Generational Cohorts

From the Lost Generation to Gen Beta — Who’s Who in the Intergenerational "War"?

There's a War Going On

Apparently, there's an inter-generational war happening everywhere — online, at work, at home, and across social media. Boomers versus Millennials. Gen X versus Gen Z. Gen Z versus Gen Alpha. Every week seems to bring a new headline claiming one generation has "ruined" something.

In reality, most of this "war" is little more than cynical marketing.

Media companies, advertisers, influencers, politicians, and social-media platforms have discovered that generational labels are incredibly profitable. Dividing people into neat identity groups creates clicks, outrage, engagement, and consumer tribes. It encourages people to defend "their generation," blame other age groups for society's problems, and endlessly share content designed to provoke conflict. And it works.

Of course, there have always been inter-generational arguments. Ancient writers complained that young people were lazy, disrespectful, distracted, and morally weak. Every generation tends to think the next one had life too easy.

However, today's version feels different because technology has changed human life at unprecedented speed. For the first time in history, billions of people carry instant access to information, entertainment, communication, shopping, and social validation in their pockets. The internet hasn't just changed behaviour — it has changed culture, identity, attention spans, politics, language, relationships, and even the way people think about themselves.

Today's Big Fight

Now (apparently), the real dividing line is often not between specific individual generations, but between the iKids — people who have only ever known a permanently online world — and those who remember life before the internet colonized everyday existence.

The "iKids" include most Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha (and now Gen B). The non-iKids are Baby Boomers, Gen X, and some Millennials who are old before their time. According to the internet, both groups are terrible.

The older generations say the iKids are:

• mentally fragile.
• physically weaker.
• permanently distracted.
• addicted to validation.
• unable to concentrate for more than twenty seconds.
• offended by absolutely everything.

The iKids say the older generations are:

• environmentally reckless.
• technologically clueless.
• conspiracy-prone.
• emotionally repressed.
• politically selfish.
• incapable of understanding the modern world.

Naturally, both sides exaggerate wildly.

Social-media algorithms actively reward tribal behaviour because outrage generates engagement. "Boomers are idiots" and "Gen Z are doomed" are not serious social analysis — they are highly clickable content formats. Entire industries now profit from generational stereotypes:

• media outlets manufacture outrage.
• influencers build identities around generational conflict.
• marketers target age-based consumer tribes.
• and certain politicians exploit generational resentment for votes and attention.

In many cases, the "war" exists far more in headlines, memes, and comment sections than in real life. Most people of different generations get along perfectly well. Families still function. Offices still operate. Communities still hold together. Most people are simply adapting to the world they inherited. And every generation inherits a world shaped by the previous one.

The wheel made life easier. So did the printing press, the car, television, and the internet. If every labor-saving invention supposedly made the next generation softer, then perhaps every older generation throughout history has technically been correct. By that logic, each generation should be slightly more comfortable, less resilient, and more dependent on technology than the last.

But that's not evidence of societal collapse. It is mostly evidence of technological and social progress.

The idea that society is locked in a dramatic age-based culture war is, for the most part, a commercially useful myth — one amplified by platforms, media companies, and brands that benefit from keeping people emotionally reactive and permanently online.

So yes, generations are different. They always have been. But the "generational war" is usually less of a real war and more of an endlessly monetized internet argument.

But We're Still Going to Have Some Fun With It!

Having said all of the above, we're absolutely going to lean into those stereotypes! Because, while the "generational war" is mostly exaggerated, commercialized, and algorithmically amplified nonsense, it is also undeniably entertaining. There's something strangely enjoyable about watching Boomers complain about TikTok dances while Gen Z explains emotional trauma through frog memes and ironic PowerPoint presentations.

So, with tongues firmly in cheeks, here’s the Cyber Definitions take on the different generational cohorts — the Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and Gen Beta — while fully acknowledging that no generation is entirely right, entirely wrong, or entirely sane.

After all, every generation thinks the next one is doomed. And every generation eventually becomes the one being mocked by teenagers online.

Sorry Gen Beta, your day is coming 🤷‍♀️

The Generational Cohorts

Here is a list of the different generational cohorts over the last 150 years, with a summary of what makes them unique, their notable failings, and their shortcomings.

A Bit of History

The concept of generational cohorts, or groups of people born around the same time and shaped by similar historical and social events, has been around since at least the beginning of the last century. Shortly after World War I (WW1), American writers Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway first wrote about the "Lost Generation," but the idea was popularized and formalized by a few key figures:

• Karl Mannheim: A sociologist who is often credited with introducing the idea of generations as a distinct social category in his 1928 essay "The Problem of Generations." He argued that individuals are significantly influenced by the historical and social events occurring during their youth.
• William Strauss and Neil Howe: Two American authors and historians who further developed and popularized the concept of generational cohorts in the late 20th century. They are best known for their theory of generational cycles in American history, outlined in their books such as "Generations" (1991) and "The Fourth Turning" (1997). They categorized and named several American generations, including Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z.

Although many Baby Boomers seem to believe that society started to go downhill after their generation, since time immemorial each generational cohort has had its own quirks, triumphs, and its share of faults – especially in the eyes of previous generations. In fact, one of the earliest verified quotations criticizing younger generations comes from an inscription attributed to an ancient Egyptian priest named Ipuwer. In a text dated to around 2000 BCE, he laments the state of society and the behaviour of the youth:

• "The young are rude to the old, the poor have become rich, and the rich have become poor."

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