Urban Dictionary defines Millennial as: “Special little snowflake. Born between 1982 and 1994 this generation is something special, cause Mom and Dad and their 5th grade teacher Mrs. Winotsky told them so. Plus they have a whole shelf of participation trophies sitting at home, so it has to be true.”
Google translates Generation Y as, “the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s, comprising primarily the children of the baby boomers and typically perceived as increasingly familiar with digital and electronic technology.”
Millennial/Generation Y folk, such as myself, will often wonder why we get such a bad rap. I’m kind of sick and tired of it to be honest. Here’s the reason why: The typical person that would give us millennials such a hard time are Generation X people. But, they raised us, right? They are the ones that influenced us from birth, right? They are the ones that guided us through our past and current endeavors, right?
We often hear from people in Generation X, “When I was your age…”
We can all agree on that is the most annoying thing in the world, right? Yes, when you were my age, you had to walk 15 miles to school every day. Uphill, both ways. Through the snow. Dodging lions and wildebeests. For me, this phrase was used often on teaching me a life lesson, or an example to a consequence. But in reality, it more-so pissed me off beyond belief because it no longer became relevant. So, before I go too far in to that specific part, here are five reasons the millennial generation has a bad rep:
5. The news.
We often watch Fox, CNN, NBC and some other networks to, supposedly, obtain information about the local and worldly news. But more often than not, we see some middle school kids bickering about something that doesn’t really affect us.
They tend to find a subject that doesn’t really affect our lives that much and embeds it into our brain to actually make it seem like it does affect us. I remember when Michael Jackson passed, all the networks covered it for what seemed like 2 weeks. It’s become about the ratings/popularity contest, not about the news. Now, they often talk about us, too, Millennials to be exact. They often talk about our lifestyles, decision making and our ability to do life. They talk about how we are a lazy generation and they use the phrase, “when I was their age…” so annoying.
4. Friends
We often look to our friends for guidance instead/before going to Generation X folk. Why? Our friends are dealing with the same problem(s)! We aren’t really looking for answers, we’re mainly looking for someone to agree with us and say, “Yeah that sucks man.”
There’s this saying/hashtag I see on Twitter and Facebook, “#relatable.” This is the pivotal thing I have seen that has influenced our generation more than most. We aren’t necessarily looking for answers, we are looking for someone to agree with us and then move on. But, these “relatable moments” we yearn for are the reasons we have division in our culture today. We have a Generation, the baby boomers, telling us that life can only go a certain way but our friends are saying to each other, stick together and we’ll be okay.
3. Social Media/TV/Movies
Like I was saying in number four. Social media is a huge contributing factor in why we have separation anxiety from the rest of the world. We would love to be a part of it, but, it’s not relatable. The creator to Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, who is a Millennial himself, is one of our generation’s leaders for sure. But there are some kickbacks to that. Forbes website stated in an article online, “Zuckerberg is certainly setting a positive example for his peers, but this a generation already inclined towards philanthropy. Millennials were raised during an era that saw incredible advances in technology, and these advances are helping to shape the values and priorities of today’s young. Increased use of technology has resulted in increased awareness of social issues.”
While I do say that this is mostly true, I would like to give consideration that societal behaviors change over time. This is one of those factors. Anyways, technology advances are incredibly true. Being able to watch movies and shows on our smartphones and tablets is a huge feat in society in such a small amount of time in the universe. But the thing is, it’s not the technology itself that is spoiling us, it’s the content the technology provides. The movies and shows we watch are geared to inspire us to follow our own dream. To chase our own way of living and to not let anyone stop you. They also make life seem so easy with romantic comedies ending at a happy moment, action movies where the good wins, drama movies where dreams come true and the main character prevails. These unrealistic entertainments interferes with reality. Our perception of what is right and wrong is flawed with Hollywood. All of these reasons will tie together, I promise.
2. Opposites Inspire.
As I’ve stated in No. Four, we want what’s relatable. If we haven’t faced the endeavor yet we can’t process it ever happening. And if/when it does, we won’t look for someone in Generation X first, we look to someone who is “relatable.” But as we grew up in life we are told by our parents to be whoever we want to be and don’t let anyone stop you. We often realize there are conditions to what that means. “You can be whatever and whoever you want… as long as you’re making money and afford a nice house and car. That way when we get older you take care of us.” Wait… what? But, you told me hundreds of times to be who I want to be and do whatever you want to do. Ah, I see, what you mean by that was to be anything extraordinary in societal standards. Brain surgeon, rocket scientist or even something that just pays the bills but makes you happy, that’s OK.
The movie series "Rocky Balboa" has always been a very inspiring series that teaches us, not only moral values, but how to overcome obstacles to be the best we can be. These movies have always been a favorite in my book because it’s inspiring to chase that dream. It teaches us to face the discouragement from others and actually achieve our dreams. Football is definitely one of those contributing factors for me at least. In eighth grade, I had a coach that would often tell me to give up because I wasn’t good enough, but that actually inspired me to prove him wrong. So, I went to high school, worked out and exercised my entire freshman year and ended up starting on the JV team my sophomore year as quarterback and defense. That sounds great right? Sounds like it came right from a movie. So why does it feel like Generation X people are telling us we are destined to fail? To inspire us?
1. Parents.
We’ve all heard of the helicopter parents.
My parents weren’t really like this to what I believe but I definitely witnessed this growing up. Reluctantly enough, I played on the soccer team where everyone won a trophy and never really learned to “lose.” And yeah we were taught to share but not really taught how to take a loss. Phrases like, “we may have lost the game but you are winners in my heart.” Yeah it lessened the blow but it wasn’t blunt enough to get the picture. So growing up and being a young adult now, I’m suffering from total annihilation with loss. Not only am I suffering from what it means to lose a job and money. I’m learning what it means to lose family, friends and lifelong pets. Parents didn’t teach us this because they want us to be happy all the time. “When you get to the real world it gets a lot harder…” well why didn’t you teach us in ways that doesn’t have to start with “when I was your age…”? I didn’t know I was living in a dream in my childhood and teenage years. My parents grew up in the 60’s and 70’s—a time that I wish I could witness because of all the amazing things that I’ve seen on the recent Netflix shows “sixties” and “seventies”. But the technology back then, of course is ancient to us millennials. They actually did have it a lot harder than us when it came to school. They didn’t have google. Or Angry Birds to kill time. But this is the reality. Parents and Generation X giving us a bad rep because…we’re uniquely special and different…caused by themselves.
Urban dictionary says that we are “special little snowflakes…
because mom and dad say we are.” So is Generation X dissing itself? Why were we treated as something special? Why are the ones who raised us criticizing us on how… we were raised…? I don’t get it. But, like most millennials this would offend us. But why? Why would something like this be so offensive to us in a day and age where everything should be equal thinking and understanding? Maybe because we actually don’t. Know. Better. Maybe it’s the fact that we were helicoptered by a society that would later say, “Hey why aren’t you a like us?” and completely forget about everything else in our culture that influences us.
I could continue on for a long time. But, rather not. Hope you have a better understanding if not, please leave a comment with questions or concerns and I’d love to answer you back.
