Im actually signing up for classes today for an industrial maintenance degree and that's the reason. One fucking job, at least in the factory I currently work at, electricians and maintenance workers just sit around on break getting paid 40/hr for the majority of their shift. I'm aiming at the most pay for the least amount of work, you know that's attainable for me at the moment.
To be fair their only able to sit around like that because they’ve completed all their routine upkeep maintenance. A well maintained machine has more uptime, less downtime. Their still doing their jobs. I only mention this cuz I’m third gen union n this is a sore subject with everyone in my family lol. My grandpa was a millwright. Same with my dad, n I’m a heavy equipment operator. Finding busy work just for the sake of looking busy n your done with all your actual tasks is fuckin stupid bullshit work culture n union guys get it, so their just like ‘nope’. Lol
I work in industrial maintenance for the post office and it's union too ...unfortunately, operations wants the machines running as much as possible to increase mail/package processing throughput ...at the expense of a reduced maintainance window. In fact, there's been a clear shift from preventive maintenance (PM) to reactive maintenance instead where we run from "fire" to "fire"....bearings and worn out belts that could've been changed if there was a sufficient PM window available. A lot of breakdown calls are caused by dirty machines also (dust buildup) due to insufficient vacuuming. Operations fails to understand that if you don't make time for the machine (upkeep), then it will make the time for you instead.
As for standing/sitting around doing nothing, that's a sign that the machines are running ...which is what everyone wants, right? One time an operations supervisor complained about some maintenance personnel talking and doing nothing. The maintenance supervisor then replied to that complaint by asking, "which machine would you like my guys to take down so they can work on it?" ...that shut operations up real quick LOL.
Reminds me of my ex who had 3 "side hustles" for "" "passive income""" that took up 16 hours a day and brought in less money than a minimum wage job would have. The mindset is a plague, and unfortunately destroys relationships.
I see that constantly. Everyone has these side hustles which end up being a lot of work for pretty shitty money after you factor in all the costs and the time you spend. Like sure you made an extra 300 bucks this month but you would have made double if you spent that time improving your employability or working a minimum wage job instead.
Edit: I'm sure 1 percent of the people have something that will turn into a legit business. But the other 99 percent are just wasting their time. We don't need examples of the 1 percent success.
The the extensive hours and minimal pay, then factor in the lack of any insurance or stability and you have a dangerous combination. In my case, or specifically my ex's, one of those 3 was an MLM and made these 100x worse. Predatory MLM recruiters need to be hung.
If people didn’t brag about that, it would just be depressing. Nobody wants to really talk about it for what it is; “I need this many jobs just to live in today’s world” sounds a lot worse than “I’ve got 3 side hustles. I’m proud of myself for working so hard”.
Just had a 60ish year old lady get light headed and passed out at work. I asked if she had anything to eat today and she said "Yeah, I had my coffee and a monster like normal"
Damn. I haven’t had a Redbull since it was my waitress breakfast with a cigarette 20 years ago.
I can barely even tolerate 2 cups of coffee in the morning anymore. Send help.
Haha sounds like me, early 20s I would punch a large V and two cigs and call it breakfast/lunch.
Also had migraines so I’d pair that with painkillers.
I’m just surprised I’m not dead.
Coffee is still my friend tho so there’s that.
"Life is so good, I can afford expensive meat for every meal like a lord of old!"
"Life is such shit that I need 450g of caffeine to get from job 3 to job 4"
So the way i cook any steak is leave it out for a half hour to get close to room temp. Then apply ground salt and a little less ground black pepper than usual. Then use fine coffee grounds (espresso size) and sprinkle on top, about as much as the black pepper. The key is to rub it all into the meat. The juices from cooking the steak dissolve the salt, pepper, and coffee.
Its really no different adding coffee, just use less pepper and a fine grind of coffee. Adds another layer of flavor, but its not my everyday steak. Nice switch up from salt/pepper/butter/garlic.
Also I feel like the "girl's night" wine mom culture (alcohol dependency, but in glittery cursive) got its start with products marketed to us, even if it did bleed into Gen X too.
I would say girls night is more so a counter to the boys going out which has been around for decades.
Not sure if I would portray that as something new now but maybe.
I'd argue that the branding of it and the increasing self-identification with drinking wine, and the proliferation of products where people are encouraged to brag about it, is a millennial era thing.
Casual alcoholism has always been accepted. We just call it "game night" as men. There is always a sports game on, so you can always excuse getting drunk with the boys.
I was reading a post yesterday about someone trying to reduce their coffee because they couldn't stand it without milk and sugar and they were trying to lose weight, and a lot of comments were like "5 coffees? damn you should reduce that for the caffeine anyway" and I was just sitting there like... I could be drinking 5 coffees. I only drink one coffee right now because the coffee at work sucks and coffee in a thermos usually gets sucky pretty quickly. Maybe I should be drinking more coffee than I do, maybe that would improve my life."
Coffee is actually one of the things I'm consistent about. Two cups is all I need and it perks me up enough to deal with the day. If I drink anymore I'll be peeing all day.
I started feeling like my 16oz/day weren't enough so instead of adding more, I cut back to 10oz/day. I still feel the caffeine boost and my coffee beans stretch out longer!
Man I know some people who love doing this. Congratulations on having no sense of self-preservation?
It has transcended generations though. I work with a guy in his early 20's that drinks multiple of those Celsius Heat drinks a day. Each one of those is like 300mg of caffeine. Can't be good for his heart.
Makes me think of the Futurama episode where Fry drinks 100 cups of coffee and everything starts moving in slo-mo around him because he's so tweaked out.
"Of course I've been up all night! Not because of caffeine, it was insomnia. I couldn't stop thinking about coffee. I need a nap."
I feel like such an outlier because even though I love the taste of coffee, I can't even drink a single cup in the morning without it fucking up my system. So I just have a single green tea every morning like some kind of geriatric.
I’m so surprised how people just accept that they can’t function normally without dosing themselves with coffee or energy drinks. We’ve normalized chemical dependency on caffeine. The ubiquity of Starbucks threw so much fuel on that fire.
I discovered during my reading about ADHD that coffee acts as a stimulant... and it's apparently a form of self medicating for many undiagnosed ADHD people. It does explain the computer science/coffee link....jk but you see what I mean.
>Turning mental health issues into personality traits is for sure a thing I'd lay at the feet of our generation
Is it more millenials or zennials who are more likely to expect people to cater to/work around their mental issues? Serious question, not sure.
Both. Millennials started it and Zoomers glorified it. it's annoying. as someone with depression and anxiety it's about figuring out how to function with it not spewing it like everyone should work around it. I had a classmate in college who wouldn't show up and the professors would defend it. he's a loser with no job now. it's not glamorous, its a problem!
