The problem with Millenials isn’t with Millennials.
Let me explain.
I cancelled my SiriusXM account because they give a voice to Breitbart. I will not spend my money on a service that broadcasts actual Nazis.
Anyway, I now have to listen to the radio like I’m Laura Ingalls.
Morning DJs for a local rock station asked a question for a Metallica ticket give away.
The question was “What do 61% of all Millennials say they will never do?”
The DJs started running down Millennials with unwitty cliches like “Brush their teeth” or “Wash their hair”.
It occurred to me that these douche twizzles sounded like adults of my youth talking about “dirty hippies”. No difference at all.
I am paraphrasing here, but there is a saying about learning from our mistakes. “Those who don’t motherfucking learn from goddamn history are motherfucking doomed to repeat it. ”
Are there self-involved, entitled, lazy Millennials? Of course, there are.
Also, there are self-involved, entitled, lazy Gen-Xers.
And for all that is fucking holy, there are self-involved, entitled, lazy Baby Boomers.
Regardless of generation, there are large groups of people who suck.
This is science, people. You shouldn’t argue with science.
I honestly don’t know why all the hate for the Millennial generation.
The young Millennial adults I know are kind, informed, intelligent humans. I mean, sure, there are some twat monsters, but we just talked about the science part of this, right? There have always been and will always be twat monsters. In every generation.
I am at the tail end of the Boomers, which sucks for a couple reasons.
- First, Boomers sort of equal elderly now and I am not elderly. I’m not a baby or anything, but fucking hell. Not elderly.
- Second, because a lot of Baby Boomers suck ass. Selfish, short sighted, and whiny as fuck. I saw a meme the other day about being an age where their parents struck them with a wooden spoon and therefore are, I don’t know, better? More valid? The meme implied they were hard working and had high morals because the people who were supposed to love and protect them, assaulted them with a piece of wood.
I asked a question on Twitter about why some Baby Boomers wear getting beaten by their parents as a badge of honor.
I got some heartbreaking answers. There were people who chose to not have children because of fears they would hit their own kids like they were hit to PTSD issues from being abused as children.
Then, I had people who say that the younger generations are weak and entitled and, if they had had their asses beat, they’d be better adults now. You should envision the people giving these answers with their pants hiked way up high, shaking a cane, and worrying about the state of their lawn.
It does us no good to be so afraid of our young adults.
They see life differently. They are going to choose paths we would never choose; paths that weren’t even available to us.
We have to adapt. If we can’t bring ourselves to help them find their way, then we need to step aside and allow them find their way without shaking our goddamn canes at them.
Also, younger people, we Baby Boomers might be sort of approaching elderly, but we still count.
We are still as valid. Our voices matter, our ideas matter. Not all of us need to fade away with our backward thinking and hateful rhetoric. Some of us still want to contribute and grow and change. A lot of us.
You know what, though, this sort of thing kind of pales when you consider what is happening around us.
Did you see the marches this weekend?
- I watched a young woman stand in silence for minutes while a half a million people followed suit. It was powerful.
- I watched a young woman who less than a month and a half ago was shot in both legs and got shrapnel in her eye give a speech, puke on stage, finish her speech, and then sing happy birthday to her dead friend.
- I watched an 11 year old girl speak for women of color whose stories of being gun violence victims are never front page news.
- I watched millions of people from all over the world march in support of a handful of high school students who made this happen in just a few short weeks.
Baby Boomers, Millennials, and Gen-Xers need to set the bullshit aside, roll up our sleeves, and pitch in.
Generation Z has got shit handled.
Photo courtesy of rawpixel.
Amen, sister!!
🙂
Well said, and thank you for saying it!
XO!
*crazy-mad clapping*
*wipes tear*
Nice 🙂
My favorite sign… (I had many faves but this one kinda spoke to all generations)
“18th Century Laws do not work for 21st Century guns”
Adapting and evolving isn’t Darwinian.
It’s survive and flourish and we need a nice word for it.
Yes!!
Oh, yes, yes, yes. And thank God for them. I am weeping with relief.
I find them amazing. I have hope again.
You are amazing! And I completely agree!
Thank you so much! XOXOX
Millenials will save us. Anyone who doesn’t think so needs to sit the f*ck back down.
