Xennials

Xennials are the micro-generation of people on the cusp of the Generation X and Millennial demographic cohorts. Many researchers and popular media use birth years from 1977 to 1983, though some extend this to include those born from 1975 up to 1986. Xennials are described as having had an analog childhood and digital young adulthood. In 2020, Xennial was added to the Oxford Dictionary of English. It was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2021: Xennial, n. and adj.: “A person born between the late 1970s and early 1980s, after (or towards the end of) Generation X and before (or at the beginning of) the millennial” Xennials is a portmanteau blending the words Generation X and Millennials to describe a "micro-generation" or "cross-over generation" of people whose birth years are between the mid-late 1970s and the early 1980s or the mid 1980s Xennials was coined by writer Sarah Stankorb, and discussed in a two-part, September 2014 article in GOOD magazine written by Stankorb, a freelance writer, and then-GOOD Magazine staff writer Jed Oelbaum. Good magazine has described Xennials as "a micro-generation that serves as a bridge between the disaffection of Gen X and the blithe optimism of Millennials." Dan Woodman, an Australian sociologist, was miscredited by the Australian media with inventing it, but clarified he did not in fact coin the term. Jed Oelbaum credits Sarah Stankorb with the term. The earliest traced usage comes from the 2014 Good article, which Stankorb pitched including the term Xennial. In 2017, Xennial was included in Merriam-Webster's "Words We're Watching" section, which discusses new words which are increasingly being used, but which do not yet meet criteria for a dictionary entry. Merriam-Webster Dictionary credited Stankorb with coining the term. In 2020, xennial was included in the Oxford Dictionary of English. The definition given is "a member of an age group born after Generation X and before the millennial generation (specifically in the late 1970s and early 1980s)".