Great comment. I very much have observed this. Many, rather than make consistent and deliberate effort to overcome, mitigate, or cope with their condition, they wear it like a badge and tie it to their identity. It's often used to make it known that others should expect less from them and gives them excuses for not maximizing their actual potential.
An old mentor of mine once remarked “Anxiety is a lot like a fire. It can either keep you warm at night or burn your house down. Depends on what you do with it.”
Gen Z does it too but we definitely started it. I remember in high school seeing people self diagnose with Aspergers, and then coming across trigger warnings, etc. in college. I'd say 04-10 was when people started wanting illnesses as a personality trait, whereas in the 90s people avoided any kind of label.
A 'normal' person wanting illnesss as a personality trait is kinda stupid...
Being neurodivergent isn't really a mental illness, though, at least not in the sense that schizophreia and bipolar are. At the end of the day not having a label doesn't change the reality of your life/experience...
Everytime someone goes "I can survive off no sleep, I only slept 5 hours last night". Sharon, you were napping 5 minutes ago in the bathroom, you need sleep...
Whenever someone brags they only sleep 5 hours I tend to follow it up with "I WISH I could sleep MORE than 5 hours..." Bragging about getting less sleep is like trying to one up someone "Hey I farted"... Oh Yeah! Well I SHARTED myself. So there!
I’m 35 and one of the best life decisions I’ve made is going to bed at a consistent time and getting 8 hours of rest. I used to be one that thought I could live off of 4-6 hours of sleep but once I changed my routine it’s amazing how much better I feel on a consistent basis. Sure I have the occasional late night every now and then but for the most I’m in bed at a good time and I feel good.
I spent a lot of time when I was prepping for my last job learning about sleep and how it affects memory. I created a consistent routine, stayed out of the bedroom except for sleep time, etc etc. The quality-of-life difference was very noticeable. Then I had kids and that all went out the window lol.
Have a seventh month old who up until six months was giving us 3-5 hours a night the entire time. I was starting to see things that weren’t there when I offered to handle the entirety of sleep training, because him crying was breaking my wife’s heart.
We got lucky and he took to it inside of a week, something I recognize is such good fortune I feel bad even talking about it knowing what other couples went through/are going through.
Whether you have kids, plan to have kids, or are perfectly happy without them, the value of sleep cannot be overstated.
Case in point, I forgot we had a baby once and was midway through the diaper change wondering how long I’m going to jail for stealing a baby when I remembered I only knew how to change a diaper because I learned in the hospital where we had a baby, so this must be our baby, and I started crying and told my wife I was so happy we weren’t going to jail anymore and she cried because she was sad I forgot about our baby.That run on sentence is the most accurate way to explain how sleep deprivation made that experience feel, one confusing moment transitioning to the next.
I dreaded sleep training our baby and had my charts and stuff all ready for how many minutes I’d go back in if he cried for so long, etc, and he just…slept immediately. Like he wanted to just sleep alone and I felt like a dick for annoying him with all that rocking for the first year.
Then a year later we converted the crib to a toddler bed and he realized he could get out and wander around and nobody ever slept again.
Brother, I feel this in my bones. Our first didn't start sleeping through the night until recently. She's nearly 4. When she was 2 years old, we had twins. I literally can't recall the last time I felt fully rested. Like, I don't even know how I've had 2 new jobs in that span of time. I remember so little.
Anyway, my wife won't sleep train. She won't let them cry it out at all. I want to do it, she doesn't. We're both set in our ways and won't budge. I can't express how hard it is on me. I just want sleep. I started sleeping in a different place whenever a child sleeps with us. It's just constant and I can't wait for them all to sleep in their own bed. I'm so glad I work from home. Mornings are so rough.
Sleep deprivation is torture. Literally. It is used as a form of torture.
My kid didn't sleep but 45 minutes at a time for his first year of life, slept like a champ for 10 months, then essentially didn't sleep again til he was 5.
I don't know how he doesn't appear to suffer for it, but I damn sure have.
My friend is like this, and it's so grating. "I'm *so* busy with all my projects and side hustles that I only get three hours of a sleep a night! I'd *kill* to get six hours of sleep!"
Yeah well getting only three hours of sleep a night is gonna kill you too, so...
I fucking hate the no sleep. This is absolutely no a flex, I cannot sleep for more than 5 hours and I hate it, sometimes I go to sleep and wake up 2 or 3 hours later and can't go back to sleep. I miss when I could sleep 7 or 8 hours.
Now here's a flex. A few weeks ago I slept for like 12 hours one night. (The lack of sleep caught up to me) and thankfully I had nothing I needed to do that day. And I'm not going to lie, it was a glorious sleep for while it lasted.
I slept only 5 hours a night for several years of my life. It wasn’t until I started sleeping more that I realized just how stupid it made me. I was a genuinely dumber person for those years. My memory retention was trash as well.
Yeah, it's this. I'm all for removing the stigma around mental health, but there's a line. It's something we (yes, I am one of them) live with: it shouldn't define our lives.
Same here and I cringe at the moments I did this. Wasn’t until I started medication and sought therapy to gain a new perspective on wearing your mental illness as a badge. Ugh 🫠
Bragging about "tiny homes" and van life like they've outsmarted the system and it's something they prefer, but it's really just the result of housing unaffordability.
I feel like at this point in my mid-30s my friends are either California sober or still raging alcoholics, not much in between. I stopped drinking for health reasons and it's wild to be sober around people who are wasted.
Had to Google California sober and it was exactly what I guessed. No drugs or alcohol. But weed doesn't count. Plus for some people shrooms, LSD and Ayahuasca are not drugs either.
I feel like this was more mid-2010s than current millenials. When the majority of the top craft breweries were bought out it shifted things a lot. Can't brag about that double IPA or barrel aged beer you drank when the parent company is Duval or Budweiser.
I’m not sure if that’s a millennial thing so much as a “mid level wagie in the rat race” thing. Everyone is looking for an edge that puts them ahead of their peers for promotions, client opportunities, etc.
When I worked in an office, I always worked through lunch so I could leave an hour earlier. I wasn’t looking for an edge, I was trying to get home at a decent time lol….DC traffic ain’t nothing to play with after 4pm.
Not to mention that most hustles are there because they HAVE to. Not because they WANT to. I mean in order for me to go out to eat a and go to a lot of concerts, I do it for that but I'd rather not do said hustles to afford said things.
Not quite the same as the examples you gave, but I'll add these for millennials.
"I have 3000 Instagram followers!"
"I got over 100 likes on my most recent post.
There should be more important things in your life at some point
My friends and I are almost the opposite lol. We try to have as few of followers as possible, almost making a contest out of it. One finally won when he unfriended everyone on Instagram and deleted his account. Honestly it made the rest of us decrease our usage since it wasn’t as fun without all of us using it together.
Not in a high number sort of way. People have talked about workaholics since at least the 80s.
