That was the defining experience of “Generation Jones” — the late baby boomers who’ve realized late that they aren’t, don’t wanna be, and don’t hafta be part of that increasingly despised cohort. It wasn’t their fault! Born between 1954 and 1965 (dare I tell both my brothers they’re free to abandon their BoomerShip?), little kids during the sex, drugs, and rock’n'roll “revolution,” they grasped at crumbs from their older siblings’ feast table, only to share the full blame when the culture turned and began to find all that a lot less romantic. Now it’s like, “Hey! We’re not the listless spawn of the backwash of the ’60s, whose main distinction is knowing all the episodes of ‘The Brady Bunch’. We’re a Formerly Lost Generation!” “Lost somewhere/ between tie dye and polyester,” as one “Violet Moodswing” puts it at the beginning of an ode to her cohort (I shall refrain from linking.)

This is new to me — courtesy of commenter PollWatcher — but it’s not new; it was first floated in 2000, and for whatever reason didn’t catch on, except in Western Europe (WTF is that about??) and in the world of demographic marketing. (When you find your identity, it kinda, you know, liberates your purchasing power.) Probably the full obnoxiousness of the First Boomers hadn’t sunk in yet; that took both Clinton and Bush, and the waning of 9/11, that great distraction from the trivial. If you haven’t heard of GenJones, despite the tenacious flogging of “cultural historian” Jonathan Pontell, whose one big idea it is, you will now. Because, you see, Barack Obama is a “Joneser.” They claim they’re more civic-minded, more family-oriented (despite severe work-family issues), and less narcissistic than “My Generation.” (I’ll refrain from saying “That isn’t saying much,” since any gradient in that direction is welcome.) They claim to have absorbed their elders’ much-flaunted idealism and preserved it — like monks in Irish monasteries during the Dark Ages — when “we” sold out in the ’80s. (At least, this is how the mythic narrative is shaping up.)

One mystery is the Generation Jones book, which was touted as “forthcoming,” “upcoming,” and “soon to be released” in both 2000 and 2007, but seems to be as lost as the generation. Maybe it will finally forthcome, or upcome, on the coattails of Obama’s campaign.