Here are some differences between Gen Yer cusp and core Millennials. Being a '83 cohort, I clearly fall on the Yer side. I would sometimes describe myself as 70% Millennial, 30% Xer

Yers: Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow
Core Millennials: Barney & Friends, Teletubbies

Yers: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Core Millennials: Power Rangers, Pokemon

Yers: The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rocko's Modern Life, Animaniacs
Core Millennials: SpongeBob Squarepants, CatDog, Wild Thornberries

Yers: Sega Genesis, Super NES
Core Millennials: Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2

Hmmm...I recall experiencing ALL of those things and I was born in 1988. I mean that's like 4 years after the official Millennial start date from Generations and if you go by some new dates suggested at b. 85 it's only 3 years. I had a brother born in 1984 and a cousin born in 1981 whom we received some old handmedown toys, clothes, and gaming systems from on occasion. Perhaps this made our experience more atypical.

I think the difference between a first and second wave Millennial, aka Yers v Millennials has to do with being a child v coming of age after 9/11.

Someone born in 1990 would have been 11 during that time, I've always seen kids younger than 10 during that time as having grown up in a completely different world. Not just because of 9/11 but also because technology really took off around then. Someone born in 88 like myself did not grow up with the internet or computers in their house (unless their parent was a computer nerd). Someone who was born in 1992 probably grew up with computers, cell phones, the internet, and high speed internet. Furthermore someone born in 95 wouldn't even remember the 90s, probably had social media, cell phones, computers in their rooms as children.

I was born in 88 and reading this list makes me feel like I'm somewhere in between despite being only 5 years from the millennial start date according to S&H

Yers: Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow
Core Millennials: Barney & Friends, Teletubbies

The only thing I didn't watch was Teletubbies, that was too late for me

Yers: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Core Millennials: Power Rangers, Pokemon

I watched all of those shows, I even had a ninja turtle bike and the movies. I always thought Ninja turtles was more targeted toward older Xers, since it came out in the mid 80s, the b.82ers would have been just a little too young for the early episodes. My b. 81 cousin had an entire Ninja turtles playset complete with sewer tunnels, the four turtles, shredder, and many other accessories. We used to borrow and play with them.

Realistically someone born in 82-88 would have been the prime target audience for Power Rangers and barney which both came out around 92/93. Although in the 90s things seemed to move slower, many 90s kids actually grew up watching 80s tv shows in reruns and animated movies from the 80s.

I was 10-13 when Pokemon was the hot thing, from what I remember even the high school kids collected cards and played the games. I don't think they really watched the cartoon though...Pokemon kind of became bigger than that.

Yers: The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rocko's Modern Life, Animaniacs
Core Millennials: SpongeBob Squarepants, CatDog, Wild Thornberries

Again prime age bracket for all of these shows, but I never liked CatDog, Thornberries or Animaniacs.

Yers: Sega Genesis, Super NES
Core Millennials: Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2

I was definitely the prime age bracket for all of these systems as a kid. My brother and I had a TurboDuo and the orginal Nintendo until 1995 when we got a Super Nintendo for christmas. We had that until we got Playstation in 99/00, we then got an N64 in 01. I think people forget just how slow these systems moved back then. Today the new system comes out or the new iphone comes out and everyone has it right away. back then you could have the original nintendo until the mid 90s.

From what I remember most kids either had Sega or SNES because both were TOO expensive to own at the same time. Most kids had SNES because it was cheaper (they used to have great Christmas deals that came with a free game) and had more games.

Uhhh, if anything Console systems have significantly slowed as time has gone on.

Super Nintendo was out in 1991. Sega Genisis was released earlier. I wanna say maybe '89? Playstation came out in 1994, and n64 was out by 96. Meanwhile PS2 didn't come out until what? Late 2000? PS3 was 2006? It's now 2013 and we're just now seeing signs of new consoles?

There was a pretty long span between NES and SNES in Japan, but here in the US it was a 4 year thing until the PS2/XBOX/Game Cube era. The slow down has also occurred in PCs when it's come to min specs. In 2003 I was playing new games (abeit with the graphics turned down to the low end) on a system built in 1999. In 1999 I wouldn't dream of doing the same on a system from 1995. The time between Pentium II production to Pentium III was only 2 years.

In terms of technological progression, we were at a much faster clip in the 1994-1999 era than we were the 2000 - 2005 era. The real notable exceptions in proliferated technology which represents that "big jump" has been phones, but it was only really the jump from normal cells to smart phones which wasn't until, what? '07? Even then the economic slowdown meant that they didn't really proliferate as quickly, and it took 2 years before it became a regular thing to see around and even longer before "everyone had one".

The really stunning thing about it all is that this little droid phone has exponentially better specs than the x486 system I got in 1994.

First of all...um I think you totally misunderstood what I was talking about...

The "slow down" I'm talking about has nothing to do with technology, it had to do with standard of living and what parents could have afforded for their children. Technology "moved" slower among the masses than it does today. Today everyone has an iphone, but back in the 90s how long did it take for cell phones to really catch on as a staple for everyone? Not until the mid 00s, did I start seeing kids with cellphones. That's like 15 years since the brick came out. The iphone came out sometime in the late 00s and it caught on by 2010. Now most people I see in public are carrying them around.

Super Nintendo was out in 1991. Sega Genisis was released earlier.

Who had these things when they first came out?? Yuppie adults trying to relive their childhood? I mean it was still so expensive even in 1995...little kids definitely didn't have this, even my brother who was 11 in 95 didn't have it...until Christmas when it became affordable. I believe you could get a SNES for about 50/60 bucks back then and it came with a free game. Sega was still around 80 dollars...yeah if you have a choice between two popular game consoles your kid has been begging you for for christmas...which do you choose. The one that costs 80 bucks or the one that costs 50? This is CT though, I'm not sure if prices were cheaper in other states.

Keep in mind that the OP is talking about kids born between 1982-1988, who would have been ages 7-12 at the time.

Spoiled kids had these things when they first came out. My cousin and his mother lived in my grandparents house and my aunt bought him everything he ever wanted because she didn't have to pay for anything. He had every latest and now obscure game system that ever came out. Turboduo (which he gave to us) Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega, Sega Dreamcast, 3DO, Sega cd, N64 right when it came out, and Gamecube.

Playstation came out in 1994, and n64 was out by 96. Meanwhile PS2 didn't come out until what? Late 2000? PS3 was 2006? It's now 2013 and we're just now seeing signs of new consoles?

My point was not WHEN they came out but WHO actually had them. The technology of 90s gaming consoles was pretty quick moving, but the standard of living just couldn't keep up. So even though we had the technology for things like playstation by the very late 80s, the price for such a thing would have made it impractical.

