If you have any access to any kind of media, social media or any other humans, you have probably heard the word ‘millennial’ used to describe the current young adult generation. You have probably also heard some variation of ‘millennial are killing x,’ a phrase so frequently used it has now become a meme. The word ‘millennial’ is really just a poor generalization used to describe a generation stuck between the optimism and security of their baby boomer parents and the uncertainty of the future, but since we’re here, we may as well talk about it. Millennials have been blamed for killing the golf industry, retail sales, the movie business, possibly Home Depot, relationships, wine, McDonalds, class, paper napkins, the car industry, crowdfunding and credit. Some of these articles appeared on websites such as a local radio station’s blog or ‘Bossip,’ but others were circulated by Forbes and the New York Post (which is not inherently reliable but certainly has a wide audience).
Really, this seems like a huge crisis, right? It’s not. Basically, the older generation that sees millennial as entitled, narcissistic children has combined forces with advertising and media, and now, as millennial lack spending power of preceding generations, “non-essential industries are feeling the burn” and getting angry about it. The combination of more student loan debt than earlier generations (even adjusted for inflation) and more unpaid internships would clearly leave a gap in spending money to say nothing of spending habits. A piece commenting on the decline of light yogurt sales pointed out that research has recently turned in favor of eating good fats and working to avoid artificial sweeteners and sugars that have actually been linked with weight gain. So really, millennials have an understanding of their health, and they have realized that light yogurt is not the key to a healthy diet, sorry YoPlait.
A piece published on the website Quartz asserts that “Americans who have lived much of their adult lives in the aftermath of the Great Recession have lower incomes, less mobility, and greater financial dependence on relatives than any other generation in modern history.” The article also points out that the reality of these young peoples’ lives are hardly ever fairly captured, and indeed the “repackaging [of] millennial’ economic desperation as lifestyle choices” ends up “leading to a sort of generational gaslighting over what life in the new economy is really like.”
The infamous TIME magazine cover proclaiming millennials as the “Me, Me, Me Generation” certainly helped kick off this wonderful chain of marketing about millennial habits, but all of these pieces overlook basic facts about millennials. We are apparently selfish, self-absorbed, narcissistic and a whole host of other things that basically all come down to our being stuck to our smartphones and incapable of connecting with other generations. We, if I include myself in the group, are mostly just trying to live our lives under what feels like more pressure and uncertainty than our parents faced. If the millennial generation is so selfish, can someone please explain Brexit? The older generation turned out in greater numbers than other recent elections and successfully voted for something that the younger generations, who would inarguably be more impacted by the outcome, did not want. It seems arguably fair to assert that leaving the EU and institutionalizing various kinds of racism and exclusionary policies is a fairly selfish collective move, but sure, remind us how millennials are all so self-absorbed we can’t see an inch beyond our noses. Just as Brexit is a decision, heavily influenced by the older generations, that will affect the entire world, millennials are all living with decisions and situations created by those who preceded us. Most of us are not thrilled at the abundance of underpaid labor and long hours of internships necessary to get anywhere in the world via networking, nor are we thrilled about the increasing difficulty of finding stability, yet here we are.