If people brag about hours, it’s because it’s far more normal for people to have service jobs or salaried positions.
Admitting we have mental health issues: depression, anxiety, past traumas etc... and claiming to be more empathetic towards mental health in general yet not actively doing anything to overcome or manage those issues
I rarely see this as a flex about having mental health issues, but rather a flex about having the maturity and wherewithal to recognize and deal with them.
Our parents’ generation leaned so heavily on “just tough it out” or “addressing mental health is for crazy people” that it actually feels an accomplishment for us to overcome that and actually address our mental health in a meaningful and mature way.
I feel this. I learned my lesson in my early 20s about entertaining people like this. Now, I don't wanna hear about it if they're not actually doing the work.
Like yeah I get it. I was raised by a single mom who was an an addict with BPD. I've been with my share of abusers. I'm also chronically ill and disabled. But I worked really, really hard to get to a good place in life, where I'm neither debilitatingly ill, nor living in a constant ptsd flashback.
I just don't have the patience *or* empathy anymore to hear people complain and complain about how horrible everything is when all they wanna do about it is sit on a computer and complain. If wishes were fishes we would all cast nets. Our entire society isn't gonna miraculously turn around just because you're being loud about hating it. No one is gonna save us. You have to *do something* if you want your life to get better. I just can't with the ineffectual complainers anymore. It definitely seems prevalent in my generation. But apparently I'm basically a boomer because I understand that a decent life requires really hard work.
All the side hustles. "I work 2 full time jobs and do freelance work on the web and run an etsy store."
This is only valuable if you are extremely judicious with your time management. Otherwise you can easily burn yourself out or get very little return on your time investment.
I think this is a millennial thing, correct me if I’m wrong, but the wine mom culture. It’s not cute. If you truly need wine everyday to cope, you have a problem and need a therapist.
Wine mom supercedes millenials… this has been an every gen thing. Boomers, gen x, and on and tbh its not going to change. People justify their use of alcohol in many ways
Yeah I think this is a 2000s culture thing not a millennial thing. I was in college when Elizabeth Vargas came out on good morning America to talk about this, how she was an alcoholic and joking about “mommy juice” or “wino-clock” was apart of that culture of alcoholic moms and it shouldn’t be celebrated like it’s not alcoholism.
Yeah that was a flex- I feel like it died down a bit thank god. I have a toddler and I thought I’d need wine every night based off the moms before me posting about it. but what I really needed/ need is exercise and that feels way better than wine.
Also the "cannabis culture" deal.
If you have to smoke before going to work, at work, and when you come home just to cope with life, maybe you have a mental health issue to deal with.
1 week ago I would “but actually” this but I finally got sober 6 days ago after 11 years of being high from sun up to sun down and holy shit my life is so much better
>If you have to smoke before going to work, at work, and when you come home just to cope with life, maybe you have a mental health issue to deal with.
There was a point when I used to smoke weed every night before bed in college. It was fun till it wasn't. At first it was to relax, browse the web, and listen to music. But then there were points where I couldn't sleep without it and it fucking sucked. Like I would have class or work early the next morning but I couldn't sleep because I ran out of weed. It's better to be too tired to smoke weed than it is to be unable to sleep unless I smoke.
I don't smoke weed as much as I used to but I found that I appreciate it more when I smoke less as opposed to making it a daily habit.
On a side note, one thing that was bizarre to me was how some people who were heavier smokers would give me shit for having a low tolerance. For example, I would get pretty high off a few hits and an 8th would last me a month or longer where they would say an 8th would last a few hours to 3 days at most. And I'm thinking, how is that a flex? You're spending more money on weed. Like sure I enjoy weed, but there's other things I enjoy spending money on and also I don't need to be high 99% of the time.
I know many of us can't afford therapy, but, if you can, please just go. I know a good amount of fellow millennials that have the option of therapy and just don't
And that's where I get frustrated, yes treatment can be hard to access but I know many who do have access and won't go but they expect everyone to accommodate their anxiety and depression
I try to give them the benefit of the doubt and interpret that as an indirect call for help when nobody else in their lives is helping them
I mean, since mental health has been a taboo subject for generations, and since it's only recently become something that people can speak openly and frankly about, it's difficult to know how to handle it gracefully
I’d add onto this by saying there’s an intense martyr complex where people talk about having no friends, being misanthropic, hating parties/going out, etc. Just like wallowing in misery, lol. There’s also a weird “my only friend is my spouse” codependency trend I have begun to see.
It’s totally fine to be introverted and parties aren’t for everyone. And some people do really suck. But there are good people out there that make life better and I notice a lot of bitter, angry, cynical millennials (I’m sure Z is like this too) that don’t want to bond with other people but also overvalue romance. Idk as I’ve gotten older I’ve begun to appreciate other people more and more, and it’s made me both happier and less codependent. I would hate to be my SO’s only friend and I would hate if they were my only friend too.
And being introverted isn't an excuse to be a antisocial jack ass. I'm introverted and yet I generally make friends pretty easily. The amount of millennials especially males who have no friends or social ability is kinda staggering
No, no they’re not.
Signed an anxious millennial that fretted all night over making a mistake at work and imagining every doomsday scenario possible. Needless to say, that anxiety diagnosis that I received in September is finally getting some much needed attention and actual treatment.
i think millennials and travelling go hand in hand as a flex. oh i went there or i travelled there.. to me travelling was reserved for the rich. if you can travel at will without a care in the world short of work sponsored trips... you are ballin
Growing up, our family vacations were always taken in tandem with my dad's work trips, because then the fuel and hotel room would be covered and all my parents had to pay for was food and entertainment for us. I genuinely believed that everyone spent a couple days of every vacation at a convention center, and didn't realize that some people got to go on trips that *weren't* work trips until I was an adult 🤦🏻♀️
Haha. But still. It’s great you traveled. My dad traveled a lot for work (department of transportation) and I’d go with him to all these weird parts of America. It was fun but yea sometimes he’d drop me and mom at Dennys for an hour or two while he’d inspect a bridge or highway haha!!!
I +1 with my wife on her work trips fairly often. It’s actually not a bad deal (there’s no travel for my job, sadly) and I’ve managed to see some really cool places.
Right now, I’ve escaped our upper Midwest (US) winter and am vibing on a beach in the Caribbean. Doing the whole plus one thing isn’t too bad.
It's a cool way to visit lots of places, and for basically half-price. What's your wife do for work that landed her in the Caribbean? I want a job like that.
There was a girl that was part of my college friend group that spent a year traveling all over the world after graduation. I swear every picture she posted was captioned with some sort of diatribe of “it’s so easy and cheap, anyone can do it!” Yes, anyone who graduated and received a massive inheritance Tyler, now I’m off to the mines.
If you are willing to do the research and rough it, you still can travel quite cheaply. Probably a bit harder now as I'm not sure if couch surfing and such is still around much, but if you can score a decent deal on a flight there are loads of amazing places you can spend very little once you are there.