When Playstation first came out it was was notorious for being the game console of young professional single men who had tons of money to blow but no family because Xers were waiting to have kids. That's why my brother wanted it so badly, because he was in middle-high school by then and Lara Croft was a sexy game character! That was a huge step away from the clunky cartoon characters of the cartridge based game consoles.

I think it depends on where you're from. Now, I didn't have an SNES at all. We just couldn't afford one, I actually got a PS1 either after my Freshman or Sophomore year, I can't remember which, but it was a year or two after the PS1. I got the PS2 a few months after it first came out.

When you live in a place with a really high cost of living like I do, it means those ammenities are proportionally lower as a result (I.e., the average person will make 20% more proportionally than the average person elsewhere, their housing and food will be 30% more than average, but things like a new game system will be the same price as elsewhere). So I knew a lot of kids with Super Nintendos, Genisi, and Playstations when they first came out. I'm not just talking about rich kids, either. Kids from, what is for us, the high crime/low income area had these things, too because they were easy to come by. When your rent is 800/month on average it's easier to find $300 vs. A place where your rent is $500 because you will be making more money in the 800/mo area.

So yeah, lots of people had these game systems usually by the Christmas of release. It's just where you live, I guess.

When you live in a place with a really high cost of living like I do, it means those ammenities are proportionally lower as a result (I.e., the average person will make 20% more proportionally than the average person elsewhere, their housing and food will be 30% more than average, but things like a new game system will be the same price as elsewhere). So I knew a lot of kids with Super Nintendos, Genisi, and Playstations when they first came out. I'm not just talking about rich kids, either. Kids from, what is for us, the high crime/low income area had these things, too because they were easy to come by. When your rent is 800/month on average it's easier to find $300 vs. A place where your rent is $500 because you will be making more money in the 800/mo area.

Then they must have bought it on credit....because Sega was like 200 dollars when it came out....

I mean that's a lot of money to spend on a gift for a child...and that's NOT including games which could range from like 60-80 bucks depending. Were these older kids? As in 12/13? Or were these very young kids like 5-10?

CT has a pretty high standard of living. We had a 90,000 dollar condo and I'm not sure what the mortgage was but I can imagine it was up there. My neighborhood was really poor, like mostly welfare recipients.

So yeah, lots of people had these game systems usually by the Christmas of release. It's just where you live, I guess.

This is kind of what I expected for most kids who got those systems.

Originally Posted by Felix5

Then they must have bought it on credit....because Sega was like 200 dollars when it came out....

I mean that's a lot of money to spend on a gift for a child...and that's NOT including games which could range from like 60-80 bucks depending. Were these older kids? As in 12/13? Or were these very young kids like 5-10?

CT has a pretty high standard of living. We had a 90,000 dollar condo and I'm not sure what the mortgage was but I can imagine it was up there. My neighborhood was really poor, like mostly welfare recipients.



This is kind of what I expected for most kids who got those systems.

I chose $300, because that's ballpark what the system and the games will cost. Systems didn't get down to under $150 usually until the production life of the system was more than half over. An 80 dollar price tag on an SNES would probably be because the PS1 was out and utterly killed the SNES's value.

Also, you have to factor in that if you were buying a system in a family of 4, you were spending somewhere between $200-300 on a single gift but it was split out amongst 2 kids. Plus games just didn't release nearly as often as they do now (and were, aside from your RPGs, much, much shorter). So you get the system, maybe $50 every 3 months for a new game if that. Plus, back then you could rent a game for a weekend and beat it in that weekend. So yeah... median income in 1991 was approx. $15k times it by 1.75 and you get $26,250 to adjust for dual income. Back when I made $26,250, I had more games for my PS2 than I could ever really play and the cost of food and rent was proportionally higher than it was in 1991.

Owning a new game system was affordable in 1991. I didn't get one, my family was in dire straights following a nasty divorce. That doesn't mean it was an object available only for the wealthy.

If it really wasn't affordable games like Final Fantasy 3 or ChronoTrigger, let alone major blockbusters at the time like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 2 wouldn't have had nearly the cultural footprint they did at the time. However, they were quite the big deal. So much so that each had (really bad) movies made after them.

Originally Posted by Wiz83

Here are some differences between Gen Yer cusp and core Millennials. Being a '83 cohort, I clearly fall on the Yer side. I would sometimes describe myself as 70% Millennial, 30% Xer

Yers: Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow
Core Millennials: Barney & Friends, Teletubbies

Yers: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Core Millennials: Power Rangers, Pokemon

Yers: The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rocko's Modern Life, Animaniacs
Core Millennials: SpongeBob Squarepants, CatDog, Wild Thornberries

Yers: Sega Genesis, Super NES
Core Millennials: Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2

I bolded the stuff I grew up watching or consuming.

~Chas'88

Also, you have to factor in that if you were buying a system in a family of 4, you were spending somewhere between $200-300 on a single gift but it was split out amongst 2 kids. Plus games just didn't release nearly as often as they do now (and were, aside from your RPGs, much, much shorter). So you get the system, maybe $50 every 3 months for a new game if that. Plus, back then you could rent a game for a weekend and beat it in that weekend. So yeah... median income in 1991 was approx. $15k times it by 1.75 and you get $26,250 to adjust for dual income. Back when I made $26,250, I had more games for my PS2 than I could ever really play and the cost of food and rent was proportionally higher than it was in 1991.

Considering that you were a teenager, it seems that you had a vastly different experience in the 1990s. Did you actually interact with kids under the age of 10?

This doesn't sound affordable to me in the slightest. I don't know any child who had Playstation until the late 90s when it became more affordable, you had playstation because you were a teen during that time.

Owning a new game system was affordable in 1991. I didn't get one, my family was in dire straights following a nasty divorce. That doesn't mean it was an object available only for the wealthy.

300 dollars....even 150 dollars for a little kid's toy is for the wealthy...sorry I absolutely disagree with you. I don't know any child in my neighborhood who had both systems. (except for my Xer cousin who had everything handed to him on a silver platter). It seemed to be either or for most of the wretched poor kids in my neighborhood, most kids tended to get SNES around the mid 90s when it became more affordable.

If it really wasn't affordable games like Final Fantasy 3 or ChronoTrigger, let alone major blockbusters at the time like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 2 wouldn't have had nearly the cultural footprint they did at the time. However, they were quite the big deal. So much so that each had (really bad) movies made after them.

I think you're forgetting that a lot of these games were available at arcades, especially SNES and Sega. So some parents might figure...why buy a 300 dollar system when he can just go to play them down at the mall.

Keep in mind I am talking about kids ages 5-10, I could see parents throwing their money at these systems for teenagers. Like you got playstation when you were a teenager...but most little kids didn't. A lot of little kids I know were actually playing their parents playstation, which meant daddy bought it for himself.

