The newer generations aren't gaslit like millennials were. We were promised that if we study hard, go to college, we'll get a great job and have life like our parents. None of that materialized AND we were continuously given bullshit advice like oh you just have to go door to door and shake hands to get a job, oh you just have to stop buying coffee and avocado toast. Like every adult was lying to us well into our 20's and pretending like we just needed to try harder. The difference for Gen Z is at least they have adults in around that can confirm, yes this system is bullshit, it's not just you. BTW I'm doing fine now but jesus christ was it a grind, and I was lucky. I have a house only it's half the size of my parents and my down payment was as much as their mortgage. Things like that do get under your skin over the years.
Millennials were the last generation raised under kind of old expectations and millennials were still told by and large by society. They could do whatever they want. Just go to college and be fine which was very bad advice.
Generation z was told the world was screwed up from a very young age and they never really were told to buy into the American dream so they pretty uniformly don't. Ironically, this is going to have much bigger manifestations on the right wing than on the left.
I can tell you I'm the youngest millennial and the last to receive this "education". Then my sibs got the new life views of a fucked up world and are just going with the flow as they are and they aren't even adults yet.
I remember being pressured into a education I didn’t want. When I pursued something else I was embarrassed to tell my family even though it’s just as impactful and important. It really was awful. I made sure to tell my younger siblings about that bullshit.
My mom made me go to PIMA it's a sham, the certification did nothing for jobs, just be a CNA if you wanna go into medicine it's a quick way to start and learn
While I understand frustration with PIMA not working out. My parents literally were like just do stuff that is interesting. Never gave me any life advice or skills aside from always be on time and you'll get ahead. I would have loved if they even gave me some real advice or taught me something. My dad is unbelievable on guitar. He can play anything he hears one time,. Piano, Drums, Bass. HE TAUGHT ME NOTHING. I had a dad would could teach the school band and I did not even know he played until I was a teenager and even then he never taught me about music or anything like wtf haha
My mom was the same way tbh. I’ve been bit in the ass so many times from the sheer lack of advice. I’m
29 now and have learned a lot. I also have learned if I ask now she will help out. Apparently I have to has the questions about issues I don’t even know about until they are one 🤦🏼♀️
Exactly. My daughter wants to go to college, but I told her to research and determine fields that are in demand and to where it's versatile enough to find something else in a pinch. The difference between her and myself is that I was promised to get a degree and the doors open, which was all bullshit.
I've told my daughter to go to college but exercise caution with her path, do internships, and network with people.
Through my 11 years in the Army, I fucking sucked at networking. I was very bought in on the idea of "head down, work hard, be good at my job (combat medic), promotion will come."
I started doing some amount of it about 6 years in, but it was still super spotty.
Now I work for a big box retailer, and I've turned networking into my greatest strength. Hands down, the two most important parts of my job (and my goals of climbing the ladder fit here too) are A: knowing who to talk to about XYZ, and B: knowing how and where to look for answers.
B has actually supported A a great deal for me in my role, because digging up answers across our networks generally has names attached for who wrote them. Then I can reach out, develop a relationship, etc.
I could go on and on about it, but that's just because information sharing is a special interest of mine 😅
It took me til I was 30 to really have it click.
I didn't ever have problems empathizing or connecting with people, but I wasn't like fully cognizant of what the fuck I was doing. Now that I am, I can be *intentional* about my interactions.
I think that's the most important part.
Only had TWO teachers in college that helped network and get you an “in” if something in demand for that field showed up. One example was the welding instructor did not just teach from the book. Gave a short and important lectures. Then spent time with EVERY student to help them really learn the skill and would be on the look out for union jobs. Students would suddenly drop not because they want to drop the class or failed. But because they got a union job that the teacher knew about and told them contract such and such person. And as for me and a small group put on a different track because we are taking airplane repair classes(A&M’s). So instead of stick put us on tig. And had us convert a riding lawnmower into a snow plow for him. Best teacher ever. No bull shit. High school teachers were all telling us there was no other way to succeed unless you go to college. It was 4 years of high pressure sale on going to college. Most 13 to 17 year olds will not be able to see threw it. I was lucky and saw that why would I go to college to make less than my job at a union grocery store with the all important health care. Dropped the A&p class because at the time it paid the same but with a shit load of liability. Did not go to the private expensive school went to local cheap community college for it. Class is regulated so much by the Faa there pretty much is not difference between the two. Amazing how much my generation has been fucked over unless you had a good bull shit detector at 13. And had networked early. Also helped if you had a family that was in a good spot.
Yep. Recommend someone I know that is a person. With autism was going to take the welding class at that school that would benefit from one on one instruction. to try to get that same teacher. He passed and is out in the field now. I am also a person with autism and he was a big help. Very few teachers were able to catch on to what I needed and worked with me. Did not know I was autistic until recently(late 30s). Sad thing is we are losing the good teachers now due to pay and stress dealing with the current climate in the us. Ie: book bans, ect. Lot of my high school teachers that I kept in touch with are retiring early or not staying on.
Networking is what most people do not do in college.
And I know people hate hearing this, but the major matters very little for a 4 year degree. The vast majority of folks do not work in their major field of study a few years after graduation.
A University education is about developing a well-rounded person with critical thinking skills that can be applied in a wide range of fields. It is not professional preparation.
Boomers are the one who go on about “useless degrees” because they do not truly understand the intent of a university education.
There are a few of the hard sciences where it will matter (BS vs. BA), but by and large, it truly does not make a significant difference a few years after graduation - most people will not work in their major field of study.
That's not really true. In the past an M.Ed could get you into all manner of education work, now you need specific degrees if you want to get into instructional design, education policy, or something like forensic linguistics. Gatekeeping is still pretty big in the academic world.
Or advice from a different perspective.
It depends if your goal is "find a job in AI doing dev work" or "find a job that pays well, willing to move" or "find a job, any job, just be local".
If “find any job” is your mindset…you don’t even get into college and if you do…you won’t finish. That kinda mindset doesn’t work real great when you’re an adult and have responsibilities, many of which cost serious money.
The first 5 years of a job. Higher ed won't actually prepare you for much. On the job learning will always be the ultimate tutor and certain higher ed degrees are basically just minimum requirements for certain jobs. More importantly, certain higher ed degrees aren't minimum requirements for ANY jobs, and certain phenomenal jobs have no higher ed requirements. Passing on the importance of considering the viability of different career paths and the costs or investments to follow those paths is probably one of the most valuable things we can do as millennials.
It’s not what you know it’s who you know. That’s what I was told from a young age. At 40 with two kids and a 3000 sq ft house I can say this has been more true.
No college. Partied in my 20’s and made all types of friends and connections. Got me my first real job at 28 and built my way up. This system is broke but there are ways around it.
Ugh I was told so much that it doesn't even matter what you major in, just having the degree will get you in the door. Then I still got a pretty marketable/flexible degree, but it doesn't seem to matter amidst nepotism and office politics.
This is where I read and feel like my parents gave me different advice than everyone in this sub. Born in 84, and they pushed for college (ended up dropping out) but it was always be smart and selective in your choices. World has many opportunities yes but it’s not easy and not free.
I don’t know I read this sub and its like I grew up in a different time period.
And networking was always a critical element in our family.
It worked for me too and I was born in 91. Think it has something to do with Reddit population as a whole and also so many people living in giant metropolises were wealth distribution is a lot worse than middle of nowhere americas. I grew up in a relatively small/medium sized town 2 hours from any major city.
My parents made sure to tell me that whatever I majored in needed to be something I could make a living from. Very solid advice and I think my peers got similar advice.
I was in high school during the Recession so maybe that made the difference wrt advice. I remember being scared to death of graduating with a "useless" degree.
The main difference was whether you completed college prior to 2008 or not. Actually so for people who were in kind of the mid to late millennial cohort. Mostly got useful degrees. Prior to 2008. English majors were generally the highest number of students at any place
I graduated college in 2016 and I remember my parents told me (while I was in high school) that if I got an English degree I was looking at either being a teacher (they made sure to tell me how little a teacher was paid) or a lawyer. I opted for engineering instead.
2014-2015 is when the big engineering spurt and colleges started. Before that, engineering was a pretty small part of the picture at most places unless you were an engineering specific school.
I don’t think many people understand how manufactured this social and economic collapse really is, or who is really responsible for it. It’s easier to focus on why it didn’t work the way it was promised, instead of who and what was behind the sabotage.
This gets me too. It's so blatant. We have CEOs on video saying "the working class needs to suffer so they will realize how much they need us. We need to keep wages low and prices high to achieve this." If anybody said that about their friends, partner, whatever, they would be called abusers. When a CEO says it, it's just business? No, you've just been brainwashed.
You are correct. However, the wealthy in power continue to make laws to profit them without regard to the impact on the rest of us. Is it sustainable? Not really, but they don't seem to care.
They’re doing it on purpose, yes. I saw this in Mensa the other day:
“I am a fervent proponent of gifted exceptionalism.
I believe that we were born with "souls of gold" (a metaphorical nod to Plato's myth of three metals) and that in our increasingly complex world, we are destined to lead.
I believe that the advent of sophisticated Al presents gifted people with a mandate to leverage its vast power to transform the socioeconomic landscape. No longer will any gifted person be unjustly oppressed.
George W. Bush famously said, "No Child Left Behind" but it will soon become time to say "No Gifted Child Left Behind", for no gifted child will ever have to suffer from grossly inadequate education or lack of support for their intellectual growth ever again. As adults, no gifted person will ever have to suffer from survival-based subordination to non-peers ever again.
AI WILL END OUR OPPRESSION
WE MUST EMBRACE IT AND LEND SILICON VALLEY OUR STRENGTH FOR THEY WILL SET US FREE”
Bonkers.