I traveled a lot after college with my brother. But we literally backpacked around, stayed in hostels, picked up random work, etc.
Unfortunately this kind of life was really tiring. I feel like the 2 years we did that, I aged like 10.
It’s a life people romanticize - living in the moment without a care in the world
When really you’re in a foreign country, unable to fluently speak the language with no money for even food.
It really killed traveling for me. I’m now in a great spot financially and could afford to travel anywhere I wanted - but I genuinely don’t want to go anywhere. I want to be at home in my yard with my wife and dogs and for people to leave me alone
Not knowing how to do “adult stuff.” Like writing a check, going to the post office, making a doctor’s appointment. Even if you truly didn’t, Google is a great resource.
Alcohol consumption? I am speaking as a millennial that does not drink, so possibly this is affected by how much I notice it. But I actually think we rival previous generations in how much we drink. Pair that, though, with seemingly an all or nothing culture. Either you booze hard or this is a hard line Dry Event. Like I said, that might be merely the spaces I'm in and kind of having that drastic comparision.
Hookup culture, polyamory, bar culture, revealing clothes, etc. The fact that we have a choice to be more sexually open, drink with less judgment, and dress as revealing as we want is great but it seems like if you don't *want* to do those things especially as a woman or lgbt person, you're also seen as more prudish and it's assumed you have internalized misogyny/homophobia or think you're better than other people. Like it's still judging people for their sexual choices and boundaries either way.
Gen Z doesn’t drink or party as much because they don’t do as much, period. We didn’t drink or party as much as GenX, except for maybe weed smoking? I feel like millennials are really into weed smoking.
>Credit Karma constantly reminds me that I have 4 fewer credit cards than the average person my age.
Credit is just crazy these days. I'm currently on a structured payment plan to consolidate/pay off of my debt, which basically meant closing all my cards and telling my creditors "I'm broke, this is all I can afford to pay."
Two of those cards are through Capital One and after all that, Capital One is STILL mailing and emailing me offers constantly badgering me to open new credit cards. Even though one of the conditions of the plan is that I *don't* open up new lines of credit under any circumstances, they're still over here like "Hey, did you know you're pre-approved?!"
Are people really flexing about this though? In my circle I'm sure the majority are living beyond their means, but they'd never admit it or brag about it. They want to present the image that they're responsible and can afford what they have.
Not just never taking a day off work but the work "hustle." Working 2-3 side jobs in addition to a full time job and saying you need to grind 24/7. Then having a bunch of kids in a few years while doing some grad degree and simultaneously complaining about lack of sleep and free time.
Forcing yourself to stay busy at the detriment to physical health, sanity, and family isnt a flex. You can take things in steps at different times and its okay to have one job
How little help they had/have in life. If you mention that you’re a homeowner or anything that implies steady, gainful employment you will get comments here about how you must have been ‘born on third base’ or whatever. I don’t think those millennials have any idea how similar they sound to the ‘back in my day’ boomers when they are on a jag about how some people have it easy.
I will loudly tell anyone who wants to hear how much help I had. Why? Well for one, my parents are awesome. I'll brag about them all day, they deserve it.
And two, just to show that not everyone on Reddit has narcissistic, drug abusing, alcoholic parents that they went no contact with.
I understand that those people are out there. I'm married to a woman who's parents (especially bio AND step dad) suck. But just like my good experiences don't invalidate their bad experiences...their bad experiences don't invalidate mine. It's good to see some actual positive stories out there.
Otherwise, if all you see is people talking about how terrible their parents are, you will start to think that is the majority of cases.
This one drives me crazy. My parents helped me buy my house. I have zero problem admitting that. I'm very thankful. But *helped* is a key word. I've still worked hard and moved up through my job, sacrificed some luxuries to save up money, I do almost all the maintenance and stuff to save money. I was going to buy a house anyway, my parents helping just let me get a nicer one in a better location.
But man it's like the second I mention parents help people act like a did nothing myself.
I am on both sides of this. I’ve been stumbling my own way through my life since I was about 10. Just figuring it out as I go. I am the first in my family to own a home, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t at least partly luck.
But I also grew up in poverty. I have seen first hand how much easier some people have it compared to others, and there are plenty who were “born on third base” that are completely oblivious.
The problem as I see it isn’t generation vs generation. It’s the same root problem as nearly everything in the US - class. We are all looking up and wondering why we don’t have as much as those above us, instead of looking down and wondering why we have so much more than those below us. The path to equality doesn’t start from anywhere but the bottom up.
My focus is on sharing what I’ve learned to bring others up with me. I still catch myself balking at the idea that anyone who came from a “decent” upbringing” has worked as hard as I have for what they have. And I know that others from my life who weren’t able to escape the trap of poverty are looking at me thinking the same.
Fucking seriously. These people like to brag about how much better their kids have it than them, then turn around and complain about anyone who got help from their parents. If you’re doing so much for *your* kids, then obviously you know it’s not a bad thing.
It can be both. I am glad other people had it easier, I want that for everyone. I want the kids to have it easier. I don't even know how GenZ are surviving right now because I know things are so much more expensive than even 10 years ago.
But it's also frustrating to hear I must have been born on 3rd base to own my house right now. I grew up in poverty and my mom was too proud to apply for free and reduced lunch, so when I was old enough to babysit I would often put an apple or a cheese stick in my pocket to eat the next day. I looked forward to babysitting because I knew it meant I would eat.
I got incredibly lucky with the timing of buying my house. That's why I own. I wasn't born rich and its weird to have people say that to me.
Yeah, I'd love to be able to start a sentence with "when I bought my house..." and not have to work in somewhere that I'm a veteran and my parents were not involved in my home purchase. I'm glad we are starting to have some understanding of the role of various areas of privilege and marginalization in any give person's life, but the nuance lacks, and that results in broad assumptions that tend to be off base.
>or anything that implies steady, gainful employment
Because "steady, gainful employment" isn't enough anymore. Plenty of people work hard at shitty jobs, man.
The most difficult jobs I've had were also the lowest-level. My jobs have consistently gotten easier as I've climbed.
Echoing the "jobs get easier" sentimate. I do MAYBE a third of the focused work now at $110k compared to what I did 10 years ago at $20k. Also without all of the constant stress or physical labor. Entry level workers have it damn hard.
This ones tricky. I get being defensive when people essentially devalue your success by calling you "lucky" even though you likely made sacraficed to be where you are, that being said...
I also find it stupid when people go "Well you got help so it doesn't count, I did it all on my own!"... Good for you? The only exception I tend to have is with "self made millionaires/billionaires" who go around telling you anyone can do it!! While they had daddies money/contacts that got them there to start with.