Realistically someone born in 82-88 would have been the prime target audience for Power Rangers and barney which both came out around 92/93. Although in the 90s things seemed to move slower, many 90s kids actually grew up watching 80s tv shows in reruns and animated movies from the 80s.

Yep. 80s kid entertainment and even 70s kid entertainment was still lingering long into the early 1990s. For example I got to see a lot of the GOOD Don Bluth films that way, not to mention the Care Bears had an extended life thanks to that, as well as Scooby Doo and Rainbow Brite. Older films like the Silent Generation propaganda piece like "Free to be You and Me" also played pretty often. The Chipmunks TV show and movies also got played over and over again in that time period, ditto for the trippy musical film from the Late Awakening about Raggedy Ann and Andy, the 1978 Sesame Street Christmas special got a lot of play as well (it's the one where Big Bird waits on the roof top in the snow for Santa to come but instead gets sick, and Cookie Monster eats the Christmas Tree...) that overplayed "Feliz Navidad", as well as that horrendously commercial film "Felix the Cat". And don't forget the Puff the Magic Dragon cartoon also made its rounds. Awakening and Unraveling kids culture collected in a kind of mish-mash of re-runs to create quite a weird amalgamation of entertainment in the early 1990s--as such the 1980s cohorts watching were kind of "passed over" between the two waves of the entertainment bubble.

They had a lot of hours to fill those kid networks in those days and not very large budgets to create new shows like crazy so reruns and old entertainment ruled the media. Hell, I watched the Disney Channel in the early 1990s and got to see ALL their old cartoons from the 1920s on up to the 1960s that they would have constantly playing during the day. Then on Saturdays they'd pull out old black and white TV shows and films to show during the slow hours of 11 - 4 on Saturdays--that's when you might have a few episodes of Zorro, old Mouse Club episodes, as well as films like The Nutty Professor, Herbie the Love Bug, and That Darn Cat. It's also when they'd re-air old television specials like the Monkees television special of when they visited Disney World back in the 1960s, or the one about the 1964 World's Fair TV special. There was also a time in the early - mid 1990s when Cartoon Network went through every old Hannah-Barbara cartoon from the 1960s - 1980s as their main source of programming until they started developing their own new shows and created Boomerang for the nostalgic Baby Boomer audience. If you were a mid-late 1980s cohort you could easily have watched and absorbed all of that stuff.

All of this vanished come the late 1990s--as it was replaced with all "NEW" programming, a steady and constant stream of new programming that continues until this day in the same vein. The early to mid 1990s was kind of the lax period for children's entertainment where they rested on the laurels of previous entertainment. Then the mid to late 1990s came around and children's entertainment got rebooted and all the old "standbys" were booted off the air. That's when the real core Millennial kid entertainment culture took over and the Yer straggler kid entertainment culture ended.

Early 1990s re-run culture, could start by adding in one part "Free to be You and Me" (uber 1970s triumphalism), another part weird trippy Raggedy Ann and Andy (Late Awakening confusion), another part "The Secret of NIMH" (early 1980s fantasy), and finally stir in "The Chipmunk Adventure" (uber crass late 1980s).

If there was new kids entertainment being made it was usually being imported in the early 1990s from other countries (most often Canada, but also Japan), which accounts for the sheer "just throw whatever at them" attitude they had in the early 1990s for kid culture. A lot of times they would simply translate the Japanese shows without editing anything out. By the late 1990s the censors to these shows seem to have "woken up" and started splicing out "offensive" scenes.

I was 10-13 when Pokemon was the hot thing, from what I remember even the high school kids collected cards and played the games. I don't think they really watched the cartoon though...Pokemon kind of became bigger than that.

I remember the TV show and the trading card game wasn't so popular as the Gameboy game was with the older kid cohorts. But then again the video game was essentially your typical RPG model with distinctive limitations added to it.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Felix5

Realistically someone born in 82-88 would have been the prime target audience for Power Rangers and barney which both came out around 92/93. Although in the 90s things seemed to move slower, many 90s kids actually grew up watching 80s tv shows in reruns and animated movies from the 80s.

I remember when Power Rangers came out in '93 and nobody my age would have dared to admit liking them for fear of being teased. I'm sorry, but you can't say that someone born in '82, being already 10-years old in 1992, are prime target audience for Barney. Also, even though the Ninja Turtles originally came out as a comic book in the mid '80s and at that time was clearly meant for Xers, by the time the franchise peaked in popularity around 1990, plenty of early Millennials (including myself) were fans. I watched all their movies, had episodes of cartoon on VHS, action figures, comic books. I even had Turtles cereal. This is why I resent S&H labeling me a "Power Ranger" kid and saying the Ninja Turtles were a totally Xer thing. This is the problem with generational labeling in general.

Originally Posted by Wiz83

I remember when Power Rangers came out in '93 and nobody my age would have dared to admit liking for fear of being teased. I'm sorry, but you can't say that someone born in '82, being already 10-years old in 1992, are prime target audience for Barney.

Another thing to remember is that Barney didn't really start as a national television crazy until 1994 or so--just about the time there was an intense reaction against it if you were in first grade or older. Prior to that it was more "local television" IIRC, starting out of Connecticut.

~Chas'88

Yeah, I can definitely vouch for that terrible transition in children's entertainment that happened in the late 90s.

I dunno, I was born in 86 but I much more clearly fall into the "Y" category and older as far as shows goes. For me, I can't help but think that what I watched was also distorted by being

a) The youngest of three boys, with my brothers born in 76 and 79. As a consequence, I also have very clear memories of Robotech, GI Joe, and Transformers, for example, even though what I actually watched were reruns.

and

b) living in Europe from '92 till the end of '96, which contributed to my "time warp".

For shows:

Yers: Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow
Core Millennials: Barney & Friends, Teletubbies (Didn't really watch any of these, shows and/or games dictated by brothers as soon as parents leave room.)

Yers: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Core Millennials: Power Rangers, Pokemon

Yers: The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rocko's Modern Life, Animaniacs
Core Millennials: SpongeBob Squarepants, CatDog, Wild Thornberries

Yers: Sega Genesis (Sega MegaDrive), Super NES (Cousins and Friends)
Core Millennials: Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2

I don't remember ever not having a computer and a console in my home. From DOS and games like DOOM and Civilization on, and from the Genesis (MegaDrive in Europe), Gameboy, Lynx, Saturn, N64, PS-2, before I got bored with computer games.

I can also vouch for watching mainly old WB, Disney, and Hanna-Barbera cartoons growing up. I'm still suspicious of cartoons without full orchestral accompaniment.

PS Does anyone else have fond memories of Pirates of the Black Water?

