

[OilemFirchen]

6. Thanks Xers!

Love,

Boomer

[Celerity]

8. I am a Zillennial aka Zennial (I was born a bit over halfway through 1996) and hugz back at ya 💙

Too Old For Gen Z, Too Young For Millennials: Life As A Confused Zillennial

https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/generation-zillennial



When 2021’s so-called 'generation battle' erupted, it’s safe to say I felt like a conflicted bystander. Born in 1996, my identity as 'millennial' or 'Gen Z' is often called into question and after reading every definition on the internet, I still don't know where to place myself. As someone who parts their hair both to the side and in the middle, I'm confused about who I should claim as my contemporaries, and the increasingly cringey dialogue surrounding the generational conflict makes the task that much harder. You might wonder why finding a generation to belong to matters at all but with the internet constantly hammering in the importance of belonging to certain ‘tribes’, figuring out my collective identity has always felt important. Considering that I can remember watching Disney films rented from Blockbuster, I often find myself identifying with millennials – but the minute they start talking about picking their Myspace 'top eight', I feel completely lost.

On the other hand, Gen Z uses technology in the same way that I do but as soon as I start reminiscing about putting song lyrics in my MSN status, they all look completely bewildered. As it turns out, this no man’s land between the internet's two dominant generations has a name all of its own: zillennials. Growing up during the crossover from analogue to digital, zillennials are a product of a changing world, experiencing old and new in quick succession. Classified as a 'micro-generation' of people born between 1993 and 1998, Urban Dictionary defines zillennials as "too young to relate to the core of millennials but too old to relate to the core of Generation Z. They were 2000's kids and transitioned from teenagers to adults during the 2010's." The zillennial's defining trait might be a constant state of identity crisis but according to a series of Reddit forums, the determining factor seems to come down to whether or not you remember 9/11.

Whereas millennials were old enough to fully understand the events of the day, Gen Z might not even have been born; zillennials, meanwhile, likely have hazy memories of the event, with most of us just starting school at the time. It’s this type of experience that underpins the differences between the two groups and solidifies zillennials as a breed of their own. Another massive telltale sign of the zillennial experience is the devices they grew up on. While Gen Z are known as ‘tech natives’ due to being born with iPads at their fingertips, millennials fondly reminisce about the days of brick phones – neither of which relates to the experiences of mid to late '90s babies. The zillennial's first phone was likely a flip or slide up before we quickly moved into the Blackberry sphere, with BBM pins being the digital currency of the day. Spending primary school evenings using Bebo on a family-controlled desktop computer and sixth form nights scrolling through Snapchat, the succession of tech and social media was exponential. Zillennials experienced the same rapid crossover period in popular culture, too, moving from That’s So Raven to Hannah Montana, Harry Potter to The Hunger Games, Mean Girls to Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging.

Zillennials had the good fortune of enjoying the best of what millennials had to offer while laying the groundwork for Gen Z’s social-first stars of today. Before influencers existed, we had the rise of the YouTube ‘vlog squad’, with zillennials practically paying for the bricks that built Zoella’s mansion. Our coming of age was epitomised by Tumblr fandoms and every single pop artist having a group name for their legion of followers (shout out to my fellow Beliebers, you should probably start using eye cream now). There were the quintessential fashion moments too. Zillennials are too young to have plucked their eyebrows into oblivion, too old to have known how to fill them in properly. While you might have shopped in the last years of Tammy Girl, your mid-teens were dominated by buying clothes at New Look, which you accessorised with foundation lips, clumpy mascara and fringe comb-over. It’s also likely that disco pants and American Apparel hoodies featured on your Christmas list over the years, alongside a tub of Dream Matte Mousse and Barry M 100 lipstick (bonus points if you box-dyed your hair RiRi red).

snip



Are You Confused by the Current Generational War? Congrats, You May Be a Zennial!

https://www.popsugar.co.uk/smart-living/what-are-zennials-48197442



If you were born somewhere between 1992 and 1998, don't identify with either end of the current generational war between millennials and Gen Z, wonder if you're too old for TikTok, and still (kind of, sometimes) like skinny jeans, you just might be a zennial! Zennials are a special, almost mini generation that's often referred to as the "peacekeepers." We had dial-up internet but also had cell phones in middle school. We remember life before fancy Apple products got fancy but still grew up with some variety of an iPod. We played the Nintendogs video game and collected Webkinz. We had a MySpace account, but only for one or two years. Our parents convinced us that our Beanie Babies would be worth a lot of money someday, and quite frankly, we wish that had been true, because many of us who were privileged enough to go to college are now drowning in student-loan debt.

