As a Millennial, I find myself reading articles attempting to capture the essence of my generation as authors who are definitely not Millennials come up with reasons as to why exactly my generation does what it does. Millennial is so overused that most people probably don't even know what it means, because Millennials, believe it or not, are not just college kids. Millennials are defined as the age group born in 1982 (some say 1981) and later with no clear end, but rather an end point of somewhere around the 2000s. That being said, Millennials cover a wide age range, from about 18 to 35. And, according to Neil Howe at Forbes, Millennials are boring, in fact Millennials have "Gone Mild." Maybe Millennials have gone mild, but Howe, who at 64 is no Millennial, might not completely understand why.
Howe's story focuses on how Millennials have slowly abandoned bars and nightlife in exchange for alternative outings such as "juice crawls," "silent discos," and "color runs" and he sights the fact that over 10,000 bars have shut down in the last decade as proof. Bars rely on Millennials, that's the truth, and Millennials may in fact be more tame than previous generations, but we don't have much of a choice.
The mild lifestyles of the Millennial generation boils down to the heart of what the Millennial generation is: a bunch of lost, apathetic, optimistic dreamers. "Happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time" about sums it up. We haven't given up the bars because we want to, it's because we have to.
Nightlife is expensive and in a world where most Millennials are either struggling to find jobs, crippled under student loans, or working minimum wage jobs where working an hour for $7.25 won't get you as much as a long island in any major city, nightlife is no longer appealing because it's no longer affordable. According to Howe we'd rather stay in and drink at home. The truth is, that paying $12 for one vodka sprite is a bit ridiculous when you could buy a whole bottle of vodka and sprite for $12. Not all Millennials live in college towns where the most expensive wells are $1 and cover is never more than $5. The truth is, average nights out in the cities Millennials flock to like NYC will cost you more than its worth. Not to mention that time you step out in public, especially if you're drinking, everything will be recorded only to be found online by an employer who will proceed to not hire you. No other generation has had to deal with the repercussions of going out, so choosing a 'juice crawl' instead of the bar might just save you a job, and those are hard to find these days.
Howe even states that because Millennials are so tame, brands have had to tone down their advertisements and stores like American Apparel have ditched their sexualized campaigns. Truthfully, these brands have had to tone down their advertisements that were over-sexualized, encouraged rape culture, encouraged eating disorders, and were generally offensive and/or inappropriate. (Example: the image above showing a seeming very young, most likely underage girl, lying on a bed in a proactive manner captions "School's Out") Millennials may have just of been the only generation to complain enough to stop it and if you ask me, our outspokenness of things that aren't right doesn't make us mild, just aware.
The Forbes article also commented on how advertisements instead talk to the parents of Millennials, aka the Boomers. These advertisements focus on "Boomers living it up while their kids sit at home," making it out to seem as though Boomers are the crazy ones and the Millennials have lost their edge. But, the Boomers have it good. A generation where if you worked hard, it paid off, where college was somewhat affordable, and where pensions, social security, and job security was real. Of course the Boomers are living it up, they can afford that $12 vodka sprite at the bar.
But Howe does understand us on one aspect, and that's technology. The thing is, Millennials don't have to go to the bar to meet people, we can swipe through Tinder to do that. We also don't want to do anything that isn't shareable. If we can't Snapchat about how fun the bar is, because the bar isn't fun, then there's no point. Technology has taken over the life of the Millennial making work even harder to escape. We're the generation checking emails, maybe even sending emails at the bar because we have to work twice as hard to accomplish the same as the generations before us.
Millennials are living in a tough time. The economy is terrible, student loan debt is increasing every day, and spending $5 on a Bud Light makes us feel physically ill. So yes, maybe we have adopted the grandma/grandpa lifestyle, and maybe you will find us at home watching Netflix on a Saturday night instead of at the club but the reason why isn't because we're boring, or tame, or uninterested, it's because Netflix is $10 a month, and the bar is $10 a drink, and $10 to us is more than just $10. Our lives revolve around paying for school, or paying school off. We're careful with our money because we don't know how it's going to turn out for us, even if we have a job. Our current situation is still living with our parents to save money or living with 3 roommates in a city in an apartment only meant for 2. Millennials flock to alternative events because they're different, which makes them worth it. Silent discos and color runs are experiences, shareable moments that carry more weight than a night at the bar we may not remember because it's the same as every other night at the bar. And if the cost of going to the bar has no benefits then what's the point? So have Millennials gone 'mild'? Maybe, but when you live in a world where everything you do has a negative consequence, what choice do you have?
