In 1951 Time magazine declared that the young people who were born during the Great Depression, then in their teens and early twenties, "lacked flame" and were "docile notetakers." Growing up during hard times had made them cautious and prone to conformity. Their cohort, which produced more than a dozen White House chiefs of staff and not a single U.S. president, was dubbed the Silent Generation.
Which makes one wonder: What will the children of the current recession be called?
"Generation OMG" is the New York Times's catchy nomination. It's the headline on an article that asks:
Before the current downturn, some pundits were referring to the children born after 1999 as "Generation Z." The Times notes that when Neil Howe, author of several books about generational issues, ran a contest to name this generation, the winner was "Homelanders," as in security. (The findings were reported in the July 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review.)
What do you think? Z, OMG, Homelanders, or something else?
UPDATE: Via Twitter, Meg suggests Recessive Gen, which gets points for wordplay and nerdiness.
i'm thinking generation YOY
Posted by: michael | March 10, 2009 at 11:53 AM
OMG is a little dated for them, isn't it?
Maybe Re-De's (REvisting the DEpression) or the Unentitled?
Posted by: Duchesse | March 10, 2009 at 05:41 PM
If we adopt Generation Z, what's after that? Generation AA?
"Homelanders" is a good one. Along that line could be Generation Orange (as in the pervasive Orange threat level after 9-11).
Posted by: pam | March 16, 2009 at 06:47 AM