Buzzword Watch: Generation Buzz
After Douglas Coupland scored commercially and culturally by popularizing the term Generation X , generation naming has emerged as a competitive sport popular among demographers, sociologists, journalists and pop culturists—and let’s not forget the market researchers and marketers who generally give a strong showing but a poor finish.
The business of naming generations requires the ability to capture an essential element about the character of a people that feels new or singular for the time and place. A name with staying power can reference a cultural phenomenon, or, increasingly, a marketing or commercial one. And today, the issue is confused by the fact that naming kids born in the eighties, nineties, and the (as my cousin likes to call them) naughties are all still up for grabs.
The ten names below are by no means an exhaustive list, but they do represent the very narrow gamut of labels coined for the newest crop of kids old enough to start buying stuff. Today, I will be rating our contenders on a variety of factors, giving each a grade based on creativity, buzz factor and predicted longevity. On with the games!
Net Generation
Blah and dull. By now, too many adults have grown up with the Internet for the label to have legs. Don Tapscott, author of Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation, has coined a name so generalized as to make it sound pedestrian, neither academic nor flashy. This one’s a dud.
F
Generation Y
The most well-known of the names but the least creative, Generation Y is simply a reaction to the more famous Generation X. The buzz factor is indubitably low, since all the hype got used up during the nineties on the Xers. And finally, too chromosome-y. Not likely to be the enduring label for kids born in the eighties.
D-
iGeneration
Ugh, the ever-present lowercase i. The buzz on this one should be seriously played out, but it just keeps chugging away, powered by Apple’s innovation and marketing machine. All I can say is, good luck with getting the trademark on this one, there’s likely to be a long court case ahead.
D
Generation M
The Kaiser Family Foundation joins in the fun, but almost by accident, as it seems they were just looking for a catchy name for their report about media use among kids. Good try, but Media doesn’t sound catch-all enough, even if it is an overwhelming aspect of kids’ lives today. And again, a capital letter. Generation X wasn’t an abbreviation; there’s no reason not to use the full word “Media” here. Sorry, but this name will be gone when the funding runs out.
D+
Generation Me
Kids are selfish, big news here. I’m not going to review Jean M. Twenge’s book, particularly since I haven’t read it. But as a name, Generation Me scores pretty low on the creative end. Kids have been called selfish since the beginning of time, so any buzz that may have applied here has long since worn out.
D+
Echo Boomers
This name gets derailed from its potential as pairing Echo and Boom together makes it all about sound and not at all about population growth. And again, a reactionary label detracts from the creativity. All I can think of is a generation of mini-me yuppies, and that’s not really how I think of young people today.
C-
Generation Next
PBS makes a strong showing with a name full of hope and respect, sort of the opposite qualities of Generation Me. Generation Next sounds good, but when you break it down, it doesn’t actually mean anything. Yeah, they are next in line, I guess. Hmm.
C-
Generation We
I fully expect someone to modify this to Generation Wii next week to make it more hip. Before that happens, let’s review the name as it is. Divorced from the context of the CNET article that coined the phrase, it’s difficult to understand the concept associated with Generation We, which is that today’s kids live in “a world where [they] control media, not the other way around.” The concept isn’t tied enough to the term, and the term is too general to instantly evoke a strong concept. Not likely to stick.
C
MySpace Generation
This is a second-tier name right from the start. Again, it’s a response to a previous name, the MTV Generation. And unlike MTV, it’s not clear that MySpace will have the chops to remain culturally relevant for the span of two decades. Buzz factor is medium-high, but the limited scope of the name will ultimately cause a dropout in the final lap.
C+
Millenials
Ok, here we go, a name with some promise. It doesn’t have the word Generation in it, but still captures the sense that it is a label. It pays subtle homage to how ideas previously confined to the sci-fi/fantasy genre are now materializing in reality. There’s even the appropriately pompous amount of zeitgeist about it. Not perfect, but it has potential.
B+
