"I wanted to go to Woodstock. [My dad ... ] said, 'Eat your broccoli and go to bed.'"

That was the defining experience of "Generation Jones" -- the late baby boomers who've realized late that they aren't, don't wanna be, and don't hafta be part of that increasingly despised cohort. It wasn't their fault! Born between 1954 and 1965 (dare I tell both my brothers they're free to abandon their BoomerShip?), little kids during the sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll "revolution," they grasped at crumbs from their older siblings' feast table, only to share the full blame when the culture turned and began to find all that a lot less romantic.  Now it's like, "Hey!  We're not the listless spawn of the backwash of the '60s, whose main distinction is knowing all the episodes of 'The Brady Bunch'.  We're a Formerly Lost Generation!"  "Lost somewhere/ between tie dye and polyester," as one "Violet Moodswing" puts it at the beginning of an ode to her cohort (I shall refrain from linking.)

This is new to me -- courtesy of commenter PollWatcher -- but it's not new; it was first floated in 2000, and for whatever reason didn't catch on, except in Western Europe (WTF is that about??) and in the world of demographic marketing.  (When you find your identity, it kinda, you know, liberates your purchasing power.)  Probably the full obnoxiousness of the First Boomers hadn't sunk in yet; that took both Clinton and Bush, and the waning of 9/11, that great distraction from the trivial.  If you haven't heard of GenJones, despite the tenacious flogging of "cultural historian" Jonathan Pontell, whose one big idea it is, you will now.  Because, you see, Barack Obama is a "Joneser."  They claim they're more civic-minded, more family-oriented (despite severe work-family issues), and less narcissistic than "My Generation."  (I'll refrain from saying "That isn't saying much," since any gradient in that direction is welcome.)  They claim to have absorbed their elders' much-flaunted idealism and preserved it -- like monks in Irish monasteries during the Dark Ages -- when "we" sold out in the '80s.  (At least, this is how the mythic narrative is shaping up.)

One mystery is the Generation Jones book, which was touted as "forthcoming," "upcoming," and "soon to be released" in both 2000 and 2007, but seems to be as lost as the generation.  Maybe it will finally forthcome, or upcome, on the coattails of Obama's campaign.

Comments

[Ruth Anne]

I'm a Buster...Baby Buster, and am glad that there's some daylight between my kind and the Boomers.

[karen]

I've no idea what i am, my bro&sister are late Boomers- and my little brother was born in '69. My sister was trying to tell me i was a late blooming Boomer, but now i may be a GenJones?

Is it too early in the day to start drinking? (jk)

[Melinda]

Talkin' bout my generation.

I've always said, "I'm not a Child of the Sixties; I was a child IN the Sixties."

[David]

Phew.

[amba]

As in "saved by the bell"??

[Meade]

Or as in, "Phew, I came THAT close to taking the brown acid."

[Ron]

I always say that I'm a late '50's model -- you can tell by the tail fins!

[David]

As in, "Glad I didn't join my sisters in the loft above the garage -- affectionately known as "The Opium Den."

[amba]

Not me, I hasten to add. I had moved on to bigger, better opium dens.

[ASC]

Generations are such an odd thing. I was reading a whole article in TIME about the millennials who were born between 1985 and, well, today. They were described as the children of baby boomers. To which I said, hey wait, I'M a child of baby boomers but I was born in 1974! Unfortunately, according to the dominate narratives, I'm far too young to be a boomer and a good deal too old to be a millennial (they used to call us Gen X but apparently we didn't buy enough luxury goods to keep up our profile).

[karen]

Genex is a bull stud.

Just a little trivia.

[Danny]

Oh, I so relate to this. I LONGED to be part of my older brother's scene and go demonstrate in Grant Park during the Democratic Convention among other things but I was 9 years old and was told to eat my spaghettios and go to bed. I had major envy of you people for years but even then was grateful that I was out of the running for Vietnam. I'm still sometimes surprised you are so hard on your generation but then again, you lived it (and wrote a book about it) so you're certainly entitled to judge.

Yeah, what's the deal on this guy's book that was never published? I see from his website that he's made a career out of being the Generation Jones maven.

[PollWatcher]

I agree with you that Obama's candidacy will make Generation Jones much better known in the States, but it is not just known in Europe, nor just in marketing circles. The concept and term are certainly used with some frequency in the US, in quite a few contexts. As a political junkie, I see it discussed often in the context of electoral politics. Many political commentators have concluded that GenJones has emerged as a crucial voting segment because of its size (approx a third of the electorate) and volatility (Jonesers have a higher percentage of swing voters than any of the other current generations).