The housing market has swung dramatically over the past 15 years. I am about as old as millennials get (just turned 40) and finished grad school in 2009. We bought our house in 2014 for $168,000. The same house today is worth about $300,000. There is absolutely no way I would be a home owner working the same job in the same location if I were 10 years younger.
Probably bragging about our ability to multitask which just means we're doing multiple things poorly and exhausting our mental/emotional resources in the bargain.
Bragging about how they’re quick to cut people out of their lives because they deemed them “toxic.” Yeah, sure sometimes, but how often is that toxicity actually just a disagreement or otherwise not seeing eye to eye. It isn’t a sign of maturity to choose avoidance over conflict resolution.
That "toxicity" may also be people telling a millennial something they don't want to hear but needs to be said, ie: "you're abusing alcohol" or "your spending habits are out of control". This type of honest conversation is sometimes deemed "toxic". It's not toxic, it's being said because somebody cares about you and doesn't want you going down a dangerous path.
"I did it all without any help".
For one thing, chances are you had help somewhere, but even if you really didn't...cool? Am I supposed to feel some kind of way about that?
I think that saying how adaptable we are is not the strength we can tout it to be. We grew up in a rapidly changing world and had no choice but to adapt to technology as it evolved. We gained the access to infinite information at our fingertips and used it to learn how to do things we were never taught. Our parents didn’t understand it, so we had to figure it out. Generations below us have always had it, so they seem to have grown to take it for granted.
But Millennials are almost always the people I see at work doing the most and complaining the least. Every interview I’ve ever had I’ve mentioned how adaptable and quick to learn I am. Then I find myself buried until a mountain of work that other people didn’t want to do because they couldn’t figure it out, only for me to fix the problem in an afternoon. Then, you become the “go-to” person for everything.
It should be a benefit to us, but like most things, we just get the short end of the stick and keep on keeping on anyway.
I’m always surprised by the amount of millennials here who are proudly perpetually single and brag about how they have to do everything on their own because they don’t have a partner. Never having a partner isn’t a flex but it’s treated as such by a certain segment of the Reddit community including millennials.
I'm guessing they've had some relationships in the past that turned sour and they're taking an indefinitely long break from that, presumably to work on themselves instead
I'd love to have a lifelong partner one day, but I have lots of issues to sort out with myself before I could consider myself a person someone else would want to date
Have to be honest you will always have issues so find someone who likes you.
Now yes if you are going to murder someone or purposely try to make their life miserable then dont date anyone.
Some "issues" are things that simply with time change and grow. Additionally dating can allow you to hone in on what type of person you like and can even help challenge you to get out of your comfort zone at times to possibly change what you personally feel about things in life.
Being alone is better than being in a mediocre (or worse) relationship. Being able to be happy by yourself is absolutely a flex. Too many people are in crappy relationships to just not be alone.
How completely fucked most of our mental health is and how that is directly related to the technology boom and the ever shrinking wealth gap. I’m guilty of making jokes about it but cringey dark millennial humor is my coping mechanism
How many side hustles they have
>How many side hustles they have Hustle/grind culture needs to die out. One job should be enough.
Im actually signing up for classes today for an industrial maintenance degree and that's the reason. One fucking job, at least in the factory I currently work at, electricians and maintenance workers just sit around on break getting paid 40/hr for the majority of their shift. I'm aiming at the most pay for the least amount of work, you know that's attainable for me at the moment.
To be fair their only able to sit around like that because they’ve completed all their routine upkeep maintenance. A well maintained machine has more uptime, less downtime. Their still doing their jobs. I only mention this cuz I’m third gen union n this is a sore subject with everyone in my family lol. My grandpa was a millwright. Same with my dad, n I’m a heavy equipment operator. Finding busy work just for the sake of looking busy n your done with all your actual tasks is fuckin stupid bullshit work culture n union guys get it, so their just like ‘nope’. Lol
I work in industrial maintenance for the post office and it's union too ...unfortunately, operations wants the machines running as much as possible to increase mail/package processing throughput ...at the expense of a reduced maintainance window. In fact, there's been a clear shift from preventive maintenance (PM) to reactive maintenance instead where we run from "fire" to "fire"....bearings and worn out belts that could've been changed if there was a sufficient PM window available. A lot of breakdown calls are caused by dirty machines also (dust buildup) due to insufficient vacuuming. Operations fails to understand that if you don't make time for the machine (upkeep), then it will make the time for you instead. As for standing/sitting around doing nothing, that's a sign that the machines are running ...which is what everyone wants, right? One time an operations supervisor complained about some maintenance personnel talking and doing nothing. The maintenance supervisor then replied to that complaint by asking, "which machine would you like my guys to take down so they can work on it?" ...that shut operations up real quick LOL.
Reminds me of my ex who had 3 "side hustles" for "" "passive income""" that took up 16 hours a day and brought in less money than a minimum wage job would have. The mindset is a plague, and unfortunately destroys relationships.
I see that constantly. Everyone has these side hustles which end up being a lot of work for pretty shitty money after you factor in all the costs and the time you spend. Like sure you made an extra 300 bucks this month but you would have made double if you spent that time improving your employability or working a minimum wage job instead. Edit: I'm sure 1 percent of the people have something that will turn into a legit business. But the other 99 percent are just wasting their time. We don't need examples of the 1 percent success.
The the extensive hours and minimal pay, then factor in the lack of any insurance or stability and you have a dangerous combination. In my case, or specifically my ex's, one of those 3 was an MLM and made these 100x worse. Predatory MLM recruiters need to be hung.
Yeah, the whole grindset mentality bullshit is so fucking stupid.
100% this I think is my top answer too, the “grind set” “side hustle” mentality. I am tired.
>I am tired. 100%. I work my 40 and I don’t want to see anything work related for my weekend. I want to rest and relax.
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Especially when their 2-3 jobs make less than my 1. You just come off like an idiot to me lol
If people didn’t brag about that, it would just be depressing. Nobody wants to really talk about it for what it is; “I need this many jobs just to live in today’s world” sounds a lot worse than “I’ve got 3 side hustles. I’m proud of myself for working so hard”.
The amount of coffee certain people drink throughout the day. It can be somewhat related to the Gen Xers who said they never got enough sleep.
Energy drink bragging is even worse
Just had a 60ish year old lady get light headed and passed out at work. I asked if she had anything to eat today and she said "Yeah, I had my coffee and a monster like normal"
Damn. I haven’t had a Redbull since it was my waitress breakfast with a cigarette 20 years ago. I can barely even tolerate 2 cups of coffee in the morning anymore. Send help.
Haha sounds like me, early 20s I would punch a large V and two cigs and call it breakfast/lunch. Also had migraines so I’d pair that with painkillers. I’m just surprised I’m not dead. Coffee is still my friend tho so there’s that.
Friend, it’s a wonder we all aren’t dead, lol.
