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.

Yes jennymanara I think as well that New York was this amazing city (that I had only seen in films & tv) & I was desperate to go there. I never thought any like that could ever happen.

Yes agree much more immediate and graphic news coverage now

Which has its benefits and pitfalls

When you don't have the images and are left by yourself to fill in the gaps, one's imagination can be a scary place. I think the fact that there was so little information about Chernobyl and the potential radioactive fallout made it much, much more frightening.

I agree, Screaming.

Every generation has a defining issue to deal with. 9/11 was a defining moment in history but it was not the first defining moment and will not be the last.

@IvanaPee
I forgot to mention, the only nation on the planet that is NET ZERO for energy (zero co2) is Iceland. Lots of white men up there btw.

Damage to the planet is a human problem caused by humans. All humans. We are responsible and contributing to it. Not just the humans with pasty skin and a cod dangle.

I really don’t buy the “we saw 2,000 people die on tv” line.

I’m a millennial (barely). I was 21 when 9/11 happened. I very clearly remember watching it on tv.

I sure as hell didn’t see 2,000 people die. I saw plane crashes and buildings fall, but the individual victims were not witnessed by me. The cameras did not and could not catch that.

This bothers me, because it feels like a selfish appropriation of personal traumas. It feels deeply self-serving.

No doubt 9/11 forms a collective scar in our shared consciousness. It impacts on most major world events since, and it’s pretty easy to draw a direct line from 9/11 to Trump and Brexit.

I also don’t by the “millennials are whiny” line. A casual listen to any mid-morning radio show will tell you that there’s none more moany than retired old boomers...

@paddyfodder I have no idea if Millenials are less or more whiny than older generations. But in fairness it will be older generations mainly listening to those radio shows. So that tells you nothing.

@PaddyF0dder the coverage I watched showed people jumping to their deaths I even remember them zooming in on them and you could see what they were wearing. That's pretty intense for an 8 year old IMO.

PaddyF0dder I don’t think it means literally you saw each individual die, but the 24 hour news cycle meant the cameras were always on the site of a mass death and it was clear what was going on. Watching the second tower fall for example, yes you couldn’t see inside but you witnessed death in real time. And many saw the individuals jumping from windows etc.

Dear God, I grew up in the middle of the troubles and all I would say to anyone who thinks we are hard done by is go and read The Condition of the Working Classes (ordinary people grubbing about barefoot among pigs for vegetable refuse to eat) The Road to Wigan Pier (horrific northern poverty), Testament of Youth (a young woman nursing in the trenches of the Somme, watching her brother, fiancé and best friends die) or The Choice (escaping Belsen) to realise how phenomenonally well we have it. Even Tuppence to Cross the Mersey (impoverished during the depression). Or When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. Or Angela’s Ashes. I could go on.

People really need to read some history, especially first hand accounts.

I saw women in hijabs being deliberately run over days after 9-11. To me that was more traumatic. But I was a young brown woman at the time. My much younger siblings did experience racism as a result - and my and their white friends only knew the scale of the problem by their exposure to us. In many white areas in the Midlands 9-11 wasn’t something that was discussed beyond ‘oh those Muslims eh’ even a month after the event.

In terms of life being harder for millennials I think if you’re now 33 ish plus you probably had quite a different experience to the younger millennials, easier to buy a house, get a job etc. I think life is definitely harder for the gen after millennials, particularly as there doesn’t seem to be much hope of things improving.

@boilingfrog Plenty of young adults now seem to have no real idea of recent history and how people lived.
There are plenty of people alive in the UK whose parents and other relatives died in concentration camps. This is not ancient history, it has an impact today. An ex fought in the Gulf war and talked to me a bit about this. He now has kids. And there are adults alive in the UK who are still affected by many other wars and atrocities that many young adults seem unaware of.

Millenials dont have it worse than my age group (49). In Ireland Id say it is understood my generation had it the worst. I left school in a recession. Points v high for good uni courses. Had to go to london for work. Relocated! Made redundant. Couldnt afford childcare and to work. Ended up a single parent. House prices rise quicker than i can save. My generation repaying mortgages on tiny houses that have lost value since 2007 and now they face ageism in their jobhunting.

I've just had Dd1 about this tweet and if 9/11 had a lasting impact on her after watching the news on the day.

Her reply was it changed the fact as a child that she could no longer go in the cockpit on the flight on our annual holiday.

She said the rest of it she didn't really understand till she was an adult.

I think some people live in a little bubble and I'm glad DD1 did.

9/11 was a hugely significant event but I don't think its effect on people was any worse than a whole load of other things pp have already mentioned. With hindsight the 1980s were pretty scary and I imagine it was far far worse for people growing up I the 1940s and other times.

Personally, I find the prospect of the GFA not being honoured & a return to terrorism of the 70s and 80s extremely frightening.

I'm also amazed that an 8 year old would have been watching the 9/11 events on repeat at school. :o I didn't know it had happened until I got home at 6pm. I was teaching at the time &, whilst we talked about it with the children the next day, we wouldn't have dreamed of showing them anything on Tv!

@fancynancyclancy The fact you can say that shows a lack of fucking knowledge. Yes it is true for some of that generation. But do you really think the woman I know sent to a mental hospital for being a lesbian had an easier life? She is now in her 50's. Or the kids institutionalised in pretty awful conditions because they were disabled? etc etc. I get tired of repeating all this stuff.

@fancynancyclancy The fact you can say that shows a lack of fucking knowledge. Yes it is true for some of that generation. But do you really think the woman I know sent to a mental hospital for being a lesbian had an easier life? She is now in her 50's. Or the kids institutionalised in pretty awful conditions because they were disabled? etc etc. I get tired of repeating all this stuff.

blimey

My grandparents generation had actual war to deal with - and bombings and loss

My lot had the cold war, nuclear war threats, the IRA bombings, international terrorism

I understand 9/11 was awful to watch unfold - I was off sick having had a MC and watched the whole thing - but more traumatic for that generation than anything others went through - nope

This whole thread with very few exceptions has a very 'Western' centric view. Many people now growing up in China/India etc have never had it so good - there is an emerging middle-class in both countries and millenials (or is that a phrase that only applies to Western society) now have opportunities of which their parents and grandparents would never even have dreamed.

This is a thread where the OP wants you to put down the age of your children.

FUCK OFF

jennymanara What because I think younger generations have a tougher economic experience & greater pressures from social media.

This bothers me, because it feels like a selfish appropriation of personal traumas. It feels deeply self-serving

This.

Each generation has traumas, has defining moments that are defining because they're so horrific and traumatic.

The first time I saw a dead person was when I was 6, and a victim of Hillsborough was on the front of a newspaper in the shop.

I remember being deeply upset and overwhelmed, so I get seeing trauma in the news at a young age. Lockerbie too, the first gulf war.

I think millennials have more of a channel to express it, rather than it being more traumatic tbh.

Social media means the world is a lot smaller in terms of communication, and millennials have the ability to communicate immediately with people that previous generations didn't have.

I think there is trauma for all
my grandfather was born at end of Queen Victoria reign supposedly golden age of empire but he was conscripted into WWI
my father generation grew up in great depression ( 1920-30's) and having survived that were enlisted into WWII
my mother is a baby boomer early childhood still rationing then the cold war and vietnam etc cuban missile crisis etc
myself and my sisters are generation X I remember birmingham manchester bombing, miners strikes, cold war falklands war as a child and in later teenage years the balkan wars just after thinking it was getting better after Berlin wall fell and perestroika
none of my close family are millenials by DD and neices are post-millenials or Generation Z ( what happened to Y)