
Why We Blame Millennials for Everything - tooba
https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/12/why-we-blame-millennials-for-everything/547160/
======
djsumdog
Adam (from Adam Ruins Everything) does a really good talk at a marketing
conference on why Millennials don't exist. Generational titles are never used
to bring people up, but always tear a group of people down. Time magazine
covers about Baby Boomers from decades ago are almost identical to those
calling Millennials entitled today:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HFwok9SlQQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HFwok9SlQQ)

~~~
jrs95
Ugh. Typical Gen X cynicism and nihilism. ;)

~~~
60654
That's because Generation X is tired of all this millennial talk, as Gizmodo
explains so well:

[https://gizmodo.com/5851062/generation-x-is-sick-of-your-
bul...](https://gizmodo.com/5851062/generation-x-is-sick-of-your-bullshit)

;)

------
gnu8
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority;
they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.
Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before
company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize
their teachers.

~~~
Joeboy
You know nothing.

~~~
the-dude
Dude, he is quoting.

[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-
childre...](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-children-in-
ancient-times/)

~~~
Joeboy
And I'm quoting (apocryphal) Socrates :-)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_that_I_know_nothing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_that_I_know_nothing)

~~~
the-dude
I would call that creative quoting.

~~~
asveikau
And we can't have creativity being shown here, no sir!

------
eksemplar
Well, shouldn’t things that can’t sell their stuff anymore fail?

In Denmark where I’m from, municipalities have grouped together to build open
source software as a response to a market which fails to deliver the products
we want.

The industry response has been lobbying the government and trying everything
in courts because it’s viewed as “job theft”. Well, not all industry, some
companies have figured out software as a service, open APIs and agile
corporation is where it’s at, but the big old dogs are playing the blame game.

In 10 years the old dogs won’t be around, because just like the diamond
industry, they ran out of things people wanted to buy.

I mean, you can blame millennials all you want, but the most watched sporting
event in 2017 was still the CSGO finals featuring a Danish team. You either
adapt or you disappear because the people who are into your aged ways are only
going to continue dying.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Source of stats on CSGO finals?

~~~
jordo37
Seems like this was note quite true.

CSGO finals had about 3m [https://www.dexerto.com/news/e-league-csgo-major-
breaks-view...](https://www.dexerto.com/news/e-league-csgo-major-breaks-
viewing-records/25592)

The 2017 Superbowl as one example, had 114M.
[http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/06/media/super-bowl-ratings-
pat...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/06/media/super-bowl-ratings-patriots-
falcons/index.html)

~~~
davemp
Maybe most watched in Denmark?

------
logfromblammo
I'm going to stop blaming generational labels. I should have done it a long
time ago.

I'm going to quantify the people whom I blame for everything as those with a
net worth equal to or greater than an arbitrarily determined net worth of $10
million. If they're going to _own_ everything, they need to _take
responsibility_ for everything-- _own it_ , in the colloquial sense, as well
as the literal.

I am not suggesting that we "eat the rich", as it were. They seem to have some
sort of brain-eating prion disease, and I don't want anyone else to catch it.
Probably best that we just put down the ones that show symptoms, and burn the
bodies.

As a class, they only number about 1.2 million. The rest of us are about 7.6
billion strong. We could take 'em. We know they don't know how to fight,
because they always send young poor people to do it for them, and seem
completely unfamiliar with self-sacrifice for the common good.

Why $10 million? Because that's "enough", in my opinion. You can retire on it,
withdraw the "safe rate" of 3%, and live on this year's equivalent of $300k--
which is 5 times the median _household_ income--every year, forever (within a
reasonable statistical confidence interval). You get too far ahead of that,
and you start to lose touch with people who don't have "enough", at lower
levels on the needs hierarchy. At that level, you still need to know how to
play well with others, and not be a %%%%%% tyrant, in order to accomplish the
great works that require large concentrations of capital. Above that, you
start to grow less fearful of losing the trust of others.

If there is anything wrong with the Millennials, it's that they haven't yet
applied their talent for killing off societal staples and institutions to
quite the right people and practices. If you're a Millennial, think long and
hard about your student loans and your healthcare coverage, and the people who
made a conscious, calculated choice that you don't deserve to have nice things
unless you _serve_ , _consume_ , and _obey_.

Put on the glasses. Just put on the f'ing glasses.

------
jbondeson
There is little I dislike more than generational labels.

It's lazy and reductionist thinking that allows people to arbitrarily draw
lines in whatever way they feel will best push their narrative.

Quick, 1981/1982[1] Millennial or X?

[1] _Those born in 1981 /1982 graduated in 2000_

~~~
badsectoracula
Well, to take the bait, considering that according to Wikipedia the range
starts from early 1980s with some even considering the beginning at late
1970s, i'd say 1981/1982 is firmly Millenial material.

Although that is probably closer to the Oregon Trail Generation :-)

[https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/04/oregon-trail-
genera...](https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/04/oregon-trail-generation/)

------
Joeboy
I feel like there's some obvious point-missing going on here. "Millennials are
killing X" is a marketing POV, and marketing fundamentally exists outside
morality. It's not a moral indictment, it's just a bald statement of fact,
like "the automobile is killing the horse-drawn carriage".

