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.

We can all play misery top trumps because each and every generation has to deal with terrible things that can fuck them up.

The Millennials have it worse because they were raised in front of a great big screen which magnified anything they glanced at directly into their optic nerve, and then also gave them the wherewithal to only see what they chose and to switch off anything they weren't interested in. The internet and access to instant technology has led to not only the millennials but all who come after with an unhealthy view of what is and isn't normal levels of evil/violence etc but also a lack of resilience to deal with it because social media is all about likes, not debate; and youth is about black and white, not shades of grey, so by only hearing what your own generation says/your own friends say you never get the ability to think round an issue and work out your own solution.
If what they saw was bad, then the world is bad. If what they see was good, ditto the world. If lots of their friends agree, they are right. If no-one replies the world ends.
And none of this is even unexpected based on the psychology of how social media affects us.

The millennials do have it harder, because psychologically they are less able to cope with the harshest realities. This is not their fault, or even a criticism really as they will make the world a nicer place, given half a chance, but it must suck to be them right now, with our communities becoming less kind and tolerant by the day.

@nuttybutter
“Everyone has realised that the "work hard and you'll have a nice life" dream is absolute bollocks.”

Nope. It’s that your generation that grew up enough to realise it is and always has been bollocks. Prior generations have had their own awakenings to this truth before then. For Gen X it was in early 90s we figured it out.

@AlpenCrazy
So did I and I remember the very opposite to what’s described here re information, let alone information overload. Worried or interested in Chernobyl or AIDS? Maybe there’ll be a short feature on the news or the weekly Tomorrow’s World. Want to read about it? Nothing in the library- even University Libraries had limited published stock available years after the research was conducted. News and research now is constant, immediate and vivid. It has to have an effect on the younger generations.

My children are millennials, I grew up in Northern Ireland during the troubles. They grew up without the sense of dread we felt. No side was untouched by what went on then. There is always someone who has it worse but by in large their life is easier. They experienced a freedom that I never had. The events of 9/11 whilst horrific were a relatively isolated event not day after day of horror.

It is always easier to look to other generations and think it was so easy back then but it wasn't. Property may have been cheaper but other things were much more expensive. Life was simpler. One car, one television families were the norm.

Comparison is the thief of joy just be grateful for what you have

@jennymanara You don't say ....

My parents grew up having to take guns to school to protect themselves during a civil war initiated by western powers. My mum was ducking down in her car to avoid bullets at the age of 10 and living in underground shelters. My dad has to drag injured friends who got sniped dead across the street at the age of 12.

My grandparents grew up being kicked out of their homeland. Refugee camps after refugee camps. Massacres in the masses I can still see the thousands of bullets on the walls where my grandad lived, where people were lined up and shot dead.

I grew up being demonised because of 9/11. And then a revolution after revolution claiming the lives of many of my friends.

I think at my end, the world has always been blood thirsty.

I think for the western world, 9/11 might’ve been the first tragedy they felt in a long time.. but to many of us, it’s been generations after generations.

Not meaning to minimise the tragedy, but I think to assume the world started being ugly at 9/11 is a fact that only applies to people who haven’t been directly affected by war.

Many of us, didn’t need a TV to experience it. We let the bullets do the reporting.

The generation with the worst traumatic world experience, has to be the one that was in WWI and WWII.

Financially I think millennials and the generation that survived the great depression are the most fucked, although post millennials will have it worse.

Hmm I grew up during Chernobyl and AIDs......

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

It's not a competition of who can be more fucked up by awful things going on around the world!

The world is a shitty place and always has been, since human beings evolved onto the planet. Humans are fundamentally selfish and unpleasant. Only the details of the horrors change - they will always be there and always will be. That's one reason why I don't have children. The sooner the human race becomes extinct, the better.

I'm 'generation X'.

I think all generations have had to cope with threats & life changing events.

However I do think 9/11 had an effect on myself & my peers. We were at uni, so older millennials & the 90s for us had been a very exciting/hopeful time particularly in London. I remember us all just watching tv & being speechless & somehow felt changed by the experience. Maybe it was our age, the scale, the TV coverage, I don’t know.

