Search forums

Forums

Export thread

Let's talk about all the hate on millennials

Aug 29, 2016#1

Necronic

They're lazy

They're entitled

They all want participation trophies

Yada yada yada.

I keep hearing this. I hear it everywhere. I hear it from people all over the Internet to people at work. And I hear it from both the old and the young.

And I don't get it. I don't see a spoiled generation that wants everything but won't do anything. I see a generation handed a lot of empty promises that walked into a world that just didn't want them. They loaded up on student debt to get degrees that weren't helpful for jobs that just weren't there. I think they have been massively screwed by our society in a lot of ways. And instead of looking at them as a group that is in a lot of trouble people blame them for it all.

I think ultimately this goes back to a persistent theme in our world of looking for someone to blame for...whatever...and picking the weakest group you can to do it. And while you can't go around saying such and such race are a bunch of no good lazy whatever's, there's nothing stopping you from saying it about the young.

And I'm getting so tired of it. If I have to hear another fucking boomer complain about how 20-something millennials are ruining the country...

I mean really. How are you going to blame kids for this shit? WE DID THIS. They didn't run up the national debt. We did. They didn't cause the housing crisis. We did. They aren't the ones who sold out the environment for gains in the stock market. We did that too. Ironically, while they weren't the ones who shouted for war in Iraq/Afghanistan, they were the ones who fought it and will suffer the most for its consequences. Shit, they aren't even the ones who came up with the idea of the participation trophy. That too, was us.

This generation, as with any generation at its conception, is free of the sins of the world. Sure, they might make mistakes in the future, but they are in no way to blame for its current state.

And at the end of the day there are much larger generational issues that are not being addressed right now that flat out terrify me, namely the coming retirement crisis brought on by the boomers. The average retirement savings of someone nearing retirement is a whopping 100k. This is a group that is going to be *heavily* dependent on entitlement spending, both in terms of social security and Medicare. Not to mention all the unfounded pension obligations out there that are bankrupting cities across the nation. That is the real generational crisis. And instead of focusing on that what are we doing? We're attacking the generation that will be carrying the financial burden brought to them by their parents.

Anyways.

/rant.

Aug 29, 2016#2

Dave

Aug 29, 2016#3

Gruebeard

Kids these days. It doesn't matter what decade, what century, what millennium these days are in. We look down on the newer generation.[DOUBLEPOST=1472505274,1472505098][/DOUBLEPOST]By the way, you seem to be labelling yourself as a Boomer. I didn't think you were that old. I mean, Dave's not even close to that old.

Aug 29, 2016#4

Dei

Yeah my own parents aren't even technically boomers.

But I still fight with my mom about this constantly. She doesn't have the right circle of people to see the shit I see with younger friends, who have a masters and still work shit paying jobs "to get experience" but at the same time can't afford to live on their own and pay their debt. She just sees kids that live off their parents, and her kids never did that. (Though, my brother and I fled as quickly as we could even though we were poor as fuck for a while because my parents have certain attitudes that are very overbearing, and my parents 100% would have let us stay, so they never had to make that choice.) They don't see things from the perspective of today's economy, they see it from the perspective of when they were that age. A lot of older people don't really get how different things are now money wise. They also don't see how hard millennials actually have to work to break even, they just see what media bias tells them to see.

Aug 29, 2016#5

GasBandit

Actually, you can blame the Participation Trophies on the Xers, not the boomers.

Also Adam Conover's just a cranky millennial spouting half-baked sound bytes he has barely researched, if at all. "How conceited do you have to be to name yourself the "greatest generation" they didn't name themselves that, the boomers did - or at least, the people who named it that were boomers. It was meant as a nod to the fact that they were the generation who grew up in the depression and went on to win WW2. Boomers are held in even higher contempt than any other generation, I think, as everybody's been pointing out for at least 30 years, because:

1) When they retire, it wrecks the economy
2) they're the generation most "in charge" in that they're the business owners and politicians, and things keep getting worse
3) they reaped the benefits of growing up during one of America's most prosperous economic periods and turned that into a sense of entitlement
4) Unpaid internships instead of hiring

Also, I think the time frames are wrong... the boomers aren't 1940-1960, they're 1945-65 or so, give or take, and Generation X is really just a murky generational fog between boomers and millennials mostly characterized by existential uncertainty. I generally find that people who fit the millennial stereotype were born no earlier than the mid 90s.