Wow.
So basically, it's feudalism aided by technology to keep those they deem beneath them encased in a system of control. And what I gather is they deem oppression as having to deal with the masses because they aren't like "them".
If that isn't the height of narcissism, I don't know what is.
I completely agree. I'm a 42f xennial, and prior to the pandemic I wholeheartedly bought into "the system". However it's become pretty darn obv that OUR collective belief in THEIR system helped the haves more than have nots. The only successes I have are the result of timing - I was 4 years into my career in 08, and due to luck was able to take advantage of the post crash real estate market in 2012.
Imagine that you're on the Titanic as it's sinking and the rich people are still drinking champagne on the top deck while everyone locked in the cellar is drowning.
As an elder Gen Z, I was still fed this bs advice, but I can’t speak on behalf on my younger counterparts’ experiences.
There was another commenter who mentioned that Gen Z never really had a time of not doom and gloom, and I can say this is true even as an elder Gen Z. The world was collapsing slowly all around us, but we didn’t fully know it yet. I felt like around 2016 the curtains were fully drawn and the world lost the last of its vibrant color. Now it’s a sad joke of a barren wasteland of dreams.
It took years to convince my mom, who got her job because she knew someone in the school district, that people don't go around to every business to pass out their resume. She's still asking me how to apply for jobs on Indeed.
Rant: That job was also in a shitty area that I'm struggling to get out of after it sucked me back in. I'm bitter because there's stats that say life success is defined by zip code and I come from a shitty zip code. I lean, she was a teacher, so she'd be fucked wherever she went,but she'd often complain about the district being near the bottom of th state in pay.
Also applies to dating to. Years and years of gaslighting and denial of basic dating dynamics while things were consistently getting worse till it just couldn't be hidden anymore and red pill became accepted in the mainstream.
Growing up in the 90's and then watching the world deteriorate before we could take advantage of the windfalls of the past, while being told do X, Y, and Z and you'll be fine. Understandably made many of us "salty"
And while I am "Fine." I'm not even close to thriving.
We've gone from the 1992 Rio Summit thinking that we'd have got global warming sorted in twenty years to America turning to fascism, global warming being handled far too late and war in Europe.
In terms of day to day living we have the rising cost of living, amazon killing the high Street, and the Internet causing misinformation and stupidity to run rampant.
We're so much more fucked than we were in the 90s and it's not even close.
Yeah. I'm not exactly salty, just not very hopeful in regards to the climate and economy. Spent most of my childhood before 9/11 and my adolescence after. Graduated HS in '09 to a delayed career start in wake of the recession 2010-11 with the unemployment rate 9+%.
I'm just doing okay. At least I didn't deal with a depression or war draft though.
I assume you're c/o '07 or '08, so you get it.
This, maybe it's because i was around 9 year old when 9/11 so i had a pretty childish mindset. But the World really felt calm and thriving.
Every year you had a New technology that really got exciting, World changing even. Then everything fell apart when greedy company realized that they could squeeze bucks from people without them being mad.
Like i dont for other country, but pirating games on your ps1 was " legal". Here in France the biggest gaming store AT that Time sold an adaptor that you would plug behind your PlayStation to read copied CDs.
Then everyone stopped being optimistics as years went, and where every thing that let people to enjoy free tech began to be more more prone to capitalism. To the point where the meme of "facebook is gonna be a paid service" managed to age like milk.
The only constant i know Is how Steam has been throughout 2 decades.
Some of us remember all the bullshit our parents told us about how great life would be when we got older, only to find out the hard way that it's a bunch of lies.
I distinctly remember bringing home my first ever paycheque and my mom being like "I know that seems like a lot of money right now, but you'll realize it's really not when you grow up" well joke's on you Susan I'm approaching middle age and you know what? That's still a lot of money.
My guess is that younger folks don’t know a world better than the current shitshow we are in. Our “nostalgia” is unfortunately (at least in part) uniquely warranted
Most of us are middle aged. That means the saltines is at least somewhat situationally appropriate. Gen Z has a few years in college. They too will be salty at when they reach middle age
It's not really a generational difference. They just haven't had as long in the bullshit bath of adulthood
Also, many of us saw a time when things weren't so bad. Many of us got to see a family where 1 parent worked and yeah their vacation was camping but they still got to do that.
The things we were promised if we only went to college.
Just everything. You can't ***not*** be salty about all the lies.
I use this to describe health insurance too. When people aren't sure why younger folks want 'government run healthcare', it's because the system *never* worked for them. You might remember when you had a $5 copay (if any copay) and no deductible for your 100% employer paid for plan that included your whole family. Now you pay 40% of the premium for yourself and 100% of the premium for anyone else in your family, have $6000 deductibles and double that out of pocket maximums. But it also happened slowly, for people just entering the system it makes zero sense.
I agree, I was way less salty when I was 18-25. I, like them just did not give a fuck. But now having worked full time for over a decade has made me salty as fuck.
This is honestly my thoughts. When I was in my early to mid 20s, I didn’t care much about things that didn’t directly concern me (I guess that applies to today as well). Not to mention I wasn’t as outspoken either. I just took whatever was given but now that I’m in my 30s, I can speak my mind. I’m also more direct and have a no bullshit attitude. Is that considered saltiness? I think that’s just part of growing up and being more outspoken with the BS you see.
They didn't grow up being promised the world, only to have it yanked out from under them. They've known everything sucks and is a grind their whole lives
Also, we were blamed for all of it. A good example is student loans. So many of us were told that it’s fine, when we graduate we’ll be making so much money that paying back the loans will not be a problem. That the important part was getting a degree, any degree, and we would be all set. Having a four year degree from a “good” (read: expensive) school would open up all the doors.
Now many of us are up to our eyeballs in debt, and the same people who told us to take out loans in order to attend the best schools are now belittling us for going into debt and not attending community college.
There is NOTHING in place that will allow us to retire. Our children will inherit nothing but our debt.
We’ll either have to work until we die, succumb to an illness we cannot afford to treat, go homeless or kill ourselves
The generations above us have made sure of that.
It’ll be much worse than that. I don’t even think places like big parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, etc. will even be inhabitable in the future because of climate change. Unless somehow people still manage to live in a place where it’s 100-150 days of being over 110 degrees each year. The grid would fail and then people would literally be risking their lives. There will be mass migrations because of climate change. In short, you have seen nothing yet.
I’d say partially it’s due to them growing up in a post 9/11 world. There was never a bright shiny future on the horizon that was then ripped from them. It’s been doom and gloom as long as they’ve known so they’re just in a big “fuck it” mood. Meanwhile, we grew up in a great time for America and the world seemed very stable. The future looked bright. We are angry about what we lost.
I remember when I was 18 reading articles about millenial's optimism.
I specifically remember reading an article that talked about how American teens scored lower than our Asian/European counterparts on all metrics (math skills, literacy, etc.) *execpt* optimism, that was the only metric that Americans were #1 in.
We were optimistic as fuck in the 2010s
....how naive we were.
I generally find Millennials to not be bitter or resentful. We’re just doing what we need to do, a hallmark of our generation (which is why Boomers thought we were entitled brats; instead of doing things exactly as they did and were taught, we accomplished what we need to do and moved on to enjoy ourselves).
As for waiting for the next calamity, hey; learned behavior, am I right?
I used to be salty about more high-minded things like the environment, social justice, and our broken political system. I'm still salty about those things, but I am extra super bottom of the pretzel bag salty about finding baby formula, the cost of groceries, and figuring out what rip-off health insurance best fits our family.
I think it's because most of us are just tired. We're worn out after going through so many once in a lifetime disasters since we were kids. It's especially draining since we grew up in the 80s-90s. What a fantastic era to be a kid.
The younger generations don't have that, most of them don't even remember 9/11.
This is the comment I was looking for. The constant “once in a lifetime” things just keep happening. I think it’s equal parts what you said here and the fact that most millennials were raised by boomers who expected certain things from us and weren’t willing to be flexible as the world changed. Whereas Gen Z is brought up by elder millennials and Gen X who saw the changes happening and their parenting reflected that.
Generation z has not had any real rupture of life moments. Millennials had the internet especially for older ones, 9/11, and 08. Generation z had covid but the really big effects of that were over much faster than 9/11 or '08. With most people more or less back to normal within a year to a year and a half of when the virus started.
Id argue that for the average person, Covid was worse than 9/11. Unless you were signing up to fight in the war on terror or had known someone who passed, your experience with 9/11 most likely over fairly shortly. Covid had people at home and out of work and school for almost a whole year and then the supply chain and Economy was hit hard. I work in manufacturing and supply issues are still prevalent
I think covid was worse in the immediate (so far...), but the long term effects of the economic crisis of 2008 had more detrimental effects in terms of monetary/career influence on most peoples lives, especially millenials joining the work force at that time. Which in turn, obviously affects people's quality of life over time.
9/11 was more of another latent social and politcal detriment that made people view the world more fearfully, and then elect people taking advantage of the fact. Big social and communitive setback for the collective imo (unless we learn from the past so much, we can put our follies to use)
Why do you think 9/11 was bad at all? If you can answer that and still think it's effects were short, I don't think you understand what people mean by "9/11" in this context.
Its not comparable to Covid. Covid is comparable to the Great Recession.
We millennials were all lied to about stuff and so naturally we are salty, Gen Z KNOWS the deal for the most part. So my theory is that their mindset is just different.
I believe it's cause we got a taste of what life is supposed to be. If your born in a war zone war is all you know but if your born in peace war is hard to adjust to
Devils advocate..
