There’s a new micro generation seeping into pop culture, and it’s geared towards those who don’t feel like they identify with millennials or generation X.
Xennial is a term being used to describe people born between 1977 and 1983. The micro generation is a mix between the “pessimistic gen-X” and “optimistic millennial,” Dan Woodman, associate professor of sociology at the University of Melbourne, told lifestyle site Mamamia.
“The idea is there’s this micro or in-between generation between the gen-X group – who we think of as the depressed flannelette shirt-wearing, grunge-listening children that came after the baby boomers — and the millennials – who get described as optimistic, tech savvy and maybe a little bit too sure of themselves and too confident,” Woodman said in the article.
The years that make up the millennial generation vary. Many experts have defined the generation as anyone born between 1981 and 2004.
Generation X is the group following the baby boomer generation (1946 to 1964) and preceding the millennials. The parameters that make up generation X range from 1965 to 1984 (but the dates are not set in stone).
Then there are the xennials, known to be born when the first Star Wars trilogy was released.
The xennial generational category isn’t a new idea. It was written about in a 2014 article in Good Magazine by Sarah Stankorb and Jed Oelbaum.
“Between generation X and the millennials, there’s a group of people currently in their late 20s and early 30s who don’t identify with either label. We call them the xennials — a micro-generation that serves as a bridge between the disaffection of gen-X and the blithe optimism of millennials,” the authors wrote.
The micro generation has also been referred to generation Catalano — a throwback to a teen drama in the 1990s called My So-Called Life. It’s even been referenced at the Oregon Trail Generation.
But the term xennials seems to be sticking.
What makes the generation stick out, is the group’s interaction with technology, Woodman told Mamamia. Woodman also refers to himself as a xennial.
“We hit this social media and IT digital technology boom in our 20s,” he said in the article. “It was a particularly unique experience. You have a childhood, youth and adolescence free of having to worry about social media posts and mobile phones.”
WATCH: Babies with their own social media accounts
“Then we hit this technology revolution before we were maybe in that frazzled period of our life with kids and no time to learn anything new. We hit it where we could still adopt in a selective way the new technologies,” he added.
Others have taken to social media to express their thoughts on the generation.