The sound of dial-up internet haunts your nightmares and you remember when floppy disks were actually floppy. Was your first crush called Corey? Perhaps you were born between 1977 and 1983

Are “xennials” even a thing? In internet folklore, xennials are those born between 1977 and 1983. They are old enough to have lived a childhood free of the internet but young enough to have spent their working lives online. The online magazine Good says xennials are “a micro-generation that serves as a bridge between the disaffection of gen X and the blithe optimism of millennials”.

According to Dan Woodman, the sociologist mistakenly named in Australian media as the man who invented the term, xennials is a fun concept for a quiz or a poll but becomes problematic when we treat a cohort of people like one person with one set of values.

Quietly tiptoeing away from becoming the face of the xennial generation, Woodman conceded that there is “something useful in the concept of generations because it reminds us of social context and the experiences that shaped our lives”. But not much more than that.

So here’s a quiz to find out if you are a xennial that will remind you of your 80s and 90s pop culture consumption, your eager adoption of the often frustrating world wide web, and your carefree life before ubiquitous mobile phones and “life” on social media. (No more, no less.)



Quiz: how xennial are you?