We weren’t sheltered, my family all live in Dublin & extended family in Belfast. I was born & raised in London & my dad worked in the City, sometimes the troubles scared me but with regards to myself I felt safe. I remember crying about Dunblane but I still felt safe. I think 9/11 was the first time I felt unsafe.

@etino There was not lots of information around, but what there was was scary for kids. So the tombstone ads on TV and what was taught in schools was meant to scare kids. That was the point.

Chernobyl had little concrete information as the communist government was covering it up. That was what made it so scary. I can remember working outside on a weekend when there were rumours that a radioactive rain cloud was passing over Britain spreading radioactive waste from Chernobyl. I was scared that day at work outside and I remember me and my colleagues all "joking" about it. The scariest things are when you do not have the information to know if you really are at risk and what you can do.

I remember racism being everyday when I was a kid. Bernard Manning on mainstream tv.

Then it did seem to get nicer and more tolerant in the mid to late 90s and early 00s but I tell you what racism and xenophobia really feels like it's making a comeback. To a certain extent anti Islamic feeling post 9/11 but even more so post austerity and people are getting brazen about it post Brexit.

You really have to separate the event of 9/11 and the idea of the 'world getting worse ever since' - or at least clarify what is meant by that.

Is it economic decline (since 2008, not 2001. Up to March 2008, in the UK and USA, was boom time)?

Is it the 'war on terror' and terrorist incidents that have followed directly from 9/11? Horrible but not qualitatively worse than previous wars and terrorism.

but I think to assume the world started being ugly at 9/11

Literally not one single person has said or assumed that.

The point is that it shifted something for millennial children and it has only grown worse since.

@fancynancyclancy I think the sheer number of people killed in what was seen by many as a safe city to be in, did have an impact on everyone. It certainly made it seem as if that amount of people could be killed in NYC, then nowhere is safe.

@IvanaPee
Yes. How can you frame current damage to the planet as being done by rich, white men who won’t stop when the #1 country polluting is China? And for example, India pumps out more pollution in day than the U.K. does in a year?
And why blame men when women drive just as many cars and our beauty industry alone causes more damage than any men’s habit?

@VapeVamp12 I don't think anyone is trying to do that, what we are trying to say is that bad stuff happened and we knew about it. It shaped us.

I remember news about the ozone hole in the 89s and it was openly derided. People tried to get us to recycle and think of the environment back then and were openly scorned. Such a shame because people knew what was happening and how much could we have improved things if we had made changes back then!

I was 8 when it happened and I literally sat in school in front of a TV watching it happen on repeat, watching people jump to their death, dead bodies and planes crashing for an entire afternoon. It's one of my clearest childhood memories!

The media means that nobody is sheltered from the terrible things, we see everything in too much detail, live all the time at any age.

It means terrible things that should shock us don't anymore!

I think the main thing is that since 9/11 people don't just have the threat of wars or natural disasters literally individual seemingly normal people are a threat.

I don't think it's just millennial's I think 9/11 changed the world. The issue is this is all we have ever known.

Btw I understand 'Millennials' as people who 'came of age' around 2000 (so are about 36-40 now). They benefited from the economic boom to 2008 in their early employed lives.

The people who were ten in 2001 are a different generation.

I didnt realise I was a Millenial untll I just googled it I think 9/11 had a big impact but I think in general social media has led to unrealistic expectations and financially unachievable lifestyles being funded purely on credit. We are a 2 income family and drowning in debt just to achieve what is deemed to be 'normal' these days i.e a car, kids in brand name clothes (not Gucci but Adidas etc) the odd holiday, kids having their own phones etc.

But that's what I'm trying to say! We had bombing campaigns too (honestly not trying to diminish Northern Irish people's experiences here)

Never knew if it was safe to be in London, Brighton or places like Guildford or Manchester.

We had planes being blown out of the sky, a guy machine gunning kids in a school.../

What utter rubbish

Born 1981-1996 - this is the "Millennial" Bracket

I think the main thing is that since 9/11 people don't just have the threat of wars or natural disasters literally individual seemingly normal people are a threat. this.

And the spate of car attacks shows that even walking down a road can be fatal.