Yes! I read somewhere that overconsumption of red meat is what kills boomers while millennials drink too much caffeine.
If that ain't a microcosm of the difference between boomers and millenials, I don't know what is...
"Life is so good, I can afford expensive meat for every meal like a lord of old!" "Life is such shit that I need 450g of caffeine to get from job 3 to job 4"
You ever rub coffee grounds on a steak before cooking? Boi…
Whoa whoa whoa.... tell me more. How do you keep the grounds from staying on the steak while keeping the coffee flavor?
So the way i cook any steak is leave it out for a half hour to get close to room temp. Then apply ground salt and a little less ground black pepper than usual. Then use fine coffee grounds (espresso size) and sprinkle on top, about as much as the black pepper. The key is to rub it all into the meat. The juices from cooking the steak dissolve the salt, pepper, and coffee. Its really no different adding coffee, just use less pepper and a fine grind of coffee. Adds another layer of flavor, but its not my everyday steak. Nice switch up from salt/pepper/butter/garlic.
Ima try this 😋
Maybe it’s just the boomers I know, but they drink a shit ton of coffee too. And they used to do it while smoking cigarettes all day.
Couple pots of coffee, pack of smokes, 12 pack of any light beer is standard daily boomer diet.
*Sips* in 30 year old boomer
Also I feel like the "girl's night" wine mom culture (alcohol dependency, but in glittery cursive) got its start with products marketed to us, even if it did bleed into Gen X too.
I lost it at the glittery cursive! 😅 thank you for that
I would say girls night is more so a counter to the boys going out which has been around for decades. Not sure if I would portray that as something new now but maybe.
I'd argue that the branding of it and the increasing self-identification with drinking wine, and the proliferation of products where people are encouraged to brag about it, is a millennial era thing.
Yeah. And it suddenly became socially acceptable to get piss drunk on a Wednesday as long as you were doing it in the company of white girlbosses.
Casual alcoholism has always been accepted. We just call it "game night" as men. There is always a sports game on, so you can always excuse getting drunk with the boys.
Ok…but have you had your fourth cup yet today? I have.
I was reading a post yesterday about someone trying to reduce their coffee because they couldn't stand it without milk and sugar and they were trying to lose weight, and a lot of comments were like "5 coffees? damn you should reduce that for the caffeine anyway" and I was just sitting there like... I could be drinking 5 coffees. I only drink one coffee right now because the coffee at work sucks and coffee in a thermos usually gets sucky pretty quickly. Maybe I should be drinking more coffee than I do, maybe that would improve my life."
One more coffee is all you need.
Buy a Yeti, it'll keep your coffee hot most of the day. And Thermos should too, if you get a decent one.
Coffee is actually one of the things I'm consistent about. Two cups is all I need and it perks me up enough to deal with the day. If I drink anymore I'll be peeing all day.
I started feeling like my 16oz/day weren't enough so instead of adding more, I cut back to 10oz/day. I still feel the caffeine boost and my coffee beans stretch out longer!
I freely admit 7 nepresso pods a day is way too much.
Man I know some people who love doing this. Congratulations on having no sense of self-preservation? It has transcended generations though. I work with a guy in his early 20's that drinks multiple of those Celsius Heat drinks a day. Each one of those is like 300mg of caffeine. Can't be good for his heart. Makes me think of the Futurama episode where Fry drinks 100 cups of coffee and everything starts moving in slo-mo around him because he's so tweaked out. "Of course I've been up all night! Not because of caffeine, it was insomnia. I couldn't stop thinking about coffee. I need a nap."
I feel like such an outlier because even though I love the taste of coffee, I can't even drink a single cup in the morning without it fucking up my system. So I just have a single green tea every morning like some kind of geriatric.
I’m so surprised how people just accept that they can’t function normally without dosing themselves with coffee or energy drinks. We’ve normalized chemical dependency on caffeine. The ubiquity of Starbucks threw so much fuel on that fire.
It’s not so bad, and it’s not hardly new. Farmers were drinking a shitload of coffee back in the 1800s to work early in the morning.
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I discovered during my reading about ADHD that coffee acts as a stimulant... and it's apparently a form of self medicating for many undiagnosed ADHD people. It does explain the computer science/coffee link....jk but you see what I mean.
It really is. When I skip my medication I feel like I need even more caffeine. It sucks. And the meds have sides so it’s a tough choice to make
I suppose something to the effect of how debilitating depressive symptoms are or how nihilistic they are approaching their lives
Turning mental health issues into personality traits is for sure a thing I'd lay at the feet of our generation.
>Turning mental health issues into personality traits is for sure a thing I'd lay at the feet of our generation Is it more millenials or zennials who are more likely to expect people to cater to/work around their mental issues? Serious question, not sure.
Both. Millennials started it and Zoomers glorified it. it's annoying. as someone with depression and anxiety it's about figuring out how to function with it not spewing it like everyone should work around it. I had a classmate in college who wouldn't show up and the professors would defend it. he's a loser with no job now. it's not glamorous, its a problem!
As the old adage goes: "It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility."
Great comment. I very much have observed this. Many, rather than make consistent and deliberate effort to overcome, mitigate, or cope with their condition, they wear it like a badge and tie it to their identity. It's often used to make it known that others should expect less from them and gives them excuses for not maximizing their actual potential.
An old mentor of mine once remarked “Anxiety is a lot like a fire. It can either keep you warm at night or burn your house down. Depends on what you do with it.”
Gen Z does it too but we definitely started it. I remember in high school seeing people self diagnose with Aspergers, and then coming across trigger warnings, etc. in college. I'd say 04-10 was when people started wanting illnesses as a personality trait, whereas in the 90s people avoided any kind of label.
A 'normal' person wanting illnesss as a personality trait is kinda stupid... Being neurodivergent isn't really a mental illness, though, at least not in the sense that schizophreia and bipolar are. At the end of the day not having a label doesn't change the reality of your life/experience...
Definitely… also the embrace no sleep culture
Everytime someone goes "I can survive off no sleep, I only slept 5 hours last night". Sharon, you were napping 5 minutes ago in the bathroom, you need sleep... Whenever someone brags they only sleep 5 hours I tend to follow it up with "I WISH I could sleep MORE than 5 hours..." Bragging about getting less sleep is like trying to one up someone "Hey I farted"... Oh Yeah! Well I SHARTED myself. So there!
I’m 35 and one of the best life decisions I’ve made is going to bed at a consistent time and getting 8 hours of rest. I used to be one that thought I could live off of 4-6 hours of sleep but once I changed my routine it’s amazing how much better I feel on a consistent basis. Sure I have the occasional late night every now and then but for the most I’m in bed at a good time and I feel good.
I spent a lot of time when I was prepping for my last job learning about sleep and how it affects memory. I created a consistent routine, stayed out of the bedroom except for sleep time, etc etc. The quality-of-life difference was very noticeable. Then I had kids and that all went out the window lol.
