The inbetweeners

Born on the cusp of two different demographic groups? Find your micro-generation tribe here

buries its head in the sand on issues they consider to be worth fighting for – employment rights and women’s rights in particular. ‘Just be as good as the men’ is not a strategy, Gen X. ‘Ladette’ is not a thing.

This friction, however, is exactly what gives the Xennials their edge. They can turn empathy on and off like a tap – fortress-like when the occasion demands it – but are also able to conduct a detailed tour of your emotional landscape. Might use the phrase ‘adulting’ but only when there are no ‘full Xs’ within earshot.

boomerex (born 1961 to 1968)

Why not Xoomers? Because Gen Z-ers are also sometimes referred to as ‘Zoomers’ and the one thing this nomenclature does not need is further obfuscation.

Boomers are – possibly unfairly – often written up as being the unpopular kids on the generational block. As the (younger) age groups see it: they took all the cheap houses (which they bought with the proceeds from all the best jobs) then they bought loads of stuff and trashed the planet with it. Now they’re being smug and complacent about the whole thing.

In the Boomers’ defence, however, they do know how to have a good time: they invented flower power, after all. A recent Age UK survey found drinking over 14 units of alcohol per week is most common among adults aged 55 to 64 – some of those falling in the Boomerex micro-generation where you will find the most committed hedonists who have skilfully blended hippy and head-banger: old enough to have some proper cash to spend and still young enough to throw a good shape on the dancefloor. Boomerex might call it a night at 11pm but they’ll already have drunk the bar dry.

shhh-oomers (born 1942 to 1948)

The further you pass up the age generations, the less willing people are to describe their experience of being in a micro-gen (or a ‘cusper’ as some like to refer to themselves). No shortage whatsoever of Zennials popping up to say, ‘Actually, I didn’t have an iphone when I was growing up – only an ipod.’ Or Xennials counting the ways in which they were ‘traumatised by the shell suit the first time around’. Almost nothing, however, from the youngest of the Silent Generation. It is clearly not a misnomer.

Most commentators point to the fact that female Shhh-oomers entered the workplace before the women’s movement existed but may have been just about young enough to see it coming. Still silent, maybe, but with the hope that they’d be able to speak out one day.