How Every Generation of the Last Century Got Its Nickname

Coining a nickname for an entire generation has become something of a pastime for academics, journalists and marketers. This week, the cable network MTV joined the generational name game when it announced it had its own moniker for the millions of kids coming after millennials: the Founders.

The idea that the people who make up a generation share certain characteristics—and thus should share a name—dates back to the mid-19th century, and most cohorts from even before that time have been given retroactive nicknames. But it wasn’t until the early 20th century that those groupings gained mainstream popularity in the United States.

The woman who should perhaps be given credit for starting the trend was the novelist Gertrude Stein, who reportedly first coined the term the Lost Generation to describe the people who were born roughly between 1880 and 1900 and who had lived through World War I. That phrasing was popularized by Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises, the epigraph for which quotes Stein saying, “You are all a lost generation.”

As for the first generation of the 20th century, those born between 1901 and 1924, generational theorists Neil Howe and William Strauss have dubbed it the G.I. Generation. “The initials ‘G.I.’ can stand for two things—‘general issue’ and ‘government issue’—and this generation’s lifecycle has stood squarely for both,” the two wrote in their 1991 book Generations.

In 1998, however, journalist Tom Brokaw largely supplanted that moniker when he wrote The Greatest Generation, which profiled individuals who grew up during the Great Depression and fought in World War II. The name stuck.

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesMTV's logo circa 1982.

On the heels of the Greatest Generation came the Silent Generation, a group born between 1925-1942 who were children during World War II but too young to fight. The name’s first recorded appearance was in an essay in TIME in November 1951, though the unnamed essayist does not take credit for the idea. “By comparison with the Flaming Youth of their fathers & mothers, today’s younger generation is a still, small flame,” declared the magazine. “It does not issue manifestoes, make speeches or carry posters. It has been called the ‘Silent Generation.’ But what does the silence mean? What, if anything, does it hide?”

This relatively small generation found itself sandwiched between the war hero G.I.s and the large and influential Baby Boomer generation, a term that first appeared in the Washington Postin 1977 and pushed aside other names like Rock and Roll Generation and Generation Jones. That moniker came about from the “boom” in the number of children born once soldiers returned home following World War II.

The next cohort — Generation X — gained the perception of being a slacker generation and more realist than their predecessors, and the moniker first came about from a Robert Capa photo essay from the 1950s. But it was popularized as a name for this group thanks to a 1965 book called Generation X as well as 1991 Douglas Coupland book called Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture.

The naming of Gen X began a rather lazy era of alphabetic generational names. Gen Y was soon used for those born between 1980 and 2000. In 1991, however, the term “millennials” was used in the book Generations, and the name eventually became widely accepted, helping Neil Howe become a preeminent expert on generations—and leading to half a dozen books written by Howe on millennials alone.

For this latest generation, Gen Z and Founders are just two of many names in the running for this post-millennial group, including iGen, Homelanders, Plurals, Posts, ReGen, and now, Founders. All of them attempt to reflect some aspect of what defines those roughly 14 years and younger today, whether it’s their diversity, their reliance on social media, or their desire to fix what they see as a society disrupted. It just might take a generation to know which name will win out.

German Holiday Ad Is the Definition of an Emotional Rollercoaster

A German supermarket released a tearjerker ad that shows an elderly man faking his own death so all of his kids will come home for the holidays. The spot starts off with his daughter and grandchildren calling to say they won’t be able to visit him this year and then proceeds to show each of his other kids’ reactions to hearing that he has passed away. When they all go to his house, he appears, saying “How else could I have brought you all together? Mmh?” It’s an ad that’s guaranteed to make you feel all the feelings—confusion, anger, sadness and more.

Restored photos retrace Shackleton's Antarctic voyage

Hurley is seen here outside a makeshift hut that had become home. Courtesy: RGS-IBG

London, UK - One hundred years ago, 28 men were putting the final touches on a ramshackle camp on a drifting iceberg.

That was not how it was supposed to be: Ernest Shackleton and his crew had set off from England in 1914 to be the first to cross the white continent of Antarctica.

But on November, 21, 1915, their ship, the Endurance, sank after having been stuck in the pack ice for nearly a year.

The expedition photographer, Frank Hurley, managed to save his photographic equipment and continued to document the journey.

His photographs have now been digitised from the fragile original plates and negatives and are on display at the Royal Geographical Society.

The images are enlarged to show greater resolution and bring out details never before seen.

In The Night Watchman's Story, a sixth man is seen in the photo who wasn't obvious before. The ship became ensnared in the pack ice in January 1915.

Despite attempts to free her the Endurance was stuck in the pack ice for nearly a year before sinking. Courtesy: RGS-IBG

One journal entry notes that for three hours they used the full thrust of Endurance's engines and any wind the sails could gather to try to free the ship.