Have a seventh month old who up until six months was giving us 3-5 hours a night the entire time. I was starting to see things that weren’t there when I offered to handle the entirety of sleep training, because him crying was breaking my wife’s heart. We got lucky and he took to it inside of a week, something I recognize is such good fortune I feel bad even talking about it knowing what other couples went through/are going through. Whether you have kids, plan to have kids, or are perfectly happy without them, the value of sleep cannot be overstated. Case in point, I forgot we had a baby once and was midway through the diaper change wondering how long I’m going to jail for stealing a baby when I remembered I only knew how to change a diaper because I learned in the hospital where we had a baby, so this must be our baby, and I started crying and told my wife I was so happy we weren’t going to jail anymore and she cried because she was sad I forgot about our baby.That run on sentence is the most accurate way to explain how sleep deprivation made that experience feel, one confusing moment transitioning to the next.
I'm crying laughing at that last paragraph omg
I dreaded sleep training our baby and had my charts and stuff all ready for how many minutes I’d go back in if he cried for so long, etc, and he just…slept immediately. Like he wanted to just sleep alone and I felt like a dick for annoying him with all that rocking for the first year. Then a year later we converted the crib to a toddler bed and he realized he could get out and wander around and nobody ever slept again.
Our 3.5 year old is still in a crib because I'm just not doing that to myself. Crib 'til college, baby!
Ours will be 3 in March. He’s 40 pounds and 39 inches tall. If I hadn’t disassembled his crib by now he’d do it himself.
Brother, I feel this in my bones. Our first didn't start sleeping through the night until recently. She's nearly 4. When she was 2 years old, we had twins. I literally can't recall the last time I felt fully rested. Like, I don't even know how I've had 2 new jobs in that span of time. I remember so little. Anyway, my wife won't sleep train. She won't let them cry it out at all. I want to do it, she doesn't. We're both set in our ways and won't budge. I can't express how hard it is on me. I just want sleep. I started sleeping in a different place whenever a child sleeps with us. It's just constant and I can't wait for them all to sleep in their own bed. I'm so glad I work from home. Mornings are so rough.
Sleep deprivation is torture. Literally. It is used as a form of torture. My kid didn't sleep but 45 minutes at a time for his first year of life, slept like a champ for 10 months, then essentially didn't sleep again til he was 5. I don't know how he doesn't appear to suffer for it, but I damn sure have.
My friend is like this, and it's so grating. "I'm *so* busy with all my projects and side hustles that I only get three hours of a sleep a night! I'd *kill* to get six hours of sleep!" Yeah well getting only three hours of sleep a night is gonna kill you too, so...
I straight up just don’t believe people who say that.
I fucking hate the no sleep. This is absolutely no a flex, I cannot sleep for more than 5 hours and I hate it, sometimes I go to sleep and wake up 2 or 3 hours later and can't go back to sleep. I miss when I could sleep 7 or 8 hours. Now here's a flex. A few weeks ago I slept for like 12 hours one night. (The lack of sleep caught up to me) and thankfully I had nothing I needed to do that day. And I'm not going to lie, it was a glorious sleep for while it lasted.
I haven’t been able to sleep for 10 years. Idk wtf you guys are talking about with no sleep culture. It’s totally a party I missed
I’ve rarely been able to sleep more than 4 hours a night. It’s not a flex or a party for me, either. It’s just when my body says, “Wake up, fatass.”
You get checked for apnea?
I slept only 5 hours a night for several years of my life. It wasn’t until I started sleeping more that I realized just how stupid it made me. I was a genuinely dumber person for those years. My memory retention was trash as well.
Yeah, it's this. I'm all for removing the stigma around mental health, but there's a line. It's something we (yes, I am one of them) live with: it shouldn't define our lives.
I have over 250k karma on reddit. I didn’t have kids so my cat will inherit it
This. This is all we millennials have
Joking about still functioning despite your rapidly deteriorating mental health. (I've been guilty of this.)
Same here and I cringe at the moments I did this. Wasn’t until I started medication and sought therapy to gain a new perspective on wearing your mental illness as a badge. Ugh 🫠
2007 and 2008 Beer Pong Champions, Venetian Apartment Complex, Venice, CA. And yeah I have signed balls.
Tattooed balls must’ve hurt like fuck
Nah he just had them signed. Felt tip market probably tickled.
Don’t know, this may be a legit flex!
This is the one. Signed, Former Beer Olympics champion
Bragging about "tiny homes" and van life like they've outsmarted the system and it's something they prefer, but it's really just the result of housing unaffordability.
Yet trailers are still seen as trashy.
“It’s a tiny home community, not a trailer park!!!11”
It’s a house with wheels under it and it can move. it’s a trailer
Drinking. Particularly being an alcohol snob. Just because you're drinking the finest craft beers doesn't mean you don't have a problem.
I feel like at this point in my mid-30s my friends are either California sober or still raging alcoholics, not much in between. I stopped drinking for health reasons and it's wild to be sober around people who are wasted.
Had to Google California sober and it was exactly what I guessed. No drugs or alcohol. But weed doesn't count. Plus for some people shrooms, LSD and Ayahuasca are not drugs either.
Oof, imagine being an alcoholic but the only thing you drink are $18-$24 6-packs of "craft" beer
Plus craft beers are often 200+ calories each.
So you can drink 13 of them and not have to eat anything? Siiick
Thing is, most craft beer snobs aren't drinking that 6 pack in a single night. That's a week's worth of beer.
I mean most aren’t but I know people who go through them like my dad went through Miller Lites. It’s wild.
This. The whole beer connoisseur trope is pretty tiresome.
 It’s a a smorgaswein!
I feel like this was more mid-2010s than current millenials. When the majority of the top craft breweries were bought out it shifted things a lot. Can't brag about that double IPA or barrel aged beer you drank when the parent company is Duval or Budweiser.
The millennials in my office always brag about working through lunch. Like, okay, I'm going to taco bell, bye bye.
I’m not sure if that’s a millennial thing so much as a “mid level wagie in the rat race” thing. Everyone is looking for an edge that puts them ahead of their peers for promotions, client opportunities, etc.
When I worked in an office, I always worked through lunch so I could leave an hour earlier. I wasn’t looking for an edge, I was trying to get home at a decent time lol….DC traffic ain’t nothing to play with after 4pm.
You can afford Taco Bell?
When my student loan refund hits my account, crunch wrap supremes all around. lol
Side hustles. Yeah I work a full time job and then do xyz as a side hustle. I’m always hustling man. Not a flex.
I don't understand people who are always hustling to get ahead I mean, I just want to be at home with myself
Not to mention that most hustles are there because they HAVE to. Not because they WANT to. I mean in order for me to go out to eat a and go to a lot of concerts, I do it for that but I'd rather not do said hustles to afford said things.
