My Saturday mornings, and other periods of free time throughout the week, are currently occupied by research and writing for a book manuscript I have due at the end of June.

One of the most helpful books I’ve been reading as I’ve been writing is called The Next America by Paul Taylor and the Pew Research Center. The book is based off of Pew’s treasure trove of demographical data and is intended to show the difference between American generations and what “the next America” may look like.

This weekend, as I was writing, I came across a section in which Taylor lists different icons from the Millennial, Gen X, Baby Boomer, and Silent generations. (Most of my research only goes back to Baby Boomers, so we’re going to leave the Silent generation out of this blog post.)

I thought these icons gave a fascinating look into the different generations, and I wanted to share his list of icons with you. Some of the icons below are from Taylor’s book, but I have added a number of my own as well:

Millennial Icons (born 1981-1995)

Mark Zuckerberg

Taylor Swift

LeBron James

Beyoncé

Jennifer Lawrence

Justin Bieber

PewDiePie

Gen X Icons (born 1965-1980)

Will Smith

Mariah Carey

Adam Sandler

Tiger Woods

Jennifer Aniston

Derek Jeter

Keith Urban

Baby Boomer Icons (born 1946-1964)

Bono

Barack Obama

Bill/Hillary Clinton

Michael Jordan

Steve Jobs

Madonna

Tom Hanks

It is kinda cool to see how each generation’s icons are a bit different and show how times have changed. Obviously, there are at least a dozen other people that could have made this blog post because they’re considered “icons” for one reason or another, but I think this is a pretty good list that represents various spheres of influence.

Who would you have added and why?

Tags:  Baby Boomers Beyoncé Gen Xers Icons Justin Bieber LeBron James Millennials Taylor Swift