Originally Posted by Wiz83

Here are some differences between Gen Yer cusp and core Millennials. Being a '83 cohort, I clearly fall on the Yer side. I would sometimes describe myself as 70% Millennial, 30% Xer

Yers: Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow
Core Millennials: Barney & Friends, Teletubbies

Yers: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Core Millennials: Power Rangers, Pokemon

Yers: The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rocko's Modern Life, Animaniacs
Core Millennials: SpongeBob Squarepants, CatDog, Wild Thornberries

Yers: Sega Genesis, Super NES
Core Millennials: Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2

Judging purely by this list, I would fall into the "Yer" category as well (1987 cohort).

I remember Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which even S&H themselves associate with an Xer childhood) as well as the Power Rangers (which they associate with Millennial childhoods).

I completely lost interest in both cartoons and video games around 12-13 years of age, so anything in that world that happened after the 1990s were over is completely unknown to me.

Someone mentioned the impact of 9/11, well I was a freshman in high school when it happened, for what it's worth. Not sure exactly where that puts me on the spectrum, although a quick Google search for the terms "Generation 9/11" finds that it is usually defined as people between the ages of 10 and 20 on 9/11 (1981-1991 cohorts, basically early wave-to-core Millennials).

I imagine for Millennials born after 1989 or 1990 the events of 2008 (Obama election, market crash, etc) will mean more to them than 9/11. Compared to us earlier Millennial cohorts, it may be harder for them to remember for example, how easy it was to go through the airport (right on up to the gate, even if you weren't flying) in the days before the TSA even existed. They also may not recall as easily the incredible sadness and despair that blanketed the country in the days and weeks after 9/11.

Also, the Internet. This is huge. I remember getting the Internet in our household around 1997, maybe as late as 1998, and when we got it, we were the first people that we knew who had it. None of our relatives, none of my friends, none of my parents' friends, and none of our neighbors had it. I'm just old enough to remember the world before the Internet. I'm just old enough to remember when even the adults around me didn't know what e-mail or the World Wide Web was. If you're 5 years younger than me, I seriously doubt you'll have any memory of the pre-Internet world, no matter how poor or isolated your upbringing was.

Side note: Funny that someone mentioned Ren and Stimpy. To me, Ren and Stimpy was a legitimate attempt by Xers to corrupt and poison the minds of Millennial children. Watching the show as an adult, it's quite obvious that it is not what most people would consider to be "child friendly programming." But oh, how I loved it as a kid. Even had the Ren and Stimpy comic books.

Originally Posted by Normal

Judging purely by this list, I would fall into the "Yer" category as well (1987 cohort).

I remember Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which even S&H themselves associate with an Xer childhood) as well as the Power Rangers (which they associate with Millennial childhoods).

The funny thing about that... a 1981 cohort once did a test and found none of the 1970s cohorts of his acquaintance had ever watched or (at least admitted to) liking TMNTs, having considered it for "younger kids". My 1981 friend however could find tons of 1980s cohorts from the beginning to the end of the decade who were fans of this. So I think TMNT is a "Y cusp" thing ultimately as when you talk to 1990s cohorts, they look at you as though you've grown a second head when talking about TMNT. And as this thread is fast proving the year definition of the "Y cusp" should possibly be considered to be "extended" from its current 1985 end.

Personally, I remember three year old Chas really liking TMNT, but for the life of me I don't remember a damn thing about them beyond their constant use of the word "Cowabunga", a love for eating pizza, and the fact they lived in the sewers. Beyond that I have no memory of what they actually did. Three year old Chas is still very upset with me for not doing more to try and remember why three year old Chas liked it so much. As you can tell, three year old Chas feels very neglected as of late.

The funny thing which I believe you pointed out is that the original Super Sentai was designed for Japanese Prophets/Prophet-Nomads. You're the one who mentioned that, right? My memory is fuzzy to begin with...

I completely lost interest in both cartoons and video games around 12-13 years of age, so anything in that world that happened after the 1990s were over is completely unknown to me.

Around 1995 - 1997 was the shift and it was noticeable. I kinda lingered on the edge trying to find what had obviously gone with the wind, and ultimately hanging up any and all interest later on. It's also about that time that Seven to Nine year old Chas discovered UPN and The Legendary Journeys of Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess... Seven to Nine year old Chas was hooked, so was his parents surprisingly. And that's when his interest in live-action television became more noticeable beyond Murder She Wrote and all the various Star Treks. Interest in live-action television grew from there while cartoons increasingly became seen by Seven to Nine year old Chas as a way to "pass the time" or "something to put on in the background".

I imagine for Millennials born after 1989 or 1990 the events of 2008 (Obama election, market crash, etc) will mean more to them than 9/11.

1989 cohorts never got a taste of what being a teenager was like before 9/11--and it showed the following year in how they acted and how the teachers interacted with them. They simply were just "different" and they were treated differently--everyone in my school commented on it. It also didn't help that 1989 cohorts a few years later in my school were the first cohorts in the contemporary history of the high school to not get some kind of hazing/bullying done to them--which was done for voluntary reasons by the older classes who had gotten a rather harsh "initiation to High school" when it did happen.

Also, the Internet. This is huge. I remember getting the Internet in our household around 1997, maybe as late as 1998, and when we got it, we were the first people that we knew who had it. None of our relatives, none of my friends, none of my parents' friends, and none of our neighbors had it. I'm just old enough to remember the world before the Internet. I'm just old enough to remember when even the adults around me didn't know what e-mail or the World Wide Web was. If you're 5 years younger than me, I seriously doubt you'll have any memory of the pre-Internet world, no matter how poor or isolated your upbringing was.

1995 was the breakout year for AOL IIRC, though you are correct it didn't really catch on until the year that "You've Got Mail" came out, which was somewhere in between 1997 & 1998. Getting CDs in the mail occurred relatively frequently. It was about that time that computer went from something "Dad had in the attic for work that was loud, hot, and noisy--with a few pretty colored games on it" to something that moved down into the living room and became a more interesting waste of time. Toddlerhood was without a computer. The computer came into the household somewhere between age three and four, I forget which. I know I was in preschool. Dad then started spending more time up in the attic and he had this weird printer with three moving parts that each had a different color that three/four year old Chas is struggling to describe well.

*researches*

Well, I know it definitely was Dot Matrix and we had to get special paper for the damn thing... a whole large stack of "Continuous Stationary" which had strips on the end of the paper full of holes, to move the paper through the machine that you then had to tear off after it came off. And of course Dad got a tremendous lot of that paper (some deal he got where he picked it up cheap for buying it in a LARGE bulk) so we were still finishing up using that paper in the early 2000s. I think somewhere about 2002 or so we finally ran out of that supply of paper.