Disclaimer: I have not read everything that's ever been written about
millennials.

~~~
trobertson
> marketing fundamentally exists outside morality. > It's not a moral
> indictment, it's just a bald statement of fact

Marketing exists to sell stuff. Facts are only relevant to marketing in-so-far
as the facts sells the product. More often than not, marketing is bullshit and
completely devoid of facts because facts are boring and products need to be
exciting.

"Millenials are killing X" is exactly the sort of marketing statement that is
completely devoid of facts.

------
pault
I have a friend that's just inside the 1980 millennial designation and he's
always talking about how horrible millennials are. If I'm not happy with my
job I sound like a millennial. If I'm complaining about relationship issues or
say I feel socially isolated I sound like a millennial.

~~~
cirgue
It's easy to feel contempt for a generation who's response to a generation-
defining economic collapse was as toothless and misguided as Occupy Wall
Street.

It's absurd to draw that equivalency, but good, bad, or indifferent, that is
what society at large sees as the Millennial generation's only foray into
public life.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Black lives matter? Science demands action? NoDAPL? Womens March?

------
craig1f
When a millennial does something I hate, I tend to not want to blame them
directly, so instead I attribute their behavior to a sort of group behavior.
When they do something I like, it's easier to attribute their behavior to them
as an individual.

I've noticed this tendency for people these days to just refuse to do work
they don't like. They expect to be doing the interesting work that is reserved
for people who have earned it. I tend to attribute this to millennial and
their sense of entitlement. I've also seen some really driven millennials who
get a lot of work done on their own initiative. I don't view them as typical
millennials, but rather, as individuals who have rejected the entitled
behavior of the standard millennial.

I don't know how true any of that is. I was born in '80, and my generation is
entitled as shit. It just feels like, as we were realizing the lie of how
entitled we were told to be, that the subsequent generation fell for even
worse bullshit than we did.

------
dlwdlw
The group vs group dynamic here is quite interesting because one group
consists of parents of the other, though not directly. Its those "other"
children and those other "parents". Millennials are simply trying to live for
the future, as their parents did. But the exponential growth stalled so the
extrapolation they were prepared for is no longer correct. The wealth is
dispersing elsewhere globally. Domestically only those that are part of this
dispersion, mostly technologists and higher echelon finance people, continue
this growth.

Millenial behavior that seem wasteful like avocado toast are a type of premium
mediocre consumption that they are not oblivious to. It is a dispirited but
sincere effort to tell themselves and their parents (and perhaps society) that
they are alright.

In truth, one generation's over optimism (not greed, as many say) causes the
latter generation to be ill prepared. Neither side wants to admit this is an
emergent systemic situation but rather would prefer to imagine it is
controllable. Millenial's think it was something done to them. The other
groups think millenials do it to themselves.

All the while the countries without these group labels are simply rolling with
the punches and surviving day by day and getting smarter. The countries that
have grown too accustomed to wealth due to incorrect human belief that
exponential growth can continue infinitely are too busy suffering to figure
out how to survive. They are getting dumber.

------
ManlyBread
That was a pretty decent article until the part with video games.

~~~
newswriter99
Came here to post this. Gamergate is more than three years old now and yet
people still try to dredge it up and smear it as a "misogynist hate campaign"
when even a cursory amount of research proves otherwise (not if you only look
at headlines of course).

Once again a writer decides to try and project their personal opinions on to a
subject they're* interviewing.

~~~
trowawee
Nope, that's a pretty dead accurate description.

~~~
ManlyBread
It's about as accurate as saying "all Muslims are terrorists" and I'm saying
this as someone who sees that movement as a laughingstock since it has failed
to reach any of it's goals and is full of internal conflicts that only divide
it even further.

------
dddw
Don't you just love the snake millennial chrome extention? "It seems a reader
can barely go a week without seeing at least one news headline about how Snake
People are “killing” some industry or product. Serpent Society is purportedly
wiping out casual dining, golf, diamonds, homeownership, and bars of soap,
among other consumer products; news items have also characterized the
generation as lazy, vain, and always looking for a handout."

~~~
trowawee
It's the only thing that makes reading stuff about us snake people bearable.
And based on another thread here, I see they've already put something in that
changes Generation Zed/Z into "Zolom's Children", which is also excellent.

------
crdoconnor
It's simple divide and conquer. The 0.1% know you need _somebody_ to blame for
them squeezing you, so they tell boomers' it's millennials' fault and vice
versa.

It works pretty well:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15844087](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15844087)

If that doesn't work, they can always blame immigrants, Islam or blacks.

~~~
lucozade
It could be a conspiracy.

Or it could be too many column inches to fill and not enough time to fill them
with something insightful.

Yeah, probably conspiracy.

~~~
crdoconnor
I'd call it a group of individuals acting out of rational self interest.