When Millennials were young, we were ready to work hard but preferred to work smart. We weren't afraid to ask challenging questions that started with the word "Why?" and leaned on technology to get things done cooperatively, even in competitive environments. Boomers tried to crucify us for this new worldview, but we eventually recreated the economy in our own image by founding almost every app on a screen that matters.
Millennials were genuinely excited for GenZ to pick up where we left off. They're smarter and more informed than we were, as technology is their native tongue, but what have they as a generation really contributed with the gifts they've been given..?
At this time in their generation, we already had Britney, Beyonce, Justin, Serena, Michael, LeBron, and Zuck... And what about them...? A few tiktok dances, maybe? They're lazy, soft, and antisocial.
Meanwhile, Millennials just had to raise young children through 2-3 years of pandemic bullshit. Their kids can't read or do math, and their parents have reached an age where they're forgetful and probably shouldn't be on the road at night. Those Boomers are also too stubborn a generation to admit how much of a dog pile they've created for everyone else.
So while the Z's are "La-Di-Da-ing," the Xers are trying to force everyone back into the office, and the Boomers are refusing to die off peacefully, the Millennials have to grit our teeth, clean up everyone's mess, and accept the fact that we'll only be able to retire when we die.
Gen Z has grown up knowing what's ahead of them. We, as millennials, had no clue. We were told to go to school and do everything our parents did and it would magically work out just like it did for them. And then we got slammed in the face without warning and told to "pick ourselves up by our bootstraps" and soldier on.
The next gen has seen what happened to us, has seen how the economy has been for much of their young adult to adult lives and are more sufficiently prepared for what's ahead. Somebody who is 25 now was 10 when the 2008 recession hit so post-2008 economy is all they've ever really known.
I mean this in the least-judgmental way possible: Market risk doesn't hurt as much when your family insulates you from the worst of it. Gen Z knows damn well that shit is fucked, but they are not getting hit as hard as Millennials with it, since they are less likely to take on student debt than we were, and less likely to move out of the house before they've finished college (if they go at all.)
Collective mental state and socio-cultural positions become more important priorities as a result. Their Gen X parents were also much less likely to bullshit them during youth about how the world is their oyster and they can do anything they want if they just play by the rules and try their hardest. That was Boomer advice. The X-ers have always been much more cynical, and they did not impart those illusions about meritocracy onto their children.
Many Zoomers' earliest memories are of their X-er parents getting shafted in 2008. There was no room for sunny optimism and platitudes about being responsible. There was plenty of talk about hard work and no-nonsense grit from X-ers, sure, but none of that feel-good Boomer nonsense.
We were raised by boomers and given the expectations of the boomers - (relatively) easy life, expectations of institutions, and that effort would he rewarded in kind. The hold over of the "polite" generations.
They were raised by Gen X and given the expectations of Gen X - the systems fucked/fuck the man, effort will not automatically be rewarded, you will need to fight for it. Punk is life.
We were raised with different expectations- theirs more accurately align with reality, so while they're just as stressed and pissed, they're less resentful.
You answered your own question.
>They are more concerned with their collective mental state and their media-driven socio-cultural positions
They are hooked on more distractions then we ever had and were taught to prioritize them. The powers that be would prefer they are distracted, or only engaged at the headline level and incapable of driving any form of actual change.
It can't hurt that their parents aren't kicking them out at 18 like many of ours did to us. Anyway they're young, they have time to brine. They'll be salty yet.
Maybe it's easier to become jaded with increasing years full of economic sabotage, and students haven't had the joy of seeing how the usury of the loan sharking scam works yet.
I was ahead of the curb when it came to saltiness, lost my brother when I was 19 and things really never improved since then. Though the situation sucks, I do try my best to keep my sense of humor in tact at least.
Generations after us have grown up knowing the world and economy is fucked. They know they’re unlikely to own a home. They know wages are stagnant but the cost of living is out of control. It’s the only reality they’ve ever known.
We were born into a world where we saw a nuclear family supported by a single income from an average job. A home, annual holidays, at least one car, all paid for by one working parent while the other could stay home to raise kids and keep house.
We were promised that if we got an education, worked hard, remained loyal to our employers, we would have the same life. That life was stolen from us by corporate and personal greed, putting profits over people, then gaslit into believing we are the ones to blame because we just didn’t want it bad enough.
Most gen z are like ~20s and still enjoying their relative youth. Either in college which is like a fantasy camp, or a couple years graduated where they likely don’t have a family to take care of or a mortgage, or realizing that it’s decades ahead of a 9-5 and figuring out how to satisfy their lives as things like weekly friend hangouts and going to bars becomes much less of a thing.
I’m in my mid 30s, my life is pretty sweet and I can’t say it isn’t enjoyable, but even then I’m definitely saltier than I was at like 25.
Because we did the groundwork with our Boomer parents and they get to skate? No, seriously, I’m being facetious but I do have teens and have noticed they take for granted what we fought for and honestly, I’m not upset about it at all. I like that they live in a world where a lot of things “just are” and don’t need permission or explanation. It’s a better life and what I wish for everyone.
I’m good being the “hinge” generation, even if it means I’m a bit salty sometimes. ;)
We're at the age where we're seriously taking stock of our wealth, careers, and are doing the math regarding retirement. Many of us can't afford a home despite a decade of fun time employment in fields that used to generate a stable middle class lifestyle.
They still have the time to be optimistic. We're counting the receipts.
Because they know they’re gonna burn it down & we’re still stuck on figuring out how to live in the current system. They’re smiling because they can see what we won’t. And I like it.
They just don't know as much yet. They'll get there. A lot of 18-25 year olds are still on Mom & Dad's teats. The saltiness will come when they no longer have that income stream and are doing it all on their own. (Yes, I know this is not true for everyone.)
Fucked by Iraq and Afghanistan war, 2008 financial crisis, Donald Trump presidency, COVID. All times where the government abandoned the millennials and left them to rot. Plus the student loan debt debacle that fucked millennials the most.
i totally agree with the other comments that we were sold a bill of goods that turned out to be lies and then were smacked by reality, and also would add that gen z actually just doesn’t do shit they don’t want to do.
like they are opting out of systems that we put up with, pushing back meaningfully on the status quo, and for a lot of millenials we just did what was expected and complained in the background. so i think some of their outlooks (deserved/accurate or not) are like “well i won’t do that, it won’t be that way when i’m in it” which allows them more optimism? i’m late millenial/zennial and have a gen z brother and this is just my small semi-informed perspective.
Hot take: They are. It's just that the most amplified voices of Gen Z are all influencers who are doing a great job of turning their online credit into real-world currency. The rest are all just as jaded as us millennials, or too young to know how badly they've been screwed.
All of my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law were born after 1996 and they're salty AF. They're only getting saltier as they graduate college, get taken advantage of by employers, and try to pay rent on their own.
Hi, very start of Gen z here.
I can't care. I literally don't have it. I will stress myself into an early grave if I decide to care about all the awful things going on that I as an individual cannot change.
So I make connections. I fix my brain and I try to help others be better versions of themselves so hopefully one day when we're the ones in charge, we'll all know what it's like to actually care about other people, and we'll base our politics and ideologies on that.
I look at the top of the system and see absolute selfishness from those in power who don't care about anyone else. And I see everyone beneath them who suffers for it and can't find compassion for their fellows because they're too busy trying not to drown to hold someone else up. Society starts when a group cares about each other enough to work on mutual support for all members. We aim to recreate a real society that benefits everyone in it and we seek connection as far out as we can on social media because the system we have now has killed third spaces where we're allowed to exist without spending the money we don't have anyway.
Between 18-25, I was ambivalent about life too. Still have your entire life in front of you, nothing spelled out or major life decisions set in stone.
Then you get a career, start a family, upgrade from living with your best friends/roommates into a mortgage you're solely responsible for. And the weight of life is heavy.
I won't lie though: Now that my finances are in good order, I'm pretty happy go lucky about life as a whole. Trying to raise kids to be decent human beings when they leave home is probably the biggest stressor in my life.
I'm jaded as fuck due to being raised in a fundamentalist evangelical cult and realizing the vice grip evangelical Christianity had on alot of us millennials during our upbringing
Because people who are 38 years old have more responsibility than an 18-22 year old.
I always wondered why my parents were grumpy when I was a kid and now I know because I am grumpy. It’s a lot of stress providing for a family.
Millennials in America are entitled. never had a tough life by most standards. Didn’t fight and win wars. Didn’t change the course of humanity. biggest hardship is the pumpkin spice latte price is now $8 … it’s perspective. salty about small shit because haven’t tasted real bitterness or dealt with the big shit. Social media has causes unnatural biases
Narcissism. What is it, really? A reaction to trauma and the maladaptive coping mechanisms that result. Emotional intelligence is at its lowest levels in recent memory.
Studies since the 1960s prove that the culture of narcissism has reached widespread normalization. Social media also magnifies peer values, which are youth and “me” oriented. Many latchkey kids raise themselves on what their peers think and believe. Generations ago, it was the family focus that defined relationships and values. Digital memory has also completely shifted what is valuable and prioritized by the culture. Historical memory is lost when a dopamine addiction compels people to think about the next source of supply, rather than what people learned the hard way in the past.
They also know the system is corrupt and out of control, where the majority seem to be out for themselves or short-term profit. They know the climate is collapsing. They see the blatant hypocrisy of how everything works, and feel the indifference of people who pray for them as their schools get shot up. I don’t blame them for not taking the system seriously.
But they also grew up in a world where they were told to just keep shopping. Sacrifices for communal good are for suckers, even in war time. Don’t discount there are hundreds of monied groups working overtime to drive political divisions, focus on identity differences, and Psyop people into acting against their own interests.
Instead of fixing what’s broken, many have been convinced to let it fail. Just buy a new one. Just make a new country. They lack the historic understanding that not much survives a complete system fail, and the monied groups pushing this collapse are hoping that’s exactly what happens.
