I'm A 'Tweener

A RANT about My Generation

Photo by Bruce McBroom of Pro Arts Inc., published in Life magazine in 1976

How do you get from point A to point Z via a marketing campaign without bruising the delicate egos of your targeted audience? Pay attention to what the audience is telling you. Or better yet, what they are not saying or buying.

Now listen up, you marketing fools:

I'M NOT A BOOMER! And most of my peers ARE NOT BOOMERS! Please stop treating us like BOOMERS!

WE ARE THE 'TWEENERS!!!! 

We 'Tweeners have been eternally stuck behind the Boomers and just ahead of the Xers… forever.

We are the men and women who didn't embrace the hippie ideology of the Sixties nor "get" the Slacker Generation's ethos. 

Just the other day, someone on the social media platform Threads suggested we are "Generation Jones." To me, that sounds like we're trying to "keep up with the Joneses." I won't cop to that moniker either.

We came of age in the 1970s with no demographic identification to market in perpetuity.

Say it again, loud, and say it proud.

"We are the 'TWEENERS!" I blurted it as I re-read the Threads post!

"No, I'm not," said the ruddy-faced young woman in the leather pants, sandals, and fetching floppy hat at the local microbrewery. "I'm Macedonian."

"You've missed my point," I replied. "It's not your lineage, your birthright, but your and your peers' group identifier. I'm a 'Tweener, and I won't take it anymore."

A few years ago, I attended a marketing symposium discussing how to market websites, how to target an e-commerce group, and how to attract brand names to that target group, and it got me thinking about how we market things in general. Marketing gurus must find target audiences for whatever brand they are trying to sell. Target the brand to find your core audience and then smack that audience over the head with your pitch and pomp. Eventually, they will see the value in that product, service, or website, and all will be right in the universe.

While I find value in that for a revenue stream, I also loathe it for being so myopic in an ever-narrowing vision on a practical front. Why can't people just like or use something without it being tied to their age or demographic? Am I not allowed to enjoy Lucky Charms just because I'm in my sixties? Do marketing experts really worry so much about dividing people into different categories as long as their profit margins increase?

My g-g-g-genration is too young for Baby Boomer status and too old for the Slacker generation. We have yet to find a niche that Madison Avenue—is that still a thing—has ever been able to define.

We are the 'Tweeners!

We are overly mistaken for being another generation when we are clearly not. We were born in the late '50s/early '60s ('56-'65) and still think that most Disco sucks, Farrah was our prepubescent poster girl, and the original Scooby Do was our cultural cartoon hero. We also cast our first presidential ballot for the humanitarian Jimmy Carter.

But who defined the word 'Tweener?

Well, I must give credit to my former literary agent. She said to me one day, "Why don't you write a book for the 'Tweeners," and then launched into her succinct definition. I was inspired. I finally had a group to which a book publisher's marketing division could market. So, I began churning out all kinds of book proposals that went nowhere fast. What was wrong? Couldn't they read 'tween the lines?

Was I too old for my peers in mind and spirit? I opined that I can't be in my sixties and think like a 40-year-old. I need to dance with a younger audience. I need to run naked—hey, we 'Tweeners practically invented streaking in the '70s—and commune with the youthful folly and hip music and hipper clothes and postures of today. After all, all of the cool things we wore in the '70s are fashionable again today.

As children, we had bicycles with banana seats, loved The Monkees, space food sticks, Tang, Peter Frampton, Silly Putty, reading Creem magazine rather than Rolling Stone, danced then pogoed to catchy music (disco and then punk rock), loved cheesy television programming like Three's Company and Charlie's Angels, and The Love Boat was our favorite voyage. And speaking of television shows, c'mon, admit how much you adored That 70's Show. I shamelessly watch the reruns!

As a tennis enthusiast, "Super Brat" John McEnroe (1959) is one of ours, the coolest tennis player ever to argue an errant line call, and a former neighbor of mine. Check this out; he's still married to former Scandal lead singer Patty Smyth (1957), another 'Tweener. Ditto for jazz giant Wynton Marsalis (1961). And let's not forget Johnny Rotten, aka Lydon (1956), and Sid Vicious (1957) of the Sex Pistols, Michael Jackson (1958), Sade (1959), and our Purple Prince (1958), to name but a few.

But at least, if all else failed, I had a group to which I belonged. We were not the polemic radicals of our older brothers and sisters who burned their draft cards and bras. We didn't have "be-ins," Haight Ashbury, Kent State, Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Studio 54, etc. We had punk rock, lots of it, and some of us even adopted Billy Idol as our rock and roll patron saint, even though he was born in 1955. Yeah, lame as it may be to some music purists, he's the sneering 'Tweeners' Ozzy! Though I prefer the darker and smarter song catalog of 'Tweener Nick Cave (1957) or Henry Rollins (1961). And, as I stated above, I never really loved disco, but I admit I dug the funky grooves of Chic and thought that John Travolta strutting down the street in Saturday Night Fever to that classic Boomer Bee Gees' tune "Stayin' Alive" was most excellent. Bummer that JT was born in '54, so he's technically a Baby Boomer, too.

It's disappointing to see our beloved actors and actresses from our generation being unfairly grouped together with Boomers. Don't you dare mess with our 'Tweener celebs like Alec Baldwin (1958), Eddie Murphy (1961), Jamie Lee Curtis (1958), director Spike Lee (1957), George Clooney (1961), Demi Moore (1961), Gary Oldham (1958), Meg Ryan (1961), director Quentin Tarantino (1961), retired actor Daniel Day-Lewis (1957), or Michelle Pfeiffer (1958). Back in the mid-'80s, I once proposed to MP at a party in Hollywood. Suffice it to say, she quickly put me in my place! 

I would like to propose this: if 70 is the new 60, then 60 is the new 40, and "my generation" is stepping on the marketing toes of another generation again cuz we ain't no stinking Gen Xers, Zers, Millennials, et al. Wait, that can't be right. That means we don't have a niche again. How can I possibly market anything to anyone if I don't know where I fit in? 

Who is my target group? Do I have to stay in this group, or can I reapply for status in another? Maybe my fellow 'Tweeners and I are cross-generational? 

Oh, the (marketing algorithm) humanity. 

Did I mention to all of you marketing gurus that WE ARE 'TWEENERS!

I'm exhasuted. Time to blast "My Way" by the Sex Pistols on glorious vinyl.