That said, there are "good kids" and bad kids. Underling #1 is a millennial by any definition, and yet she's probably one of the best workers to ever work here. That said, I can name three other people we've employed her age or younger who definitely fit the disparaging description. Granted, none of them have ever wanted to take 6 weeks off for a spirit journey, but they definitely wanted to get paid to facebook all day, regardless of what else did or didn't get accomplished.[DOUBLEPOST=1472506719,1472506605][/DOUBLEPOST]

Aug 29, 2016#6

Necronic

Gruebeard said:
Kids these days. It doesn't matter what decade, what century, what millennium these days are in. We look down on the newer generation.[DOUBLEPOST=1472505274,1472505098][/DOUBLEPOST]By the way, you seem to be labelling yourself as a Boomer. I didn't think you were that old. I mean, Dave's not even close to that old.

I'm not a boomer, but I'm old enough/been through enough voting cycles/been in the workforce long enough to accept my share of responsibility for the world as it is.

GasBandit said:
but they definitely wanted to get paid to facebook all day,

Says the man posting funny pictures to Halforums all day

Aug 29, 2016#7

Dei

Also, I don't think participation trophies are bad, as long as winning trophies are also a thing. My daughter very clearly knows the difference between a participation award and a winning award.

Aug 29, 2016#8

strawman

The difference in wage versus age over the last few decades is not as big as people are making it out to be:

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/student-loans/average-salary-by-age/

Unfortunately, on average, young people are making slightly less than previous generations did at their age. Most experts chalk it up to wage stagnation that hit as part of the 2008 recession. Between 1980 and 2013, for instance, the average age at which young adults’ salaries reached $42,000 a year increased from 26 to 30, according to a 2013 report by Georgetown University’s Center for Education and the Workforce.

Rising student loan debt isn’t helping. The average college graduate left school with $28,950 in student loan debt in 2014. If you’re struggling to pay off student loans, a debt calculator like MyNerdWallet can help you figure out how to lower your payments or get rid of your debt faster.

While it’s taking longer for young people to gain financial independence, the good news is that having a college degree makes a big difference in the amount of money you’re likely to make. In 2014, workers who were 25 and older and had a high school diploma made a median wage of $668 a week, or $34,736 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Workers 25 and older with a college degree made nearly double that: $1,193 a week, or $62,036 a year.

It's a little worse for people 25-35 now than it was for them two decades ago, but the difference isn't as big as some appear to suggest.

But honestly I'm not sure it matters. You can point to people that are struggling, and you can then also point to people in similar circumstances that are doing fine. We've had recessions before, and the youth just entering the workforce at those times and immediately after suffered at the hands of the recessions.

As far as "entitlement" or "blame" I suspect that every generation has been on the receiving end. Gen X. Gen Y. The baby boomers. The lost generation. They've all been pilloried, and then defended and put on a pedestal at different times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation#List_of_generations

To some degree it's simply part of our society. Every generation has stereotypes, and is viewed negatively in some way or fashion.

Now the millenials are on the hotplate.

Here's an article showing what happened when the gen x was on the hotplate: http://www.newgeography.com/content/001374-get-real-aout-generation-x-stereotypes

Here's an article which compares Millenials and boomers both favorably against the gen x: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/05/generation-x-americas-neglected-middle-child/ saying,

One reason Xers have trouble defining their own generational persona could be that they’ve rarely been doted on by the media. By contrast, Baby Boomers have been a source of media fascination from the get-go (witness their name). And Millennials ... have been the subject of endless stories about their racial diversity, their political and social liberalism, their voracious technology use, and their grim economic circumstances.

So more ink is spilled - both positive and negative - about the millenials and the boomers than the x, and they all have things society thinks negatively about them, as well as things positively held true about them.

So, in short, I don't see your point. If you want journalists to stop writing anti-millenial articles then I wish you good luck. If anything it's spurring millennials on to prove the articles wrong. Journalists write negative stories because they get more views than positive ones.

Aug 29, 2016#9

Denbrought

Dei said:
They also don't see how hard millennials actually have to work to break even, they just see what media bias tells them to see.

Well, they sometimes do, but then we also get either chastised or victim-blamed for it (E.g. How Millennials May Be Ruining Vacations for All of Us, Where Millennials Went Wrong and How They’re Paying the Price, Millennials should stop moaning. They've got more degrees and low rates).

Aug 29, 2016#10

GasBandit

Necronic said:
I'm not a boomer, but I'm old enough/been through enough voting cycles/been in the workforce long enough to accept my share of responsibility for the world as it is.

Says the man posting funny pictures to Halforums all day

Difference is, I manage to get work done, too

And I'm not hourly, they were.

Actually, most of my posts happen during times where I'm waiting for the computer to compile something.

Aug 29, 2016#11

Gruebeard

GasBandit said:
Generation X is really just a murky generational fog between boomers and millennials

Yet again, Generation Y is forgotten.

