Why we are different.

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adamcmorrison@reddit

I agree but I dont get the "We didn’t have a MySpace."

I did have myspace and so did all my friends.

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BIRDsnoozer@reddit

To this day, I remember by ICQ number!

[-]

ICQ was awesome! Ah the joy of checking to see if a friend was online and then chatting with them while you did other things. And then you could say, "I have to go," and actually get offline. Not like today where your mobile device follows you.

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Clem_bloody_Fandango@reddit

And Xanga

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sweat-it-all-out@reddit

Haha....I was just thinking that I fought my transition from Friendster to MySpace.

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JTynanious@reddit

Weirdly I still remember my number!

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cheer-up-sleepy-jean@reddit

Uh-oh!

gif

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nitrot150@reddit

I met my husband on MySpace!

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adamcmorrison@reddit

Damn that’s a story! Congrats on staying together so long

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TinyRandomLady@reddit

Yeah, that’s weird. I had it in college. I would say the big difference is that we didn’t have it in high school or middle school. Our adolescence was free of social media.

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NighthawkCP@reddit

I think I had Geocities in HS but I could be wrong on that. Transitioned to MySpace later on but that was like later end of college.

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wjruth@reddit

Oh geocities- now that brings back memories. All those web pages seemed to be archived before it went defunct.

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adamcmorrison@reddit

Yeah it came out when I was like 20 or something but we all used it

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PorkchopXman@reddit

Exactly. We didn't have it till we were adults.

[-]

adamcmorrison@reddit

Is that a prerequisite that I needed to be a teenager? I don’t feel like I was an adult at 20 Ahahah

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miskdub@reddit

God I still don’t feel like an adult

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RoundTheBend6@reddit

What’s an adult?

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avalonfaith@reddit

I think my son might be older then me. Is that a thing?

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Immediate-Breath-809@reddit

My daughter is older than me as well. Its a thing.

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burjja@reddit

I the dinstinction being made is you weren't amongst other middle and high schoolers who were also using social media and having that infiltrate all aspects of your life. You weren't constantly trying to impress classmates with social media posts nor were you being bullied in the comments.

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Deep-Interest9947@reddit

20 and 26 are worlds different. At 20 I was in college. At 26 I had graduated college, worked a real job as a fully independent human for 3 years, and then been in law school for a year.

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FirehawkLS1@reddit

Yeah I'd have to agree. At 20 I was in college and in my eyes, didn't have a clue aboutnreal life responsibilities even though I had many, I just didn't fully understand the depth of them. At 26 I brought by first house amd got married a year later. A lot changed for me in those 6 years.

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Deep-Interest9947@reddit

Yes I also bought a house that year. It was just worlds different from 20.

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FirehawkLS1@reddit

I truly believe that age range is a transformative time for people. I mean at least for myself and people I've known personally and talked to online.

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menunu@reddit

And for me anyway, it was entirely local. I only had connections with people I knew or did meet IRL. I actually did merge 2 friend groups through MySpace. Social media is literally garbage now.

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Sensitive_Pianist777@reddit

My year like OP's wife, were 23 and nobody used it. It was weird and confusing to us.

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Deep-Interest9947@reddit

I was 26 when it was widely available. That’s wildly different than it being available at 18-20

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PickledPixie83@reddit

I was about the same. 24 or 25 I think. I got one right before I got pregnant with my son.

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adamcmorrison@reddit

26 and 20 is def a big gap you’re right

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Kittypie75@reddit

year 2000? No way - Myspace wasn't until 03-04.

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adamcmorrison@reddit

I never said the year 2000. Op only mentioned that date of when he graduated.

[-]

ptindaho@reddit

Graduated in 97. I got on myspace and then facebook so I could reconnect/stay in contact with my highschool and college friends.

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LetWaltCook@reddit

I was repulsed by anyone willing to use their real name online, so I never used myspace. Eventually Facebook got me, but not anymore. Thankfully Reddit is username based.

[-]

adamcmorrison@reddit

Yeah I quit using Facebook when it got too political. I remember my aunt who I always had a good relationship with posted a political meme. I commented on it and then I got literally attacked by a bunch of people on her friends list including her. I was like this is my own aunt treating me like this and letting others treat me like this over politics. I stopped using Facebook that very day.

[-]

tMoneyMoney@reddit

MySpace was it until it got taken over by shitty bands and DJs spamming everyone. That opened the door for Facebook to take over and basically ruin the human race with an onslaught of social media.

[-]

adamcmorrison@reddit

Yea ruined the human race indeed

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Bulky_Ad9019@reddit

I’m 1983 also and I def had MySpace and also had Facebook in college. But it was the cooler version which was only for college students not for scrolling 24/7 seeing unhinged posts from elderly relatives.

[-]

Blackbird136@reddit

Same. Class of ‘99. I think I got MySpace around 03-04.

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trianglecubess@reddit

Yes, we had Hi5 earlier and MySpace

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jonyoungmusic@reddit

Right. C/o 2001 and I was the top artist on MySpace from like 2006-2007. lol Even met my current wife on there.

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fyrefly_faerie@reddit

I also remember Friendster

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cosp85classic@reddit

79 checking in. First I heard of MySpace was on a deployment in Iraq in 2006. Then Facebook was all the rage by 2008. This made my leery of the ebs and flows of social media from the onset. Seemed to be about what was popular at the time, and that wasn't for me.

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InvincibleChutzpah@reddit

Born in 82 and everyone I knew had MySpace.