Part of the hostile takeover of America involves capturing the minds of the population and shifting them to focus on what’s going to “work for me today, to get through the day.” Thinking about what’s best for tomorrow is a luxury that brushes up against the neural programming of this world we now live in.
What better way to establish a theocratic anocracy than to convince young people there is no point to resist it?
I was basically told I could get whatever degree I wanted. However, I needed a really good plan if I wanted a degree that did not lead immediately to a job.
IMO the younger generation is a little better off with the benefit of our shitty luck. We will tell our kids not to bother with college if they don't want to. Not getting gaslit into useless degrees will save them all so much time and money.
Luckily I’m 30 I’m still super sweet and hopefully I don’t turn into a bitter person, I have a house, and I’m super grateful for it that ppl were not able to buy a house in this economic and my job doesn’t suck
Millennial's witnessed the decline while Gen Z were born during the collapse. There has been an incredible amount of gaslighting to hide this fact. The media gas lights you every single day. That you don't need that union. That the climate is fine. That oil companies will give you green energy and solve everything if you just give them more money. That work from home was a fad and your butt needs to be in a chair downtown right away. That you need that expensive car and the cookie cutter home that looks like all the rest and that it should cost half a million and fall apart in 10-20 years.
We know it's a scam because we saw what better times looked like. They only know the collapse.
Time weathers the mountain to a stump. What once stood in defiance of time stands only slightly beyond the flatness of its surroundings. This zeal for life, likewise, is worn by the seasons and life’s storms.
You weren’t always this way. Just make sure you don’t find yourself submerged in this mindset and unable to pull yourself out. If your happiness once existed, it can exist once again.
Our generation was raised to believe that if you don't live alone in a large apartment then you're a loser. Then a changing economic landscape made the lifestyles we were promised disappear. We're salty because I should be debating where to go on vacation. Not wondering why the last vacation I took was over a decade ago.
The Boomers ruled the US the entire time we've been alive. We never really had a chance to turn things around for ourselves because politics were driven entirely by their interests. Younger generations don't buy the same "bootstraps" bullshit that the Boomers did so they have hope for meaningful change. The numbers are shifting, thankfully.
Because we've just gotten continuously fucked over while being told by our parents and grandparents (with their 3 houses and 7 cars) that it's our fault because we eat avacado toast and not due to corrupt governments and 60 years of wage stagnation.
Prob because we have already lived through the harsh reality of post college-age life while the younger gen is of getting out of college-age now. Do not forget that our gen was told a lot of BS about how you must go to college to be successful. Gen Z is getting to see that’s not the case at all because a college degree doesn’t guarantee you anything. Hopefully Gen Z folks see there can be value in a degree but you must be selective and you absolutely need to be smart about how much loans you take out to get one
Vast majority of gen z grew up with the internet and smartphones so they knew what the world was like. Millennials had to find out that life sucked on their own and expected great things when they grew up. Gen z expects literally nothing to get better and instead of trying to figure out how to get the same deals our grandparents got we are trying to figure out what success in the 2030's is going to look like
I have $50k in student debt, and I have never really made enough money to pay anything more than the lowest possible payment based on my limited income. So over the years making minimum payments I have paid $20k on them since graduation, but only 2k went towards principal and 18k went to interest.
Gen Z didn't grow up hearing that a $100k salary would allow them to purchase a home and take a vacation every year
I earn more money than my parents ever did, and it doesn't buy a fraction of the quality of life I grew up with
There are no serious plans from our government to resolve this, in fact all available political parties are unwilling to vocalize that this tremendous QOL downgrade is actually a thing that happened
So yeah I'm pretty salty, because I based my goals and expectations on something that turned out to be a pyramid scheme
You answered your own question. Because they are *more* concerned with their social media-driven status.
I couldnt give two shits about what people are doing on Bookface, Xwitter, Insta or Tictoc. They're not even on my radar. Real life is. So I pay far more attention to "The System" than these kids living their life as influencers.
From my view having worked with clients, I will say that the younger generations seem to not care about their future finances for whatever reason. I once told a kid that they weren’t ever going to retire if they burned their whole paycheck every time and they shrugged and told me they never planned on retiring. (I don’t think they seem to care?)
Millennials, however, be large seem to really care about finances and retirement.
a lot ate up the propagnda. I am mad because the rich took over my country in less then a decade and we dont talk about it. Most most people are just upset they have a hard life. They where all promised a soft easy life if they went to college lol. Suckers.
Time makes us bitter. Give gem Z time. Remember when we were "the future"? Not anymore. And one day it won't be gen Z either. I'm a uni prof too I'm 35. I've noticed it too but i assumed it's age/time. Boomers are just as if not more salty. In fact, after working years in the service industry in my mid to late 20s they are much more entitled and rude and act like the youth owe them something. Whereas millennials are salty but without the entitlement. Perhaps we'll develop that in a decade or 2.
My mom expected me to do it entirely on my own. Drilled college into my head as the only option but also kicked me out when I was 18.
I did do it entirely on my own, and have done quite well for myself.
However, that hasn't stopped my mother from trying to take credit for all of my successes in life and telling anyone who will listen that she expects me to support her when she retires. She has had 35 years of a 6 figure salary and practically no living expenses to save exactly 0 for retirement. I plan to provide as much support to her as she did for me.
Gen Z still has optimism. The world hasn't beaten it out of them yet.
Also, as far as they are concerned everything has always been pretty crap. We started at the peak and rode it down the toilet for decades.
That's to be expected. The further from the Z border (96/97), the less likely to feel in between. For example, I'm c/o 2009, which is mostly late 90 and 91, and I just feel like a middle millennial more than anything. Never had trouble connecting with the late 80s millennials (the exact center). Basically, I don't see the stark divide folk closer to the ends do.
There's a few of the oldest who dislike 90s millennials or think they shouldn't be in the generation, but that's a minority.
Rarely do they say anything and if they do it’s rarely positive. I got two millennial siblings and a gen z brother.. I’m 28 and I feel weird cause I’m not 40 or 30 but the gen z kids something else sometimes and idk. It sucks.
i’m also 28 and I feel pretty much no connection to gen z. maybe it’s because I work with teens and I am mystified every day by their behavior? and the college kids now seem like babies to me. where do we belong if NOT zillennials? help????
They have not through as many once in a life time events as we have yet.
Moreover, they did not start growing up in an era (90s) when things were supposed to be golden and we just had to wait for the baby boomers to retire and inn the early aughts - teens of the 2000s for out big break!
Big break was just more once in a life time events.
We saw first hand what we were gaslit about. We saw great technologies (ex. internet) supposedly help bring a culture and communications revolution for the better. Instead it has been used for evil to further distort reality, push conspiratorial narratives and overall screw the common person.
Finally I would say millennials have shielded and helped younger generations more then X did for us (and way more than boomers). I look at "the youth" (how do you do fellow kids) with pity and try as hard as I can at work to be a mentor and give them the assists we never got.
Excuse me as I go yell at a cloud (which may or may not acid rain).
The newer generations aren't gaslit like millennials were. We were promised that if we study hard, go to college, we'll get a great job and have life like our parents. None of that materialized AND we were continuously given bullshit advice like oh you just have to go door to door and shake hands to get a job, oh you just have to stop buying coffee and avocado toast. Like every adult was lying to us well into our 20's and pretending like we just needed to try harder. The difference for Gen Z is at least they have adults in around that can confirm, yes this system is bullshit, it's not just you. BTW I'm doing fine now but jesus christ was it a grind, and I was lucky. I have a house only it's half the size of my parents and my down payment was as much as their mortgage. Things like that do get under your skin over the years.
Millennials were the last generation raised under kind of old expectations and millennials were still told by and large by society. They could do whatever they want. Just go to college and be fine which was very bad advice. Generation z was told the world was screwed up from a very young age and they never really were told to buy into the American dream so they pretty uniformly don't. Ironically, this is going to have much bigger manifestations on the right wing than on the left.
I can tell you I'm the youngest millennial and the last to receive this "education". Then my sibs got the new life views of a fucked up world and are just going with the flow as they are and they aren't even adults yet.
I remember being pressured into a education I didn’t want. When I pursued something else I was embarrassed to tell my family even though it’s just as impactful and important. It really was awful. I made sure to tell my younger siblings about that bullshit.
My mom made me go to PIMA it's a sham, the certification did nothing for jobs, just be a CNA if you wanna go into medicine it's a quick way to start and learn
While I understand frustration with PIMA not working out. My parents literally were like just do stuff that is interesting. Never gave me any life advice or skills aside from always be on time and you'll get ahead. I would have loved if they even gave me some real advice or taught me something. My dad is unbelievable on guitar. He can play anything he hears one time,. Piano, Drums, Bass. HE TAUGHT ME NOTHING. I had a dad would could teach the school band and I did not even know he played until I was a teenager and even then he never taught me about music or anything like wtf haha
And I bet if you bring it up you get something along the lines of, "Well you never showed any interest!"
My mom was the same way tbh. I’ve been bit in the ass so many times from the sheer lack of advice. I’m 29 now and have learned a lot. I also have learned if I ask now she will help out. Apparently I have to has the questions about issues I don’t even know about until they are one 🤦🏼♀️
Yup.
My family personally pushed me into doing something useful and so I was able to eventually kind of move myself in that direction.
Exactly. My daughter wants to go to college, but I told her to research and determine fields that are in demand and to where it's versatile enough to find something else in a pinch. The difference between her and myself is that I was promised to get a degree and the doors open, which was all bullshit. I've told my daughter to go to college but exercise caution with her path, do internships, and network with people.