Aug 29, 2016#12

GasBandit

Gruebeard said:
Yet again, Generation Y is forgotten.

They got folded into X because they weren't different enough to distinguish.

Aug 29, 2016#13

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
most of my posts happen during times where I'm waiting for the computer to compile something.

Huh, I don't think I realized that you code.

Personally I blame the Gen-X'ers who fill their Millenial offsprings' ears with tales of wonder and cushion them from reality for breeding this sort of stereotype.

--Patrick

Aug 29, 2016#14

Hailey Knight

PatrThom said:
Huh, I don't think I realized that you code.

Personally I blame the Gen-X'ers who fill their Millenial offsprings' ears with tales of wonder and cushion them from reality for breeding this sort of stereotype.

--Patrick

That's what happens when you let kids watch Labyrinth.

Aug 30, 2016#15

PatrThom

Zero Esc said:
That's what happens when you let kids watch Labyrinth.

--Patrick

Aug 30, 2016#16

sixpackshaker

GasBandit said:
They got folded into X because they weren't different enough to distinguish.

Y is the millennial.

Aug 30, 2016#17

Celt Z

I still can't figure out who is considered a Millennial. I had assumed from the original coining of the phrase, it was anyone who was born in 1990 or later. But some places I've seen say that "older Millennials" are start in 1981, which replaces what we knew as Generation Y. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I feel like there was still too much of a technology-effecting-every-day-society jump in that decade. Maybe the late 80's could be considered part of the Millennial generation.

And since we're talkin' bout my g-g-g-generation, (X? I think?)

stienman said:
As far as "entitlement" or "blame" I suspect that every generation has been on the receiving end. Gen X. Gen Y. The baby boomers. The lost generation. They've all been pilloried, and then defended and put on a pedestal at different times.

So, it's fair to say "Meet the new Boss, same as the old Boss"? ... The Who jokes aside, I wonder if this generation divide really got started in post-WWII when we first considered "teenager" a viable group. Previous to that, "youth" wasn't really a marketable group, unless we were talking about children. You were either a child or an adult. Now we have "teenagers" and "young adults", who seem to earn the ire of every previous generation. (Ironic, because as others have pointed out, they were the ones who created the youth and set up their environment.)

Aug 30, 2016#18

Dave

I have no generation. I was born in 1965 and I'm right on the line. So neither generation claims me.

Aug 30, 2016#19

blotsfan

Dave said:
I have no generation. I was born in 1965 BC and I'm right on the line. So neither generation claims me.

FTFY

Aug 30, 2016#20

Bubble181

blotsfan said:
FTFY

The whole "the world is 4000 years old" thing has been disproven several times now, really.

Aug 30, 2016#21

jwhouk

Dave said:
I have no generation. I was born in 1965 and I'm right on the line. So neither generation claims me.

Yeah, same here. Both parents pre-war babies, and 1967 birth year.

I,'m Gen XY.

Sent from my Nextbook

Aug 30, 2016#22

AshburnerX

Celt Z said:
I still can't figure out who is considered a Millennial. I had assumed from the original coining of the phrase, it was anyone who was born in 1990 or later. But some places I've seen say that "older Millennials" are start in 1981, which replaces what we knew as Generation Y. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I feel like there was still too much of a technology-effecting-every-day-society jump in that decade. Maybe the late 80's could be considered part of the Millennial generation.

And since we're talkin' bout my g-g-g-generation, (X? I think?)

Generation Y got folded into Millennials, essentially because they were still comings of age during the whole tech revolution that started in the late 80's. They were still young enough to have grown up using computers on a fairly regular basis, even if the Internet wasn't a super common thing until the early to mid 90's. In that light, '81 does seem like the correct cut-off point. Besides, there wasn't a whole lot distinguishing millennials from Y whys anyway, other than Y's could remember a time before personal computers were common.

Aug 30, 2016#23

Dave

jwhouk said:
Yeah, same here. Both parents pre-war babies, and 1967 birth year.

I,'m Gen XY.

Sent from my Nextbook

I like my chromosomes like I like my generation...

Aug 30, 2016#24

Denbrought

Dave said:
I like my chromosomes like I like my generation...

With telomeres so short that you can't attest they exist?

Aug 30, 2016#25

Dave

XY, you fucker.

Aug 30, 2016#26

Ravenpoe

Dave said:
I like my chromosomes like I like my generation...

Wait, which is the downs generation?

Aug 30, 2016#27

GasBandit

Dave said:
I like my chromosomes like I like my generation...

Dave said:
XY, you fucker.

So... you hate women?

Aug 30, 2016#28

Denbrought

GasBandit said:
So... you hate women?

