Generations v Demographics. Know the difference. (audio: noxsoma.substack.com)

4 PM doesn’t sound as impressive as 4 AM. Of course we’re not here to impress. If impression happens it’s just a by-product of what we call… living.
Super Power Tuesday. Flex’em up mi gente. We were up and out early today, and right down to the monkey-bars. We focused on upper-body work today. We have what we call an October Protocol. (Some clips on Instagram). Not solely push-ups and dips. We add leg movements with the pull and pushes. Bicycles. Scissors, and flutter-kicks. This way we get the core engaged along with the back. We’ve seen cats doing this stuff on the social media channels. We filed it away for, “someday.” We gave these bicycle type dips a trial run last week, and whoa… it kind of looked like they were doing on TV.
Wow! It’s difficult and tricky. But worth it.

Plug 1. The Difference.
Following is a rough chronicle on the study of, “demographics.” Demo means people. You may have heard of something called, demo-cracy. Or a demon stration. (Yeah, people are demons, in case you were wondering.) Graphic, of course is a picture, or even to get more technical about it, a “chart.” What demographics does, is charts peoples’ habits. Initially, “buying habits.” If you want to buy a BMX bike franchise, you might check out the population of the community, maybe a 10 or 15 square mile area, to get an idea of how many 11 to 15 year old boys live in that area. You might go so far as to research how many 5 to 10 year old boys live in that area as well, because you are planning to be in business for a long time. The 5 to 10 year olds and the 11 to 15 year olds, are different demographic groups, although they might all be enclosed in a single, “generation.”
There might be several thousand boys between the ages of 5 and 18, that live in a region with a median household income of just under six figures. There’s a better than average chance that you will be able to sell enough bikes, and all the safety gear and paraphernalia that goes with it, to stay in business… for a generation.
You decide to go for it and you find a vacancy in a strip-mall in a central location, probably more towards the affluent part of town and you open your bike shop. Right next door to a US Military recruiting station. Because the Marines are “targeting” the same demographic as you are.
Males between the ages of 5 and 18 constitute a “demographic group.”
This group of kids may or may not be of the same, “generation.”
This is where a lot of humans seem to get confused.

Plug 2. Generations.
Generations only exist in the abstract. You can look at somebody a maybe guess that they are, “not of your generation,” but most humans don’t go around grouping clusters of carbon units in generational categories.
The difference between generations and demographics, the way we have it figured is, humans are born into generations, and they move through demographic groups.
This is what makes Strauss & Howe’s generational history theory so fascinating to your boy.
Where generations and demographics overlap is in the psychological aspect. The way humans behave and how that behavior is changed, and or modified, over time.
The gen in generation means beginning. This root shows up a lot in language.
We will use a box metaphor. Since the they are always putting us into metaphorical boxes anyway. And we will use Boomers as guinea pigs, because their generation was so densely populated that demographics became necessary to sell these kids acne cream, Barbie, hula-hoops and breakfast cereals.
Scratch that. Let’s use Generation Zee. Their generation is neatly packaged.
According to Strauss & Howe’s research, generations begin and end in years of great significance. Usually upheaval. 2001, The Attack on America, and 2021 The covid-op, is an excellent time span. It’s a twenty year period. A nice round number. Controversial US presidents assumed their office in both years, and, as if the script was written precisely for this example, the war George W Bush initiated in 2001, ended in defeat under the Joe Biden administration, in 2021.
Keep in mind that generations are abstract concepts and the box is a metaphor. It would be very easy to debunk this model, if we claimed that it was, “science.”
You take all the kids born between these two events and you put them in a box called, “Generation Z.” Historians tend to look at these clusters in twenty year chunks. “Demographers” break these clusters into consumer markets.
Markets are not really looking at Generation Z until about 2011, when the first wave starts turning ten years of age. Before 2011, the market is still looking at the youngest Millennials. (Generations overlap because their experiences, values and technology overlap. The Oldest Millennials will have more in common with the youngest Generation X, than they will with the youngest wave of their own generation.)
Confused? I get it.
Here’s how the box moves through time.
An entire generation will move through approximately seven demographic groups in an average lifetime, in America.
Childhood: 0–11.
Teens: 12–17 .
Young adults: 18–35.
Middle age: 36–50.
Older adults: 51–65.
Seniors: 66-85.
The “very old”: 86+
Within each of these groups, “the market” is trying to sell you different products, from weddings to diapers to services & subscriptions.
You will pass through different demographic groups, but you will always be a part of generation you were, “assigned at birth.”

