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Generation Jones explains how their childhood memories differ from Gen X

"Cigarette commercials on TV."

Images via Canva

Generation Jones explains how they are different from Gen X.

Generation Jones is sandwiched immediately between Boomers and Gen X. Born from 1954 to 1965, Generation Jones is also sometimes referred to as 'elder Boomers'--but they will tell you that their experience growing up was completely different than Boomers. And they say the same about Gen X.

In an online forum of Generation Jonesers, member coolmist23 posed the question: "What's a Gen Jones thing that Gen X didn't experience?" They went on to add, "I see so many posts on here that I remember experiencing as a Gen Xer. Just curious if there is anything I wouldn't remember?"

And Generation Jones spilled all the ways that they are different from Gen X. These are 15 of the most eye-opening and honest reasons why Generation Jones differs from Gen X.

"Space race and the moon landing? I had models of the LEM and CSM that could dock with each other as a kid. Driving during the gas crisis? Bobby Kennedy assassination? Elvis Dying? The Nixon impeachment?" tgoesh

"Vietnam. Not just hearing about it on the news, but actually having to worry that you might be drafted. Later Gen-Js like myself didn't have it as bad, but the earlier ones did. The war ended in 1972. but the draft continued until 1975. They weren't taking men into the army, but they would call them up and make them go through the army physical exam. It was still a looming threat. It went away for five years, and then in 1980 Carter signed the law that required us all to register for the selective service. I turned 18 the next year. It was just putting our name on a piece of paper, and there was no lottery, but for those of us who had grown up expecting to eventually have to fight in Vietnam, it was a bit spooky. I expect that most GenXers have never really thought about registration as much more than just a bureaucratic inconvenience." Outrageous-Pin-4664

cigarette commercial, cigarette, cigarettes, old commercial, commercialscigarette commercialGiphy

"Cigarette commercials on TV." lgherb

"Space Food Sticks." lgherb

"Watergate." Sea-End-4841

sex pisols, sex pistols band, punk, punk music, punk bandsex pistols GIFGiphy

"The first punk bands touring and performing." Melodic_Pattern175

"Learning your home phone number with an exchange name rather than a number (like 'Butterfield 8-5000' instead of '288-5000'). I only realized this last night while watching a movie with my Gen Xer friend, a phone number conversation came up, and I asked her if she learned her phone number with a named exchange or just the number. We’re seven years apart." mspolytheist

"Comet Kahoutek." FindOneInEveryCar

tv, tv antenna, antennas, tv antennas, old tvtv antennaGiphy

"TV antenna poles with antennas on the top. Ours had the dial that would rotate the antenna at the top to turn in different directions to pick up stations. We had a regular stationary antenna before that though. We watched on a huge heavy television set that took two people to move. We also had a radiogram that had disco lights that blinked according to the music on the radio or record." BLeeTac

"Sonic booms. Banned in 1973. I thought they were cool though." Rocketgirl8097

"TV that had three channels." CantTouchMyOnion

moon, moon landing, on the moon, nasa, astronautFull Moon GIF by NASAGiphy

"Gen Jones may remember the moon landing, RFK's and MLK's assassinations (and maybe older Gen Jones would remember JFK's), the impact of Watergate, coverage of Woodstock, Kent State, uprisings spurred by racial inequity in many cities, the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the 1972 Summer Olympics -- lots of things that older GenX may have been alive for but not old enough to grasp fully (no disrespect to older GenXers who remember these things). I was born in 1964, and I remember being sent out of the room as a very small child while my parents watched Dan Rather's reports from Vietnam. Of course, I sneaked down the stairs and peaked at what they were watching. It left a lifelong impression." GittaFirstOfHerName

"Smallpox vaccine upper arm scars. Current versions of the vaccine against smallpox do not leave these scars." dnsdiva

"Kent State Massacre." Explosion1850

"Having to wear dresses/skirts to school every day even during winter. Edit to add… and then when they did loosen the rules to matching pantsuits, having teachers literally feel the fabric of tops and bottoms to confirm they were the same fabric." jmksupply

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People born between 1954 and 1965 are thrilled to learn they're not boomers, but 'Gen Jones'

"Whaaat? There's a name for us? I have never felt like a real boomer—or Xer! I feel normal for once!"

Photo credits: Michelle Obama, Montclair Film, Georges Biard

Michelle Obama, Stephen Colbert and Michelle Yeoh are all Gen Jonesers.

The Silent Generation. Baby boomers. Gen X. Millennials. Gen Z. Gen Alpha. Social science and pop culture commentators have spent decades grouping and analyzing the different generations, assigning various qualities, habits and tendencies to each age group. But some people don’t identify with their generation, or at least these particular categories of them. Those on the cusp between two generations often feel like neither aligns with who they are..

That’s where Generation Jones comes in. Like the Xennials that straddle Gen X and millennials, Generation Jones are not quite boomers but not quite Gen X. For most of their lives, those born between 1954 and 1965 have been lumped in with the baby boomers, but culturally they’ve never quite fit.

They were too young to be involved in the major civil rights, women’s liberation and Vietnam war movements of the 60s, instead witnessing those social upheavals through children’s eyes. But they were also too old to identify with the Gen X latchkey kid angst.

Jonathan Pontell is the television producer, director, and writer who named Generation Jones and explained what made them unique. “We fill the space between Woodstock and Lollapalooza, between the Paris student riots and the anti-globalisation protests, and between Dylan going electric and Nirvana going unplugged,” he wrote in Politico in 2009.

He also explained why Gen Jonesers make good leaders:

“What makes us Jonesers also makes us uniquely positioned to bring about a new era in international affairs. Our practical idealism was created by witnessing the often unrealistic idealism of the 1960s. And we weren’t engaged in that era’s ideological battles; we were children playing with toys while Boomers argued over issues. Our non-ideological pragmatism allows us to resolve intra-Boomer skirmishes and to bridge that volatile Boomer-GenXer divide. We can lead.”

