Xillennials

I have come to realise, I was born in a strange time. The magical year 1980. At first glance it's difficult to see anything that would make it special, but when you mark the years by generations it's unusual nature becomes more apparent. A generation is typically defined as a group of individuals with a similar formative experience. By that definition I am part of a very small generation. Not exactly part of Generation X, and not really a Millennial ethor. I'm usually included when people talk about either of them.

When I was in school, computers will still a bit of an anomalous curiosity to most people. People were using them all the time if they happened to work in an office, but not so much at home. Only serious nerds used computers in their spare time. Of course that was me. My father worked at IBM. I'm one of the oldest people you'll find who can't remember not having a computer.

I started using the computer in ernest long before most of my friends. In the third grade my handwriting was terrible almost completely illegible. I certainly couldn't read it. My mother could read enough of the words to get the idea I was trying to put down. I was diagnosed with dysgraphia, as well as a handful of other learning disabilities, but they don't matter here. My handwriting was so bad, I would type up my little 3 paragraph book reports in the third grade. I was the only one. Nobody else typed up anything for school at that point.

Later on I started doing research papers. I was taught to use the library and its card catalog. I learned the duodecimal system. I also learned to research things on CD. Yah before the internet became huge I used an Encyclopedia Britannica on CD! It wasn't until I got to highschool that the internet became useful.

Before the Nintendo. My friends and I would play games on Commodores, and PC's. All of us huddled around 3 or 4 computers in the computer lab, taking turns trying to beat oregon trail; or Pipes. We wrote programing scripts for the Turtle Graphics system.

These are all things millennials almost haven't heard of. GenXers never dealt with them ethor. The things I did while growing up aren't a part of either generation. Because of that I have come to think of myself as a Xillennial.

Why '80s Babies Are Different Than Other Millennials

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