Guardian staff 

Are you a xennial? Take the quiz

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
  
  

The Goonies
Sacred text: he cast of The Goonies, the Citizen Kane of xennial movies. Photograph: Allstar/Warner Bros/Sportsphoto Ltd

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?

  1. You used a dial-up modem to do school or uni research despite having been repeatedly told that you couldn't trust anything on the internet. (And the dial tone still haunts your nightmares)

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  2. You remember Boy George the first time he became famous

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  3. You owned New Kids on the Block merch

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  4. You made a mix tape for someone you fancied. And it was on a tape

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  5. You remember when floppy disks were actually floppy

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  6. You had one of these

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  7. You were able to get your full name without numbers or full stops into an email address at the beginning of the internet

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  8. Your first computer games came on cassette tapes (and usually ended in an error message)

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  9. Still from the game Soccer by Atari

    This was your first computer game

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  10. nokia 8110

    You can remember when this amazing phone came into being

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  11. You never thought it was weird that Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Sunnydale had the kind of internet that allowed Willow to constantly hack the mayor, but no mobile phones

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  12. You had, or still have, a hotmail account

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  13. You can still remember your landline number

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  14. You got super excited when a rich neighbour or friend got a car phone

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  15. You have a surprisingly high tolerance for reply all email chains

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  16. You can remember when you first heard about a website called "Google" and before that had to "Ask Jeeves". And before that was the World Book Encyclopedia

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  17. You still get upset thinking about the premise of Party of Five

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  18. Two of the Lost Boys

    You can't remember which of these Coreys was your first movie star crush

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  19. You were actually scared the first time you saw The Goonies

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  20. You remember calling friends on the family landline and having to say hi to their mum or dad first

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

  21. You thought call waiting was the technological advance of a generation

    1. True

      Add a point in A

    2. False

      Add a point in B

Buckets

  1. Xennial

    You are a true xennial. Well done. You understand modern technology but are not so emotionally needy as to need constant validation from strangers you will never meet.

  2. Not a Xennial

    Sorry, you are not a xennial. You are probably one of those narcissistic emotional exhibitionists known as millennials or, God forbid, a baby boomer. If you did not complete this quiz, then you are clearly from generation X and too lacking in motivation to bother.
 

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