Ahh did some more research found a printer much like the one I remember:



24 pin dot matrix printer that used continuous stationary ^^^

The reason I remember that damned paper so much is I'd bother Dad wanting to play with him and he'd instead get me to tear off the perforated strips from the continuous stationary... and wanting to spend time with Dad I did.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Kepi

Uhhh, if anything Console systems have significantly slowed as time has gone on.

Super Nintendo was out in 1991. Sega Genisis was released earlier. I wanna say maybe '89? Playstation came out in 1994, and n64 was out by 96. Meanwhile PS2 didn't come out until what? Late 2000? PS3 was 2006? It's now 2013 and we're just now seeing signs of new consoles?

There was a pretty long span between NES and SNES in Japan, but here in the US it was a 4 year thing until the PS2/XBOX/Game Cube era. The slow down has also occurred in PCs when it's come to min specs. In 2003 I was playing new games (abeit with the graphics turned down to the low end) on a system built in 1999. In 1999 I wouldn't dream of doing the same on a system from 1995. The time between Pentium II production to Pentium III was only 2 years.

In terms of technological progression, we were at a much faster clip in the 1994-1999 era than we were the 2000 - 2005 era. The real notable exceptions in proliferated technology which represents that "big jump" has been phones, but it was only really the jump from normal cells to smart phones which wasn't until, what? '07? Even then the economic slowdown meant that they didn't really proliferate as quickly, and it took 2 years before it became a regular thing to see around and even longer before "everyone had one".

The really stunning thing about it all is that this little droid phone has exponentially better specs than the x486 system I got in 1994.

The console generations lasted between 4-7 years. They weren't exactly huge fluctuations.

The console market has had two booms, first in the late 70s/early 80s, and later in the 90s. The early-mid 2000s was also strong, but the market has slowed down significantly since then. The late 70s/early 80s was even crazier than the 90s with the number of consoles that were released (most of them failures, remember the Atari 5200? or the Colecovision? Intellivision?). But then the video game crash of 1983 happened and the console market just died. Nintendo came out in Japan around that time (the original Famicon), but they didn't release it in the US until 1985 because of how bad the market was here. They also had to advertise as a "robot toy" rather than a video game console and packaged each system with the Johnny 5 looking R.O.B. The marketing strategy worked, and Nintendo revitalized the video game market in the latter half of the 80s.

These booms/busts aside the length of each console generation hasn't fluctuated that much.

First Generation (1972-1976) - The first pong consoles (Examples: Magnavox Odyssey, Atari Pong, Coleco Telstar, many other pong consoles)
-These consoles were often advertised as having several different games, but they were all slight variations of Pong. These were the consoles for late wave Boomers / Early wave Xers (Jonesers). They were very basic and crude systems that often resulted in buyer's remorse. It's no wonder the Baby Boom generation never really "got" video games. Arcades were still pinball machine dominated, and table top games like board games, and miniatures war games were still the most popular and successful genres among the gaming community. Popular games: Pong, Tennis (which is really just pong with a line in the middle), soccer (pong with lines drawn differently), hockey (pong with a circle in the middle), [name of game here that's really just a slight variation of pong]

Second Generation (1976-1983) - The first cartridge consoles (Examples: Fairchild VES, Odyssey2, Atari 2600/5200, Intellivision, Colecovision, tons more)
-The introduction of cartridges was a huge innovation that had enormous effect on video games. Although the older pong systems allowed for some limited variety, with cartridges you could now buy completely new and different games for use on your existing console. Rather than rely completely on the sale of the console for profit, now companies could focus on making the console the standard, and the sale of games as the primary means for generating consistant long term income. This is still the primary business model in use to this day (despite what Microsoft recently has attempted with the upcoming Xbox One). Atari 2600 was the most popular console of this era. The games were still very simple, but some classics were fun and popular. This was the golden age of video games. Early Wave Gen Xers (often called the Atari Generation) were the target demographic. The main competition was the local arcade, board games, and early rpgs like Dungeons & Dragons. Table top games still dominated the gaming market. The arcade had much better games, so it was difficult for consoles to maintain a foothold. The only real success was the Atari 2600. It was the dominant video game console in North America between 1977 and 1985. To this day, the Atari 2600 is the console that holds the record for longest lifespan as a dominant console. Popular games: Asteroids, Centipede, Combat, Pac Man, Space Invaders, Berserk, Pitfall, Frogger, Q-bert, Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers

Third Generation (1983-1989) - 8 Bit Era (Examples: Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Master System, Atari 7200)
-The Silver Age, when Nintendo dominated. The console market was pretty much dead 1983-85. Nintendo made video games popular again in the latter half of the 80s. Late wave Xers were the target demographic (sometimes called the Nintendo Generation). Most of the big name franchises started during this era. They still had considerable competition from the local arcade, tabletop games and rpgs. Table top games were going strong though. D&D was starting to see competition from other rpgs, and the ever popular miniatures wargame, warhammer, emerged as a major hobby. Arcades also were not affected by the video game crash of 1983 and actually thrived during this period. Arcade games were still far superior to most 8 bit console games, but console games could be longer, more complex and story driven (ie Zelda, Final Fantasy). Console gaming was finding its niche, but the PC gaming market was also emerging in challenge. Popular Games: Super Mario Bros., Oregon Trail, Paperboy, Kung Fu, Street Fighter, Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man, Dragon Warrior/Quest, Dragon's Lair, Double Dragon, Contra, King's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Maniac Mansion

Fourth Generation (1989-1993) - 16 Bit Era (Examples: Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Turbo Grafx 16, NeoGeo)
-The Sega vs. Nintendo Wars were all over television. Lots of schoolyard arguments. Kids would pretend to know what terms like "16 bit" and "blast processing" meant. Late wave Xers / late Xers/Early Millennials (Yers) were the target demographic. Console games were starting to get good enough to rival the quality of arcade games and the arcade market suffered as a result. Table top games and rpgs were still very popular though. But consoles had the additional competition of the PC market which had grown rapidly and had more "intelligent games". There was a lot of PC game elitism around this time, since PCs were expensive and the games often required a lot of patience and tech savvy to play or even run properly. Popular Games: Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Street Fighter II, Mortal Combat, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario World, Star Fox, Super Metroid, Wolfensein 3D, Doom, Quake, Warcraft, X-Wing, Monkey Island, Sim City