For zennials, fashion is probably one of the most confusing aspects of our generational gap. Since Gen Z has cancelled skinny jeans, we're all extremely confused, since we already did boot-cut and straight-leg jeans in elementary and middle school. I wore those low-cut, baggy jeans already, and I was ecstatic when they went out of style and in came skinny jeans. I also happily embraced the "boyfriend" and "mom" jean trend when I was in college, but I still busted out my skinny jeans for class and college parties. Now, apparently, I can only wear straight-leg jeans, but all I can think about are the horrific memories I have of rocking JNCO jeans and camouflage gaucho pants — if you're a zennial, you know the ones I'm talking about!

Senses of responsibility as a zennial are also a complete mystery. Many of us were told that "college is the only option" for having a bright future, so while some of us now have crippling debt from that education, we also barely have jobs and might even still live with our parents. But also, some of us are parents. I genuinely cannot keep a single house plant alive and still call my mom daily for help, but some of my friends are married with children. A large amount of millennials have established careers and are "adulting" with their "doggos" (didn't Gen Z cancel those words, too?), while many from Gen Z are doing away with hustle culture and traditional educational paths and don't want a traditional family anymore. Zennials are in the middle, wondering where they fit into it all.

I've heard some people say the world changed before zennials' eyes, and that's part of the reason many of us struggle with a variety of issues. For some of us, the 9/11 terrorist attacks are one of our very first memories, and we saw one of the biggest shifts in the world at such an early age. Technology changed from home phones with cords to cell phones when we were in elementary school, home computers and monitors changed to handheld devices, the internet changed from dial-up to high speed, and so much more. I still played outside constantly as a child, but I also had a cell phone before I was 10. Being exposed to so much change in a very short period of time at a young age was confusing, and personally, I believe it left a lot of zennials feeling like we didn't have much control over the world around us (which, as I've gotten older, I realise is a theme for pretty much everyone).

snip

[NutmegYankee]

12. Born in 1980, I have that problem with Millennial/Gen X.

I used to be considered a Millennial with the cutoff around 1977, but in the last 10 years surveys arbitrarily started moving it back into the 1980s. I certainly do not identify as Gen X.

[Celerity]

13. You are a Xennial (born 1977 through 1983) aka the Oregon Trail Generation,

or Generation Catalano.

I have seen even further forward in years for the end, but I do not buy into that, for me, 1984, 1985 born are solid Millennials.


Are you a Xennial? How to tell if you're the microgeneration between Gen X and Millennial

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/12/20/xennials-millennials-generation-x-microgeneration/2369230002/

Sometimes, you're just caught in the middle. A microgeneration stuck between Generation X and Millennials has gained attention in recent years as some people don't feel a connection to either age group.

The "Xennials" are those born on the cusp of when Gen X-ers and Millennials meet, and therefore experienced world events, and especially technology, in unique ways particular to their age.

According to Pew Research, members of Generation X were born between 1965 and 1980 and Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996. Xennials, though, were born some time between 1977 and 1983.

Merriam Webster flagged "Xennial" as one of its "Words We're Watching" in 2017, meaning it's being increasingly used but hasn't met the dictionary's criteria for entry.

Link to tweet

Are you a xennial? Take the quiz

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jun/27/are-you-a-xennial-take-the-quiz





Generation Catalano

We’re not Gen X. We’re not Millennials.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/10/generation-catalano-the-generation-stuck-between-gen-x-and-the-millennials.html


OCT 24, 2011

Last week in New York magazine, 27-year-old Noreen Malone (a former Slate staffer) wrote that her generation, the Millennials—battered by the economy and yet still somehow convinced that they’ll “do better” than their parents—were “hoping for the chance to put on a tie and report to their cubes.” In response, Gizmodo writer Mat Honan, who turns 39 this week, posted a screed on his blog that read in part: “Generation X is tired of your sense of entitlement. Generation X also graduated during a recession. It had even shittier jobs … Generation X is used to being fucked over.”