Hurley got on an ice floe to record the attempt.

It's hard to imagine how difficult photography was 100 years ago; the cameras were huge, the barrels of developing fluid were heavy and there was no luxury of taking another shot just to be sure.

"Every image had to earn its place because it cost a lot;  both to buy the glass plates and to develop and each one had to matter," curator Meredith Hooper told me on a recent visit.

Add to that the extreme circumstances - complete darkness for months and sub-zero temperatures.

Hurley used flares to light his subjects; you can see the bright areas where he set the pans of flash powder around the ship.

"It must have been an extraordinary flash of light in the middle of an Antarctic dark night, in the middle of the ice,'' Hooper said

''In total, total darkness is this one ship hundreds of miles from any known human, stuck on the ice and when he [Hurley] does capture the image it's so powerful. It's the only way we can get a sense of the loneliness and isolation."

All of the men were finally rescued in August 1916, after Shackleton and a five-man crew managed an epic journey, sailing 1,200km in a lifeboat to South Georgia.  

I brought a veteran polar explorer along to get his take on the  Enduring Eye exhibition.

Jim McNeill is preparing to lead the Ice Warrior Project: an expedition of 28 to the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility.

The men onboard Endurance before the ship sank in the Weddell Sea. A sixth man can just be seen behind the man with the glasses. Courtesy: RGS-IBG

The centre of the Arctic Ocean is one of the last places on this planet that hasn't been explored. 

McNeill has tried to get there twice: the first attempt, in 2003, ended when he contracted necrotising fasciitis - the flesh-eating disease; the second, in 2006, ended when he fell through the ice and didn't have enough fuel to fully dry his clothes and gear.

McNeill said Shackleton would have kept up a regime for the crew. You can see Reginald James, a naturalist on the expedition, taking observations.

"It's very good to keep people busy," McNeill told me as we looked at a picture of the men weighing the dogs, a completely useless exercise.

''There's nothing worse than a crew that's sat still and wondering." 

That's where good leadership skills are critical.

"One thing you have got to do is teach people to take the rough with the smooth, the peaks and the troughs of emotion, and when they are feeling the desperate situation they're in, how to avoid getting too gloomy about it," McNeill said.

The show Enduring Eye runs through February and will then travel to the US, Canada and Australia.

Emma Watson Says She Was Advised to Not Say the Word ‘Feminism’ in U.N. Speech

Gerard Julien—AFP/Getty ImagesEnglish actress Emma Watson poses during the photocall of Hispano-Chilean director Alejandro Amenabar's movie "Regression" in Madrid on August 27, 2015. AFP PHOTO/ GERARD JULIEN (Photo credit should read GERARD JULIEN/AFP/Getty Images)

Emma Watson is not afraid to call herself a feminist—despite some advice she’s been dealt in the past. The actress made waves last year when she delivered a much-praised speech at the U.N. Women’s HeforShe launch event encouraging men to fight for women’s equality across the world. She earned praise, in part, for dismissing the complicated connotations of the word “feminism” and defining it simply as “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.”

“The more I have talked about feminism, the more I’ve realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating,” she said at the time. “If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.”

But it turns out Watson was advised not to use the term in her now-lauded oratory.

“I was encouraged not to use the word ‘feminism’ because people felt that it was alienating and separating and the whole idea of the speech was to include as many people as possible,” she told the Evening Standard in a recent interview. “But I thought long and hard and ultimately felt that it was just the right thing to do. If women are terrified to use the word, how on earth are men supposed to start using it?”

The Harry Potter actress, who has continued to lobby for women’s right in the last year, did not specify who gave her the advice.

Anti-abortion groups target IUD use

A rapid increase in the number of U.S. women turning to intrauterine devices to prevent pregnancy has prompted escalating attacks on the birth control method from groups that oppose abortion.

The next battle will be at the U.S. Supreme Court, which has agreed to consider a new religious challenge to contraceptives coverage under President Obama's healthcare law. Although the case deals broadly with whether religiously affiliated groups should be exempt from providing birth control coverage to their employees, some parties in the case have focused specifically on IUDs.

IUDs work primarily by preventing sperm from reaching an egg. But they have come under fire from anti-abortion groups because, in rare instances, they can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. Those who believe that life begins at conception consider blocking implantation to be terminating a pregnancy rather than preventing pregnancy.

“IUDs are a life-ending device,” said Mailee Smith, staff counsel for the Americans United for Life, which filed an amicus brief in support of the challenge before the high court. “The focus of these cases is that requiring any life-ending drug is in violation of the Religious Freedom Act.”