Fifth Generation (1993-1998) - 32/64 Bit CD Era (Examples: CDi, 3DO, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64)
-Multimedia PCs made way for Multimedia consoles. Now you could have live action actors in games (which often led to laughable results due to the still modest budgets of most games). Most of these CD consoles were failures. But the late comer, Playstation, was the clear winner. Nintendo avoided CDs altogether and stuck with cartridges but still had some success with the N64. Playstation and N64 saw a move away from sprite based 2D games towards more polygon based 3D games. The target demographic was late wave Xers, Yers and early-mid millennials (sometimes called the Playstation generation). PC gaming was still strong, but arcade gaming was dying and tabletop gaming was also on the decline. Nevertheless this era saw the rise in collectible Card Games like Magic: the Gathering. Console gaming was clearly becoming the dominant form of entertainment among the young. Popular Games: Final Fantasy VII, Super Smash Bros., Zelda Ocarina of Time, Oddworld, Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Warcraft II, Command and Conquer, Crash Bandicoot, Rayman, Quake, Half Life, Myst, Tie Fighter, Starcraft, Diablo, Pokemon, Baldur's Gate, Soul Reaver

Sixth Generation (1998-2005) - PC-Like/DVD Era - (Examples: Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube)
-While this can be seen as the peak of the video game industry, the gaming market as a whole saw itself challenged by the internet as PC ownership had become mainstream and high speed internet became more accessable. Gamers were starting to spend more time browsing the internet than playing games. Around this time consoles were becoming more like PCs. The Xbox was the first console to have a built hard drive. You could also watch DVD movies and even hook it up to the internet and play online using Xbox Live. The PS2 and Gamecube also had online hookups. Online gaming, which had become very popular on PCs with games like Starcraft and Everquest, was starting to make its way to consoles. The target demographic was Yers and core Millennials. Popular Games: Halo, Halo 2, Soul Calibur, Dynasty Warriors, Metal Gear Solid 2, Devil May Cry, Call of Duty, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Metroid Prime, The Sims Katamari Damacy, Fallout, Shadow of the Colossus, Zelda Windwaker, Everquest, Final Fantasy X & XI, Kingdom Hearts, Elder Scrolls III Morrowind, World of Warcraft

Seventh Generation (2005-2012) - Internet Multiplayer Era - (Examples: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii)
-Even though online games have been a big part of PC gaming since the 90s, and were introduced to the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox late in the previous generation, it didn't really take off as as an essential component of gaming until the Xbox 360 came out in 2005 which included a headset and a free Xbox live trial subscription right out of the box. Suddenly kids were talking to their friends through their xbox live headsets instead of phones (which were mostly used for texting). Perhaps the boldest move was the Wii's motion controller which actually brought parents, grandparents and other non-gamers back into gaming, at least for a little while. The PS3 tried to copy this with their own motion controller, but didn't have as much success. The Xbox 360's Kinect tried to do the same without a controller, but that didn't really catch on either.

And as the smartphone and iPod touch became more prevalent, the console and PC gaming market suddenly saw competition from more casual handheld touch screen games like angry birds. The availability of apps of all kinds and the evolution of social networking also drew attention away from gaming. Games were still a very big industry, and had grown to a point where they had higher budgets than most films. Whereas games of the 80s were rarely made by more than a few people, now the credits had grown longer than the average summer blockbuster. It was big business, as the target demographic had expanded to include late wave millennials, but the net was still wide enough to attract early wave millennials as well as Yers and still drew a sizeable amount of core/late wave Xers. Like it or not video games were mainstream now. But the market was also becoming over-saturated with entertainment of all types. People were starting to get tired of adding a new toy to the growing electronic clutter, and the financial crash of 2008 didn't help matters. It was clear things were starting to slow down and companies were not as eager to release new consoles and games as quickly as they would have in the past. Popular Games: Halo 3 & 4, Call of Duty 2, 3, 4 Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 2, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Black Ops, World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, Bioshock, Skyrim, Dragonage, Wii Sports, Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Mario Bros. Wii, Zelda Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword


Eighth Generation (2012-) - Unknown - (Examples: Wii U, Playstation 4, Xbox One)
We are entering uncertain territory with the currently emerging console generation. The Wii U attempted to capitalize on the handheld touch screen craze by introducing a touch screen controller. Sales were modest and below expectations. Microsoft's attempts to move games to an entirely disc free subscription based business model that required online access and the inability to trade games freely was met with outrage and resulted in backpedaling. While the move away from physical media is appealing, gamers are not willing to embrace this new technology if it comes at the cost of giving up their ownership of the games they bought and the freedom they had to lend, borrow, rent or resell them. The PS4 is playing it safe and sticking with traditional discs that you can buy and trade and play without internet access, but perhaps there isn't enough innovation to justify buying a new system. The future of the console gaming industry is uncertain and not too optimistic. Perhaps the Xers and Yers are finally growing out of gaming. More likely it's just that they're's just too much entertainment available already and it's hard to justify adding to the existing electronic clutter and spending money in this weak economy. If they can't convince the aging Xers and Yers to buy the new systems, maybe they can get the younger Millies and the early homelanders, the oldest of which are 8 years old, the perfect age to start gaming. Time will tell.

[QUOTE=Gianthogweed;476410]

Fourth Generation (1989-1993) - 16 Bit Era (Examples: Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Turbo Grafx 16, NeoGeo)
-The Sega vs. Nintendo Wars were all over television. Lots of schoolyard arguments. Kids would pretend to know what terms like "16 bit" and "blast processing" meant. Late wave Xers / late Xers/Early Millennials (Yers) were the target demographic. Console games were starting to get good enough to rival the quality of arcade games and the arcade market suffered as a result. Table top games and rpgs were still very popular though. But consoles had the additional competition of the PC market which had grown rapidly and had more "intelligent games". There was a lot of PC game elitism around this time, since PCs were expensive and the games often required a lot of patience and tech savvy to play or even run properly. Popular Games: Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Street Fighter II, Mortal Combat, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario World, Star Fox, Super Metroid, Wolfensein 3D, Doom, Quake, Warcraft, X-Wing, Monkey Island, Sim City

This was my main gaming era right here. I remember most of these games.


Sixth Generation (1998-2005) - PC-Like/DVD Era - (Examples: Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo Gamecube)
-While this can be seen as the peak of the video game industry, the gaming market as a whole saw itself challenged by the internet as PC ownership had become mainstream and high speed internet became more accessable. Gamers were starting to spend more time browsing the internet than playing games. Around this time consoles were becoming more like PCs. On some systems you could watch DVD movies and even hook some of them up to the internet. Online gaming, which had become very popular on PCs with games like Starcraft and Everquest, was starting to make its way to consoles. The target demographic was Yers and core Millennials. Popular Games: Halo, Halo 2, Soul Calibur, Dynasty Warriors, Metal Gear Solid 2, Devil May Cry, Call of Duty, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Metroid Prime, The Sims Katamari Damacy, Shadow of the Colossus, Zelda Windwaker, Everquest, Final Fantasy X & XI, Kingdom Hearts, Elder Scrolls III Morrowind, World of Warcraft

I briefly got back into gaming during this era. I had Halo, but could barely figure it out.