I’m older than Noreen but younger than Mat, and neither characterization rang exactly true to me (most demographers place me and my peers at the tail end of Generation X). I was born during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, a one-term administration remembered mostly for the Iran hostage crisis, the New York City blackout, and stagflation. The Carter babies—anyone born between his inauguration in January 1977 and Reagan’s in January 1981—are now 30 to 34, and, like Carter himself, the weirdly brilliant yet deeply weird born-again Christian peanut farmer, this micro-generation is hard to pin down. We identify with some of Gen X’s cynicism and suspicion of authority—watching Pee-Wee Herman proclaim, “I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel,” will do that to a kid—but we were too young to claim Singles and Reality Bites and Slacker as our own (though that didn’t stop me from buying the soundtracks). And, while the proud alienation of the Gen X worldview doesn’t totally sit right, we certainly don’t yearn for the Organization Man-like conformity that the Millennials seem to crave.

So, half in jest, I posted on Twitter: “I’m not Gen X and I’m not a Millennial either; I’m some low-birthrate in-between thing. WHO WILL SPEAK FOR ME.” To my surprise, replies flooded in: “I was thinking the same thing today. I vote Generation Jem.” “Generation I Watched Saved By The Bell during its first run.” “I’m born 77, I claim the Xers, just because it’s better than the alternative.”

But what seemed to be the best moniker for our micro-generation was a Teen Vogue editor’s suggestion: “Generation Catalano.” Jared Leto’s Jordan Catalano was a main character in the 1994-95 ABC series My So-Called Life, a show that starred Claire Danes as Angela Chase, a high school sophomore struggling with the thing that teenagers will struggle with as long as there are high schools: who she is. “People are always saying you should be yourself, like yourself is this definite thing, like a toaster. Like you know what it is even,’” she says in a voice-over in a midseason episode. So even though the themes of the show are in many ways timeless, today, My So-Called Life also seems like a time capsule, and not just because of the Scrunchies. There’s no texting; Jordan leaves a note for Angela in her locker. There’s also no Facebook or instant-messaging or cyberbullying (just regular old bullying). It was a show that most accurately portrayed my high school experience, minus the dating of Jared Leto, in part because it aired while I was actually in high school.

Claire Danes’ Angela—and Heathers’ Veronica Sawyer and Freaks and Geeks’ Lindsay Weir—also fall into a trope of television and film that’s an especially apt representation of Generation Catalano (or at least those of us who were white and from the suburbs): the girl who doesn’t know where exactly she fits in, because she’s smart (full disclosure: the struggle Lindsay has over whether to stay on the Mathletes hit a little too close to home), wants to be popular, and has to leave her old, dorky friends behind. The show or movie’s dramatic tension is then largely about her identity crisis as she ping-pongs among different cliques and wrestles with the seemingly monumental decision of whether to stay in on a Friday night and do her calculus homework or go to a keg party in the woods. Yet My So-Called Life and Freaks and Geeks each only made it through one season before being cancelled; they failed to resonate with a broader audience.

In contrast, the relatively bland main characters on much more successful, Millennial-targeted shows of the late 1990s and early 2000s, like Dawson’s Creek, One Tree Hill, and The O.C., presaged the current crop of high school-centric series like Glee, Pretty Little Liars, and Gossip Girl, whose lead characters—much like Millennials themselves—are convinced that it’s not just possible, but expected to be pretty, popular, and go to Brown. (My Millennial sister—who was born in 1984, and is now a lawyer—watched Legally Blonde and found much to admire in Elle Woods’ equal devotion to her wardrobe and her legal career.) Meanwhile, the post-Millennials seem solely obsessed with fame; hugely popular shows like Hannah Montana and iCarly reinforce the idea that you can be a “regular” kid who’s also world-famous.

snip




How to spot: The xennial

Too old to be a millennial, too young to be gen X? Jonathan Heaf salutes the digital half-breeds, the xennial, who might just be the greatest (micro) generation

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/xennial-generation-characteristics



Put down the smartphone. Pause whichever television programme you're mainlining on catch-up (you'll swear to us it's an Adam Curtis doc, but we all know it's still the orgy of bosoms'n'dragons that is Game Of Thrones). Lean back into the Mies van der Rohe. Close your screen-burnt eyes and imagine yourself walking back into the bedroom you had as a teenager...

