I need a rant about millennials

[HanG77]

Okay, I may offend millennials but hear me out (and please, millennials, offer me an explanation as to why your generation do this)...I've just had a discussion with a millennial on a thread for a social media post showing the Tartan Army having a blast in Boston, her comment was about how it was "healing the millennials". I replied saying it's lovely for all generations to watch given how divisive the world is, and she said due to 9/11 millennials crave the world healing more. I get this a lot with millennials - like they think every cultural experience is about them or for them - even taking things that are from other generations and claiming it as their era - and they act like no other generation has had any big events to deal with. I argued the Lost Generation (world war) and Gen Z (being children/early adults when the whole world stopped) have had it worse out of all the living generations (in my opinion).

For context, I'm a British Gen X, also I have a lot of close millennial friends so it's not personal, it's about them as a collective. Also, this person was American - I think maybe the American nationalism adds to it (more so than with Brits of this generation).

this random woman did not represent or speak for every millennial ever.

The football fans having fun for example is not a 'Millennial thing'. It's a misuse / misunderstanding of this categorisation firstly. Also, yes, they do 'steal' things from other eras and claim it as their own which is annoying

Yet, is it millennials calling it that or other generations?

From what I’ve noticed, millennials don’t typically call something a millennial thing, that is usually done by another group. I recall constant moaning about millennials by groups who didn’t even know what a millennial was and assumed they were teenagers when most were in their mid-late 20s and already had children..

Of course, but as my post was about a social media post between the UK/US and not about war and genocide elsewhere I didn't talk about it (obviously) but thanks for the history lesson.

Hey, it's 5.30 on a Friday, it's ok to be drunk! But you don't really think that addled mess of a response is going to convince me you're not?😉

You can't describe your posts as "nuanced" and "open-minded" and thereby make them so. You're not using the labels for reference: the premise of your post is that the label is substantive. Which it may well be, within the algorithm you've made through your own social media behaviour. If it annoys you, put the phone away. Because, take comfort, it's not real.

Your post was about millennials!! With a wee mention of the two nationalities that matter to you in the final paragraph. It was about generation, not nationality. Whatever "nuances" you might now wish you'd included at the time.

Trying to generalise about millions of people based on the one thing they have in common—being born within the same 15-year period—is pretty pointless. People are shaped by their experiences, upbringing, education, culture, values and circumstances, not simply by the year they were born.

Yes the napalm little girl was shown in GCSE history and the AIDS crisis was taught in citizenship. And I literally just said it was a different experience from an adults… which remains true

The eldest GenZ is 30!

Thankyou. I do understand what is meant by the different age groups!
And I not offended by the terms.
I think them silly because the age categories are. It is much simpler to refer to things by decades. Not refer to things that occurred across them. And as to the life experience; the difference in experience from 1981 to 1996 can be significant. And totally different eras. Someone born in 1996 will have no idea about what life was like in 1981. But if you refer to those born in the early 1980’s you get a better perspective.

Your social media is full of posts like this because you obviously engage with them and so the algorithm gives you more and more. Content creators create more and more videos about being a millennial because the videos are getting the most views. It doesn’t mean anybody actually thinks it, it’s just an endless cycle where the more you view it the more you see it and the more it’s seen the more similar content gets created, regardless of how genuine or valid the viewpoints being shared are.

I see Gen X as having the best childhood, free of all of that and to be a teen all through the 90’s was the stuff of dreams

Totally agree, I think as Gen X growing up with freedom, no technology, hitting my teens in the 90s and catching just the end of uni education with a grant and no fees was all pretty good :)

100%! It’s now that’s the comedown 😔
48 and life just doesn’t have that spark anymore!

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.

Possibly a sign of ageing but I haven't the slightest idea of what 'Gen' I am. Tiredness or early onset dementia, who knows eh. I must have slipped through the cracks in the great revolution of categorisation by year birth.

Mortgage and bill paying long-term SP of a now adult autistic child. Knackered but keeping head above water....just. NMW wages yet post-grad education. Will only have the state pension.

Age 63. Smug I am not. Taking it on the chin and happy with what I do have and not what I don't keeps me sane. And happy enough to keep going.

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'm not unsympathetic, but ... 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

Generations X, Jones and Boomer say hello, we're still here ...!

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.

Very good point. I'm sorry that it's changing.

Those born after 1990 are the late millenials not mid range.

I've honestly never come across this. I hear people talk about how Covid affected their lives.....which seems to make sense, given it was so recent and affected everyone. Ive never come across anyone saying 9/11 affected their lives unless they were actually close to it. Maybe you hang out with some weird millennials lol. Time to reassess your friends haha.

No it's not just millennials. You are not the only generation to experience before and after the internet, or before and after COVID or 9/11. My father and his friends who are in their 80s went through all these, Im in my 50s and went through all these things. It's not unique to your generation . You are not the first generation to experience this. We didn't have the internet, then we did, life for us is also not the world we expected as children. It's not just you 😡

Sounds like something Boomeration Zee would say.