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aleixa_p@reddit

I got interested in coding because of MySpace.

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wolfdickspeedstache@reddit

Born in 80 and I still miss MySpace.

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VoidOmatic@reddit

We had GeoCities too!

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princessofsparta@reddit

But do you remember when Geocities rolled out frames?

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Bad-Moon-Rising@reddit

I was more an Angelfire girlie myself

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VoidOmatic@reddit

Yup, ran my Slayerrs anime fan page across those two sites!

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Roklam@reddit

No Myspace ever, but had FB.

And a random niche forum overflowing with nerds from across the globe.

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HorseWorking@reddit

It’s probably a pretty mixed bag with this one. Being born in ‘83 I believe you’d be the youngest of what’s considered a xennial. I was born in ‘80 and only one of my friends that i knew of ever had myspace and we all thought it was kinda weird at the time. Personally I’ve never had facebook either.

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veglove@reddit

Al of my friends born in '78-'79 used MySpace, and many of us used Friendster before that. Maybe it just depends on your social circle; social media wasn't as widely used back then.

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Sensitive_Pianist777@reddit

I'm 79er, my spouse, sister 78er. Have close friends in 77-79 and nobody used it as far as I know. It was just weird. Friendster was our thing.

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Practical-Plenty907@reddit

Same, ‘79, never did MySpace, nor did any of my friends, little sis (‘84) did. Never had a Facebook either, little sis still does.

[-]

vblballentine@reddit

Same, '80 and never did MySpace or Facebook. My '77 husband too

[-]

ElectricStarfuzz@reddit

I’m from ‘83 and only had MySpace because someone made me one. Never used it. Only got fb in 2011 for photography promotion.

I had a lot of friends who used Friendster in our early 20s, but again I had little interest.

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Deep-Interest9947@reddit

I only had MySpace and then Facebook specifically because I was in law school. Which I started at 26. Some of my non school friends started at the same time but it was never like “important” to any of us.

[-]

ArticulateRhinoceros@reddit

Same, I had MySpace and don’t think I was late to Facebook. I graduated in 2001.

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marle217@reddit

Facebook was open to everyone in 2007, but if you had an edu email address you could get in years earlier. If you graduated college in 2005 you would've been able to get in early with your email. Others who graduated earlier and didn't get/still have an email wouldn't. Although this is also a class thing, not just a generation thing, because not everyone went to college. Same thing for TRL, I never had cable and so I've only heard of it through these nostalgia dumps online.

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I_AM_DEATH-INCARNATE@reddit

It was also rolled out in waves. My college had it nearly a year before almost anyone else I knew from high school.

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LemurCat04@reddit

I definitely didn’t have MySpace. And I didn’t join Facebook until way late because I thought all that shit was dumb and would lead to places the internet shouldn’t be going.

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Tasty-Property-434@reddit

Assume they mean in high school. I had it but I was in college.

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napalmthechild@reddit

Yep and MySpace was way cooler than Facebook. Facebook is when your mom, dad, aunts, and uncles started showing up in social media and killed the fun 😭

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TheAzureMage@reddit

I definitely had Myspace.

I also remember a whole era of using MapQuest instead of today's maps.

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Gonna_do_this_again@reddit

I thought MySpace was going to launch my music career

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FirehawkLS1@reddit

I had a Myspace and a Facebook. It was fun in the beginning, but I ditched Facebook in 2018 and never looked back personally.

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saison257@reddit

I'm with you - I absolutely had MySpace as well. It was a while before I had Facebook but all my friends and I used MySpace all the time.

[-]

Illustrious_Year7718@reddit (OP)

Idk my friends and I did not have a MySpace. I thought it was lame. But again it might be based on where you grew up and who you grew up with.

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More-read-than-eddit@reddit

It was the ideal way to follow bands and hook up in early to mid aughts nyc

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adamcmorrison@reddit

Yes it was huge for music for me

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Lesbian_Skeletons@reddit

Cool facebook post, bro.

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PsychicApe@reddit

I was born in ‘86 and all those things are true of my childhood except the ‘85 Bears, MySpace, and Facebook accessibility. And I was familiar with hair metal bands because MTV still played those videos. ‘86 may not be a Xennial, but it is elder millennial, which is a little closer to the Gen X experience than millennials born in the 90s.

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this_knee@reddit

Sorry, but the text in this post feels very ai written.

[-]

Illustrious_Year7718@reddit (OP)

I literally had a conversation with someone about what a xennial was and then wrote down a few things that came to me. Zero ai use. I

[-]

EricRShelton@reddit

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we’re the only generation to have pop-culture specifically manufactured to selling us toys.

Reagan deregulated children’s programming, making 30 minute toy commercial okay as long as He-Man taught us a moral at the end or we learned that knowing is half the battle. By the end of the Xennial years and firmly in the Millennial years, you see Saturday morning cartoons disappear when the FCC tightened the screws in 1990 and 1996, and children’s programming moves almost entirely to cable.

No age block before or after us experienced quite the same mixture of entertainment and marketing.

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GalaxyRedRanger@reddit

To be fair… the deregulation was gone by the time most of the Xennials in this thread reached 10. By then mandated educational requirements were being pushed on the networks.

I’ve said it before… we need a subgroup for people who were 10 years old sometime between 1984 and 1992.

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Deep-Interest9947@reddit

Did people not wear seatbelts? Thats weird.

