Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Twitter and Generation X

I came across a truly stupendous post about Twitter and Generation X from @JessieX. She says that Twitter has Generation X "written all over it." Her argument? Generation X grew up behind a "culturally dominant" Boomer generation, and find it hard to get a footing in the public sphere. Twitter, then, is perfect for us:

So, Twitter, as a tool, is microblogging. Right? It’s small bits. Gaps. Niches. Finding a very small space that requires no specific authority-granted position from which to speak. Finding a small space to insert a comment, a bit of information, a link to some potentially helpful info. Finding a small space from which to broadcast, engage, connect.

Read the whole post, because she also talks about why Millennials aren't flocking to Twitter as much, despite being a generation that is so comfortable with technology. 

From a leadership perspective, I think this all fits with my last "Center of Gravity" post. You don't need to be the center of attention in order to be a leader.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting thoughts. I guess because I'm surrounded by Gen Y people that I don't have the same experiences. I'm also not giving credence to a survey that only had 200 participants and assuming that those results speak for the entire Gen Y generation.

The Gen Y in my office laugh at all of this commentary that they are not on Twitter. They say the research was limited from the get-go as they tweet the jokes about it back and forth to their friends. They are Twitter-holics here. One of them has three accounts depending upon which friends he wants to tweet. My nephews, definitely Gen Y, also tweet me on a regular basis. As the Gen Y said here, "Go ahead and try to pigeon-hole my generation into a box. You'll fail. And we don't allow 200 students from Pace University to speak for all 60+ million of us anyway," as he referred to the Participatory Marketing survey that has gotten all the press.

Jessie Newburn said...

Why, Jamie, Thanks so very much for your kind words and robust endorsement, so to speak. Glad my perspective resonated.

Re jeffhtz's comment above, particularly, "As the Gen Y said here, "Go ahead and try to pigeon-hole my generation into a box. You'll fail." Haha. That's a GenX response. Which points specifically to why I get edgy and often a bit rude when people talk about GenY. WTH (that's a softer version of WTF) is up with thinking demographics = generations? Day ain't da same. Not even close. There is no GenY that I know of, other than in the media. It's GenX that don't believe they can be clumped and categorized. Why? Well, cuz GenX is a fragmented, isolated gen, dat's why.

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