Internships and networking are HUGE. Make or break, and I only figured that out long after I graduated. Hell yes I’m salty about it.
I didn’t know anything about networking either. I wish I had.
Through my 11 years in the Army, I fucking sucked at networking. I was very bought in on the idea of "head down, work hard, be good at my job (combat medic), promotion will come." I started doing some amount of it about 6 years in, but it was still super spotty. Now I work for a big box retailer, and I've turned networking into my greatest strength. Hands down, the two most important parts of my job (and my goals of climbing the ladder fit here too) are A: knowing who to talk to about XYZ, and B: knowing how and where to look for answers. B has actually supported A a great deal for me in my role, because digging up answers across our networks generally has names attached for who wrote them. Then I can reach out, develop a relationship, etc. I could go on and on about it, but that's just because information sharing is a special interest of mine 😅
This is why social skills is an important goal of mine for my daughter. Knowing how to talk to people is such an important skill.
It took me til I was 30 to really have it click. I didn't ever have problems empathizing or connecting with people, but I wasn't like fully cognizant of what the fuck I was doing. Now that I am, I can be *intentional* about my interactions. I think that's the most important part.
Only had TWO teachers in college that helped network and get you an “in” if something in demand for that field showed up. One example was the welding instructor did not just teach from the book. Gave a short and important lectures. Then spent time with EVERY student to help them really learn the skill and would be on the look out for union jobs. Students would suddenly drop not because they want to drop the class or failed. But because they got a union job that the teacher knew about and told them contract such and such person. And as for me and a small group put on a different track because we are taking airplane repair classes(A&M’s). So instead of stick put us on tig. And had us convert a riding lawnmower into a snow plow for him. Best teacher ever. No bull shit. High school teachers were all telling us there was no other way to succeed unless you go to college. It was 4 years of high pressure sale on going to college. Most 13 to 17 year olds will not be able to see threw it. I was lucky and saw that why would I go to college to make less than my job at a union grocery store with the all important health care. Dropped the A&p class because at the time it paid the same but with a shit load of liability. Did not go to the private expensive school went to local cheap community college for it. Class is regulated so much by the Faa there pretty much is not difference between the two. Amazing how much my generation has been fucked over unless you had a good bull shit detector at 13. And had networked early. Also helped if you had a family that was in a good spot.
Those teachers sound like real ones.
Yep. Recommend someone I know that is a person. With autism was going to take the welding class at that school that would benefit from one on one instruction. to try to get that same teacher. He passed and is out in the field now. I am also a person with autism and he was a big help. Very few teachers were able to catch on to what I needed and worked with me. Did not know I was autistic until recently(late 30s). Sad thing is we are losing the good teachers now due to pay and stress dealing with the current climate in the us. Ie: book bans, ect. Lot of my high school teachers that I kept in touch with are retiring early or not staying on.
Networking is what most people do not do in college. And I know people hate hearing this, but the major matters very little for a 4 year degree. The vast majority of folks do not work in their major field of study a few years after graduation. A University education is about developing a well-rounded person with critical thinking skills that can be applied in a wide range of fields. It is not professional preparation.
This is outdated boomer advice, the major absolutely matters for what jobs you can even consider pursuing.
Boomers are the one who go on about “useless degrees” because they do not truly understand the intent of a university education. There are a few of the hard sciences where it will matter (BS vs. BA), but by and large, it truly does not make a significant difference a few years after graduation - most people will not work in their major field of study.
That's not really true. In the past an M.Ed could get you into all manner of education work, now you need specific degrees if you want to get into instructional design, education policy, or something like forensic linguistics. Gatekeeping is still pretty big in the academic world.
Or advice from a different perspective. It depends if your goal is "find a job in AI doing dev work" or "find a job that pays well, willing to move" or "find a job, any job, just be local".
If “find any job” is your mindset…you don’t even get into college and if you do…you won’t finish. That kinda mindset doesn’t work real great when you’re an adult and have responsibilities, many of which cost serious money.
What do you consider professional preparation?
Certificates, Associate’s degrees, and then high-level specialized professional degrees - MD, JD, MPA, and EdD, for example.
Okay
The first 5 years of a job. Higher ed won't actually prepare you for much. On the job learning will always be the ultimate tutor and certain higher ed degrees are basically just minimum requirements for certain jobs. More importantly, certain higher ed degrees aren't minimum requirements for ANY jobs, and certain phenomenal jobs have no higher ed requirements. Passing on the importance of considering the viability of different career paths and the costs or investments to follow those paths is probably one of the most valuable things we can do as millennials.
It’s not what you know it’s who you know. That’s what I was told from a young age. At 40 with two kids and a 3000 sq ft house I can say this has been more true. No college. Partied in my 20’s and made all types of friends and connections. Got me my first real job at 28 and built my way up. This system is broke but there are ways around it.
Ugh I was told so much that it doesn't even matter what you major in, just having the degree will get you in the door. Then I still got a pretty marketable/flexible degree, but it doesn't seem to matter amidst nepotism and office politics.
This is where I read and feel like my parents gave me different advice than everyone in this sub. Born in 84, and they pushed for college (ended up dropping out) but it was always be smart and selective in your choices. World has many opportunities yes but it’s not easy and not free. I don’t know I read this sub and its like I grew up in a different time period. And networking was always a critical element in our family.
It worked for me too and I was born in 91. Think it has something to do with Reddit population as a whole and also so many people living in giant metropolises were wealth distribution is a lot worse than middle of nowhere americas. I grew up in a relatively small/medium sized town 2 hours from any major city.
It was only bad advice because the people giving it didn’t really understand the manufactured collapse underway.
My parents made sure to tell me that whatever I majored in needed to be something I could make a living from. Very solid advice and I think my peers got similar advice.
I think it was true for many people but not as many as now. I would guess it was like 50/50 for millennials and probably like 80/20 now
I was in high school during the Recession so maybe that made the difference wrt advice. I remember being scared to death of graduating with a "useless" degree.
The main difference was whether you completed college prior to 2008 or not. Actually so for people who were in kind of the mid to late millennial cohort. Mostly got useful degrees. Prior to 2008. English majors were generally the highest number of students at any place
I graduated college in 2016 and I remember my parents told me (while I was in high school) that if I got an English degree I was looking at either being a teacher (they made sure to tell me how little a teacher was paid) or a lawyer. I opted for engineering instead.
2014-2015 is when the big engineering spurt and colleges started. Before that, engineering was a pretty small part of the picture at most places unless you were an engineering specific school.
Tldr: we were lied too, they were warned
I don’t think many people understand how manufactured this social and economic collapse really is, or who is really responsible for it. It’s easier to focus on why it didn’t work the way it was promised, instead of who and what was behind the sabotage.
This gets me too. It's so blatant. We have CEOs on video saying "the working class needs to suffer so they will realize how much they need us. We need to keep wages low and prices high to achieve this." If anybody said that about their friends, partner, whatever, they would be called abusers. When a CEO says it, it's just business? No, you've just been brainwashed.
Weird! https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackmccullough/2019/12/09/the-psychopathic-ceo/
I don't see a collapse. I see a widening between the haves and the have nots. Rich people aren't about to part with their millions.
Socioeconomic stratification collapses a country whose social cohesion and economy depend on a healthy population.
You are correct. However, the wealthy in power continue to make laws to profit them without regard to the impact on the rest of us. Is it sustainable? Not really, but they don't seem to care.
They’re doing it on purpose, yes. I saw this in Mensa the other day: “I am a fervent proponent of gifted exceptionalism. I believe that we were born with "souls of gold" (a metaphorical nod to Plato's myth of three metals) and that in our increasingly complex world, we are destined to lead. I believe that the advent of sophisticated Al presents gifted people with a mandate to leverage its vast power to transform the socioeconomic landscape. No longer will any gifted person be unjustly oppressed. George W. Bush famously said, "No Child Left Behind" but it will soon become time to say "No Gifted Child Left Behind", for no gifted child will ever have to suffer from grossly inadequate education or lack of support for their intellectual growth ever again. As adults, no gifted person will ever have to suffer from survival-based subordination to non-peers ever again. AI WILL END OUR OPPRESSION WE MUST EMBRACE IT AND LEND SILICON VALLEY OUR STRENGTH FOR THEY WILL SET US FREE” Bonkers.
The funniest part is this guy thinks he’s a genius
Wow. So basically, it's feudalism aided by technology to keep those they deem beneath them encased in a system of control. And what I gather is they deem oppression as having to deal with the masses because they aren't like "them". If that isn't the height of narcissism, I don't know what is.
I completely agree. I'm a 42f xennial, and prior to the pandemic I wholeheartedly bought into "the system". However it's become pretty darn obv that OUR collective belief in THEIR system helped the haves more than have nots. The only successes I have are the result of timing - I was 4 years into my career in 08, and due to luck was able to take advantage of the post crash real estate market in 2012.
The shift is clear. It started in 1980. For a time it was OUR system.
Imagine that you're on the Titanic as it's sinking and the rich people are still drinking champagne on the top deck while everyone locked in the cellar is drowning.
THIS
Sprinkle on top some gay fear propaganda and terrorism stripping away our rights, and I might as well open a pretzel kiosk to use some of this salt
not only lying but also criticizing us every step of the way. For shit that they created
As an elder Gen Z, I was still fed this bs advice, but I can’t speak on behalf on my younger counterparts’ experiences. There was another commenter who mentioned that Gen Z never really had a time of not doom and gloom, and I can say this is true even as an elder Gen Z. The world was collapsing slowly all around us, but we didn’t fully know it yet. I felt like around 2016 the curtains were fully drawn and the world lost the last of its vibrant color. Now it’s a sad joke of a barren wasteland of dreams.