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hamburgler26@reddit

Not when rolling around free in the far back seat of the family station wagon!

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imnottheoneipromise@reddit

Or riding in the back of a pickup truck!

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Deep-Interest9947@reddit

I wore them even in the back back.

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brainvheart143@reddit

The way back ❤️

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RogerMiller6@reddit

Dweeb.

/s in case of confusion

Kind of 😂

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Euphoric_Evidence414@reddit

The back back!

We wore them too even in the back back but on long road trips to visit the grandparents the seats got folded down and we played, read, napped, sat close to the front seats and watched the miles roll underneath from between our parents

… until the state trooper in CO made my dad put the seats back up and buckle us in. I’m both grateful and disgruntled about it.

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981GTSF90M5F87M2C@reddit

Nor when sitting in the back of a pickup!

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RogerMiller6@reddit

I still don’t, as none of my vehicles have them. My Dad was very anti-seatbelt, though… I was equally perplexed by this comment as a generation marker.

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Deep-Interest9947@reddit

Wait, you’re bragging about not having seat belts in the year of our lord 2026?

Very bold.

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RogerMiller6@reddit

Not sure how you’re interpreting a simple and factual statement as a brag, or considering it ‘bold’, but perhaps you didn’t read the entire comment…

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Deep-Interest9947@reddit

I mean usually when people are talking about breaking the law openly it’s a brag. But maybe you live somewhere where seatbelts aren’t required by law.

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RogerMiller6@reddit

Reread the original comment… my vehicles don’t have them. As in, they were never installed. I’m not breaking any law. If your vehicle wasn’t manufactured with seatbelts, that law doesn’t apply.

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Pink_pineapple_pizza@reddit

My mom was an ER nurse, and she made sure we always wore seatbelts. It was deeply ingrained in my psyche from a young age, and I still don’t get in the car without immediately putting on my seatbelt.

One of my earlyish memories is going to my friend’s birthday party in first grade. Her mom picked me up in a pickup truck that my friends were all sitting in the bed of. My mom came out and told her mom that I had to sit up in the cab of the truck with her or I couldn’t go. I was so embarrassed.

But also, we lived with our dad in the summer, and he used to take us to the drive-in in the back of a pickup truck.

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Deep-Interest9947@reddit

I also rode in the back of a pickup as a kid on occasion.

But yeah I never allowed people to ride in my car unbuckled once I had a car and license. In college my motto was “no buckle, no ride”

[-]

macklin_sob@reddit

We didn't until mom spun out off the road one night. We got jumbled around but thankfully nobody was hurt. After that we had a strict buckling rule.

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RipErRiley@reddit

I didn’t wear one ever in the back seat and only sometimes in the front seat until the early 90’s.

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Pink_pineapple_pizza@reddit

When we were kids, the backseat seatbelt was only a lap belt, and I remember my aunt once talking about some show she had watched where they talked about how the lap belt only seatbelts were more dangerous than no seatbelt.

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kg51113@reddit

People used to rip them out of their vehicles. I remember when my state passed the law requiring seat belts.

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yakswak@reddit

Guessing in the 80’s when we were children. Heck I rode around in a cardboard box in the car when I was an infant (allegedly).

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Deep-Interest9947@reddit

I mean maybe when I was a baby. But all of my childhood memories involve seatbelts.

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Isaac1867@reddit

I think some of this depends where you grew up. My home province of Ontario passed a mandatory seatbelt law in 1976. So by the I was old enough to notice in the mid 1980s everyone was pretty good about wearing them.

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Putrid-Art-1559@reddit

I didn’t wear a seatbelt regularly until I was in my 20’s. My parents were silent generation and never wore them either. Now I can’t imagine getting into a vehicle and not immediately buckling my seatbelt.

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Bad-Moon-Rising@reddit

I didn't start wearing it until I started driving.

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pnjtony@reddit

Seat belts were mandatory but you'd only get in trouble if a cop pulled you over for something else and noticed. It wasn't until the late 90s or maybe 2000 where they could pull you over if they saw you not wearing one. Because if this, many of us didnt regularly wear them.

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RepresentativeNinja6@reddit

seat belts = commies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXr7cCGpgkk

but yeah, I remember when I was like 10, 3 or 4 of us piled into the back of a pickup truck every weekend to go to the amusement park. bed cap to keep you from bouncing out, but no seat belt. No air conditioning besides 2 small windows that barely cracked. You'd try/avoid to smack your friends as you tumbled around corners

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Fun-Preparation-4253@reddit

But yeah, we're nebulous. It's why we even exist. We're blends of Gen X and Millenial, but not all of us had all of the experiences. I think analog childhood and digital adulthood is the best descriptor without getting to specific.

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cdgman@reddit

I think that the experiences of someone born in 1977 and someone born in 1984 could very wildly depending on where you lived and the makeup of your family.

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imnottheoneipromise@reddit

My brother was born in 77 and I in 83, but I am the youngest in my very large family. Like I have prolly close to 100 cousins that lived close by where I grew up. My mom has 12 brothers and sisters and she was the second youngest. Since I spent so much time with my older brother and cousins, I have a lot of Gen X experiences.

[-]

bakedveldtland@reddit

My husband and I are only 9 months apart (him 81, me 82) and he is definitely more Gen X and I am much more millennial. We've talked about why, and we think it's primarily because I had regular access to the internet and cable at a much earlier age. His family dynamics were very different too, for example he has an older sister that he is close with whereas I only have a younger sister.

