Fear not, millennials. This article is not what you think it is. You won’t find any judgment here. The headline is in quotes, and while admittedly a little click-bait, it’s a completely accurate depiction of what you’re about to read.
A fed-up user on Reddit recently posed the question to your generation: what is the stupidest “the problem with your generation”-ism you have ever heard? The thread quickly took off, and at present, has around 17,000 individual comments. We’ve pored through and picked out some of our favorites, edited to remove the potentially offensive language. If you want it unfiltered and you have the dozens of hours to spare, here’s the link. For the Cliffs Notes version, read on.
“The problem with your generation is… ‘You kids don’t know how to get in trouble anymore. When I was your age we’d have someone buy us beer and we’d sneak off to the woods or the lake and have a good time. Someone always got caught of course. Then you’d get grounded and have no tv for a week. Kids just don’t do that anymore.’ Umm okay but I’m 30.”
“I was touring an apartment and the landlord apologized that there was no cable hookup. I told him that was no problem – I don’t really watch tv anyway. His whole demeanor changed and he just grumbled ‘guess that’s another thing you millennials don’t do.’ And on that day I learned that people will complain about literally anything.”
“One I heard from a Vietnam Vet was that we ‘never had a mandatory military draft to weed out the weak ones and the whiners’ and that ‘a war would do us Millennials all a little good.'”
“I was walking down the hallway at work and overheard ‘The thing with Millenials is they come and go whenever they want. How are we supposed to schedule a meeting when they refuse to have set hours?’ As a Millenial, I still work 8-5 like everyone else in the office. It was oddly specific but generally incorrect. Maybe he was talking about an intern that’s still in school?”
“The g****** participation trophies. We didn’t ask for them, that was our parents’ idea, and yet somehow that makes it our fault for doing entitled, irrational things like wanting to be able to buy a home with a middle-class income.”
“Some big radio conglomerate that rhymes with ‘iShartRadio’ has been running commercials trying to convince advertisers to buy airtime on their stations. They talk about how they can reach “adults, teens, and millennials.’ B****, I’m 35 and considered a millennial, and I’m somehow not an ‘adult’? Guess the Boomers want to keep the A-word for themselves.”
“I had an older customer at my restaurant tell me that Millenials were ruining customer service because we’re so laid back we don’t complain enough and pretty soon ‘the customer is always right’ won’t mean anything anymore.”
“Might not be the most stupid but the most annoying to me is ‘The problem with your generation is you’re all whiny snowflakes who are too worried about feelings.’ This is always made by a boomer in a long, emotionally driven rant overloaded with projection. The irony is lost on them.”
“‘Millennials are too obsessed with phones!’ They’re pocket devices that allow me to keep in contact with friends and access any information in the world. F*** yeah, I’m going to use my phone. My own mother went on a dinner date last week, took a picture of a couple my age on their phone during their date, and posted their picture on Facebook laughing at millennials. I told her that ‘maybe they simply enjoy each other’s company, and the fact that they’re sitting together is nice enough without taking pictures of other couples on a date and insulting them.'”
“Probably the one that gets me the most is ‘Your generation is killing the chain restaurant business.’ Oh you mean we support small businesses and found somewhere better to spend a Friday night then at Applebee’s or Chili’s paying for overpriced food. Or ‘You’ve got it so easy, everything you want is right at your fingertips with that cell phone.’ When in reality it’s so much more dangerous to have a phone, on top of everything you could unwillingly see or find on the internet just one social media post could absolutely ruin your reputation, career, family etc. We are under the microscope like no other generation before us. I’ll trade places with baby boomers and go to college for basically free and own a home before the age of 21 any day.”
“The one I will never understand is when they say ‘Millennials killed job retention and can’t stay with a company for more than 3 years.’ Why would you stay at a company if they have a bad culture, horrible benefits, and low pay? I feel like the older generations just settled because they got comfortable.”
“That we are horribly disrespectful and paranoid to not force our kids to hug/kiss relatives when they say they don’t want to. I’m not going to feel guilty for respecting my kid’s bodily autonomy. You’ll get over it. Or you won’t. Either way, I don’t care.”
“The Tide pod fiasco. Our generation stopped being born in 2000. Gen Z is the generation eating Tide Pods. Not to mention it was an inside joke before a mostly Gen X and Baby Boomer news media brought it attention and made it an actual epidemic (by which I mean an epidemic scare with still little actually happening) Stop blaming Millenials.”
“Teenagers, specifically of the Millennial generation, have gotten a bad rap as being rude or not knowing our manners. I work at a restaurant as a hostess, and every person that comes in who is obviously under the age of 25 always treats the staff with kindness and respect, saying please and thank you, and making eye contact. People that come in and are obviously aged 50+ don’t make eye contact, demand a table, fight with the staff, don’t say please or thank you, and act entitled to anything they want. It’s really fascinating just how differently the generations treat strangers and staff members, and how the rude older generations think that the generally polite and well-mannered teens are the issue.”
“We’re a bunch of snowflakes that complain about everything pretty much covers all the bases.”
What are some of “The Problem with your Generation” comments that you’ve heard? Share yours in the comments section below.
Aric Mitchell's work appears regularly here at 4tests.com and across the web for sites, such as The Inquisitr and Life'd. A former high school teacher, his passion for education has only intensified since leaving the classroom. At 4tests, he hopes to continue passing along words of encouragement and study tips to ensure you leave school ready to face an ever-changing world.
Fear not, millennials. This article is not what you think it is. You won’t find any judgment here. The headline is in quotes, and while admittedly a little click-bait, it’s a completely accurate depiction of what you’re about to read.