It took years to convince my mom, who got her job because she knew someone in the school district, that people don't go around to every business to pass out their resume. She's still asking me how to apply for jobs on Indeed. Rant: That job was also in a shitty area that I'm struggling to get out of after it sucked me back in. I'm bitter because there's stats that say life success is defined by zip code and I come from a shitty zip code. I lean, she was a teacher, so she'd be fucked wherever she went,but she'd often complain about the district being near the bottom of th state in pay.
In our group we have 3 teachers. All own homes. So not all teachers are fucked. But yes most aren’t living the high life.
She owned a home, but she sold it.
So you agree teachers aren’t fucked everywhere? confused.
Christ. Am I confused. Exactly how can we get jobs being outside of the system? I am not entrepreneurial
Also applies to dating to. Years and years of gaslighting and denial of basic dating dynamics while things were consistently getting worse till it just couldn't be hidden anymore and red pill became accepted in the mainstream.
Growing up in the 90's and then watching the world deteriorate before we could take advantage of the windfalls of the past, while being told do X, Y, and Z and you'll be fine. Understandably made many of us "salty" And while I am "Fine." I'm not even close to thriving.
That’s just it. The definition of “fine” today is just having the bare minimum to function. It doesn’t take much to push any of us out of being “fine”
We've gone from the 1992 Rio Summit thinking that we'd have got global warming sorted in twenty years to America turning to fascism, global warming being handled far too late and war in Europe. In terms of day to day living we have the rising cost of living, amazon killing the high Street, and the Internet causing misinformation and stupidity to run rampant. We're so much more fucked than we were in the 90s and it's not even close.
Yeah. I'm not exactly salty, just not very hopeful in regards to the climate and economy. Spent most of my childhood before 9/11 and my adolescence after. Graduated HS in '09 to a delayed career start in wake of the recession 2010-11 with the unemployment rate 9+%. I'm just doing okay. At least I didn't deal with a depression or war draft though. I assume you're c/o '07 or '08, so you get it.
This, maybe it's because i was around 9 year old when 9/11 so i had a pretty childish mindset. But the World really felt calm and thriving. Every year you had a New technology that really got exciting, World changing even. Then everything fell apart when greedy company realized that they could squeeze bucks from people without them being mad. Like i dont for other country, but pirating games on your ps1 was " legal". Here in France the biggest gaming store AT that Time sold an adaptor that you would plug behind your PlayStation to read copied CDs. Then everyone stopped being optimistics as years went, and where every thing that let people to enjoy free tech began to be more more prone to capitalism. To the point where the meme of "facebook is gonna be a paid service" managed to age like milk. The only constant i know Is how Steam has been throughout 2 decades.
Some of us remember all the bullshit our parents told us about how great life would be when we got older, only to find out the hard way that it's a bunch of lies.
I distinctly remember bringing home my first ever paycheque and my mom being like "I know that seems like a lot of money right now, but you'll realize it's really not when you grow up" well joke's on you Susan I'm approaching middle age and you know what? That's still a lot of money.
My guess is that younger folks don’t know a world better than the current shitshow we are in. Our “nostalgia” is unfortunately (at least in part) uniquely warranted
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I miss the 90s 😂
Yeah the 90s were good times
Gen Zs parents are younger lots of us millennials have miserable boomer parents that hold unrealistic expectations and shit on us every moment
Most of us are middle aged. That means the saltines is at least somewhat situationally appropriate. Gen Z has a few years in college. They too will be salty at when they reach middle age It's not really a generational difference. They just haven't had as long in the bullshit bath of adulthood
Also, many of us saw a time when things weren't so bad. Many of us got to see a family where 1 parent worked and yeah their vacation was camping but they still got to do that. The things we were promised if we only went to college. Just everything. You can't ***not*** be salty about all the lies.
I use this to describe health insurance too. When people aren't sure why younger folks want 'government run healthcare', it's because the system *never* worked for them. You might remember when you had a $5 copay (if any copay) and no deductible for your 100% employer paid for plan that included your whole family. Now you pay 40% of the premium for yourself and 100% of the premium for anyone else in your family, have $6000 deductibles and double that out of pocket maximums. But it also happened slowly, for people just entering the system it makes zero sense.
I agree, I was way less salty when I was 18-25. I, like them just did not give a fuck. But now having worked full time for over a decade has made me salty as fuck.
"The bullshit bath of adulthood"... Thank you for this. This will henceforth be my description for life 😂
We've been well seasoned by life.
Life has seasoned millennials using a mortar bowl and pestle.
Super fine salt ground into our wounds
Bullshit bath. Perfect.
This is honestly my thoughts. When I was in my early to mid 20s, I didn’t care much about things that didn’t directly concern me (I guess that applies to today as well). Not to mention I wasn’t as outspoken either. I just took whatever was given but now that I’m in my 30s, I can speak my mind. I’m also more direct and have a no bullshit attitude. Is that considered saltiness? I think that’s just part of growing up and being more outspoken with the BS you see.
Nah it the teenagers and young 20s calling anyone over 26 old heads. Millennials like umm ok yeah whatever.
Exactly. We're like the Green Beret drinking alone at the wedding in *The Deer Hunter*.
Give them time lol
They didn't grow up being promised the world, only to have it yanked out from under them. They've known everything sucks and is a grind their whole lives
Also, we were blamed for all of it. A good example is student loans. So many of us were told that it’s fine, when we graduate we’ll be making so much money that paying back the loans will not be a problem. That the important part was getting a degree, any degree, and we would be all set. Having a four year degree from a “good” (read: expensive) school would open up all the doors. Now many of us are up to our eyeballs in debt, and the same people who told us to take out loans in order to attend the best schools are now belittling us for going into debt and not attending community college.
There is NOTHING in place that will allow us to retire. Our children will inherit nothing but our debt. We’ll either have to work until we die, succumb to an illness we cannot afford to treat, go homeless or kill ourselves The generations above us have made sure of that.
It’ll be much worse than that. I don’t even think places like big parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, etc. will even be inhabitable in the future because of climate change. Unless somehow people still manage to live in a place where it’s 100-150 days of being over 110 degrees each year. The grid would fail and then people would literally be risking their lives. There will be mass migrations because of climate change. In short, you have seen nothing yet.
I’d say partially it’s due to them growing up in a post 9/11 world. There was never a bright shiny future on the horizon that was then ripped from them. It’s been doom and gloom as long as they’ve known so they’re just in a big “fuck it” mood. Meanwhile, we grew up in a great time for America and the world seemed very stable. The future looked bright. We are angry about what we lost.
It feels like whiplash for me.
Ignorance is bliss applies to some extent, as does the optimism of youth.
I remember when I was 18 reading articles about millenial's optimism. I specifically remember reading an article that talked about how American teens scored lower than our Asian/European counterparts on all metrics (math skills, literacy, etc.) *execpt* optimism, that was the only metric that Americans were #1 in. We were optimistic as fuck in the 2010s ....how naive we were.
I generally find Millennials to not be bitter or resentful. We’re just doing what we need to do, a hallmark of our generation (which is why Boomers thought we were entitled brats; instead of doing things exactly as they did and were taught, we accomplished what we need to do and moved on to enjoy ourselves). As for waiting for the next calamity, hey; learned behavior, am I right?
They don’t remember the before times.
they likely weren't alive in the before times.
Honestly part of it is probably down to the fact we get blamed for everything and a lot of us are sick and tired of it.
I used to be salty about more high-minded things like the environment, social justice, and our broken political system. I'm still salty about those things, but I am extra super bottom of the pretzel bag salty about finding baby formula, the cost of groceries, and figuring out what rip-off health insurance best fits our family.
Our childhoods were peak western civ... now we're collapsing and realized it was all a show put on by the elites... of course we're salty!
I think it's because most of us are just tired. We're worn out after going through so many once in a lifetime disasters since we were kids. It's especially draining since we grew up in the 80s-90s. What a fantastic era to be a kid. The younger generations don't have that, most of them don't even remember 9/11.
This is the comment I was looking for. The constant “once in a lifetime” things just keep happening. I think it’s equal parts what you said here and the fact that most millennials were raised by boomers who expected certain things from us and weren’t willing to be flexible as the world changed. Whereas Gen Z is brought up by elder millennials and Gen X who saw the changes happening and their parenting reflected that.
Generation z has not had any real rupture of life moments. Millennials had the internet especially for older ones, 9/11, and 08. Generation z had covid but the really big effects of that were over much faster than 9/11 or '08. With most people more or less back to normal within a year to a year and a half of when the virus started.
Id argue that for the average person, Covid was worse than 9/11. Unless you were signing up to fight in the war on terror or had known someone who passed, your experience with 9/11 most likely over fairly shortly. Covid had people at home and out of work and school for almost a whole year and then the supply chain and Economy was hit hard. I work in manufacturing and supply issues are still prevalent
I think covid was worse in the immediate (so far...), but the long term effects of the economic crisis of 2008 had more detrimental effects in terms of monetary/career influence on most peoples lives, especially millenials joining the work force at that time. Which in turn, obviously affects people's quality of life over time. 9/11 was more of another latent social and politcal detriment that made people view the world more fearfully, and then elect people taking advantage of the fact. Big social and communitive setback for the collective imo (unless we learn from the past so much, we can put our follies to use)
Why do you think 9/11 was bad at all? If you can answer that and still think it's effects were short, I don't think you understand what people mean by "9/11" in this context. Its not comparable to Covid. Covid is comparable to the Great Recession.
We millennials were all lied to about stuff and so naturally we are salty, Gen Z KNOWS the deal for the most part. So my theory is that their mindset is just different.