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Tootalou25@reddit

My brother was born in 79 and I in 84. We experienced mostly the same things and were both told we were gen x growing up. Our brother born in 86 wasn't told that. It always felt like things were different for him. I very much remember the 80s. He doesn't.

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Sensitive_Pianist777@reddit

I'm 79er and I'd say there are closeness but the world at 16-18 were vastly different.

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CitizenCue@reddit

Obviously, but this sub is about what we have in common.

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Illustrious_Year7718@reddit (OP)

True. My wife had siblings that were much older. I did too but we were more sheltered.

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Fun-Preparation-4253@reddit

None of my friends used AIM. I was chatting (and becoming long term friends) with complete strangers. All my friends used ICQ in college, but I was stuck on AIM.

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fullbodiedflavor@reddit

These generational self-aggrandizing posts are stupid. You all are turning into boomers with this "back in my day" bullshit 🙄

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uconnboston@reddit

I graduated HS 7 years before you but all of this hits with me. Xennial vibe.

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ThisIsACompanyCar@reddit

I graduated in 96 and feel pretty firmly xennial. I am sure it depends on the environment as well. My high school happened to be quite technologically advanced.

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caryn1477@reddit

Same, I graduated that year as well and I feel the same as you. I definitely don't feel more Gen X.

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SmallSaltyMermaid@reddit

1978 baby too. I think this sub has more 80’s millennials baby’s that identify as Xennials due to where they grew up.

Growing up outside of DC, we had a computer inside our home since the late 80s due to my mom being a programmer. I was one of the few kid that turned my reports printed from a dot matrix printer. Our elementary school was one of the first elementary schools with a computer lab in the 1987. With 40 computers. I remember the buzz about it because not every classmate had a computer at home.

I didn’t get my first cell phone till my senior year in college when I was 21. And I’m so glad that MySpace wasn’t even around in college, but it was fun to sign up for it in 2003.

Also, no plans to go to my 30th high school reunion either. Social media has killed the need for reunions.

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cdgman@reddit

96 here but grew up in rural montana so we were definetly behind the times when it came to technology.

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slippedintherain@reddit

Me too - I do think this sub leans more heavily towards the 1980s born Xennials though, I often see posts with us late 70s babies left out!

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Top-Pudding-4139@reddit

I graduated 95 and also feel firmly xennial. I had all the things listed in the post except I definitely had Gen X freedom. My parents let me drive across state lines to meet people I knew from online. They let me go to raves in high school, or at least didn't pay attention enough to find out what they were. Maybe it depends on how much tech and internet exposure we had?

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BigPoppaStrahd@reddit

For american Xennials most of us never had cold war bomb drills and most of us got out before school shooter drills. All we had to scare us in school were natural disaster related drills (tornado, earthquake, whatever could occur in your area)

[-]

peloquindmidian@reddit

Quicksand drills

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uhhhhhhhh_nope@reddit

I definitely thought quicksand was going to be a way bigger problem.

To this day I've stepped in it exactly none times.

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Cisru711@reddit

The drills worked then.

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uhhhhhhhh_nope@reddit

........I see what you did there.

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Bad-Moon-Rising@reddit

And catching on fire! How many times did we hear "stop, drop and roll" in school? So far, I haven't stepped in quicksand and I haven't been on fire.

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Far-Implement-818@reddit

What about the ROUSs?

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Alarming_Cat_2946@reddit

Rodents of unusual size? I don’t think they exist.

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JovialPrincess@reddit

Growing up near a shallow sand bottom river, I actually had to be wary of quicksand.

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Kellzy1212@reddit

gif

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brainvheart143@reddit

For reals y’all had quicksand drills ?

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mkwb80@reddit

Bermuda Triangle drills

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Checkhands@reddit

Did you all never get bomb threats?

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Bulky_Ad9019@reddit

We had bomb threats in hs alllllll the time.

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tres-vip@reddit

Earthquake drills for us Californian Xennials

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themamacurd619@reddit

Yes I remember earthquake drills in CA. I moved to AZ in 1994, 6th grade, and we had "lockdown drills" in elementary school. But not in jr high or HS. And I remember watching Columbine go down live sophomore year.

[-]

webslingrrr@reddit

Duck and cover

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johnb300m@reddit

I do remember one or two “air raid and/or tornado drills in like ‘89, ‘90. Then they were just tornado drills.

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Heart_Love@reddit

This is a great point. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. Grateful I just had earthquake drills.

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Elevenyearstoomany@reddit

IDK I remember school shootings starting to become a concern. There were a couple when I was in middle school and Columbine was junior year of HS. We didn’t have active shooter drills but I was for sure mapping places to hide in my head.

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tres-vip@reddit

Those of us who graduated before 1999 (such as myself, 97), school shootings were not a concern like it was after Columbine happened.

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LopensCouisin@reddit

Yeah, I was a senior when Columbine happened. I’m from Massachusetts and ironically live in Colorado now and came out here for college in 1999. We never had shooter drills or anything like that. Also, Matthew Shepard was killed shortly before I started Colorado State. That was a big scare for the lgbtq community back then.

[-]

ShowMeYourHappyTrail@reddit

Also Class of '97. I always considered myself Gen X until I hung out in the Gen X subreddit and 3/4 of the stuff they post on there I have no recollection of because I was either not born yet or a child when they were teenagers.

