A youngun’ is anyone who was not old enough to theoretically understand the significance of Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994. It doesn’t matter whether they actually do know or understand said death… however, they have to have been old enough (say eight or nine) to have had a conversation about this musician who made music that a lot of people liked, and he killed himself, and that’s that.
An elder is anyone who was old enough to theoretically understand the significance of James Brown’s performance at the Apollo in 1962. It doesn’t matter whether they actually do know or understand said performance… however, they have to have been old enough (say nine or ten) to have had a discussion about this musician who electrified an audience with a propensity to boo singers off stange, and brought about a whole new kind of music.
It’s interesting to me that the demarcations both result from music, and not from literature, politics, or science. But there it is.
This is what makes someone a youngun’ or an elder.
So what's in between? There's a nebulous zone in there for ones who claim to understand the first, but not the second.
I guess that wuld be "preemptive adulthood."