AIBU to ask you your opinion on 9/11 and millennials?

[CorianderDestroysFamilies]

I read a tweet this weekend that went - why do millennials complain all the time and the answer is basically because we saw 2000 die on tv when we were 10 and the world has got worse ever since.
Reading the following tweets made me realise that actually it must have had a massive effect for the mindset of that group, myself included, and I’ve never really thought about it - obviously more so for those in the US but even in the UK I remember seeing it happen and then it does feel like everything has just got worse. The war in Iraq, the demonisation of Muslims, so so many mass shootings and terrorist attacks, it sometimes feels like we’re sitting on the edge of the abyss. I know a lot of this is to do with non stop news and how small the world has become but it just struck a nerve with me.
One thing I read that I’d never heard about before was that Nick Jr and PBS in the US played cartoons all day to basically distract the kids whilst the adults took in what had just happened and that alone made me want to cry.
Anyway I’m not putting it very well but hopefully it’s makes sense as I just wondered what other people thought because I can lose myself in MN debates and there’s always angles that I’ve not thought about.

I don't think being exposed to media outlets constantly 24/7 from all angles has helped.
You literally can't escape the news.

That said, I grew up in 1980's Belfast and was exposed to some horrendous stories. I witnessed quite a number of incidents and was often caught up in commotion on way home from school / whilst shopping etc.

Not one single person I grew up with are in any way snow flakey.

I work with quite a few millennials and have a chunk of them reporting into me.
They never fail to astound me with the reasons the use to take off sick. Some examples include:

• I'm overwhelmed. Yes mate so am I, every day, but guess what? I still go to work.
• I've got a sore stomach and the doctor wants me to have blood tests. Really?
• I need some time to myself. This person lived at home and has no responsibilities. 🙄
• another took off sick for 8 months when he couldn't get authorisation for the compressed hours he applied for. He used the time off to set up a design business. Advertising all over local media and on social media. Because his fit note cited stress and the design work was considered therapeutic, there wasn't a single thing I could do about it.

When I'm knocking my pan in every day it's hard to watch others come and go when they 'don't feel like it'

Did @placemats ever explain what mine crafting was? 😂

*not just watch

The OP mentions 'the demonisation of muslims' but I would also like to point out that anti Semitism has risen exponentially since 9.11 and as a result many British and french Jews are planning to move to Israel, if they haven't done so already.

A clip went viral today of a young Jewish family being appallingly harassed in a cafe in Luton. This sort of prejudice is commonplace now and it's horrifying.

But the Jewish community is small and unfortunately doesn't have the electoral clout of other communities and therefore seems to be being ignored.

The triple posts are annoying!

The thing is if millennials are lacking resilience, weak, snowflakey etc then we should blame the parents 😁

I had just started my first year of teaching when 9/11 happened and the day after I had to take my brand new Year 7 form on a residential. They really thought we were going to die. I watched them go through school for 5 years. 9/11 appeared in their stories, their essays, their speeches, their projects. It never left them.

I really do believe that generation were affected profoundly by it.

Is the Jewish community small? Don’t they have like an entire area that is mostly themselves and their own schools etc. That’s in London mind, they have also branched out to Clapton area the last time I was there, which was over six years ago so I’m probably wrong.

9/11 was when I properly realised that really bad things still happened in real life, not just in history. But I think every generation has a moment (or more than one) when they find that out for themselves. My great uncle had lost his best friend in the Blitz by the time he was 10.

That’s a good point SaveKevin, I also have French family & it’s a big problem in France.

Jewish people make up just under 1% of the UK population. That is very small.

@ofjoseph1
*- I'm overwhelmed. Yes mate so am I, every day, but guess what? I still go to work.

• I've got a sore stomach and the doctor wants me to have blood tests. Really?
• I need some time to myself. This person lived at home and has no responsibilities. 🙄
• another took off sick for 8 months when he couldn't get authorisation for the compressed hours he applied for. He used the time off to set up a design business. Advertising all over local media and on social media. Because his fit note cited stress and the design work was considered therapeutic, there wasn't a single thing I could do about it*

Overwhelmed, needing time to themselves sound like mental health issues. Sore stomach needing blood tests... Yes? So?
As a health care professional I find your repulsion at these valid health concerns rather worrying, if you want to be a martyr get on with it but millennials actually seem to look after and speak openly about their mental health.