What can you see, hear, erm, smell? If the answers - ignore the fug of Lynx "Dark Temptation" and week-old PE kit - include a variety of New Kids On The Block/Thrasher mag/Cypress Hill posters, an original Apple iMac (the ones that resembled a giant fruit lozenge), a Sega Megadrive with Sonic The Hedgehog on a continual loop, a wired-in landline phone or a mixtape you dubbed onto a TDK SA90 cassette for the girl you fancied at school, then chances are you're a bona fide xennial and part of a micro-generation that had an analogue upbringing but have evolved to be fluent(-ish) in all things digital.

Xennials are those late thirtysomethings that were born too early to be wafty, moany, experience-obsessed millennials, yet born too late to be grouped together with the rave-hardened gen Xs. Although you might think such a label was coined by a marketing exec working for some pseudo-disruptive social media agency, it was, in fact, first created by writer Sarah Stankorb who was looking for a term with which to describe those who fell (scuffed-Converse first) into this narrow age window.

Xennials have the best of both worlds: they can claim to be collecting vinyl without sounding like pretentious, cold-pressed coffee-sipping hipsters. They can engage half-heartedly with social media without being labelled - that most derisive of media terms - an "influencer". And they can have dinner with another human being without having to take a photograph of every item of food delivered to the table. In short, xennials give to the digital revolution what Sir Vince Cable, briefly, gave the Liberal Democrats: they are the voices of reason.

Xennials of note include James Franco, Ryan Gosling, Moonlight director Barry Jenkins and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Or as I like to call them: men with an ingrained sense of Zen. Or, rather, xen.

[NutmegYankee]

16. Part of it for me is that I'm a Fall baby.

And therefore I had to start kindergarten when I was nearly 6 because I wasn’t age 5 in time for the cutoff. That put my experiences more towards millennial. The Xennial thing has some sway because I definitely remember the analog era of my childhood, and the transition to digital. One aspect for me that led me more millennial was that I’m the son of a female engineer, so I grew up with computers from a young age. When I started Kindergarten, I was already gaming on a Tandy 1000 PC. I still game to this day, now rocking my self built Intel i9-9900K processor machine with 32 gigs of ram and NVMe m.2 SSD.

[Celerity]

17. If you were born a few weeks (if December, as Autumn ends around Dec 20th) to 3 and half or

so months later (if born late September, around the 20th again, when Autumn starts) you would officially be a Millennial, and a couple weeks to 3 and half months means hardly anything in this context.

I went to uni in London with an American girl who was born on Dec 1 (I remember the date as that is my mum's birthday as well) and she was the youngest (I think) in her American high school class. She said she made it by one day to start kindergarten as a 4yo (who turned 5 three months later). I was almost always the youngest, eventually by years, as I skipped multiple years in elementary and later grades. I was studying my 6th form A-levels (advanced courses in the UK before full uni, similar to advanced placement juniors and seniors in USA high schools) as a 13 and 14 year old in the UK.

[Blue Owl]

7. Who's telling them what to think this week?

[tirebiter]

9. One of the effects of getting our collective wish to not hear him every hour of every day.

[Silent3]

11. Weird/scary, if accurate, that 6% of 18-34 year-olds haven't even HEARD OF Trump?!?

And then another 6% have heard of Trump, but simply have no opinion?

At least among the young people who are paying attention, more of them can see how awful Trump is than older generations.

I'm personally pleased to see that, apart from the group that explicitly approves of Biden's presidency, atheists are the most perceptive demographic slice of the bunch.

[ForgedCrank]

15. See, this is why

I don't put much faith in polls anywhere. When the jackass was in office, that was just 5 years ago at the start, making an 18 year-old current voter 13-14 at the time, and that is the youngest of the group. There is no way anyone could have been 14 or older in 2006 and not have heard of Trump. They may have chosen to mostly ignore what you heard, but it is impossible to not know him or who he is. FFS, the ass was on a 24 hour rotation of vomit on every news channel on the planet.
Those who answered this almost all lied in my opinion, and my guess is because they just didn't even want to talk about it.

[no_hypocrisy]

14. Listening to early morning "news" on NYC's WABC, you'd think that we should just

surrender now, 2 years and 10 months from the next presidential election. A "headline" that proclaimed that Trump would decisively win against Joe Biden were the election to be held today.