Here's how I divide gaming eras:

The Pong Era (1972-1977) Popular games: Pong, Magnovox Odyssey
Target Audience: Boomer/Xer cuspers

The Atari Era (1977-1985) Popular games: Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, BurgerTime, Star Wars
Target Audience: First to mid-wave Xers

The 8-bit Era (1985-1991) Popular games: Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Tetris, Contra, Mega Man 2, Super Mario Bros. 3
Target Audience: Last-wave Xers

The 16-bit Era (1991-1995) Popular games: Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Doom, Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger
Target Audience: Xer/Millennial cuspers

The PlayStation/Nintendo 64 Era (1995-2000) Popular games: Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy VII, StarFox 64, Metal Gear Solid, StarCraft, Half-Life
Target Audience: First-wave Millennials

The PlayStation 2/Xbox/GameCube Era (2000-2006) Popular games: The Sims, Halo, Super Smash Bros. Melee, World of Warcraft, Madden NFL 2005, Resident Evil 4
Target Audience: Core Millennials

The PlayStation 3/Xbox 360/Wii Era (2006-2013) Popular games: Halo 3, BioShock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Braid, Angry Birds, Batman: Arkhram City
Target Audience: Last-wave Millennials

The PlayStation 4/? Era (2013- )
Target Audience: Millennial/New Silent cuspers

Yep. 80s kid entertainment and even 70s kid entertainment was still lingering long into the early 1990s. For example I got to see a lot of the GOOD Don Bluth films that way, not to mention the Care Bears had an extended life thanks to that, as well as Scooby Doo and Rainbow Brite. Older films like the Silent Generation propaganda piece like "Free to be You and Me" also played pretty often. The Chipmunks TV show and movies also got played over and over again in that time period, ditto for the trippy musical film from the Late Awakening about Raggedy Ann and Andy, the 1978 Sesame Street Christmas special got a lot of play as well (it's the one where Big Bird waits on the roof top in the snow for Santa to come but instead gets sick, and Cookie Monster eats the Christmas Tree...) that overplayed "Feliz Navidad", as well as that horrendously commercial film "Felix the Cat". And don't forget the Puff the Magic Dragon cartoon also made its rounds. Awakening and Unraveling kids culture collected in a kind of mish-mash of re-runs to create quite a weird amalgamation of entertainment in the early 1990s--as such the 1980s cohorts watching were kind of "passed over" between the two waves of the entertainment bubble.

They had a lot of hours to fill those kid networks in those days and not very large budgets to create new shows like crazy so reruns and old entertainment ruled the media. Hell, I watched the Disney Channel in the early 1990s and got to see ALL their old cartoons from the 1920s on up to the 1960s that they would have constantly playing during the day. Then on Saturdays they'd pull out old black and white TV shows and films to show during the slow hours of 11 - 4 on Saturdays--that's when you might have a few episodes of Zorro, old Mouse Club episodes, as well as films like The Nutty Professor, Herbie the Love Bug, and That Darn Cat. It's also when they'd re-air old television specials like the Monkees television special of when they visited Disney World back in the 1960s, or the one about the 1964 World's Fair TV special. There was also a time in the early - mid 1990s when Cartoon Network went through every old Hannah-Barbara cartoon from the 1960s - 1980s as their main source of programming until they started developing their own new shows and created Boomerang for the nostalgic Baby Boomer audience. If you were a mid-late 1980s cohort you could easily have watched and absorbed all of that stuff.

All of this vanished come the late 1990s--as it was replaced with all "NEW" programming, a steady and constant stream of new programming that continues until this day in the same vein. The early to mid 1990s was kind of the lax period for children's entertainment where they rested on the laurels of previous entertainment. Then the mid to late 1990s came around and children's entertainment got rebooted and all the old "standbys" were booted off the air. That's when the real core Millennial kid entertainment culture took over and the Yer straggler kid entertainment culture ended.

Early 1990s re-run culture, could start by adding in one part "Free to be You and Me" (uber 1970s triumphalism), another part weird trippy Raggedy Ann and Andy (Late Awakening confusion), another part "The Secret of NIMH" (early 1980s fantasy), and finally stir in "The Chipmunk Adventure" (uber crass late 1980s).

If there was new kids entertainment being made it was usually being imported in the early 1990s from other countries (most often Canada, but also Japan), which accounts for the sheer "just throw whatever at them" attitude they had in the early 1990s for kid culture. A lot of times they would simply translate the Japanese shows without editing anything out. By the late 1990s the censors to these shows seem to have "woken up" and started splicing out "offensive" scenes.

Chas...omg talk about total childhood nostalgia in one post! I remember ALL of this, I used to LOVE Vault Disney btw...that was the name of the program where they played all of that old Disney stuff. I think maybe this is why I was so fascinated by history as a child and to this day. I was raised with all of this pop culture nostalgia from the entire 20th century.

Oh and Felix the Cat movie...oh my god...I love that. I watched it recently not too long ago and I don't know what I was thinking! It's so bad! And so 80s...I remember being terrified of the scene where they wandered through the headhunter's forest.

I also recall the gradual censorship of children's material in the mid-late 90s. It really picked up steam in the late 90s and you can tell that there was the sense of the "Other" when it came to adult and kid programing. As if children and adults were no longer allowed to watch the same programming, it had to be either/or for each demographic. It's quite sad really...I always thought of it as the death of family entertainment. Some of my fondest memories were watching shows like Road to Avonlea with my mother and us discussing how "sophisticated" we thought people were back then.

I remember the TV show and the trading card game wasn't so popular as the Gameboy game was with the older kid cohorts. But then again the video game was essentially your typical RPG model with distinctive limitations added to it.

RPG in general seemed to be the new thing, I can remember the big fuss everyone made over Mario RPG...I had a seizure while playing it once..so maybe that's why I can't stand the roll play format.

Yeah trading cards was really the big fad Pokemon produced, even before the games were big. I think people just didn't understand the card game...I remember my friend and I trying to play it once and it was super complicated! I remember my brother's friends and I actually trading cards with me. I traded like 40 crappy Pokemon cards for a holographic Machamp! What was I thinking??....god...I remember still playing the gameboy Pokemon well into high school/early college, that game was pretty entertaining.

I remember when Power Rangers came out in '93 and nobody my age would have dared to admit liking them for fear of being teased. I'm sorry, but you can't say that someone born in '82, being already 10-years old in 1992, are prime target audience for Barney. Also, even though the Ninja Turtles originally came out as a comic book in the mid '80s and at that time was clearly meant for Xers, by the time the franchise peaked in popularity around 1990, plenty of early Millennials (including myself) were fans. I watched all their movies, had episodes of cartoon on VHS, action figures, comic books. I even had Turtles cereal. This is why I resent S&H labeling me a "Power Ranger" kid and saying the Ninja Turtles were a totally Xer thing. This is the problem with generational labeling in general.