And Generation Z. They have the passion and the stamina. Who would win the stamina game? a 17 year old or a 71 year old. hahahah
The thing I’ve learned about broad generalizations is there’s always an exception. Well, not every one has an exception, but most of them do, and this is especially true when it comes to generalizations about groups of people–especially generational groups which are amorphous and vaguely defined anyway.
What I saw on Saturday, not just in Washington but in cities all over, including the one where I live, gave me confidence that the kids are all right. This was strengthened by getting to spend time with my godchildren–a boy who’s 17 and a girl who’s 14–a few weeks ago. I kept making silly jokes about “the old days”, things like, “In my day ‘the library’ is what we called Wikipedia, but you had to walk there.” And they laughed. They loved it. These kids are great people and they’re going to do great things and their parents have never hit them. They’re being hit with enough problems–including some created by my generation.
Yeah, I’m a little jealous of the resources and opportunities they have, but I wouldn’t take those things away.
Me either! I am inspired by them
What was the answer? Vote? I sure hope not… but I suspect that was the answer they were looking for, yes?
Jackie
I think they just want to stop getting killed at school.
No, I meant this: The question was “What do 61% of all Millennials say they will never do?”
What was the answer they were looking for?
I thought it would be “vote” but you’re saying the answer is “not get killed at school” ?
*confused*
🙂
HAHAHA..oh. The answer was “get married”
Speaking as someone who has been shot at, I always find it interesting when people who never have and never will be shot at try to tell people who have and likely will again be shot at what to do about being shot at.
That’s not a local variation on the “I was beaten and it made me better” trope, by the way, it’s just a “perhaps you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about” thing directed toward those folks, who, as far as I can tell, don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.
Oh, and about those dirty fucking hippies, and specifically about their political views…
Turns out that they were right about the right all along. They may be one of the only redeeming factors from my generation. Well, them and some really good musicians.
I’m a “tail end of the baby boom”er also, born two weeks before the end of 1960.
Aside from the sheer, honest, brilliance on display Saturday, not just in DC, but all over the damn place, and from a purely cynical political perspective, this might have been the only possible way to mobilize the last inactive bloc of voters in the US: 18 to 24 year olds.
Those kids are gonna vote like their lives depend on it, because, *SURPRISE!* their lives do depend on it, because my fucking generation has made their lives depend on it.
I predict that until the likelihood of being shot at is reduced to nominal levels that no longer affect the course of a normal day, these kids will remain motivated.
Also, I love them.
Watching Emma Gonzalez stand there in silence, trying to keep it together in front of all of those people, who didn’t know what she was up to was a major lesson in learning to trust these kids to know what they’re doing.
WE didn’t know what she was up to, but she certainly did, and millions of people learned a valuable lesson from her courage and insight.
They’ve got this. I want to help them.
YES!!! The strength and courage it must have taken to stand there in silence for that long. Wow. I love these kids. I’m sorry their lives took such a hard left, but I am grateful for them.
Spot on, Michelle! These kids know exactly what they’re doing and no one can stop them!
b
Nope, they are going to do this with or without us.
I agree with you, Michelle. Millenials are cool. I learn from them every day. As you said there are people from every generation that suck. Baby Boomers get blamed for everything but we fought too and made lots of changes like women’s rights. I was brought to tears by the students of Parkland and marched.
We did fight for a lot of things, but we let too many things slide as well. I am hopeful again.
I sobbed listening to so many Gen-Zs stand up and take a stand.
Sorta reminded me of the anti-war protests. If you’re at the back-end of the baby boomers you may not remember it. Those protesters were considered wrong-header, unpatriotic, privileged, etc. Protesters were tired of a lifetime of friends a family getting killed.
Good for Gen-Z, the Next Great Generation.
I kinda sorta remember it. I was young, but I remember some
Yeppers!
I don’t judge people by generation. I judge them based on whether they’re entitled, selfish, dumbasses. We have plenty of good folks and not so in all generations.
It’s up to the good ones to fight and lead the way until the not so ones don’t have any power over the rest of us.
Yep!!!
I love the millennials. I find them brave, informed, and passionate. They’ve grown up in a world — Sandy Hook, Iraq War, 9/11 — I can’t imagine. They inspire me.
me too!!!
