Keeping Up With the Joneses

In my last post, I said that I was a Baby Boomer. It turns out that I was wrong. I have just learned that I'm actually a Jones. A Jones? Apparently a movement to redefine the generations has been brewing for the past 7 or 8 years. From a 1999 news article

They grew up watching The Brady Bunch, not Leave It to Beaver. Their attitudes were shaped more by Watergate than JFK. They remember gas lines, not Mustangs. So can you really call 35- to 45-year-olds baby boomers? Jonathan Pontell says no. The 41-year-old popular culture expert from Los Angeles has coined a name for this group, which represents a quarter of all U.S adults: Generation Jones.

According to Pontell, the redefined generations look like this: Note that this graph is from 2005

I'm not sure I like the name Jones but I can see some value in breaking up the Baby Boom generation into two distinct groups. From a workplace perspective, the oldest Baby Boomers are heading into retirement while younger Baby Boomers like myself are right in the prime of our work life; except for the, ummm, reduced energy levels and the errr fading memory. Well, anyway, we Joneses have the benefit of many years of experience along with advanced degrees in the school of hard-knocks while still being able to keep up, for the most part, with the new technology. That makes us a pretty special group, perhaps worth segregating and re-naming, don't you think?

Here is an excerpt of a little trivia fun for my Jones compatriots:

QUESTIONS

1. How many of the “Sweathogs” of Welcome Back Kotter do you remember?

2. What rumor about Mikey (from Life cereal adds) fizzed among Jonesers in the 1970s?

3. We were the first generation of kids with video games. What was the beloved original?

4. A Joneser played the title role in the made-for-TV movie, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble? Who was he?

5. Three movies with ensemble generational casts were released at the same time in the mid-1980s. The Big Chill for Boomers, The Breakfast Club for Xers. Which one for Jonesers?

6. Which actress in what movie inspired the “torn sweatshirt/bare shoulder/leg warmer” look among Jonesers in the 1980s?


ANSWERS
1. Barbarino, Epstein, Boom-Boom, Horshack.
2. He supposedly died from drinking soda with Pop Rocks.
3. Pong.
4. John Travolta.
5. St. Elmo's Fire
6. Jennifer Beals, Flashdance.