Generation X and Generation Y

History of the Term

One line of argument traces the history of the term Generation X back to the United Kingdom and a study conducted in 1964. Researcher Jane Deverson conducted a study for Woman's Own magazine on the supposedly nonconformist attitudes and antiestablishment rebellion of Great Britain's teenagers as they reacted to what they considered antiquated and unnecessary sociocultural traditions, practices, attitudes, and institutions. The magazine rejected and chose not to publish that which it deemed controversial research. Believing in the merit of her work, Deverson sought another avenue in which to release and preserve her study on this anarchic “mod” (“modernist”) group of young people. Deverson eventually approached and collaborated with Hollywood correspondent Charles Hamblett to produce a novel on the findings, Generation X, hence creating not only a book but also a label.

The Term as Used in North America

As it applied to the 1961–1981 age cohort in Canada and the United States, the term Generation X began to circulate widely and was adopted ultimately into the popular vernacular as a label because of a writer named Douglas Coupland. A Canadian author, Coupland (born in 1961) sought to distinguish his age cluster from that of the previous one and to speak to the constraining images and attributes ascribed to his group by those who were not a part of his age collective (then known as baby bust). Coupland wanted to redefine his birth generation and challenge dominant baby boom etic accounts (i.e., outsider's accounts) of its supposed culture and outlook. Coupland attempted to take ownership of the label from within the generation and define it more broadly and accurately from an emic, or insider's, standpoint. Coupland [Page 308]did this in an effort to expand the scope of the term Generation X and to clarify that there was a significant distinction between the value system, perspectives, perceptions, and realities of his generation and those of the baby boomers. As such, Coupland produced a 1991 novel, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, in which he recounted allegorically the stories of three overeducated, underemployed, unpredictable, and private strangers who chose to distance themselves from society. Borrowing from Paul Fussell's 1983 book, Class, Coupland co-opted a term from the text, Category X, which was used to describe a group of people in the American social hierarchy who wanted to distinguish and define themselves as opposed to accepting and fulfilling the cookie-cutter characterizations and expectations doled out by the status quo of their time. Coupland changed Category X to Generation X and used the label as a framework for explaining the historical and socially constructed disposition of the age cohort to which he belonged. Coupland's Generation X did not see themselves as members of the baby boom generation or as a reflection of the baby boomers and did not necessarily seek to align themselves with the ideologies and practices to which that generation was married. As the media and grunge music began to make the term Generation X popular and helped to perpetuate Coupland's image of a cohort distinguishable from that of the baby boomers, the success of his contribution soon had him heralded as the spokesperson for the generation. Uncomfortable with the title and the accolades, Coupland adamantly declined the new appellation as “mouthpiece” on the basis that the goal of his book was not to offer a definitive conceptualization of Generation X but instead to demonstrate that in the group's vastness and ever-evolving state, a single description or solid parameters entrapping it would not suffice. As with Fussell, “X,” in this case, was to represent a category of people who were broad, dynamic, and undefined.

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