Tom Brokaw Reports: Boomers!
The Epic Story Of A Generation
Tom Brokaw defined the "Greatest Generation" and now he tells the story of their children, the largest, most influential generation ever. Through the eyes of boomers themselves' including former President Bill Clinton and actor Tom Hanks, he chronicles an age that took us from hula hoops to healthcare. This landmark documentary examines the challenges ahead for a generation 78 million strong that continues to shape our world.
» boomers.cnbc.com
1 comment:
Brokaw is deservedly a beloved icon. But he is nothing remotely approximating an expert in generations, and from what I’ve seen about his Boomer$ documentary, he is embarrassing himself with his lack of knowledge. For example, he uses that old widely-discredited 1946-1964 Boomer definition at a time when most actual experts now divide that demographic boom in births into two distinct generations: the real Boomer Generation and Generation Jones. Generations are a function of the common formative experiences of its members, not the fertility rates of its parents. And most analysts now see generations as getting shorter (usually 10-15 years now), partly because of the acceleration of culture. Many experts now believe that while there was certainly a demographic baby boom between ’46 and ’64, the actual cultural Boomer Generation was more like 1942-1953, while GenJones was born from around 1954 to 1965.
Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten lots of media attention, with many major mainstream media companies using this term. In fact, the Associated Press' annual Trend Report chose the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009. There are many of us GenJonesers who are quite happy to see our long-ignored generation finally recognized, and who resent media companies like CNBC broadcasting out-of-date, badly-researched material like this Boomer$ show. We should speak out against companies like this, and do what we each can to help spread awareness of GenJones, so that our generation can finally have its collective voice fully heard.
Here are some good links I found:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090127/column27_st.art.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ta_Du5K0jk
http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html
Post a Comment