Not savekevin but FreshFreesias

I'm genx just and I havent read the whole thread but wonder if there's a slightly different answer in that in the 40's you had the end of the war, the 50's there was so much positive going on, the 60's the moon landing, the 70's was hippies and the summer of love, the 80's was Mandelas freedom and the fall of the Berlin wall. Since then I dont remember anything on a par in a positive vein. They have been numerous major events across the world televised like never before but they are all disasters manmade or otherwise. I know there were major disasters in every period but in the last 25 years there seems to be little positive to occur.

i was 11 when 9/11 happened, it was my first day of secondary school my art teacher had live news on and every teacher had the radio on .....

9/11 was the first time in my life I went "oh shit" and felt it in every bone of my body. I was 12/13 at the time and even then I knew it was a disaster like the world had never seen. All 700 kids at my high school were watching it on TV somewhere in school or listening to the radio. The lessons for the day just stopped, I can't even remember if they took place at all. After that, I remember being far more aware of terrorism, islamophobia and generally terrible goings on in the world.

I think you're right. This is the first time I've ever thought that it could have influenced my life.

I agree with you Grumpelstilskin re Beslan. I remember my mum crying about it but I didn’t really know what had happened. A bit later I read a Time (I think) article about it & it was so awful.

I was 15 when 9/11 happened so possibly on the older side of millennial. This may sound dismissive (it’s not meant to) but I don’t necessarily think 9/11 registered with me as massively world changing as it was. Obviously it was horrific but I don’t remember seeing it as necessarily ‘worse’ than the stuff that had happened in the Balkans or Rwanda when I was wee.

In all honesty, I think the recession in 2008 has had the biggest effect on the millennial mindset - you have a vast number of highly educated people who have little to show for it but debt, who graduated knowing they were fucked and for whom optimism about ‘having it all’ was basically never a thing.

Re 9/11, I remember when the 2nd plane hit the reporters & news readers themselves were all very confused & shocked.

in the last 25 years there seems to be little positive to occur.

... seriously?

To point out one example rather close to home, how about enduring ceasefire in NI? That you didn't pay any attention to the positive developments (and they admittedly get less wall-to-wall news coverage) doesn't mean they didn't happen.

Jesus. The most depressing thing about this thread is actually the complete ignorance about history and politics, even that close to home.

Every generation has its hardships, rationing, post war depression, loss of half the male population, the unemployment, poverty, rolling black outs of the seventies, the hyper inflation, boom and bust and impact of aids etc in the eighties. We've had the second world war, Korea, Vietnam, the cold war, the Falklands, the IRA, various middle Eastern conflicts generation after generation.

Also I'm a millennial and didn't even have Nickelodeon has that emotionally scarred me OP?

Interesting point about the 2008 recession. I was in my 20s, working in retail & that’s when we started to see a shift in people’s shopping habits, started to get real peaks & troughs. I was lucky to be unaffected by the recession, had job security, secure home etc but it did change my mindset. I changed my shopping habits & started to save more.

Apologies I'm not suggesting there haven't been positive things but as you say they haven't had the same coverage and there was no stand out moment where the whole country sat in front of the tv for hours gripped by the Irish peace deal. I know there are positive things for every war there is a ceasefire, peace treaty but the moments that truly standout are almost unilaterally negative.

Being a bit tongue in cheek here, but if we're going to do the Tragedy Olympics then I nominate the individuals living in Europe from 1347 to 1351. 60% of the whole population of the continent died so... Black Death generation wins.

Apologies I'm not suggesting there haven't been positive things but as you say they haven't had the same coverage

Because misery sells. People are just more interested in bad news. I suspect it may be combination of things. Morbid curiosity and for some a bit of a "my life ain't so bad after all".
Nothing sells better than tragedy.