Well yes we all watched Ninja Turtles, (even some of the 90s born cuspers saw them in reruns) but the show came out in 1987 and you were like 4 years old. You were NOT the target demographic sorry to disappoint you if you thought otherwise...

As for Barney, that's definitely true that you weren't the target demographic, but the 84-89 years were the target demographic.

82/83 are kind of cuspy years and it would really be the edge of these shows, but realistically....you were still probably the target demographic for most of them you're trying to pawn off on the younger kids. My 84 cohort brother and I LOVED power rangers..we even saw them in a show at the old Hartford Civic Center...(which doesn't exist anymore sadly)

For example, I was probably the target demographic for CatDog, but I was too old for cartoons then if I think about it...so did I watch it? No...most of my friends weren't watching it. That doesn't mean that we weren't the intended demographic they were thinking of.

Another thing to remember is that Barney didn't really start as a national television crazy until 1994 or so--just about the time there was an intense reaction against it if you were in first grade or older. Prior to that it was more "local television" IIRC, starting out of Connecticut.

Sorry I almost forgot that this was more of a local show when it started in 1992! it was really big in CT during the early 90s, which is why the 80s cohorts were more of the intended fanbase back then. I remember the huge backlash...that was exactly when I felt too old for Barney.

I imagine for Millennials born after 1989 or 1990 the events of 2008 (Obama election, market crash, etc) will mean more to them than 9/11. Compared to us earlier Millennial cohorts, it may be harder for them to remember for example, how easy it was to go through the airport (right on up to the gate, even if you weren't flying) in the days before the TSA even existed. They also may not recall as easily the incredible sadness and despair that blanketed the country in the days and weeks after 9/11

I don't remember ever not having a computer and a console in my home. From DOS and games like DOOM and Civilization on, and from the Genesis (MegaDrive in Europe), Gameboy, Lynx, Saturn, N64, PS-2, before I got bored with computer games.

Airport?? Computers in your room? God....you guys are like oober rich....I never took a plane ride when I was a kid! My parents never took vacations because we didn't have the money for them.

Actually jordan goodspeed I think you had so many latest tech because of your older brothers. I wonder if this is a late Xer thing. My 81 cohort cousin had every latest video game system along with his own computer..now there was no internet on it, but still that's pretty cool.


To me 9/11 was the biggest overreaction American society has ever had. And I was born in 88. I don't know, It was horrible to see people jumping out of the building and watching the second plane crash while they were still talking about the first one...but it's not like the bombing of Pearl Harbor or anything.

I went to Catholic school during this so they didn't even allow us to watch the live news feed...kind of a shame if you ask me. kids as old as 13 should be informed of current events.

Around 1995 - 1997 was the shift and it was noticeable. I kinda lingered on the edge trying to find what had obviously gone with the wind, and ultimately hanging up any and all interest later on. It's also about that time that Seven to Nine year old Chas discovered UPN and The Legendary Journeys of Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess... Seven to Nine year old Chas was hooked, so was his parents surprisingly. And that's when his interest in live-action television became more noticeable beyond Murder She Wrote and all the various Star Treks. Interest in live-action television grew from there while cartoons increasingly became seen by Seven to Nine year old Chas as a way to "pass the time" or "something to put on in the background".

I used to love Kevin Sorbo when he was still doing the tv movies, he made my 5-9 year old heart go pitter patter, I remember also getting very into all of the latest live action shows. Besides Xena and Hercules, there was also The Lost World, Relic Hunter, Beastmaster (never really watched this one...) There was also Buffy and Angel. I also remember a live action surreal sitcom fad (shows like Jack of All Trades and Brisco County).

1989 cohorts never got a taste of what being a teenager was like before 9/11--and it showed the following year in how they acted and how the teachers interacted with them. They simply were just "different" and they were treated differently--everyone in my school commented on it. It also didn't help that 1989 cohorts a few years later in my school were the first cohorts in the contemporary history of the high school to not get some kind of hazing/bullying done to them--which was done for voluntary reasons by the older classes who had gotten a rather harsh "initiation to High school" when it did happen.

I remember the 89+ cohort method of bullying tended to be ignoring and pretending you didn't exist. Or talking about you behind your back.

1995 was the breakout year for AOL IIRC, though you are correct it didn't really catch on until the year that "You've Got Mail" came out, which was somewhere in between 1997 & 1998. Getting CDs in the mail occurred relatively frequently. It was about that time that computer went from something "Dad had in the attic for work that was loud, hot, and noisy--with a few pretty colored games on it" to something that moved down into the living room and became a more interesting waste of time.

Yeah I remember someone giving us a computer sometime in the mid 90s, but it didn't have the internet. I can remember my dad playing solitaire and the neat flying card thing he'd do when he'd win. I'd always have to see that before I went to bed. I actually learned to read with cassette tapes but I can remember our school first getting a computer room around 1993. We'd be able to play with them, change the font and background, after we finished our cassette tapes. I just don't remember there being much to do with computers, I found myself bored by them. I didn't have any understanding of what the internet was until sometime in the late 90s, early 00s and didn't find any use for it until I was in high school by the early 00s.

It wasn't until 1998 that we actually got a family computer and 40-60 hours of AOL a month. (God that's like how many hours people spend on the internet in a week these days..) I didn't spent much time using the internet for anything other than email. I used to play cheesy computer games like Dogz, Hellcab, cheesy interactive Disney games, and The Sims. My 84 cohort brother was more into Instant messaging and Napster.

Fourth Generation (1989-1993) - 16 Bit Era (Examples: Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Turbo Grafx 16, NeoGeo)
-The Sega vs. Nintendo Wars were all over television. Lots of schoolyard arguments. Kids would pretend to know what terms like "16 bit" and "blast processing" meant. Late wave Xers / late Xers/Early Millennials (Yers) were the target demographic. Console games were starting to get good enough to rival the quality of arcade games and the arcade market suffered as a result. Table top games and rpgs were still very popular though. But consoles had the additional competition of the PC market which had grown rapidly and had more "intelligent games". There was a lot of PC game elitism around this time, since PCs were expensive and the games often required a lot of patience and tech savvy to play or even run properly. Popular Games: Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Street Fighter II, Mortal Combat, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario World, Star Fox, Super Metroid, Wolfensein 3D, Doom, Quake, Warcraft, X-Wing, Monkey Island, Sim City

This was my gaming era, except that my brother and I experienced this in the mid-late 90s rather than the late 80s early 90s. I don't remember getting Playstation until 99 or N64 until 2001. Anything beyond this just doesn't appeal to me, I could never play World of warcraft or Halo. I attempt to play Call of Duty on the Xbox awhile back and just didn't understand the appeal!