I was a little worried about clicking. I’m gen x and I didn’t want to see you go off the rails.
sorry about that.
excellent post.<3<3<3
Haha..yeah, the title is a little click baity.
You nailed it, Michelle, on ALL of this! Seeing the Parkland kids, and all the other kids that they have mobilized gave me hope that I haven’t had since that horrific day in November of 2016…
You and me both. That dark cloud lightened up a bit.
Couldn’ta said it better myself. I defend the Mills all the time to my boomer buds. I mean WTF you didn’t live through that shit too? Age pretension, that’s what it is.
Yep!
I love this – and I love the Millennials. I’m tired of them getting a bad rap by the very people who have handed them a shit sandwich and are upset that they aren’t grateful. My own kids belong to this generation and I have hope for the future when I talk to them. They’re informed, concerned, passionate, and not afraid to stand up for what they believe in. We should all learn from them. I’m ready for them to start running for political office because I’m certainly not happy with the state of things now. I am ashamed of the mess we’ve handed them to clean up and I’m embarrassed to have been party to it.
Me too. I want to do what I can to help. I want to be heard, I want to make a difference, but I do NOT want to stand in their way.
What displays of courage we’ve all seen in the past month. I am pure baby boomer; you would have thought we of that generation would have learned about generalizations from our own experience. Obviously not.
The courage is amazing. AMAZING.
I’m really not sure what these folks who run down millennials are thinking. “These kids today” is a trope that ALWAYS looks and sounds bad. Always.
Insulting the future is a losing battle, at any rate.
I’m hopeful. I know mistakes are going to be made and some of them are going to be the same old mistakes that have been made before but… I’m hopeful.
This is an excellent point. It ALWAYS sounds bad when people do this. Yes.
Absolutely! I felt hope for our future listening to the speeches!
Me too!!!
Yes! Yes! Yes! Why do people have to be grouped into a named generation to begin with anyway! I am so proud of the kids I saw this weekend. They give me so much hope!
I don’t know why. I guess humans aren’t happy without applying labels.
I have found myself saying similar things quite often recently. I had a woman try to bitch to me last week about how awful younger generations are and I had to walk away from her soon after reminder her that every human, EVERY HUMAN, deals with all the changes that come with births, illnesses and deaths. Every human copes with the roller coaster that is the human experience. Period. In addition to that, people who insult youngsters lack complete self-awareness. Who the heck do they think taught those darn youngsters? Them. You. Me. Anyone who is older. So, if someone younger is living up to some golden standard of human behavior, either help them or blame yer damn self for dropping the ball. And, YES, I agree 100% about the whole spanking thing. I wrote many an essay during the campaign and post-election period about how “Spanking Culture” seems to be informing politics and certain people’s inabilities to think critically about the past and forge positive change that suits the social and physical landscape. WELL DONE!
YES to all of this!
I am so amazed and impressed by these young people and how they are changing the world. The world seems to be really listening this time. I was in college at the time when Columbine happened. I wish that the time that student protests like this would have happened.
Unfortunately every generation get the bad rap but being labeled is lazy or uninformed, for whatever generation that they are a part of. I’m Generation X, of course the generation that is full of slackers. 🙂 Some of the most Innovative and brilliant people they were part of generation are people like Jack Dorsey (twitter), Michael Dell (Dell computers), Elon Musk, Larry Page (Google).
It’s just so silly that we humans feel the need to denigrate those that are younger.
I love Gen Z! I am also fond of the Millennials as my daughter is one. And she’s freaking awesome! As to the idiots who think that they are better people because of being beaten as children, I say that’s a bunch of bullshit. My sisters and I were beaten as children, it didn’t make us better adults. It made us fearful. It made one of us manic/depressive. It made one sister pretend it never happened. We all had many issues to resolve as adults because of being hit, slapped, hair pulled and beaten with a belt. When my daughter was a baby, my brother in law said, “Oh, you wait. You’ll hit her one day.” I replied, “Never!” My girl is 26 and never been hit or touched in anger. I spent many years NOT becoming my parents. What a crock to believe you need to hit defenseless children to “teach” them something!!!
My kids are millennials as well and they are amazing. I am also not a fan of hitting kids. Not at all.
we’re doomed
I am choosing to believe otherwise. It’s hard though