Splinter Generation

I, for one, think that Splinter Generation sounds much better than all those other stupid names people have tried to give us: Gen Y, the Pepsi Generation (wait, did Pepsi to dub us that?), the Millennials...

What’s Wrong with Generation Y (or any of those other millions of names we have)?

What does Generation Y even mean? What does the Google Generation even mean? We’ve been called Generation Y, Generation Me, the Google Generation, Generation DotNet, Millennials, and Generation 9-11 ... the list goes on forever. None of these names seem to fit. Sure, we use the internet; yes, 9-11 was a formative political experience; true, the letter Y comes after the letter X. But I argue that these names don’t sufficiently capture who we are as a group. They don’t capture who we are as a generation.

We offer the Splinter Generation as a possible alternative. Use it if you like it. Don’t use it if you hate it. Just please, for the love of God, stop calling us Generation Y.

From Splinter Generation, writing by and for those of us under 35