Plug 3. Slave New World.
“When I was your age…”
When the first wave of Millennials were reaching their mid-thirties, around 2015 or so, they took a lot of flack for still living with their parents. The first wave usually sets the tone for the generational stereotypes. They were delaying purchasing that first home and starting families. Boomers, who are stereo-typically boisterous and full of advice, among other smelly things, would often be quoted, or reported as saying things like, “when I was your age, I was on my third property. I wasn’t sponging off of my parents, playing video games and drinking Mountain Dew all night long.”
Of course when Boomers were approaching their mid-twenties, (about 1970), there hadn’t been this international too big to fail bank heist/bail out and credit crisis… or whatever that thing was in 2008, when the graduating class of 2000 would be looking to get into their home-owning years. Plus, “house flipping” and real estate speculation and swindling young first-time home owners, was another way Boomers financially sabotaged their kids’ futures.
It’s a skewed and unfair comparison to cite the 1970 Boomer, against the 2008 Millennial, when the 2008 Boomer, about 63 at the time, helped screw up the housing market so badly that Junior has little choice other than a basement, full of Ikea modular furniture, and a part-time job delivery pizzas.

Plug 4.
If you have been one of those confused humans, about the difference between a generation and a demographic, the best way to remember is, “Generations are for Life.” And demographic groups change with age and interests, which change with age.
You’re on the Gen Z train. (A better metaphors than a box, although a train is kind of, a box.) First stop childhood. You’re really not in charge of your decisions and choices. But you are responding to your surroundings.
Next stop, Teens. What’s at this stop? Clothes, make up, hair products, school, music and sub-groups of friends, tech, and teen-stuff. Teen stuff, is teen-stuff because it’s sold to you in your teens. It kind of defines your teens and teens define the items.
Next stop, Young Adults. Jobs, romance, travel, maybe some education, more clothes, maybe trying to hang on to teen-stuff, alcoholic beverages and products you will be hooked on for life. And a higher and more sophisticated level of entertainment, culture and various experiences that create the stories you will distort during middle age.
And so it goes. At every stop, you’re still on the Gen Z train, right into, “Old Age.” But every stop will look different than it did when the previous train stopped at the same station. They call it, “progress.” But you will have no genuine concept of a 40 year old Boomer, because she turned 40 in the 1980s. Nor will you be able to catch the vibe of a 40 year old X’er, who started hitting 40 as the millennium turned, and the air was thick with conspiracy theories about the twin towers, not to mention, that TV was being transferred from tube sets to You Tubes.
Gen Zee starts hitting their 40s when the century starts hitting its forties. The front-end of your generation will be selling to, its back-end. And, to the kids who were literally born into the Covid-era, (2020 and forward). At some point some writer, or AI, will compose a novel called, “The Covid Generation”, or something like that, and the label will stick. The novel will describe growing-up in the aftermath of Covid. It will be described as being like an, undeclared war on humanity. There will be stories of vaccine-damaged siblings, careers in neuro-divergent healthcare, stories about the sudden deaths of their relatives, or maybe siblings they never knew. The book will shape gender-roles, future expectations, healthcare politics, religious beliefs… everything that binds a population to its generation, despite aged-based demographic divisions.
Unplugged. Did we explain this adequately?
If you’re still confused, press 1.
If you think you got it press 2.
If you definitely got it, press 3.
This information will go a long way in helping you to decipher trends, and fluctuations in the wave.
Feel free to drop questions, suggestions or corrections.
By the way, this is pretty much America-centric, it might be similar in western countries, but the entire experience varies with economic levels, regions of the country, traditions, etc. You might be a recent immigrant to the US, and the same age as your, “generation,” but because of your status, (generally speaking), your experience will differ.
Meanwhile…
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