Jonesing for My Own Generation
George Clooney is one. So are Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Brad Pitt, and Madonna. So am I. Why have I always thought I was a late Boomer, and why hadn't I heard of Generation Jones until recently? Generation Jones, or “Gen Jones” for short, is a cusp generation sandwiched between Baby Boomers and Generation X. “The term was coined in 1999 by American cultural commentator Jonathan Pontell, who has argued it refers to a distinct generation born from 1954 to 1965" (Wikipedia). Born in 1961, I clearly belong to this intriguing yet elusive cohort. Until now, I felt a wishy-washy attachment to Boomer milestones like the Summer of Love, Woodstock, and the 1969 moon landing. They were cool, but I wasn’t old enough to internalize them. I was never a Boomer in the first place, though some marketers wanted to label me a “late Boomer.” As a recovering marketer who studied both demographics and psychographics, I was aghast to learn I had not known about Generation Jones. Our p...
