A confusing mess of generation names

After years of being lumped in with that aging lot of social reformers and community organizers known as Baby Boomers, we who came of age in the 1970s are finally getting our proper dues.

I’m talking about Generation Jones. I’m talking about my generation.

We’re bad. We’re nationwide. We’re better than Baby Boomers, better than Generation X, Generation Y or any other alphanumeric generation with, perhaps, the exception of Generation O.

The boomerangers

Proposed by social commentator Jonathan Pontell, a man who apparently has no sociology or psychology credentials but did spend time in a Holiday Inn Express, Jonesies were born between 1954 and 1964. Some commentators accept really cool people born in 1953 or up to 1968, but definitely not 1952 or 1969. (Hey, get your own generation.)

Jonesers have, in the past, been nicknamed “boomerangers” because we’re more conservative, more self-centered than our older Boomer counterparts.

It’s easy to understand. They’re Elvis, The Dave Clark 5 and The Beatles. We’re Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and the Bee Gees. They’re Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush. We’re President Barack Obama and a Republican to be named later.

They’re psychodelic Volkswagen microbuses with the Grateful Dead on 8-track and we’re Dodge Tradesman panel vans with rock album murals painted on the side, shag carpeting and cassette decks spewing Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s All Right For Fighting.”

The Jones moniker comes from a slang term we used back in the day about having a money jones, a basketball jones or any other great, deep-seated craving, yearning, burning desire.

Supposedly, it was chosen because we Generation Jonesers grew up in the happy-go-lucky, riot-on-campus, get-beaten-at-the-civil-rights-rally, burn-baby-burn 1960s with huge expectations of great personal worth only to meet Nixon’s resignation at Watergate, out-of-control inflation, President Jimmy Carter, oil embargoes, polyester clothes, leisure suits and disco and became disillusioned, disappointed and angry because we didn’t get what was coming to us.

Similar influences

Perhaps Generation Jive would work just as well, being as most of us were, and still are, full of it, but that’s not the point. In fact, those who study sociology and generational issues aren’t sure what the point is.

“Basically, demographers look at generations as about 15- to 20-year spans in which people have very similar influences and experiences as they come into their teens,” said Matt Thornhill, founder and president of the Richmond-based Boomer Project. The project was a major participant in the recent Age Wave Forum presented at Piedmont Virginia Community College.

“Demographers recognize that there are going to be intergenerational differences, especially between the first half and second half of the generation, but the primary experiences are the same,” said Mr. Thornhill, a Jonesie himself. “Consider school violence. When we think of violence in our schools when were growing up, it really wasn’t much different than that of other Boomers. Talk about school violence to Generation X or Y and they’re ducking for cover.”

Does that mean those of us who grew up with Abba rather than The Supremes are, gasp, just a boring bunch of Baby Boomers?

“No,” Mr. Thornhill said, “we’re the coolest Baby Boomers.”