IUD use among U.S. women using contraceptives grew to 10.3 percent in 2012 from 2 percent in 2002, according to the Guttmacher Institute, making them the fastest growing birth-control method. Their popularity has grown as women recognized that newer versions of the device don't carry the same safety risks as a 1970s-era IUD known as the Dalkon Shield.

Now more than 10 percent of U.S. women using contraceptives use IUDs. Other forms of birth control, such as daily pills, are on the decline. 

Obama's Affordable Care Act has also boosted the use of intrauterine devices. The law requires insurers to fully cover birth control, including the entire $800 to $1000 cost for insertion of an IUD.

Should the high court agree with the plaintiffs and rule that they are exempt from the coverage, IUDs could become much more costly for women who work at such organizations, some legal experts say. As many as 3.5 million people worked at public charities with religious affiliations, according to 2013 data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics at The Urban Institute.

Planned Parenthood, long a target from religious groups for providing access to abortions, has also become a significant source of the devices, with IUD use by its patients up 57 percent between 2009 and 2013.

Under the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration created an exemption for houses of worship and some related organizations that object to funding birth control for employees, but now other types of religiously affiliated groups want similar waivers.

In 2014, the Supreme Court accepted the position of Hobby Lobby, a chain of craft stores owned by religious Christians, ruling that private companies that are closely-controlled could opt out of contraception coverage based on the owners' beliefs.

Hobby Lobby, among other things, objected to birth control that could prevent “an embryo from implanting in the womb,” including two types of IUDs, according to court documents.

The current high court case consolidates seven lawsuits filed by nonprofit groups with religious affiliations, such as colleges and retirement homes run by nuns. The ruling could be applied to more than 100 similar lawsuits, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of women, according to lawyers on both sides of the issue. Little Sisters of the Poor, one of the plaintiffs, has for example more than 2,000 employees.

The Obama administration has already allowed such nonprofit groups an exemption from providing birth control coverage, but created an accommodation that would still guarantee benefits to their employees.

Under the accommodation, nonprofits are required to notify their insurers, plan administrators or the federal Department of Health and Human Services that they object to the coverage. The insurance plan then directly offers employees separate contraceptive coverage. Organizations that fail to give notice face fines.

The groups that filed the cases now before the Supreme Court, including Geneva College and Priests for Life, contend that the notification requirements violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which says the government can't burden religious groups without a compelling reason.

Some of the organizations are challenging coverage for all forms of birth control while others focus only on methods that potentially interfere with fertilized eggs, including the so-called “morning-after pill” and IUDs.

Mark Rienzi, a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents Little Sisters of the Poor, said that his clients feel that completing the paperwork would make them complicit in providing birth control. Filing for the accommodation would still trigger an offer of birth control coverage from an insurer, he said.

Houses of worship, he pointed out, do not need to complete paperwork or provide the coverage. “No one takes over their health plan and uses it to distribute the abortion-inducing drugs and contraceptives,” he said.

No matter what happens next year at the Supreme Court, the battle over the IUD is likely to continue.

“The stakes are very high,” said Aram Schvey, senior policy counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “We know this kind of plan is effective. When people aren't burdened by cost, they choose more expensive, more dependable, longer-lasting contraceptives, like IUDs.”

Iraq: We don't need foreign troops to fight ISIL

Iraq has said that any deployment of foreign troops on its soil cannot happen without approval of its government.

Iraqi prime minister's comments came in repsonse to the earlier announcement by the United States Defense Secretary Ashton Carter that the US will deploy "specialised" troops to Iraq to help fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) group.

"We do not need foreign ground combat forces on Iraqi land," Abadi said in a statement on Tuesday.

"The Iraqi government stresses that any military operation or the deployment of any foreign forces - special or not - in any place in Iraq cannot happen without its approval and coordination and full respect of Iraqi sovereignty."

Speaking to the House Armed Services Committee, the Pentagon chief had said that a "specialised expeditionary targeting force" was being deployed to help Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

"In full coordination with the government of Iraq, we're deploying a specialised expeditionary targeting force to assist Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces and to put even more pressure on ISIL," Carter said on Tuesday.

"American special operators bring a unique suite of capabilities that make them force multipliers. They will help us garner valuable ground intelligence, further enhance our air campaign and, above all, enable local forces that can regain and then hold territory occupied by ISIL."

Carter added that the special forces would also be able to intervene in Syria, where Washington has already announced it is sending about 50 special operations troops.

Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan, reporting from the US capital, said that the number of additional troops to be sent is still unknown.

"We don't know yet how many forces are going to be deployed," she said. "The Iraqi government wants US troops to be helping with the effort and move ISIL off its territory.