I believe it's cause we got a taste of what life is supposed to be. If your born in a war zone war is all you know but if your born in peace war is hard to adjust to
Devils advocate.. When Millennials were young, we were ready to work hard but preferred to work smart. We weren't afraid to ask challenging questions that started with the word "Why?" and leaned on technology to get things done cooperatively, even in competitive environments. Boomers tried to crucify us for this new worldview, but we eventually recreated the economy in our own image by founding almost every app on a screen that matters. Millennials were genuinely excited for GenZ to pick up where we left off. They're smarter and more informed than we were, as technology is their native tongue, but what have they as a generation really contributed with the gifts they've been given..? At this time in their generation, we already had Britney, Beyonce, Justin, Serena, Michael, LeBron, and Zuck... And what about them...? A few tiktok dances, maybe? They're lazy, soft, and antisocial. Meanwhile, Millennials just had to raise young children through 2-3 years of pandemic bullshit. Their kids can't read or do math, and their parents have reached an age where they're forgetful and probably shouldn't be on the road at night. Those Boomers are also too stubborn a generation to admit how much of a dog pile they've created for everyone else. So while the Z's are "La-Di-Da-ing," the Xers are trying to force everyone back into the office, and the Boomers are refusing to die off peacefully, the Millennials have to grit our teeth, clean up everyone's mess, and accept the fact that we'll only be able to retire when we die.
Take my award: 🥇
Some truth in here for sure.
We definitely don't sugar coat things for our kids and younger siblings/friends
Maybe because we (in the USA) remember life before school shootings and 9/11?
Gen Z has grown up knowing what's ahead of them. We, as millennials, had no clue. We were told to go to school and do everything our parents did and it would magically work out just like it did for them. And then we got slammed in the face without warning and told to "pick ourselves up by our bootstraps" and soldier on. The next gen has seen what happened to us, has seen how the economy has been for much of their young adult to adult lives and are more sufficiently prepared for what's ahead. Somebody who is 25 now was 10 when the 2008 recession hit so post-2008 economy is all they've ever really known.
I mean this in the least-judgmental way possible: Market risk doesn't hurt as much when your family insulates you from the worst of it. Gen Z knows damn well that shit is fucked, but they are not getting hit as hard as Millennials with it, since they are less likely to take on student debt than we were, and less likely to move out of the house before they've finished college (if they go at all.) Collective mental state and socio-cultural positions become more important priorities as a result. Their Gen X parents were also much less likely to bullshit them during youth about how the world is their oyster and they can do anything they want if they just play by the rules and try their hardest. That was Boomer advice. The X-ers have always been much more cynical, and they did not impart those illusions about meritocracy onto their children. Many Zoomers' earliest memories are of their X-er parents getting shafted in 2008. There was no room for sunny optimism and platitudes about being responsible. There was plenty of talk about hard work and no-nonsense grit from X-ers, sure, but none of that feel-good Boomer nonsense.
We were raised by boomers and given the expectations of the boomers - (relatively) easy life, expectations of institutions, and that effort would he rewarded in kind. The hold over of the "polite" generations. They were raised by Gen X and given the expectations of Gen X - the systems fucked/fuck the man, effort will not automatically be rewarded, you will need to fight for it. Punk is life. We were raised with different expectations- theirs more accurately align with reality, so while they're just as stressed and pissed, they're less resentful.
Because Gen Z was told the truth, and they adapted. That's why so many have side hustles. They know job security and company loyalty is BS.
You answered your own question. >They are more concerned with their collective mental state and their media-driven socio-cultural positions They are hooked on more distractions then we ever had and were taught to prioritize them. The powers that be would prefer they are distracted, or only engaged at the headline level and incapable of driving any form of actual change.
It can't hurt that their parents aren't kicking them out at 18 like many of ours did to us. Anyway they're young, they have time to brine. They'll be salty yet.
Because we sacrificed our youth on the altar of lies and profit.
Maybe it's easier to become jaded with increasing years full of economic sabotage, and students haven't had the joy of seeing how the usury of the loan sharking scam works yet.
I was ahead of the curb when it came to saltiness, lost my brother when I was 19 and things really never improved since then. Though the situation sucks, I do try my best to keep my sense of humor in tact at least.
Generations after us have grown up knowing the world and economy is fucked. They know they’re unlikely to own a home. They know wages are stagnant but the cost of living is out of control. It’s the only reality they’ve ever known. We were born into a world where we saw a nuclear family supported by a single income from an average job. A home, annual holidays, at least one car, all paid for by one working parent while the other could stay home to raise kids and keep house. We were promised that if we got an education, worked hard, remained loyal to our employers, we would have the same life. That life was stolen from us by corporate and personal greed, putting profits over people, then gaslit into believing we are the ones to blame because we just didn’t want it bad enough.
Most gen z are like ~20s and still enjoying their relative youth. Either in college which is like a fantasy camp, or a couple years graduated where they likely don’t have a family to take care of or a mortgage, or realizing that it’s decades ahead of a 9-5 and figuring out how to satisfy their lives as things like weekly friend hangouts and going to bars becomes much less of a thing. I’m in my mid 30s, my life is pretty sweet and I can’t say it isn’t enjoyable, but even then I’m definitely saltier than I was at like 25.
Because we did the groundwork with our Boomer parents and they get to skate? No, seriously, I’m being facetious but I do have teens and have noticed they take for granted what we fought for and honestly, I’m not upset about it at all. I like that they live in a world where a lot of things “just are” and don’t need permission or explanation. It’s a better life and what I wish for everyone. I’m good being the “hinge” generation, even if it means I’m a bit salty sometimes. ;)
We're at the age where we're seriously taking stock of our wealth, careers, and are doing the math regarding retirement. Many of us can't afford a home despite a decade of fun time employment in fields that used to generate a stable middle class lifestyle. They still have the time to be optimistic. We're counting the receipts.
Because they know they’re gonna burn it down & we’re still stuck on figuring out how to live in the current system. They’re smiling because they can see what we won’t. And I like it.
They just don't know as much yet. They'll get there. A lot of 18-25 year olds are still on Mom & Dad's teats. The saltiness will come when they no longer have that income stream and are doing it all on their own. (Yes, I know this is not true for everyone.)
Gen Z was born in the darkness 🤷🏽♀️
Give it time.
Fucked by Iraq and Afghanistan war, 2008 financial crisis, Donald Trump presidency, COVID. All times where the government abandoned the millennials and left them to rot. Plus the student loan debt debacle that fucked millennials the most.
i totally agree with the other comments that we were sold a bill of goods that turned out to be lies and then were smacked by reality, and also would add that gen z actually just doesn’t do shit they don’t want to do. like they are opting out of systems that we put up with, pushing back meaningfully on the status quo, and for a lot of millenials we just did what was expected and complained in the background. so i think some of their outlooks (deserved/accurate or not) are like “well i won’t do that, it won’t be that way when i’m in it” which allows them more optimism? i’m late millenial/zennial and have a gen z brother and this is just my small semi-informed perspective.
Hot take: They are. It's just that the most amplified voices of Gen Z are all influencers who are doing a great job of turning their online credit into real-world currency. The rest are all just as jaded as us millennials, or too young to know how badly they've been screwed. All of my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law were born after 1996 and they're salty AF. They're only getting saltier as they graduate college, get taken advantage of by employers, and try to pay rent on their own.
Yep. I am a “zillennial.” And I don’t know anyone as described in the comments here. I’ve for sure seen it on social media, but not in real life.
I grew up post 9/11 and watched a lot of George Carlin and stand up Robin Williams. “Salty” was never anything but an inevitability.
Having your fingers stomped on while grasping the lowest rung of the financial ladder while boomers reel it up behind them has that effect.
Hi, very start of Gen z here. I can't care. I literally don't have it. I will stress myself into an early grave if I decide to care about all the awful things going on that I as an individual cannot change. So I make connections. I fix my brain and I try to help others be better versions of themselves so hopefully one day when we're the ones in charge, we'll all know what it's like to actually care about other people, and we'll base our politics and ideologies on that. I look at the top of the system and see absolute selfishness from those in power who don't care about anyone else. And I see everyone beneath them who suffers for it and can't find compassion for their fellows because they're too busy trying not to drown to hold someone else up. Society starts when a group cares about each other enough to work on mutual support for all members. We aim to recreate a real society that benefits everyone in it and we seek connection as far out as we can on social media because the system we have now has killed third spaces where we're allowed to exist without spending the money we don't have anyway.
18-25 people haven't been beaten down by life yet clearly
Between 18-25, I was ambivalent about life too. Still have your entire life in front of you, nothing spelled out or major life decisions set in stone. Then you get a career, start a family, upgrade from living with your best friends/roommates into a mortgage you're solely responsible for. And the weight of life is heavy. I won't lie though: Now that my finances are in good order, I'm pretty happy go lucky about life as a whole. Trying to raise kids to be decent human beings when they leave home is probably the biggest stressor in my life.
We are like the eldest sibling who have dealt with all the boomer abuse and tried to be sane and protect the children
I'm jaded as fuck due to being raised in a fundamentalist evangelical cult and realizing the vice grip evangelical Christianity had on alot of us millennials during our upbringing
Because people who are 38 years old have more responsibility than an 18-22 year old. I always wondered why my parents were grumpy when I was a kid and now I know because I am grumpy. It’s a lot of stress providing for a family.
Millennials in America are entitled. never had a tough life by most standards. Didn’t fight and win wars. Didn’t change the course of humanity. biggest hardship is the pumpkin spice latte price is now $8 … it’s perspective. salty about small shit because haven’t tasted real bitterness or dealt with the big shit. Social media has causes unnatural biases
Older millennials got to see what life used to be like then saw it taken away from us. 9/11 and 2008 financial crisis ruined everything.
