I need a rant about millennials

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.
of course other generations have been through their own trials and tribulations and seen many world changes.
but for us, there is a real mourning attached to it. There is a very VERY stark contrast to life as we knew it as kids and the life we expected we could achieve, compared to what it is now. It’s really sad. Of course life for any generation becomes different when you reach adulthood. We are the first generation to know and remember and appreciate life before and after social media. 9/11, COVID, recessions. Have all completely changed the life we expected we could achieve. It has been really disappointing in some ways. I worked really hard, have multiple degrees and a good professional job with a decent wage. But I am not where I thought I would be. It has been so hard to get the things I wanted to have and in turn to give my children. My dad is late 70s and he is disappointed at the state of the world for me and my kids. Nothing to do with not working hard.
so yes there is a real mourning.
of course I know other generations may have their own feelings of loss/nostalgia/hardships.
I think it’s because we are the last generation before the internet really. My kids have a totally different life to what I had as a kid. Everything was so simple back then. Well simpler.

There has only been 1 lucky generation and that is the boomers.

Tell that to all the boomers conscripted into the Vietnam War.

I don’t understand her comment suggesting that 9/11 affected millennials more than other generations tbh, no generation should claim that.

I think the whole argument that one generation is more hard done by than another is a bit odd, it’s a bit of a race to the bottom isn’t it?

I am fed up with all this boomer/millennial/gen Z nonsense. It's like saying everyone born in the year of the dog or pig is the same. People are individuals.

This. I was born at the end of the 60s, so early Gen X too, and that is exactly what I remember.

My Dad, born in 40, so Silent/Lost Generation, who knows, lost both parents by the age of 2 due to the war and at 6 was moved to a different country to live with a relative he didnt know who spoke a language he didnt understand. And he was probably one of the lucky ones of his generation. So I really don't think one generation has it worse than any others.

Although I do worry about kids growing up now with everything going on in the world/AI etc.

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.

Another one who is completely deluded. I'm Gen X, born in 71. I was 8 years old when Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979. There was no long boom, there were huge recessions, millions of people on the dole. For those who went to University in the very early 90s there was another recession and no jobs. Generation X is not the lucky generation. There has only been 1 lucky generation and that is the boomers.

But, and its a big but, there are lucky people from every generation who have grown up and taken advantage of family wealth. They are the big winners of life. The rest of us, not so much, regardless of what group we fall into.

I am a millennial.
of course other generations have been through their own trials and tribulations and seen many world changes.
but for us, there is a real mourning attached to it. There is a very VERY stark contrast to life as we knew it as kids and the life we expected we could achieve, compared to what it is now. It’s really sad. Of course life for any generation becomes different when you reach adulthood. We are the first generation to know and remember and appreciate life before and after social media. 9/11, COVID, recessions. Have all completely changed the life we expected we could achieve. It has been really disappointing in some ways. I worked really hard, have multiple degrees and a good professional job with a decent wage. But I am not where I thought I would be. It has been so hard to get the things I wanted to have and in turn to give my children. My dad is late 70s and he is disappointed at the state of the world for me and my kids. Nothing to do with not working hard.
so yes there is a real mourning.
of course I know other generations may have their own feelings of loss/nostalgia/hardships.
I think it’s because we are the last generation before the internet really. My kids have a totally different life to what I had as a kid. Everything was so simple back then. Well simpler.

I'm (apparently) a geriatric millennial as I was born in 1982, so I'm probably closer to Gen X.

I personally don't resonate with what you're saying, but I certainly understand what you mean - it's the mid-range millennials, those that were born post-1990 I feel that say stuff like that.

I see this as a very American thing, not a millennial thing. There's plenty of blinkered, self-absorbed gen x writing, and boomer writing too. The idea that a generation's experience is unique in a way that their parents' and children (once they're old enough) aren't is clung to by every generation, it seems. UK has been a less individualistic society so a little more likely to look towards commonalities (not exclusively though), though I think that's changing.

I am a millennial.
of course other generations have been through their own trials and tribulations and seen many world changes.
but for us, there is a real mourning attached to it. There is a very VERY stark contrast to life as we knew it as kids and the life we expected we could achieve, compared to what it is now. It’s really sad. Of course life for any generation becomes different when you reach adulthood. We are the first generation to know and remember and appreciate life before and after social media. 9/11, COVID, recessions. Have all completely changed the life we expected we could achieve. It has been really disappointing in some ways. I worked really hard, have multiple degrees and a good professional job with a decent wage. But I am not where I thought I would be. It has been so hard to get the things I wanted to have and in turn to give my children. My dad is late 70s and he is disappointed at the state of the world for me and my kids. Nothing to do with not working hard.
so yes there is a real mourning.
of course I know other generations may have their own feelings of loss/nostalgia/hardships.
I think it’s because we are the last generation before the internet really. My kids have a totally different life to what I had as a kid. Everything was so simple back then. Well simpler.