i identify as gen x because i don't want to be thought of as a millennial, and that isn't an empty statement. if you think people in the 35-55 age demographic have much at all in common with people in the 15-35 age demographic, you're simply wrong. for example, i am not a digital native; my only access to a computer until i was about 15 or so was in the computer lab at school. not only did i not have a cell phone in high school, but almost nobody had one until *after* i'd graduated university. i did not grow up listening to electronic music or hip-hop, but rather grew up listening to rock music from the 70s-90s. all of my cultural references and perspectives exist from the period before the technological revolution took over, and i had to adjust to it just like everybody else that is older than me did. so, i am very, very, very different than a millennial, and you're just going to get bad data if you try and lump me in with them.

am i more like a boomer then? no. as a cultural stereotype, they're fucking awful, selfish people. i mean, they're not all assholes, but being gen x in a lot of ways is defined by a reaction against the nihilistic, hedonistic, corporatist commercialism that defined the boomer generation.

i'd actually make the opposite argument - i'd argue that millenials are more like boomers than gen xers are, and that if you want to do this right, you need to skip generations, because we're all reacting against each other. i actually feel a stronger level of affinity with the parents of the baby boomers than i do with either the baby boomers or the millennials; this is less about young v. old and more about being squeezed between the depravity of the past and the depravity of the future.

if you ask a boomer they'll tell you the same thing, about how they had to rebel against their parents, and then get outgrown by their teenaged kids, who were yelling at them to grow the fuck up by the time they turned 15. and, you will no doubt hear the same thing from millennials, who find themselves frustrated by their children's cynicism and realism - which is something i'm looking forward to.

so, don't walk down this path of trying to separate the culture, or the voters, into young v. old. that's always been wrong; you need to skip generations, because the kids will always reject their parents in favour of their grandparents.