He's a cishetwhitemale (all one word, shitlord), that part's self-explanatory.

Aug 30, 2016#29

Bubble181

Denbrought said:
He's a cishetwhitemale (all one word, shitlord), that part's self-explanatory.

is he ablist, too? Because we really need at least one vowel in there to make it a pronouncable type, like WASP or DINK. CHWAM would work, maybe.

Aug 30, 2016#30

Denbrought

Bubble181 said:
is he ablist, too? Because we really need at least one vowel in there to make it a pronouncable type, like WASP or DINK. CHWAM would work, maybe.

No, he's abelist, because he was around to witness Cain killing him, yet did nothing to stop it from happening.

Aug 30, 2016#31

Dave

I wasn't Abel.[DOUBLEPOST=1472592299,1472592282][/DOUBLEPOST]SEE?!? I'm on fucking FIRE with the jokes!

Aug 30, 2016#32

GasBandit

Dadness confirmed.

Aug 30, 2016#33

Gruebeard

Celt Z said:
I still can't figure out who is considered a Millennial.

I figure if you can't remember life without internet, then you're a millenial.

And if you can't remember life with the internet, then you just might be a redneck.

Aug 30, 2016#34

GasBandit

Aug 30, 2016#35

Denbrought

Gruebeard said:
I figure if you can't remember life without internet, then you're a millenial.

And if you can't remember life with the internet, then you just might be a redneck.

I remember life before the internet, but AFAIK anyone born in the 90's is firmly in the Millenial category.

Aug 30, 2016#36

GasBandit

Strict interpretation:
You're a millennial if you don't remember life before the internet.

Loose interpretation:
You're a millennial if you don't remember life before the NES.

Aug 30, 2016#37

AshburnerX

GasBandit said:
Strict interpretation:
You're a millennial if you don't remember life before the internet.

Loose interpretation:
You're a millennial if you don't remember life before the NES.

This... basically fits, I think. The cultural crossover is significant enough to include both views.

Aug 30, 2016#38

Denbrought

Guess I'm a loose millennial them :unibrow:

Aug 30, 2016#39

DarkAudit

Early Gen X: Don't remember life before the moon landings, but can remember life before the Atari.

Aug 30, 2016#40

Covar

I remember when I was introduced to the Internet. My Dad upgraded our old PC compatible running MS-DOS with an IBM Aptiva. It had a CD-ROM drive, a 28k modem, and ran Windows 95.

My whole world changed.

Aug 30, 2016#41

DarkAudit

Covar said:
I remember when I was introduced to the Internet. My Dad upgraded our old PC compatible running MS-DOS with an IBM Aptiva. It had a CD-ROM drive, a 28k modem, and ran Windows 95.

My whole world changed.

Millenials don't know what QEMM was.

Aug 30, 2016#42

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
Millenials don't know what QEMM was.

Or CONFIG.SYS, or AUTOEXEC.BAT.
Good times.

--Patrick

Aug 31, 2016#43

GasBandit

DarkAudit said:
Millenials don't know what QEMM was.

Gegh, that just dredged up a whole lot of bad memories. What's next, Stacker? QDOS? DOS 5.0 shell?!

Aug 31, 2016#44

Tress

Take it from a middle school teacher:

Young people are obnoxious, no matter the generation. I think that's what really fuels most of this. It sounds similar to the crap people used to give Gen X before Gen X finished growing up.

Aug 31, 2016#45

sixpackshaker

Tress said:
Take it from a middle school teacher:

Young people are obnoxious, no matter the generation. I think that's what really fuels most of this. It sounds similar to the crap people used to give Gen X before Gen X finished growing up.

I remember a lot of the Gen X coverage being the Greatest Generation and the Boomers lamenting just how screwed over we were as a generation. Yes, there was a lot of 20 somethings suck, but it was not the full coverage and blame that the Millennials get.

I have some friends that LOVE bitching about this generation. I slip in a jab from time to time like, "I know you don't like your kid, but you raised him."

Aug 31, 2016#46

Bubble181

Frankly - and this might also be caused by a regional divide - I see a lot more boomer hate. Everyone 40 and under is pretty much realizing the generation retiring now (and retired over the past 10 years, especially during the boom....People were retiring with full benefits at 48! 48! With a life expectancy of 82!) has royally screwed everyone coming after them, with an unsustainable business model, unsustainable economic model, and an unsustainable sociological model.

Sep 1, 2016#47

Eriol

GasBandit said:
Gegh, that just dredged up a whole lot of bad memories. What's next, Stacker? QDOS? DOS 5.0 shell?!