"In Syria, the US president has approved a plan to send in special forces, but is doing so without the consent of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and that's something that has angered Assad since the coalition launched air strikes more than a year ago."

Carter's comments come as the British parliament prepares to debate whether the Royal Air Force should start bombing in Syria. Extra planes could be sent to Cyprus if MPs vote on whether to extend British military intervention against ISIL.

If successfully passed by the MPs on Wednesday, British fighter jets will be allowed to extend their campaign against ISIL fighters in Iraq to neighbouring Syria, where the group has its headquarters in the city of Raqqa.

David Cameron, the UK prime minister, called for military intervention in ISIL-held areas of Syria after the group's attacks in Paris on November 13, which left 130 people dead.

What MTV Is Calling the Generation After Millennials

Griffin Picciani, 14, doesn’t feel like a millennial. The New York City teenager looks at his early-20s cousins and easily recognizes the differences between his teenage years and theirs. Griffin only knows a black president. The video games he plays are miles away from the 8-bit consoles his cousins can remember. And perhaps most important, he and his friends can’t remember a time before Instagram and Snapchat.

“My age group has grown up with all of this social media at a much younger age,” Griffin says. “I think that’s given us a different perspective.”

Griffin is part of a generation that hasn’t been fully defined but appears to break from millennials—and one that doesn’t yet have a widely accepted name. MTV is looking to change that, and the network will announce a new name Wednesday: the Founders.

MTV President Sean Atkins says the name acknowledges that while millennials have disrupted society, it’s this new generation’s job to rebuild it. “They have this self-awareness that systems have been broken,” he told TIME ahead of the announcement. “But they can’t be the generation that says we’ll break it even more.”

There are, it turns out, a plethora of monikers for this new generation: Gen Z, iGen, Posts, Homeland Generation, ReGen, Plurals. But for MTV, the cable and satellite network which has been studying this generation for the last few years, none of those names represented what its researchers were seeing in surveys and data they’d been collecting. So in March 2015, the network asked more than 1,000 kids who were born after December 2000 what they should be called, generating 544 names including the Navigators, the Regenerators, the Builders, the Bridge Generation, and the winner, the Founders.

MTV is part of a growing number of media companies and marketers that have been trying to figure out what drives this group. Research is beginning to show that teenagers today are more pragmatic and independent than their millennial predecessors. They’re more likely to stand out than fit in. They’re digital natives who don’t know a time before being constantly plugged in. And they’re part of the most diverse generation in history, a generation that will soon be as coveted among marketers as millennials.

For MTV, which has seen significant ratings declines over the last couple years and recently named a new president to oversee new programming, the network plans to use the information it has gathered to tweak its shows to better reflect this group, which in the next few years will begin displacing millennials as it enters the network’s core demographic of 12 to 34 years old. MTV says its research shows that younger teens today see a world drastically disrupted. Facebook and Google have upended the news business. YouTube has disrupted television. Airbnb and Uber have unsettled long-established industries like hotels and taxis. The economy itself was disrupted by the Great Recession, creating a world in which their parents may have lost their jobs and family budgets are tight.

“They’re slightly more risk-averse,” says Jane Gould, MTV senior vice president of consumer insights and research. “They’ve grown up without a safety net.”

Generational experts and marketers have only just begun studying this generation, and most are finding similar traits. It will be the first generation parented largely by Generation X, often called latch-key kids thanks to the hands-off parenting style of the Greatest Generation. Those often-cynical Gen X parents appear to be imparting a realism onto their kids as opposed to a more optimistic, you-can-do-anything parenting style of their Baby Boomer parents.

Still, there’s no hard break between any generation, and some experts see this new group as merely the ultimate extension of millennials.

“We do not expect that this next generation is going to be anti-millennial,” says Neil Howe, a generational theorist and author of Generations and Millennials Rising, who has also coined the term “homelanders” for those coming after millennials. “You have a whole generation that is going to represent the extreme endpoint of where millennials were going in many respects: risk-averse, team-oriented, well-behaved.”

This fall, MTV started introducing new shows that are beginning to reflect these younger consumers, including Todrick starring Todrick Hall, who was cut from American Idol but has reinvented himself on YouTube and Broadway. Last year the network launched Faking It, which focuses on high schoolers who become popular by standing out, a character trait MTV researchers say this generation values. The biggest shift will show up next year in the ambitious scripted series The Shannara Chronicles, a fantasy series set inside a post-apocalyptic dystopian world.

“The Founders” generation is still in its early stages, and the perceptions being formed may change over time. MTV executives say they realize that and may rethink the name in the future. But for now, they’re sticking with Founders, a name Griffin, the New York City teenager, endorses.

“It definitely describes our generation,” he says. “And considering the other names out there, it’s a lot easier to remember.”