Why I’m ok with being a generational hybrid

This week, I found myself reading an article about ‘intelligent consumers and intelligent business trends’ – yeah, it surprised me too. I’d accidentally clicked on the wrong link while googling eighties and nineties fashion trends. As I glossed over the paragraphs about blockchain technology and AI-driven brand experiences, wondering where the bit about LA Gear trainers, acid wash jeans and G-Shock watches was finally going to pop up, something caught my eye: a section about Xennials.

The term Xennial was coined to describe the micro-generation of people who were born, depending on what you read, between 1977 and 1983. The group of people who don’t quite belong in the self-confident, digital-wizard world of the millennials (also known as Generation Y) but are tech-savvy enough to not be labelled as part of the MTV, grunge-loving demographic cohort of Generation X.

So, in a weird way, the article I’d stumbled across did actually have a link back to the eighties and nineties trends that had been the cornerstone of the lives of Xennials like myself. Which made me wonder, should I put looking for shoulder pads to one side for a minute and have a think about what being a Xennial actually means?

Before the word Xennial was dreamt up, being born in 1979 meant I either came under the very end of Generation X (born around 1964 to 1981) or I was teetering into the world of the millennials (1982 to around 2000). Although, I identify with the mix-tape making, Pacman playing, Doc Marten-wearing antics of Generation X, I have no idea what Square Pegs is and I’ve never watched The Breakfast Club…really, I haven’t. But when it comes to millennials: yes, I can work my way around Instagram and Snapchat (I’ve even downloaded VERO) but no part of me feels like I really belong on those social platforms; I’m not okay with divulging everything – from what I’ve had for breakfast, to what I’m wearing on a daily basis. I don’t feel like I fully belong to either of these demographics, but that I’m more like the central overlap of a generational venn diagram. And actually, it’s exactly where I want to be…

I’m happy that we live in a digital world where I can stalk the Kardashians, know exactly where in the world Liam Gallagher is on any given day, and have the answer to any question by just tapping a few buttons. But I’m overjoyed that I got to grow up in a place where every teenage spot and bad hairstyle I endured didn’t make its way onto Instagram, although I’d really love to revisit some of the shell suits I was sporting as a kid. I’ve grown up in a world that saw the birth of social media and embraced it but was lucky enough to live in a time where reading a whole newspaper article was how you learnt what was happening in the world not through limited characters in an algorithm-biased Twitter feed.

I’m so grateful to be knee-deep in two generations – one where I waited for a magazine to tell me what had happened on the catwalks of New York and Milan, and one where I can watch a live stream as it happens, and in some cases, even order and buy the clothes there and then.

I lived in a time when our only choices were tapes, CDs or vinyl, when you still had to go to a video store if you wanted to watch a film at home, or a library to read a book, I still love all those things and the memories they have for me, but would I choose them over the access we have now to new artists, films and authors? Probably not.