[-]

nucl3ar0ne@reddit

This

[-]

leaping_lions@reddit

I graduated in 93 and feel more much Xennial. But I didn’t do Oregon Trail which I guess was pretty big since it’s brought up a lot. I think having older Gen X siblings influence how much more you’re likely to be more stereotypical Gen X.

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tres-vip@reddit

I'm also '97. I REALLY cannot relate to older Gen X, especially the men. They are like conservative Boomers to me, lol. I relate the most to Xennials, Gen X women, and older Millennials (but sometimes they strike me as much younger).

[-]

JessOTR@reddit

Very much this. I heard us called Gen X.5 once and that tracks. Xenial seems like a better descriptor though.

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SilverAsparagus2985@reddit

I have friends that graduated after me (97) that are more into 80s stuff than I ever will be and I enjoy more millennial ish. A lot of it has to do with our trauma. Nostalgia harkens back to a time when things were at least stabilized. Mine wasn’t until after i left the house at 19.

[-]

I_kwote_TheOffice@reddit

Wow, I too am a class of 2000 Chicago kid. I bet our experiences were almost exactly the same

[-]

Illustrious_Year7718@reddit (OP)

100%. What high school?

[-]

I_kwote_TheOffice@reddit

I DMd you, don't really want to dox myself

[-]

classichondafan@reddit

This is the most boomer Facebook copy and paste type thing I’ve seen. If you guys post stuff like this eleven or twelve more times, I’m leaving.

[-]

mtbguy1981@reddit

This reads so much like a boomer Facebook post "we didn't wear seatbelts, we drank from the garden hose, etc"

[-]

EARMUFFS-GAMING@reddit

Class of 2000 gang 😎

[-]

the-accnt@reddit

Born in 81 and graduated HS in 00. Had both MySpace and the Facebook in college my last year 04/05. Also had a cell phone with a camera my last year of college, Nokia 6230. Alot of friends had digital cameras at parties throughout HS and college.

[-]

Psychological_Tea674@reddit

Same. I graduated college in 2002 and was definitely one of the first Facebook users.

[-]

NoGoat3930@reddit

I thoroughly believe the difference genX, genXY, and genY is correlates solely with hose water consumption. Associated variables include frequency of consumption, volume consumed, and most importantly, hose water sun-bakedness. Evidence, that I am right now making up on the spot, suggests that calcium and sulfur ions sunbaked from hose water competitively inhibit lead uptake, counteracting the effect of leaded gas exhaust fume inhalation. This inhibitory effect correlates with hose darkness, with green hoses yielding warm, mildly encalciumated water and black hoses yield scalding, slightly-gelatinous watery discharges, highly enriched with calcium, sulfur, bio-slime and flecks of vulcanized rubber.

Non-hosewater consumption thus lead to increased lead absorption, shift genXers toward boomerism, as evidenced by text in all caps. Green hosewater greatly reduces lead uptake, shifting genXers towards genXY, while black hose water consumption completely inhibits lead uptake, negating boomerism entirely, and imbues the ability to properly punctuate texts and to be slightly pretentious about it.

[-]

j-munch@reddit

"Bob Wehadababyitsaboy".

[-]

big_ringer@reddit

So, I never played Oregon Trail until recently; the game is available for free on a website. I only died of dysentery once.

[-]

mythirdredditname@reddit

The OJ Simpson verdict was a defining tv moment of our generation.

[-]

Rude_Man_Who_Shushes@reddit

I graduated 02 and my wife graduated 01. She is so much more Gen X leaning than me it's crazy.

[-]

BigOrangeSky2@reddit

Who doesn’t wear seatbelts? lol

[-]

Lost-Wanderer-405@reddit

I think what sets us apart, is our high school years.

Most of our childhood years were very much like Gen X. We were analog. We played outside. There was a sense of positivity.

Then when we were in high school things changed rapidly.

The internet exploded.

Columbine High completely changed high schools across the country. If you were in high school when that happened, you know.

Then our 2002 class were the class of 9/11. We were months away from being shoved out into a world that had changed forever. Even our parents didn’t know what to do, so therefore had no guidance.

Xennials are truly this tiny generation unto ourselves. I’m sure you could go back in history to find a few other instances of tiny generations. My grandpa was in 8th grade when Pearl Harbor happened. He had 4 older brothers that immediately when to enlist. He dropped out of school to work on the farm. I’m sure he wasn’t the only one to go through this.

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Atom1419@reddit

90s bulls, Lakers and Celtics were peak basketball for me.

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FriendOnFoxStreet@reddit

This generation used to be called Gen Y.

I could never understand being lumped in with millennials because our childhood was cellphone free. I got my first cellphone the summer after I graduated hs.

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_Xee@reddit

Zeitgeist.

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squarebodynewb@reddit

Wow. Lots of assumptions.

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amiableviking@reddit

I feel a definite lean towards Gen X myself, born in ‘81, because I have three older brothers (born in 68, 72, and 74) because a lot of the cultural touch points I picked up from them and their era.

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superfizzlibrarian@reddit

You are firmly Millennial.

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OrbitalHornet@reddit

I’m from Chicagoland and have a tiny memory of the 85 Bears as well! It’s my first memory! Also the 90s Bulls did rule. Class of 97 here!

