Xennials? Oregon Trail? Geriatric Millennials? A Microgeneration’s Obsession With Being Identified
The writer who coined ‘Xennial’ on the attempts to describe this unique cohort
It’s strange, having a public but evidently forgettable claim to fame. Like being the Guinness Book of World Records holder for longest pinkie nail or voicing a one-hit wonder limited to local radio. Yet over the last month, my social media pinged repeatedly with people insisting I get credit for describing the cusp of us at the inflection point between Gen X and millennial, Xennials.
Four years ago, that’s all I’d wanted.
Truth be told, this batch of tweeters seemed mostly angry that someone had the temerity to describe our cohort of Xennials as “geriatric.” A story on Medium rocketed across social media, largely — from my estimation of the comments — due to the enraging term “geriatric millennial” applied to early-middle-aged people and less because of the content itself, which centered more on the flexible communication style of our cohort.
Reflexively, I found myself wondering if the Xennial coopt thing was happening again.
It’s very weird to mother a word. Weirder still (sweet, but weird) to have strangers insist you get acknowledgment after…
