Generations · 6 of 11
Gen X or Millennial? Some people born around 1980 say neither.
Who are the Xennials?
Xennials are the micro-generation born in the late 1970s and early 1980s, between Gen X and the Millennials. Most writers use about 1977 to 1983. They had an offline childhood and an online young adulthood. The name, a blend of X and Millennial, was used in a 2014 GOOD magazine essay.
The years, by who you ask
Nobody owns these lines. Each researcher draws them for their own reasons, so the edges move.
| Dictionary.com | late 1970s to early 1980s 1 |
|---|---|
| Dan Woodman, sociologist | late 1970s to early 1980s 2 |
| Common usage | about 1977–1983 |
No research body defines Xennials. The 1977 to 1983 range is the one most often repeated, and the label sits across Pew's Gen X–Millennial line at 1980/1981. 3
The world they were born into
What was going on while they were small, and while they were young enough for it to stick.
- Childhood1980sHome computers arrived in their childhood rather than before or after it: 8.2 percent of households had one in 1984. 4
- The wall1989They were children when the Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989. 5
- The web1991–1997The World Wide Web was announced to the public in August 1991; by 1997, 18 percent of American households used the internet at home. Most Xennials met it as teenagers. 6,4
- Work1990s–2000sThey entered the job market after the early-1990s recession and before the 2008 crash, which Woodman sees as one of their defining luck-of-the-draw features. 2
- September 112001They were young adults, roughly 18 to 24, when the attacks killed 2,977 people. 7
Where the name came from
A blend of "Generation X" and "Millennial". Dictionary.com credits the writers Sarah Stankorb and Jed Oelbaum, who used it in a 2014 essay about the cusp between the two. 1
Dan Woodman, a sociologist at the University of Melbourne, helped popularise the word when a journalist asked him about it in 2017. He describes the group as a happy medium between Gen X cynicism and Millennial confidence, and adds that there isn't yet strong academic evidence for it. 2
How they're usually described
The generalities: what researchers and writers say about the group as a whole. A group portrait, never a person.
Analog childhood, digital adulthood. The phrase everyone uses for them, and the one fact about them that is clearly true: their childhood was offline and their young adulthood was not. 2
Neither one thing nor the other. The label caught on because many people born near 1980 felt the big labels did not fit. That feeling is the evidence; there is no survey data that sets Xennials apart. 2
Next to the other generations
Who raised them, who they raised, and where the friction and the common ground show up in the data.
Gen X. Pew counts 1977 to 1980 as Gen X. Xennials share the latchkey childhood and the 1980s pop culture. 3
Millennials. Pew counts 1981 to 1983 as Millennials. Xennials share their early adulthood online, though most missed the full force of the Great Recession at the start of their careers. 3,2
Zillennials. The same idea fifteen years later, at the Millennial–Gen Z edge.
In the long cycle
A theory, not a finding: Strauss and Howe's idea that generations come round in a four-part pattern. How the theory works, and its critics.
Strauss and Howe end Gen X in 1981 and start the Millennials in 1982, so in their theory almost every Xennial is a Nomad, part of Gen X. 8
The decades they were born in
Xennials were born at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s.
Questions people ask
What years are Xennials?
The late 1970s to the early 1980s. The range most often used is 1977 to 1983. No research body sets official years.
Am I a Xennial or a Millennial?
Both labels can be right. If you were born from 1981 to 1983, Pew counts you as a Millennial; born 1977 to 1980, Gen X. Xennial is the in-between name for people who feel like neither.
Who invented the word Xennial?
Dictionary.com credits the writers Sarah Stankorb and Jed Oelbaum, in a 2014 essay. The sociologist Dan Woodman helped it spread in 2017.
Between two generations. Exactly one of you.
Your generation is the crowd you were born into. Your card is worked out from your own birthday, minute and place: the sky that night, your numbers and your Chinese year. Sealed until you print it.
What your card covers
See all six pages, sealedFold the pages back
1 Who you are
2 The machine says
3 Your sky
4 Love & your people
5 Work & money
6 Your year ahead
Sources
- Xennial, Dictionary.com. Read on .
- From Boomers to Xennials: we love talking about our generations, but must recognise their limits, Dan Woodman, University of Melbourne (first published in The Conversation), 12 July 2017. Read on .
- Defining generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins, Pew Research Center, Michael Dimock, 17 January 2019. Read on .
- Measuring America: Computer & Internet Trends in America, U.S. Census Bureau, January 2014. Read on .
- The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall, Library of Congress, 4 Corners of the World blog, November 2019. Read on .
- A short history of the Web, CERN. Read on .
- 9/11 FAQs, 9/11 Memorial & Museum. Read on .
- Strauss-Howe Generational Theory, Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements, Amanda van Eck Duymaer van Twist and Suzanne Newcombe (Inform), 2017, updated 15 January 2021. Read on .