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ShootinTheBreez@reddit

Smoking. I think we were the generation that transitioned. Lots - maybe even most - of my Gen X friends either smoke or used to smoke. None of my Milennial friends smoke or vape tobacco. And the overwhelming majority of Xennials I know fall on the non-smoking side. We grew up with smoking and non-smoking sections in restaurants and breathed second-hand smoke like the rest of Gen-X. Depending on the region, some of us even recall full-on smoking indoors in public places. But most of us never ended up as smokers.
Seatbelts. Most of us were “loose” kids in one car or another, but grew into twenty-something’s that always wear a seat belt. As a kid my favorite place to ride was on what we called the “back dash”. It was warm up there in the window, and I liked to stretch out. Last month my husband and I go on an airport shuttle and buckled our seatbelts.

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Illustrious_Year7718@reddit (OP)

Ha. Literally thought of smoking after I hit post. I had a two year window where I smoked. I know what the no smoking sign is but I never saw anyone smoke on an airplane. Xennials.

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TheSean_aka__Rh1no@reddit

That list can be pretty easily summed up by the wider adoption of mobile phones, and the growing feature list of phones over time

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Illustrious_Year7718@reddit (OP)

That’s a very Gen X response. You may be in the wrong place.

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TheSean_aka__Rh1no@reddit

Lol, this sub is exactly for us, as we don't fit in either properly

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Illustrious_Year7718@reddit (OP)

Kidding man.

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blue_suavitel@reddit

I’m 1985 and relate to all of that, I got MySpace in college/during the time I would have been in college.

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Odd_Newspaper_5018@reddit

Why is this even something you people think about lol.

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RoyalPuzzleheaded259@reddit

I was born in ‘80 and graduated high school in ‘98. I always identified as Gen X but as I get older I’m realizing I don’t relate to them at all. But I also don’t relate at all to millennials. We really are own thing.

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SadieBelle85@reddit

I'm 1985 and you just described my life. I had MySpace at college and Facebook after I graduated.

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thatotherguy57@reddit

- We didn’t have a MySpace.

- We were a little late to Facebook because we were graduating college and didn’t have .edu emails anymore.

I graduated high school in 2001 and had both MySpace and Facebook throughout college. The latter I joined when it only had about 500,000 members and was college and university only.

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QuietNene@reddit

I graduated 96 and check all those boxes except AIM.

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TheGillos@reddit

- We wore seatbelts.

I think this is a good thing for ANY generation to do...

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Ill_Paleontologist21@reddit

We wrote… we wrote handwritten notes to our friends. We wrote our homework, essays, math problems. We wrote letters to our aunts and grandparents. We journaled in binders. I just remember having so much more paper and ink in my life back then.

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Significant_Dog412@reddit

A couple of points on OP's I'd query as an 82 baby, but may be affected by me being the other side of the Atlantic to most here.

Almost none of us were online at my school, though I did finish school earlier than Americans my age. Until the later 90s/millennium, the internet was something that existed but was the preserve of people wealthier than us. I first used it in college in 98 and we had to be taught the absolute basics. It was another year or so before I was online with any sort of regularity.
On the other hand and as many have already noted, Myspace was a thing for us in the 00s and many of us were on or at least interacting with it.
Feel a bit young for Atari, they always felt like yesterdays news. I'd put it alongside the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 as something peoples older brothers had around me.

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Lastofthehaters@reddit

Tel and the Real world sucked!!!!!!

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-myBIGD@reddit

90’s Bulls 🔥❤️

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More-read-than-eddit@reddit

Late 80s pistons

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Illustrious_Year7718@reddit (OP)

Jim Carrey gagging gif. My most hated team in history.

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More-read-than-eddit@reddit

No accounting for taste I suppose

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odin_the_wiggler@reddit

We listened to 2Live Crew when we were young.

We snuck cigarettes.

We did stuff that kids today would get shot or arrested for, but kenned about "boundaries" properly.

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street_parking_mama2@reddit

My hubby was class of '96 and I was class of '95. We are 6 months apart. He is much more millennial than I am. I am more Gen X. We lived less than 10 miles apart when we were in highschool and we cannot be more opposite from upbringing to school experiences. It is so weird!

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endtheme@reddit

Normal yes, weird no. This generational demographic stuff is basically horoscopes for cohorts.

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DangerousCapybara888@reddit

I remember going to college and the computer lab half of the computers were frozen for having Napster p2p torrenting downloading large files for hours…

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endtheme@reddit

People really overthink the significance of this cohort crap. Every post like this is an exercise in selective framing of cultural markers and nostalgia bias.

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Thenadamgoes@reddit

I graduated in 2000 and I absolutely had MySpace. Even met my wife there.

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raerae1991@reddit

Me and my youngest sister are 6 yrs apart and by the time she was in the yearbook club, all their cameras were digital. She missed out on the whole highschool darkroom experience!

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MaruSoto@reddit

How could you put in Napster but leave out Winamp?!

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Grammarhead-Shark@reddit

I remember being a part of the first gen of teens to have their own mobile phones.

The plans we had where I lived included 'free 20 min calls in the evening'.

You can be as sure as heck we had a system going of hanging up and recalling each other within those 20 min blocks to talk for hours on end.

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monkibare@reddit

I had a boyfriend in HS that had a cell phone (he went to a richer school), but mostly we got ours in college.

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More_Bluejay9938@reddit

Yes when I was in high school only the weed dealers had cells. And maybe a few adults. Pagers were way more affordable.

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analogthought@reddit

It was pagers for me. Trying not to get it confiscated at school and knowing all the codes - then recording just the right song for the voicemail.