I had a VIC-20 as my first computer. It was slightly older than I was! I'm early millenial I guess, as I graduated in 2000, but was way ahead of the curve with computers.

Covar said:
I remember when I was introduced to the Internet. My Dad upgraded our old PC compatible running MS-DOS with an IBM Aptiva. It had a CD-ROM drive, a 28k modem, and ran Windows 95.

My whole world changed.

I remember my world changing when we went from 2400-baud to 14.4k. That was AMAZING. Then 33.6k was pretty nice. Oddly never had a 56k modem, unless it was free sometime later (some memory is nagging at me).

Then we were in the pilot program for Cable Modems in my city because my Dad worked in a different division of the Cable Company (business Fibre division). 10Mbps before the public had it. THAT was mind-blowing. 1994(ish). We could saturate multiple different websites at once with that kind of bandwidth.

Good times.

Sep 1, 2016#48

Dave

When email first started I didn't know you could send out form letters to massive amounts of people. I got an email from one of my famous artists about an upcoming concert and I was so excited that the guy sent me a personal message. I even may have bragged about it.

Sep 1, 2016#49

sixpackshaker

Dave said:
When email first started I didn't know you could send out form letters to massive amounts of people. I got an email from one of my famous artists about an upcoming concert and I was so excited that the guy sent me a personal message. I even may have bragged about it.

My brother used to send jokes to hundreds of people at a time in the "To:" slot. At least Facebook cut down on that crap.

Sep 26, 2016#50

PatrThom

source

"Also they appear to be the group most likely to vote for universal basic income."

--Patrick

Sep 26, 2016#51

blotsfan

Is that because millenials are lazy, or because the job market is brutal?

Sep 26, 2016#52

Hailey Knight

Cover of National Geographic "millenials discover outdoors."

The month before, it was about treatments to end blindness. I'm sure these were equal subjects of discussion, each equally rooted in scientific study and application.

Sep 26, 2016#53

AshburnerX

blotsfan said:
Is that because millenials are lazy, or because the job market is brutal?

The young men in article all seem to indicate that they'd rather be doing something more meaningful, but aren't able to find the opportunity to do so... which basically means the real issue is the job market. It's actually a perfectly reasonable reaction to the current job market: if you can't find a way to meaningfully participate, then don't participate period. And really, they only need to hold out a few more years for the boomers to start retiring for health reasons...

Sep 27, 2016#54

Tress

Seriously? "Give me everything I want now, without me having to work for it, or I'm going to sit at home like a fucking lump and mooch off my parents!" seems reasonable to you?

These assholes need to suck it up and either go to school or work their asses off to get ahead. Sitting at home, goofing off is not some noble alternative. It's the lazy/cowardly choice.

If you're playing video games after a long day of job searching, job training, college classes, or hard work, then by all means play video games. But if you're not doing those things, don't try to hide behind the economy.

Sep 27, 2016#55

Celt Z

Tress said:
Seriously? "Give me everything I want now, without me having to work for it, or I'm going to sit at home like a fucking lump and mooch off my parents!" seems reasonable to you?

These assholes need to suck it up and either go to school or work their asses off to get ahead. Sitting at home, goofing off is not some noble alternative. It's the lazy/cowardly choice.

If you're playing video games after a long day of job searching, job training, college classes, or hard work, then by all means play video games. But if you're not doing those things, don't try to hide behind the economy.

It's not just millennials; this was exactly my ex. He'd play games at home all day while his mom and cousin would job hunt for him and send out his resume. He refused to take any minimum wage positions because, even though he had never held a job, he insisted he'd be "bored". And he didn't have a bad economy to blame, either.

And he wondered why I left.

Sep 27, 2016#56

strawman

Ornithologists have observed eagles coaxing, even taunting, their young from the nest, rather than just giving them a shove. When the fledgling eagle is almost ready to fly, parents have been observed to swoop by the nest with a fresh kill. Instead of landing in the nest as usual to share the meal, the parent lands near the nest and eats in plain view of its squawking, hungry teenager. This behavior continues until the fledgling is hungry enough to venture out of the nest, at which point the parent will share its food.

http://www.newhavenrtc.com/emptying-the-nest/

Sep 27, 2016#57

PatrThom

blotsfan said:
Is that because millenials are lazy, or because the job market is brutal?

Because (paraphrasing from the article) playing a game leads to a feeling of accomplishment within/just after a few hours' play. A job can go on for days and there is no similar guarantee of satisfaction in that time, nor even at all.
Oh, @AshburnerX already said that.

--Patrick

Oct 6, 2016#58

strawman

Oct 6, 2016#59

PatrThom

Ouch.

--Patrick

Forums