George Nemeth · Optimistic Rebels of Gen X

July 25th, 2008

Thanks to all of your for keeping things lively here on BFD, while I’ve been spending time developing OptimisticRebel.com:

I’m from Generation X, what I see as the Optimistic Rebel Generation. The generation that realizes concerns of privacy and personal info on the web are negligible when the government, credit card companies, and anyone motivated enough can access your info. The generation that realizes that if you’re too busy, it’s your own fault. After all, Generation X is also know as the Slacker Generation. Apparently, we have a different set of values then Boomers. The social vehicles that connected the Boom Generation (bowling night, church picnics, Kiwanis) weren’t rebellious enough for us—so we developed our own…

Boomer Optimistic Rebels? | OptimisticRebel.com

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5 Comments »

5 Responses to “Optimistic Rebels of Gen X”

  1. TimFerris Says:
    July 26th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

    George, I think you’re getting the Boomers confused with our parents’ generation, with that attribution of bowling night, church picnics, and Kiwanis. Those were the things of people currently in their 80s and 90s, not people in their 50s and 60s. Don’t make us any more fogey-ish than we deserve.

  2. George Nemeth Says:
    July 26th, 2008 at 4:29 pm

    From the Baby Boomer definition on Wikipedia:

    Baby boomer is a term used to describe a person who was born during the Post-World War II baby boom between 1946 and the early 1960s… The baby boomers were the first group to be raised with televisions in the home, and television has been identified as “the institution that solidified the sense of generational identity more than any other.” Starting in the 1950s, people in diverse geographic locations could watch the same shows, listen to the same news, and laugh at the same jokes.

    Maybe the specific social vehicles I mentioned were off, but the point of my post on Optimistic Rebel is that what boomers value and how they use the internets are completely different the Gen X (and PCers). Companies need to know what their audience is doing online to be successful.

    Besides, as I said in my latest comment on the new blog, I was deliberately provocative to generate comments–and it worked!

  3. Bill Callahan Says:
    July 26th, 2008 at 8:13 pm

    My memory isn’t what it used to be, but I seem to recall some kind of slogan from the Golden Age Of My Youth, back before these “internets” came along and made things so confusing. I think it was something like “Don’t trust anyone over thirty and under fifty”.

  4. Jack Ricchiuto Says:
    July 27th, 2008 at 9:44 pm

    The good thing about rebels is that they live and thrive in every generation. My grandfather’s rebellion was leaving his traditional deep family roots as a shepherd in Italy as a teenager to start a new generation in America. I continue his herding legacy as a facilitator of radical transitions in organizations and communities. What we need to remember about being a rebel is that it takes little imagination and courage to be a pessimistic rebel, and much of both to be an Optimistic Rebel.

  5. michael gill Says:
    July 28th, 2008 at 3:27 pm

    Former Free Times editor, now NYT contributor and author Lisa Chamberlain has a new book about Gen X, the power of creative destruction, and the economy, which places some faith in the slacker generation’s eventual impact.

    http://www.freetimes.com/stories/15/62/taking-up-slack