Millennials. I had never heard of this noun up until four years ago when I entered college and overheard one of my sociology major friends discussing it. Nothing struck me as out of the ordinary in this particular discussion except that term. Millennials. What the hell was a millennial?
I discovered through my brief research on the interwebs that millenials were my fellow peers, my teammates, my colleagues, my friends. They were the people that I grew up with, that I admired, that I fell in love with, that I debated with, that I punched out by the playground. It was the word used to describe my generation. Those of you that were born being the late 1980’s and early 2000’s, it’s your generation too.
Now recently, I read an article titled Generation Cry Baby: Why Millennials Are a F**king Joke. The title immediately grabbed my attention, so I delved in. Why exactly was my generation a ‘f**cking joke?’ It is no great secret that we are incredibly despised by some members of society. We are criticized for being narcissistic and entitled, raised at a young age to believe we are ‘special snowflakes.’ We know this. We hear our grandparents rant at the holiday table, “When I was your age, we never had this new fangled ‘facebooking’ and “twit twat’ or whatever you kids are now playing. We talked to each other like human beings,” implying that millennials are actually robots in disguise. Rachel Foote, the author of said article, reiterates this with quite the colorful vocabulary and shares these opinions. Which I think is hysterical for one big reason: she is exhibiting the same behavior of those that she criticizes.
She is a millennial and therefore being a “cry baby” herself. She has the same sort of philosophy that girls have when they try to describe themselves to boys as, “I’m not like other girls.” My experience of her through this article is, “I am not like the rest of my generation, therefore respect me and call me special.” I read the comments on her blog, praising her for speaking out against the crowd, for speaking her mind, which I do applaud. It does take a lot of gumption to speak your mind, especially when your opinion is “unpopular.”
But here’s the thing… her opinion really is not that unpopular, especially by those in my generation.
My friends and I know we, as individuals, are not narcissistic or entitled. We know the world is not all rainbows and unicorns. It is a hard ass place with many people who would like to see us fail. Don’t forget, while this is the generation that grew up with social media and sharing our warm and fuzzy feelings, we are also the generation that grew up with the Recession at our front door. I watched as my father, my hero and one of my best friends, lost his job and rebuilt everything from scratch. I saw my mother cry over more unpaid bills than I can count. This does not make me special. This makes me one of the millions, yes MILLIONS, of millennials who are disillusioned with the college bubble of sensitivity that has been constructed around on us.
Generalizations are dangerous. That is where stereotypes stem from and stereotypes tend to limit our potential for constructive thought and action. What should be discussed is how higher education institutions can create more opportunities for us to receive more of these experiences that strengthen our growth.
Either way, millennials are more complicated than meets the eye and labeling them as a “f**king joke” does nobody any good except the author who is seeking attention.