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lurkishdelight@reddit

You make some good points but I (class of 2001) will always consider myself a Millennial because the term means "came of age in the new millennium."

I watched the twin towers fall down on my second day of university. That's pretty damn Millennial!

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themamacurd619@reddit

I watched the fall on the first day of college. Mom wouldn't let me go to school. I also graduated 2001

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Jandur@reddit

I'm a millennial (85) and this describes my entire life. Nothing about this is Xennial specific.

Enough with this boomer-ass shit about how special and different we are.

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Sarenn@reddit

85 here as well. This whole gatekeeping Xennial bullshit is so annoying. Trying to say because I was not born during their specified time frame, does not mean I did not experience literally everything this pompous braggart listed. If this is what someone needs to feel special then fucking go for it then I guess.

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Jandur@reddit

This sub seems to attract downtrodden middle aged Redditors seeking odd forms of validation or commiseration.

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depp-fsrv@reddit

How about Friendster?

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Far-Implement-818@reddit

We saw reruns of the first super heroes all through to the end of the Marvel Universe. We came from a time where rolling down the window and the floppy disk 💾 became iconic symbolism that before and after have no awareness of. We were the analog to digital transition. We were the reason why internet rules now exist, and we still know how to get around them. We had technology and information storage and capacity go from bits and bytes punched into cardboard to downloading Terabytes from the cloud to back up our personal mobile video telecommunications device. We remember black and white TV, and spent years of our lives being the remote control, to losing the remote control, to the TV remote controlling itself. That rate of change in existence will never be exceeded in the rest of humanity’s life. The next closest event will be the Awakening of AI, and our ensuing merger of data and identity. Or until the octopi 🐙 learn about tentacle porn and take over the planet. 50/50 shot.

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Illustrious_Year7718@reddit (OP)

I still find myself saying “wow it’s so easy to find information.” sometimes when I find something I’m looking for online.

I remember we had an encyclopedia to Google.

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Far-Implement-818@reddit

Encyclopedia Britannica lol!

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Impossible_Title1419@reddit

Oh the absolute DRAMA of Steve slapping Irene! Core memory unlocked

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dinglepumpkin@reddit

97 is very Xennial to me

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desertrose0@reddit

I graduated in 98 and relate to everything you've said here.

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herseyhawkins33@reddit

FWIW your brother born in 1986 experienced like 80% of this stuff too.

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Bat-Stuff@reddit

Isn't it supposed to be 75-85, but also more of a feeling because of the quickly changing times? Why is OP trying to narrow it down so much?

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AetheriaInBeing@reddit

As an 85, i don't really feel very millennial. My brother, 90,very much is one.

Of note for us though, all but one of our cousins is older than me so we were always with folks slightly older and the one who was younger than me? 3 months.

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herseyhawkins33@reddit

Yeah, my cousins I grew up with around the block were older than me so they definitely influenced my interests. And the Xennial micro generation is definitely worth recognizing. I'm just laughing at the OP's last line "but we sure as shit aren’t millennials." No, if you graduated high school in 2000 you absolutely are by definition a millenial. It spans 81-96, you can't control it.

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seymourscagnetti420@reddit

His wife who graduated in ‘97 did too.

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Rhianna83@reddit

I’m an 83 baby and all my fellow Xenniels know had MySpace. It was awesome and nothing compares to what it was. I will die on that hill.

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7empestSpiralout@reddit

Fellow c/o 2000. I definitely had a MySpace. I remember wondering why everyone was moving to Facebook bc it was so boring.

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Intelligent-Salt-362@reddit

Uhhh, I was class of 2000, and my cousin was 99 (because he skipped a grade). The first I heard of Facebook was from my cousin as he was at Harvard when it was launched in 04. It was then opened to the public in September of 2006 (no .edu address required). Just because you weren’t on these platforms doesn’t mean that many of your peers weren’t.

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SkyExcellent6848@reddit

Class of '95.

I had a MySpace. I learned how to customize the whole profile layout with CSS there, but by then, I already had some knowledge of web design and active projects in the digital world. I disliked Facebook because it was (is) limiting in terms of individual creative expression as features like post backgrounds, cover photos, reels weren't a thing when I first signed up.

Forums were popular before social media, usually run on VBulletin, SMF, phpBB, among others. They were treasure troves of knowledge if you were into gaming, had any other kind of hobby, or obsession (books, films, etc) and wanted to discuss with like-minded people.

As for maps, I rarely used my road atlas and didn't always print out directions. Sometimes I do that now though, in case the network connection drops and I really need to be somewhere I've never been. Before apps like Google maps and Waze, all I had was my "internal compass", observation skills, and memory for landmarks, road names, etc.

What else? I had a pager before cell phones became more readily available.

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Shabbadoo1015@reddit

Class of 2001 (high school). Some of these things do apply. Others? Maybe not exactly in the same ways.

-I like to think I had the same freedom and independence as Gen X kids. At least growing up in the city, it felt like we did.

-I did have a MySpace.

-Atari was just a bit before my time or at least before I was old enough to play video games and retain memories. My video gaming memory starts with the NES.

-80’s hair bands seemed old by the time I was old enough to appreciate music. Grunge wasnt really a thing in my neck of the woods. But definitely 90’s hip hop, Eurodance music, R&B and then the wave of pop music from mid 90’s to early 00’s.

-Yes. TRL was my must watch after school.

-I was on the five year plan. So I was still in college when Facebook came abouts. Miss those early days.