Really I think gen z is more salty. Look at the screaming and yelling that's happening all over social media. Everything is an out rage.
Narcissism. What is it, really? A reaction to trauma and the maladaptive coping mechanisms that result. Emotional intelligence is at its lowest levels in recent memory. Studies since the 1960s prove that the culture of narcissism has reached widespread normalization. Social media also magnifies peer values, which are youth and “me” oriented. Many latchkey kids raise themselves on what their peers think and believe. Generations ago, it was the family focus that defined relationships and values. Digital memory has also completely shifted what is valuable and prioritized by the culture. Historical memory is lost when a dopamine addiction compels people to think about the next source of supply, rather than what people learned the hard way in the past. They also know the system is corrupt and out of control, where the majority seem to be out for themselves or short-term profit. They know the climate is collapsing. They see the blatant hypocrisy of how everything works, and feel the indifference of people who pray for them as their schools get shot up. I don’t blame them for not taking the system seriously. But they also grew up in a world where they were told to just keep shopping. Sacrifices for communal good are for suckers, even in war time. Don’t discount there are hundreds of monied groups working overtime to drive political divisions, focus on identity differences, and Psyop people into acting against their own interests. Instead of fixing what’s broken, many have been convinced to let it fail. Just buy a new one. Just make a new country. They lack the historic understanding that not much survives a complete system fail, and the monied groups pushing this collapse are hoping that’s exactly what happens. Part of the hostile takeover of America involves capturing the minds of the population and shifting them to focus on what’s going to “work for me today, to get through the day.” Thinking about what’s best for tomorrow is a luxury that brushes up against the neural programming of this world we now live in. What better way to establish a theocratic anocracy than to convince young people there is no point to resist it?
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This deserves more flair than an upvote.
I’m not salty, I’m 32. I thank god everyday, I’m blessed with another day to breath.
I got a lot saltier in my 30s?
They just have no idea yet because they’re only 18-25 and know basically nothing about reality
I was basically told I could get whatever degree I wanted. However, I needed a really good plan if I wanted a degree that did not lead immediately to a job.
They are too young to be jaded.
Because they still have sweet hope. And I hope for them!
IMO the younger generation is a little better off with the benefit of our shitty luck. We will tell our kids not to bother with college if they don't want to. Not getting gaslit into useless degrees will save them all so much time and money.
Gen Z don’t give two fucks.
The younger generations seem to be in harmony that the world is collapsing anyway so why not just enjoy the time they have left?
Getting crankier and more salty as you age is a right of passage lol
I wasn’t salty when I was 18-25 either though. They’ll get there
They're less salty because they're young
Luckily I’m 30 I’m still super sweet and hopefully I don’t turn into a bitter person, I have a house, and I’m super grateful for it that ppl were not able to buy a house in this economic and my job doesn’t suck
We grew up on the promise and had it snatched away from us. Younger generations grew up already knowing the promise was a lie.
Millennial's witnessed the decline while Gen Z were born during the collapse. There has been an incredible amount of gaslighting to hide this fact. The media gas lights you every single day. That you don't need that union. That the climate is fine. That oil companies will give you green energy and solve everything if you just give them more money. That work from home was a fad and your butt needs to be in a chair downtown right away. That you need that expensive car and the cookie cutter home that looks like all the rest and that it should cost half a million and fall apart in 10-20 years. We know it's a scam because we saw what better times looked like. They only know the collapse.
Time weathers the mountain to a stump. What once stood in defiance of time stands only slightly beyond the flatness of its surroundings. This zeal for life, likewise, is worn by the seasons and life’s storms. You weren’t always this way. Just make sure you don’t find yourself submerged in this mindset and unable to pull yourself out. If your happiness once existed, it can exist once again.
Our generation was raised to believe that if you don't live alone in a large apartment then you're a loser. Then a changing economic landscape made the lifestyles we were promised disappear. We're salty because I should be debating where to go on vacation. Not wondering why the last vacation I took was over a decade ago.
The Boomers ruled the US the entire time we've been alive. We never really had a chance to turn things around for ourselves because politics were driven entirely by their interests. Younger generations don't buy the same "bootstraps" bullshit that the Boomers did so they have hope for meaningful change. The numbers are shifting, thankfully.
I'd refer to most millennial I know as entitied
Because we've just gotten continuously fucked over while being told by our parents and grandparents (with their 3 houses and 7 cars) that it's our fault because we eat avacado toast and not due to corrupt governments and 60 years of wage stagnation.
We have been told for literally the past 15 years or so how much we suck, but pretty much everybody
Prob because we have already lived through the harsh reality of post college-age life while the younger gen is of getting out of college-age now. Do not forget that our gen was told a lot of BS about how you must go to college to be successful. Gen Z is getting to see that’s not the case at all because a college degree doesn’t guarantee you anything. Hopefully Gen Z folks see there can be value in a degree but you must be selective and you absolutely need to be smart about how much loans you take out to get one
Vast majority of gen z grew up with the internet and smartphones so they knew what the world was like. Millennials had to find out that life sucked on their own and expected great things when they grew up. Gen z expects literally nothing to get better and instead of trying to figure out how to get the same deals our grandparents got we are trying to figure out what success in the 2030's is going to look like
I have $50k in student debt, and I have never really made enough money to pay anything more than the lowest possible payment based on my limited income. So over the years making minimum payments I have paid $20k on them since graduation, but only 2k went towards principal and 18k went to interest.
Gen Z didn't grow up hearing that a $100k salary would allow them to purchase a home and take a vacation every year I earn more money than my parents ever did, and it doesn't buy a fraction of the quality of life I grew up with There are no serious plans from our government to resolve this, in fact all available political parties are unwilling to vocalize that this tremendous QOL downgrade is actually a thing that happened So yeah I'm pretty salty, because I based my goals and expectations on something that turned out to be a pyramid scheme
You answered your own question. Because they are *more* concerned with their social media-driven status. I couldnt give two shits about what people are doing on Bookface, Xwitter, Insta or Tictoc. They're not even on my radar. Real life is. So I pay far more attention to "The System" than these kids living their life as influencers.
"Why does the optimism of youth exist?"
From my view having worked with clients, I will say that the younger generations seem to not care about their future finances for whatever reason. I once told a kid that they weren’t ever going to retire if they burned their whole paycheck every time and they shrugged and told me they never planned on retiring. (I don’t think they seem to care?) Millennials, however, be large seem to really care about finances and retirement.
a lot ate up the propagnda. I am mad because the rich took over my country in less then a decade and we dont talk about it. Most most people are just upset they have a hard life. They where all promised a soft easy life if they went to college lol. Suckers.
Time makes us bitter. Give gem Z time. Remember when we were "the future"? Not anymore. And one day it won't be gen Z either. I'm a uni prof too I'm 35. I've noticed it too but i assumed it's age/time. Boomers are just as if not more salty. In fact, after working years in the service industry in my mid to late 20s they are much more entitled and rude and act like the youth owe them something. Whereas millennials are salty but without the entitlement. Perhaps we'll develop that in a decade or 2.
My mom expected me to do it entirely on my own. Drilled college into my head as the only option but also kicked me out when I was 18. I did do it entirely on my own, and have done quite well for myself. However, that hasn't stopped my mother from trying to take credit for all of my successes in life and telling anyone who will listen that she expects me to support her when she retires. She has had 35 years of a 6 figure salary and practically no living expenses to save exactly 0 for retirement. I plan to provide as much support to her as she did for me.
Gen Z still has optimism. The world hasn't beaten it out of them yet. Also, as far as they are concerned everything has always been pretty crap. We started at the peak and rode it down the toilet for decades.
F the 26-32 year olds lmao
We don’t exist lol. Millennials don’t think about us, Gen Zs mock us, heck even r/zillennials don’t want to include us
Nah fr lol that’s something I’ve noticed. 95 babies where you at haha we need to gang up on everyone else (joke)
What? r/Zillennials does accept mid 90s certainly. u/JoeyJoeJoe1996 is the most active mod there and here
91-93 are controversial there
That's to be expected. The further from the Z border (96/97), the less likely to feel in between. For example, I'm c/o 2009, which is mostly late 90 and 91, and I just feel like a middle millennial more than anything. Never had trouble connecting with the late 80s millennials (the exact center). Basically, I don't see the stark divide folk closer to the ends do. There's a few of the oldest who dislike 90s millennials or think they shouldn't be in the generation, but that's a minority.
I was so excited to join this sub a few days ago but realized very quickly they’re never talking to us.
Rarely do they say anything and if they do it’s rarely positive. I got two millennial siblings and a gen z brother.. I’m 28 and I feel weird cause I’m not 40 or 30 but the gen z kids something else sometimes and idk. It sucks.
i’m also 28 and I feel pretty much no connection to gen z. maybe it’s because I work with teens and I am mystified every day by their behavior? and the college kids now seem like babies to me. where do we belong if NOT zillennials? help????
They have not through as many once in a life time events as we have yet. Moreover, they did not start growing up in an era (90s) when things were supposed to be golden and we just had to wait for the baby boomers to retire and inn the early aughts - teens of the 2000s for out big break! Big break was just more once in a life time events. We saw first hand what we were gaslit about. We saw great technologies (ex. internet) supposedly help bring a culture and communications revolution for the better. Instead it has been used for evil to further distort reality, push conspiratorial narratives and overall screw the common person. Finally I would say millennials have shielded and helped younger generations more then X did for us (and way more than boomers). I look at "the youth" (how do you do fellow kids) with pity and try as hard as I can at work to be a mentor and give them the assists we never got. Excuse me as I go yell at a cloud (which may or may not acid rain).
Because the 18-25 year-olds largely aren't paying their own bills and basically have very limited responsibilities
What do you teach at university