The notion that there's an agenda behind _any_ media beyond selling eyeballs
is, of course, a harebrained conspiracy theory.

~~~
lucozade
Of course they have an agenda.

If you were to suggest that there is an agenda amongst the moneyed classes to
keep corporate tax take low and restrictive regulation low then I would most
heartily agree. There is overwhelming evidence that that is the case.

That there is a high level conspiracy to pit parent against child so
everyone's too busy infighting? Extraordinary claims etc.

~~~
crdoconnor
"The can kicks back" is a good example of one of the more blatant attempts at
this.

------
jstewartmobile
I'd agree that they are clearly getting the short end of the stick for now,
but I have to wonder... if the flower children grew up to give us Iraq and
Trump, what kind of monsters will our Starbucks guzzling Warby Parkers
transform into?

Or maybe I'm being too pessimistic? Perhaps a little adversity will make them
turn out better...

------
losteverything
This is a plug for a book..

~~~
karljtaylor
and to think they would have gotten away with it.

------
jrs95
Personally, as a Millennial, I blame Boomers for everything.

~~~
Retric
Considering Boomers have actual power right now and plenty of time for their
influence to spread; it's rational to blame them for a huge range of issues.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
> it's rational to blame them for a huge range of issues

No, it's not. It's making broad generalizations on a huge group of people.
It's like blaming all white people for discrimination or all black people for
crime. It's wrong and discriminatory, and makes the assumption that everyone
in that group is equally bad.

Instead of focusing on a certain age group, focus on the economic forces that
gave boomers more opportunity than the younger generations. It's not the age
group that's caused the issues, it's those forces.

~~~
Retric
Economics are not separated from politics. The poor diet of most Americans is
a direct result of various subsidies given to the farming lobby. Individual
choices allow an individual to be fat, but at a national level it takes vast
tracts of land.

The growth of Chinese manufacturing is in large part a result of trade
policies and our vast growing national debt's impact on currency's. Want long
term growth? End deficit spending.

Our poor heath care system is again based on political choices.

The current drug policy and prison system is again an outgrowth of political
choices.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Right. I'm not arguing this. What I'm arguing is that blaming all Boomers for
these issues is silly. Not all Boomers are in control of the government. Not
all Boomers pushed for farming subsidies or pushed manufacturing to China. Not
all boomers were white or lived a solidly middle-class life.

~~~
Retric
A specific subgroup of Boomers are still Boomers. So, yea it might not be
every single Boomers fault equally, but that does not change anything it's
still the Boomers fault.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
That argument can be extended to black people. Blacks statistically commit
more crime than whites in America. It's still bad to say that black people are
violent, because it's a broad, presumptuous generalization that ignores the
forces causing that trend. Along the same vein, it's bad to assume that an
entire age group is bad just because some currently run the country.

~~~
Retric
It's important to consider reality even if it seems unpopular. Blacks are
convicted of more crimes in the US, that does not mean they commit more
crimes.

Just look at all the collage students not busted for drugs. We have a long
history of intentionally creating systemic issues.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Racial discrimination may play a role, but it does not explain the
discrepancies in crime rates that we see:
[https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-
amer...](https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-
commit-crime)

I'm not saying that black people commit more crime because they're black. In
fact, that's exactly the point I was trying to make: blaming black crime on
their skin color is bad because it ignores the socioeconomic forces causing
them to commit more crimes than other races with lower poverty levels. Just
like how blaming boomers ignores the geopolitical and economic forces that
gave them an advantage at the time. Not all black people commit crime, and not
all boomers were privileged or lucky in life.

~~~
Retric
As long as we are discussing systemic issues I think we need to go deeper. The
article lists someone being killed, yet the death is not part of the murder
statistic. If you had said Blacks committed statistically more murders based
on the current legal definition that's more defensible than crimes because
total crime is a very different beast. We don't really keep track of the
_total_ number of crimes in any real way. But, that number is competently
separate issue from various sub types of criminal acts.

If you look annually their are ~17,000 reported murder and non-negligent
manslaughter cases in the U.S. However, that excludes for example a
significant subset of the ~32,000 traffic facilitates in the US that could be
classified as Murder with slightly different laws. (Call it 1/4 from thin air
and those murder statistics look different.) Importantly, they are generally
both crimes, but while someone still ends up dead legally they are very
different.

Another issue is if a factory kills thousands from pollution is that one
crime, thousands of murders, or millions of assaults based on different
interpretations of the law.

PS: Why are most serial killers in the US white? Is it because they actually
kill more people, or because gang violence is not counted.

PPS: I am not sure why so many people are down voting you, it's reasoned
argument even if I don't exactly agree.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...and the systemic bias that when poor people (often Black) are the
demographic involved, its a crime. But rich people (often not Black) running
factories, not a crime. Agreed.

------
golemotron
> But it wasn’t that surprising that people play video games all day and they
> have bad politics.

This article is dripping with bias.

------
nraynaud
millennials ruins the millennial blaming!

------
gormo2
Boomers are worse, a thousand-fold worse. I doubt there has ever been a
generation more destructive, hypocritical, or self-unaware... I pray there is
never another.

~~~
colorint
The biggest sin of the Boomers is, they grew up in a world that was carefully
curated by their parents, and became convinced that this was the natural state
of things.