-I didn’t get my own computer until sophomore year of college. That’s when AIM became a thing for me.

-Didn’t get a cell phone until after college. But yes, it was a Nokia flip phone. Thing was a tank and lasted me a good couple of years until I caved and finally got a smartphone.

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catsoncrack420@reddit

Gen X was born before 76 really. I have traits from both. Gen X and Xennial. I spent much of my 12-19 age years working in my uncle's deli , NYC, around older young guys who worked there. Radio was God. Latch key kid since 10.

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hamburgler26@reddit

I think you touched on several of the things that a pretty unique. We basically rode the wave of the transition from the analog to the digital world. I always say I started out as a kid listening to records on a Fisher Price record player, like the one that played actual 45s. By high school and early college we were sucking down MP3s to our computers from Napster and its successors.

We were the last group to mostly grow up without cell phones and constant connectivity.

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Kellzy1212@reddit

I LOVED my Fischer Price record player! Tan, with an orange deck. It survived me and my siblings that were born in 88,89 and 91. I wish we still had it.

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cupcakebean@reddit

My Fisher Price record player had a holographic sticker of Michael Jackson on the front. I also remember getting cardboard records from the newspaper. I seem to recall one from McDonald's for some reason.

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ChimneySwiftGold@reddit

There was a McDonalds menu song which came in the Sunday newspaper. The record was printed on a thin piece of plastic. At the end of the song was a recording telling you if you won a prize. Mine was not a winner.

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Kellzy1212@reddit

I kept my parent’s copy of Thriller stashed in my room. I also had Phil Collins -Face Value, Paul Simon-Graceland, Talking Heads-Speaking in Tongues and Toto-IV. I still listen to them all.

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ChimneySwiftGold@reddit

I loved mine too as a kid. Also had the classic 70s Tan and Orange. There was a later blue and orange version that was more in 80s colors.

My niece and nephew learned to use mine recently, which is still at my parent’s house. They get a real kick out of it and our old records. My mother even found some new 45s

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InvestmentMain8414@reddit

My parents saved mine, so my older gen Z kids used it...along with the some records my parents kept.

Gave my kids a love for music so I kept it. Brought it out when my sister had kids...Sadly it died in storage. But it lived through me, my sibling , and my 2 kids. So say 86 to mid oughts.

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Kellzy1212@reddit

I definitely attribute my love for music to it and early MTV, thanks to my parents.

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littlesisterofthesun@reddit

Hi 👋🏽. Sounds similar. I am 1982 in a small town

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Lil_Brown_Bat@reddit

'86 here and check everything on your list. Could be a birth order thing. I'm the oldest of my siblings. 🤷

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MmmSteaky@reddit

Are you saying we’re different because we wore seatbelts because your wife didn’t? Or because the younger generations don’t? I did, and my parents did, and my kids sure as shit do. It’s the most inexpensive insurance policy known to man.

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Brokelynne@reddit

Born in ‘81. Remember being about four years old and my dad complaining about having to wear a seatbelt, gubmint infringing on his freedoms, something something.

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Illustrious_Year7718@reddit (OP)

Gen X did not. We started to.

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slippedintherain@reddit

I’m late Gen X and definitely wore a seatbelt!

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Markoff_Cheney@reddit

We bridged the analog to digital gap, no other generation will have that experience set.

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JamesMattDillon@reddit

My first phone was a Motorola StarTec and I had Myspace.

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mixreality@reddit

I was class of 2002 but did running start so I was at the community college and my friends were older. I delivered pizzas using a map and I only had a prepaid tracphone for emergencies.

I used AIM and ICQ. Didn't do myspace I already had a page on Angelfire. Napster was in the news while I was at comm college and it got blocked by IT, then we used Scour Exchange next. One kid was downloading porn and selling it at his high school and he'd check out a Zip drive from the college to take it home and burn on cds.

I played Ultima Online from 98 onward. But I also didn't have a computer for a few years after moving out, moved to the beach from Ohio and spent my time chasing girls.

My friend's aunt owned a small factory and had a T1 line so we'd have LAN parties there when Battlefield 1942 was new.

I actually was looking through my photos on flickr recently, dated 2008, and I was using this phone still, but I was a flip phone hold out.

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prefinality@reddit

AIM was a staple of middle, high school and college. The goat of communication, was so nice chatting with my pals til all hours of the night

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segacs2@reddit

I'm class of '97 (born 1980) but we graduate high school here after grade 11, so it's not the same system. I definitely feel firmly Xennial, while my husband (born 1985) is much more Millennial.

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Bird_Herder@reddit

I can still hear that ICQ 'Uh-oh!'

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scratchfury@reddit

In case you also were reminded of the collect call from Bob...

https://youtu.be/9JxhTnWrKYs

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Because1SaidSo@reddit

Xennials! This explains it so well! I felt so seen and understood!

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LetWaltCook@reddit

Away messages were like the modern day status update too

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Illustrious_Year7718@reddit (OP)

Ha. I have a great story about away messages.

My college roommate was a really funny dude and had a sick(deranged not cool) sense of humor at times. He would sometimes have away messages with links and he would have the hyperlink say “check out this cool pic”.

While we were away people would click on it and it would take them to $catlover.com. Hahahahahhahahahhaha. The most disgusting shit you could think of. Literal shit.

We would come back from being at a party to tons of messages where people would call him disgusting and a fucking weirdo. Hahahahaha. Good times. Thanks for the laugh!

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