I need a rant about millennials

Couldnt agree more! (Also a millennial)

"I get this a lot with millennials - like they think every cultural experience is about them or for them - even taking things that are from other generations and claiming it as their era - and they act like no other generation has had any big events to deal with."

I think you've been unlucky with Millennials @HanG77. Can you say a bit more about the above, and give us some more examples? Is it within your personal friendship group? Perhaps you could ask them directly, try and start a nuanced conversation. As an elder Millennial, it's never occured to me that e.g. 9/11 was more traumatising for me because of my age at the time (although I've always known it was pretty formative).

None of what you said, or what you've said the person said, made any sense to me.

I hate when people use terms like “millennials” and “generation x” etc . It’s just ridiculous sorry.

I'm British Gen X when did the world stop?

OP, I believe I am technically gen-z (1997) (also I don't remember 9/11) but because I got married and had my children young, I am grouped much more with millennials and yes, absolutely I know what you are talking about. There is a narrative of "we've had the worst luck" which I find absolutely baffling. I do think it comes from them coming of age when they were being told they could do anything, anyone should get a degree and then they'd all get job easily, etc... which turned out to be false. But they seem to forget/not be aware of all of the things that happened during the lives of other generations... or at least not apply it to their own lives.

@SardinesOnButteredToast - I hear a lot of that from my younger gen-z family members. They're so angry at how fucked up the environment is and how little they individually can have an impact now. Obviously I am not saying that they shouldn't try, and I very much do recycle and make choices to lower my own environmental impact.... but I do see why it seems hopeless to them. I have seen millennials described as "the last generation to have hope for the future" and I don't think it is too far wrong, honestly.

I have looked them up many times and these ‘generation’ categories are very elastic. Massive cusps.

And about as much use for generalising and stereotyping as star signs.

I prefer a nice shiny class analysis myself - sort of Harriet Taylor Mill meets a Marxist-Leninist dialectic.

She's mental - nowt to do with being millennial. Where does she think the boomers eg. were during 9/11?!

Your post should be titled “need a rant about some random woman online” not “millennials.” I am a millennial and have many millennials in my life and not heard any of them say this.

I knew that person was American before you even said it.

The US is so used to waging war on other nations, and it having zero impact on their country, that they now have a total victim mentality in relation to 9/11. Yes it was awful/traumatic/horrific. But it was one event. Many countries have faced the equivalent, ongoing, for years. Much of which is funded by the US.

I'm fed up with people making generalisations about a whole generation based on an interaction with one person. Do better.

I'm GenX and not noticed this, I think just saying 'This is sending/healing/whatever gen [whichever]' is just a social media trope, it's not that deep.

lol how is it self indulgent?
isn’t everyone entitled to think about their own experience?

Never heard of this either. I think the whole splitting people into generations thing is annoying so I don't tend to pay any attention.

It’s not about comparing generations, every generation has their trials and tribulations and fears. Everyone is entitled to their own experiences and feelings. They can only feel that way from their own experiences.

Oh please. Perfectly illustrates op's point. (Older millennial here)

Navel gazers gonna navel gaze. Social media just means you see it more

I think anyone who assumes the 15 million millennials living in the UK all think the same is a bit odd personally. How can anyone lump 20% of the population all into one homogenous group?

None of us have been as unlucky as the generations that went to war. Wars are a stain on the soul of a nation, kills off hundreds of thousands of young men or maims them physically and psychologically. Not being able to buy a house or progress in a career is nothing by comparison.

I don’t bloody recall optimism during the Cold War - I grew up fearing nuclear winter and wondering how that would interact with global warming

and the generation before me - peace and love man - a product of all the wars around them

Chat gpt summarised it a bit more succinctly for me

Millennial mourning isn’t simple nostalgia; it’s a quiet, generational grief for a world that dissolved while we were still living in it. We were among the last to have an analog childhood and the first to be thrust into a digital adulthood, old enough to remember privacy, slowness, and optimism, yet young enough to have no control when it all changed. Events like 9/11 marked a psychological rupture, ending the sense of collective safety and ushering in an era of fear, surveillance, and uncertainty. We grew up believing in stability, progress, and reward for effort, only to watch those promises unravel in real time. What we mourn is not childhood itself, but the loss of a softer, more hopeful world — and of a version of ourselves that existed without constant comparison, performance, or an audience.

Not something I’ve noticed, and I think we need to stop putting people in these tedious “boxes” and talking about them like they’re all some homogenous mass who act and think the same.

I think it's a very online take - and specifically on tiktok, I do see that sort of stuff all the time.

I'm GenX/ Millenial cusp - have friends and relatives as well as work colleagues both much older and much younger, and can't honestly say I notice half the stuff I see posted online about 'Boomers are like this, Gen X are like that, Gen Z hate millenials blah blah blah'. Some of the funny little traits/ habits/ cultural references sure, I definitely see myself in some 'millenial' stuff and like laughing about some of the things we used to wear and do. But it definitely goes too far sometimes.

9/11 was a seismic event our lives for those old enough to have lived through it - I think to have experienced it as an American child/ teen would have had even more impact though to be fair.

I am a millennial and I can confirm this is something every single one of us thinks.

https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles
Here's a 'fun', interactive article about the joys of being a millennial.

FWIW, I do think they have a harder time than the currently-alive generations before them. Short of people who lived through the world wars, of which there are few around these days, it's a pretty shit time to be alive. I don't think the folks who grew up in the 50s-80s actually understand how few the opportunities are for millennials. It's a stunted life.

Though I feel worse for the GenZ, Gen Alpha and Gen Betas who have all the same crap to endure but they don't even get the fun memories of life without internet or what it was like to be a teenager without a tracking app on their phone.

Can you explain why all British GenXs make sweeping generalisations based on isolated interactions?