Many Generation Jonesers have never felt like they had a generational home and are thrilled to learn they actually do have one. Check out how Upworthy readers responded with glee upon discovering they were a part of Gen Jones:

"Thank you! As a definite Gen Jones, I completely relate to this. To young to be a hippy, therefore was never a yuppy, but too old to be Gen X. Gen Jones works just fine."

"I have said for decades that I must be a transitional person into Gen X, because I don’t relate to boomers! I appreciate them, but I am not one of them. I am glad someone finally named my generation!"

"There are definite differences between people born in the 1940s/1950s and those of us born in the early 1960s. Most of us born in the early 1960s do not remember the JFK assassination and we were much too young to participate in Woodstock. The older Boomers were already established in their careers and as homeowners with families in the 1980s when we were in our 20s just starting out and ready to buy our first home. While the older Boomers experienced reasonable mortgage interest rates, the early 1960s Boomers faced mortgage interest rates averaging 14 percent in the 1980s which made it more difficult for us to buy our first home. We definitely need an additional group between Boomers and Gen X, and Generation Jones fits the bill."

"I was born 6 days before 1960…. I’ve felt out of touch with a lot of the boomer life descriptions, and not Gen X enough to fit in there. I’ll take Generation Jones."

"1957 here, with older siblings born before 1950. I definitely did not have the same experience growing up that they had. I feel I can identify a little with Boomers and a little with the Gen X experience, so there’s some overlap. (BTW, Gen X needs to stop claiming that they’re the first to have experienced all the things we grew up with. Kids, you didn’t invent drinking out of the garden hose or playing outside until the streetlights came on. Sheesh!) Glad to be a Joneser."

"Of course there is a difference between people raised in the 1950’s and people raised and coming of age in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Society changed a lot in those three decades."

"This is my generation but I never knew we had a name! The description fits perfectly."

Congrats on finding your people, Gen Jones. It's your time to shine.


This article originally appeared last year.

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What is 'Generation Jones'? The unique qualities of the not-quite-Gen-X-baby-boomers.

This "microgeneration" had a different upbringing than their fellow boomers.

Photo Credits: Michelle Obama, US Department of Education, Lawrence Jackson

Generation Jones includes Michelle Obama, George Clooney, Kamala Harris, Keanu Reeves and more.

We hear a lot about the major generation categories—boomers, Gen X, millennials, Gen Z and the up-and-coming Gen Alpha. But there are folks who don't quite fit into those boxes. These in-betweeners, sometimes called "cuspers," are members of microgenerations that straddle two of the biggies.

"Xennial" is the nickname for those who fall on the cusp of Gen X and millennial, but there's also a lesser-known microgeneration that straddles Gen X and baby boomers. The folks born from 1954 to 1965 are known as Generation Jones, and they've been thrust into the spotlight as people try to figure out what generation to consider 59-year-old Vice President Kamala Harris.

Like President Obama before her, Harris is a Gen Joneser—not exactly a classic baby boomer but not quite Gen X. Born in October 1964, Harris falls just a few months shy of official Gen X territory. But what exactly differentiates Gen Jones from the boomers and Gen Xers that flank it?

"Generation Jones" was coined by writer, television producer and social commentator Jonathan Pontell to describe the decade of Americans who grew up in the '60s and '70s. As Pontell wrote of Gen Jonesers in Politico:

"We fill the space between Woodstock and Lollapalooza, between the Paris student riots and the anti-globalisation protests, and between Dylan going electric and Nirvana going unplugged. Jonesers have a unique identity separate from Boomers and GenXers. An avalanche of attitudinal and behavioural data corroborates this distinction."

Pontell describes Jonesers as "practical idealists" who were "forged in the fires of social upheaval while too young to play a part." They are the younger siblings of the boomer civil rights and anti-war activists who grew up witnessing and being moved by the passion of those movements but were met with a fatigued culture by the time they themselves came of age. Sometimes, they're described as the cool older siblings of Gen X. Unlike their older boomer counterparts, most Jonesers were not raised by WWII veteran fathers and were too young to be drafted into Vietnam, leaving them in between on military experience.

Gen Jones gets its name from the competitive "keeping up with the Joneses" spirit that spawned during their populous birth years, but also from the term "jonesin'," meaning an intense craving, that they coined—a drug reference but also a reflection of the yearning to make a difference that their "unrequited idealism" left them with. According to Pontell, their competitiveness and identity as a "generation aching to act" may make Jonesers particularly effective leaders:

"What makes us Jonesers also makes us uniquely positioned to bring about a new era in international affairs. Our practical idealism was created by witnessing the often unrealistic idealism of the 1960s. And we weren’t engaged in that era’s ideological battles; we were children playing with toys while boomers argued over issues. Our non-ideological pragmatism allows us to resolve intra-boomer skirmishes and to bridge that volatile Boomer-GenXer divide. We can lead."

Time will tell whether the United States will end up with another Generation Jones leader, but with President Biden withdrawing his candidacy, it has now become a distinct possibility.

Of note in discussions over Kamala Harris's generational status is the fact that generations aren't just calculated by birth year but by a person's cultural reality. Some have made the argument that Harris is culturally more Gen X than boomer, though there doesn't seem to be any record of her claiming any particular generation as her own. However, a swath of Gen Z has staked their own claim on her as "brat"—a term singer Charli XCX thrust into the political arena with a post on X that read "kamala IS brat." That may be nonsensical to most older folks, but for Gen Z, it's a glowing endorsement from one of the top Gen Z musicians of the moment.

This article originally appeared last year.

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