Generation Next

I can't even express to you how upsetting it is that the Pew Center has decided to label people roughly my age as "Generation Next." Generation Next, you say, wasn't that a Pepsi campaign in the nineties? Why, yes it was:

And the less said about Ricky Martin's contribution to the campaign the better.

Comments

C'mon Matt, we know you have some Ricky Martin moves! Shake that thang!

Posted by steve duncan | March 27, 2007 9:55 AM

What's really annoying about that is that the correct label for your generation was set out many years ago: "Generation Fox Kids". There's more of both truth and descriptive content in that one.

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | March 27, 2007 10:21 AM

You youngsters are having too many generations. Since the boomers, we've had GenX, GenY, and the Pepsi Generation. It must be 2045 by now.

Posted by Njorl | March 27, 2007 10:24 AM

Generation Next, you say, wasn't that a Pepsi campaign in the nineties?

And you feel like your dubious generation deserves better than a recycled name?!?

I didn't check the link, but I do wonder what Pew plans to call the generation after yours. Now that I think of it, did anyone ever figure out what came after "postmodern" in the arts?

Posted by Swopa | March 27, 2007 10:29 AM

The problem isn't even the Pepsi association. The problem is the inanity in naming a generation, "Generation Next". What do you call the following generation? And when Generation Pepsi is 45, how silly will it still be to be calling them "Generation Next?"

I think the folks who name hurricanes should be commissioned to name generations.

Posted by Petey | March 27, 2007 10:32 AM

"Now that I think of it, did anyone ever figure out what came after "postmodern" in the arts?"

Yes. "Jeff Koons".

Posted by Petey | March 27, 2007 10:34 AM

Generation Next was my idea!

Posted by michael lewis | March 27, 2007 10:35 AM

I've got it. As soon as there's another generation, we can all switch over to calling you "Generation Previous."

Posted by Swopa | March 27, 2007 10:39 AM

Sigh.

Part of this is the problem of trying to name generations too *early*. How can one know what the defining characteristics (if any) of a generation will be when they're kids?

The other part is that somehow Gen X-- which was itself a detached, hipster-pseudo-ironic nihilistic commentary on the 'generations' business and defined us as some kind of empty category (see also: slackers)-- has now become a bizarre template for future names. Gen Y is "the generation that happens to follow the empty, meaningless category of the generation that followed the baby boomers and was annoyed by their generational grandstanding." Generation Next is the same thing, expressed with a semi-rhyming pun instead of with the alphabet.

Posted by Jacob T. Levy | March 27, 2007 10:51 AM

Tell Pew to shove it and stick with the preferred term "Millenials" or "Gen Y"

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | March 27, 2007 11:19 AM

I can't even express to you how upsetting it is that the Pew Center has decided to label people roughly my age as "Generation Next."

Then talk to us. Tell us your name. Don't blow us off like it's all the same.

Posted by JP | March 27, 2007 12:13 PM

Never understood why "The MTV Generation" didn't stick. It's always struck me as the most accurate label for the first generation of people who have, at best, only vague memories of a time without MTV as the dominant influence on youth culture. Roughly those born between 1975 and 1985 depending on how exactly you define it.

Posted by andrew | March 27, 2007 12:28 PM

There are always opportunities through which businessmen can profit handsomely if they will only recognize and seize them

Posted by gehifidakido | May 28, 2007 7:59 AM

Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke

Posted by bomofovucofu | June 7, 2007 7:19 PM