Generation Catalano: finally a name to describe those people that didn't have cell phones in high school

In this excellent Slate essay, Doree Shafrir puts a name to the sliver of people (born around 1977-1981) who don't quite feel like Generation X and don't quite feel like Millennials. I totally agree, because even though my brothers are only a few years older than me, I feel like they lived in a whole different planet sometimes (particularly the one born in 1980). Maybe it was the fact that I had a cell phone in high school and Facebook in college, but I often feel like the lone member of my generation in my family. That's evidenced by the fact that I didn't even understand the reason for the name "Catalano" (apparently named after Jared Leto in My So-Called Life).

I also like that the author points out that we have a ridiculous fascination with generational identity anyway (#guilty):

This urge to define generations is also about a yearning for a collective memory in an increasingly atomized world, at least where my generation is concerned. Indeed, where the Millennials tend to define themselves in terms of the way they live now, people in my cohort find fellowship more in what happened in the past, clinging to cultural totems as though our shared experiences will somehow lead us to better figure out who we are.