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.

Interesting idea. Maybe subconsciously it has effected us more than we think, but then most generations have had to deal with traumatic events in the wider world - as someone else said, AIDS, Chernobyl and also the overhanging threat of nuclear war. I still think social media has had the greatest effect on this generation and created pressures that previous ones wouldn’t have faced.

*1. Nelson Mandela was released from prison. Apartheid was taught in most primary schools.

1. The Berlin Wall fell and as kids we were all taught about why it went up and the atrocities that occured while it was up.
2. The internet was invented.*

@Teddybear45 I'd argue those first three were positives, and full of hope. Okay, the internet has been revealed since to be a cesspit and a disaster (!) but certainly at its invention it was exciting and awash with possibility and promise.

Having said that, I don't think us millennials have it worse - I would agree that our childhood experiences are worse than those of baby boomers and Generation X, but I think anyone born (in the West, obviously) during or before the Second World War would have grown up in the shadow of far worse / more frequent / closer to home atrocities.

I was a teenager when 9/11 happened, and it seemed like innocence was shattered. I'd grown up in the 90's and it was actually, on the whole a fairly peaceful decade. The world had felt very optimistic up until that point and since then its been a downward spiral.

”Christ I grew up seeing photos of the Holocaust and hearing stories about it.”

I don’t know when you were born but I grew up also seeing photos and videos of the holocaust, hearing survivors speak and going to museums. It isn’t unique to one generation,

Schuyler Exactly. Some people seem to think this is a competition as to who lived through the most traumatic event.
It isnt about that.
Its how we are subjected to it.

Yeah, did you have to read When the Wind Blows though?

Having to sit in a 'hut' classroom with a coat on because the roof leaked and the heating didn't work in the 90s under Tory rule. Ditto the nhs waiting lists of my childhood were legendary. There was recession back then too...

🙄🙄🙄

People are either willfully or not as the case may be, missing the point of the thread. Shame because it’s interesting but will be derailed by misery top trumps.

For example:

I remember the IRA and seeing the effects of their campaigns on the news and I was terrified. I couldn't sleep at night because of it.

I could say that I remember the horrors answer terror attacks of the British Army and the UVF during the Troubles, too. But I won’t...

If you were in a classroom in the 90s then you are a Millennial.

@TimeForNewStart 👍
The threat of nuclear war was awful, that's why I get get up with Kim Jong playing with them.

What many Millenials have is no sense of history at all. Fine to argue that 9-11 had a big impact on this generation, that might be true and would be an interesting discussion. Totally wrong to say they are the first generation to see coverage of people dying on TV or in photos. And every event is unique and has its own issues.

What has changed is 24 hour news coverage, so that means more wars are covered than used to be. But there have always been lots of wars, and IRA terrorism was real. There was a short period of time between the Good Friday agreement and the rise of Al Quaedi when terrorism in this country was no longer an issue.

I think anyone growing up in the atomic age and knowing that life can be snuffed out on a global scale in a moment - and maybe even by "accident" is psychologically traumatised. I know I am.

@IvanaPee I'm relating my lived experience, of course Northern Irish experience will differ.

I'm just saying as a small child living in Southern England I was terrified.

Baby Boomers: Born 1946-1964 (54-72 years old)
Generation X: Born 1965-1980 (38-53 years old)
Millennials: Born 1981-1996 (22-37 years old)
Post-Millennials: Born 1997-Present (0-21 years old)

I'm not a millennial actually, I left school in '93 this was my secondary school.

If you were in a classroom in the 90s then you are a Millennial.

Huh?

@schuyler Yes in school and museums which show age appropriate things. That is not the case for kids of my background and age.

The question and answer both seem massively reductionist.

Do we? Do we really complain more than other generations? Or is that just typical inter-generational tension? I know I’m used to hearing lots of older people complain about changes in society and ‘how things aren’t the same’

‘It’s down to 9/11’. As pp have said, I’m pretty sure it was awful watching news footage from past wars. House prices? Student debt? Brexit? There are many things young people today aren’t happy about.

@IvanaPee - I remember practice drills in school over what to do if there’s a IRA bomb alert. I also remember practice evacuations of my entire area for the same thing.

Don’t forget the helplessness Millennials feel about the damage older generations have done to the planet.

Then being told to basically shut up about it when we’re the ones who’ll live with the mess.

Watching rich, white men continue to cause untold damage and being ridiculed for wanting them to stop.

And being called lazy and irresponsible because of the decisions of other generations.

God, Baby Boomers are right twats!

I was born in the late '60s and so have seen years of news that included IRA bombs, it's had a massive impact on me. I agree most millennials have been royally fucked over.

I see your point op
I remember being really really upset by the adverts for AIDS ,and that tombstone falling over ,I thought the world was going to end and we were all going to die
If I’d of seen the 9/ 11 images at age 10 ..yes it would of massively effected me .
Like we learned about the wars in history ,but now everything is more graphic and in your face ,and for a vunerable child that must be so upsetting

@Teddybear45 and?

I dunno, we saw films of soldiers dying in the Falklands War when I was a kid. Every morning in school was a war bulletin. Then we had the IRA bombings and assassinations. One bombing affected my family directly. Got to see the iron curtain- desperate people trying to cross the Berlin Wall getting machine gunned and their bodies left hanging in the barb wire. Tv was full of dying kids in Ethiopia due to famine. The space shuttle exploded on launch. Terrorists bombed and hijacked planes in the 1980s way more often than now.
Then hit adulthood in time for Bosnia and the genocide on our front step. Followed by Iraq invasion- remember the highway of death?

It was pretty bad before 9/11. I don’t think any generation has had it worse than WWII though.

I think anyone growing up in the atomic age and knowing that life can be snuffed out on a global scale in a moment - and maybe even by "accident" is psychologically traumatised.

Yes, this.

Chernobyl mightn't have been on telly but the nightly news watched by all seemed to take glee in scaring the fucking bejeezus out of anyone watching with tales of radioactive clouds over the UK etc

Plane hijackings were relatively common too in the 70s.

And FFS don't ever have sex without a condom as you'll die of AIDS.

There was a great deal to be scared of when I was growing up.