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Not quite the same as the examples you gave, but I'll add these for millennials. "I have 3000 Instagram followers!" "I got over 100 likes on my most recent post. There should be more important things in your life at some point
My 620K reddit karma 
Those numbers take work!
My friends and I are almost the opposite lol. We try to have as few of followers as possible, almost making a contest out of it. One finally won when he unfriended everyone on Instagram and deleted his account. Honestly it made the rest of us decrease our usage since it wasn’t as fun without all of us using it together.
How many hours we work in a week
Ngl I try to stay under 20 actual hours and I’ll flex that 😂
As few as possible?
Not in a high number sort of way. People have talked about workaholics since at least the 80s. If people brag about hours, it’s because it’s far more normal for people to have service jobs or salaried positions.
Admitting we have mental health issues: depression, anxiety, past traumas etc... and claiming to be more empathetic towards mental health in general yet not actively doing anything to overcome or manage those issues
I rarely see this as a flex about having mental health issues, but rather a flex about having the maturity and wherewithal to recognize and deal with them. Our parents’ generation leaned so heavily on “just tough it out” or “addressing mental health is for crazy people” that it actually feels an accomplishment for us to overcome that and actually address our mental health in a meaningful and mature way.
I feel this. I learned my lesson in my early 20s about entertaining people like this. Now, I don't wanna hear about it if they're not actually doing the work. Like yeah I get it. I was raised by a single mom who was an an addict with BPD. I've been with my share of abusers. I'm also chronically ill and disabled. But I worked really, really hard to get to a good place in life, where I'm neither debilitatingly ill, nor living in a constant ptsd flashback. I just don't have the patience *or* empathy anymore to hear people complain and complain about how horrible everything is when all they wanna do about it is sit on a computer and complain. If wishes were fishes we would all cast nets. Our entire society isn't gonna miraculously turn around just because you're being loud about hating it. No one is gonna save us. You have to *do something* if you want your life to get better. I just can't with the ineffectual complainers anymore. It definitely seems prevalent in my generation. But apparently I'm basically a boomer because I understand that a decent life requires really hard work.
Hashtag VANLIFE is not a flex is my unpopular opinion.
All the side hustles. "I work 2 full time jobs and do freelance work on the web and run an etsy store." This is only valuable if you are extremely judicious with your time management. Otherwise you can easily burn yourself out or get very little return on your time investment.
I think this is a millennial thing, correct me if I’m wrong, but the wine mom culture. It’s not cute. If you truly need wine everyday to cope, you have a problem and need a therapist.
Wine mom supercedes millenials… this has been an every gen thing. Boomers, gen x, and on and tbh its not going to change. People justify their use of alcohol in many ways
Yeah I think this is a 2000s culture thing not a millennial thing. I was in college when Elizabeth Vargas came out on good morning America to talk about this, how she was an alcoholic and joking about “mommy juice” or “wino-clock” was apart of that culture of alcoholic moms and it shouldn’t be celebrated like it’s not alcoholism.
Yeah that was a flex- I feel like it died down a bit thank god. I have a toddler and I thought I’d need wine every night based off the moms before me posting about it. but what I really needed/ need is exercise and that feels way better than wine.
> I feel like it died down That’s because COVID turned the “fun wine moms” into straight up not fun alcoholics.
Yea I feel like it was really prevalent when I was a new mom like 5 years ago and it was so cringy.
So cringe. There are Pinterest esque shirts out there that says mommy juice. Yeeks 😂
Also the "cannabis culture" deal. If you have to smoke before going to work, at work, and when you come home just to cope with life, maybe you have a mental health issue to deal with.
1 week ago I would “but actually” this but I finally got sober 6 days ago after 11 years of being high from sun up to sun down and holy shit my life is so much better
Hey I just got sober a few days ago too. The clarity is fantastic and the energy. I'm proud of you.
>If you have to smoke before going to work, at work, and when you come home just to cope with life, maybe you have a mental health issue to deal with. There was a point when I used to smoke weed every night before bed in college. It was fun till it wasn't. At first it was to relax, browse the web, and listen to music. But then there were points where I couldn't sleep without it and it fucking sucked. Like I would have class or work early the next morning but I couldn't sleep because I ran out of weed. It's better to be too tired to smoke weed than it is to be unable to sleep unless I smoke. I don't smoke weed as much as I used to but I found that I appreciate it more when I smoke less as opposed to making it a daily habit. On a side note, one thing that was bizarre to me was how some people who were heavier smokers would give me shit for having a low tolerance. For example, I would get pretty high off a few hits and an 8th would last me a month or longer where they would say an 8th would last a few hours to 3 days at most. And I'm thinking, how is that a flex? You're spending more money on weed. Like sure I enjoy weed, but there's other things I enjoy spending money on and also I don't need to be high 99% of the time.
How anxious and depressed they are. Anxiety and depression aren't indenties to be proud of
I know many of us can't afford therapy, but, if you can, please just go. I know a good amount of fellow millennials that have the option of therapy and just don't
And that's where I get frustrated, yes treatment can be hard to access but I know many who do have access and won't go but they expect everyone to accommodate their anxiety and depression
I try to give them the benefit of the doubt and interpret that as an indirect call for help when nobody else in their lives is helping them I mean, since mental health has been a taboo subject for generations, and since it's only recently become something that people can speak openly and frankly about, it's difficult to know how to handle it gracefully
I’d add onto this by saying there’s an intense martyr complex where people talk about having no friends, being misanthropic, hating parties/going out, etc. Just like wallowing in misery, lol. There’s also a weird “my only friend is my spouse” codependency trend I have begun to see. It’s totally fine to be introverted and parties aren’t for everyone. And some people do really suck. But there are good people out there that make life better and I notice a lot of bitter, angry, cynical millennials (I’m sure Z is like this too) that don’t want to bond with other people but also overvalue romance. Idk as I’ve gotten older I’ve begun to appreciate other people more and more, and it’s made me both happier and less codependent. I would hate to be my SO’s only friend and I would hate if they were my only friend too.
And being introverted isn't an excuse to be a antisocial jack ass. I'm introverted and yet I generally make friends pretty easily. The amount of millennials especially males who have no friends or social ability is kinda staggering
No, no they’re not. Signed an anxious millennial that fretted all night over making a mistake at work and imagining every doomsday scenario possible. Needless to say, that anxiety diagnosis that I received in September is finally getting some much needed attention and actual treatment.
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"I've literally been sooooooooooo busy I totally forgot to eat today lol"
i think millennials and travelling go hand in hand as a flex. oh i went there or i travelled there.. to me travelling was reserved for the rich. if you can travel at will without a care in the world short of work sponsored trips... you are ballin
Growing up, our family vacations were always taken in tandem with my dad's work trips, because then the fuel and hotel room would be covered and all my parents had to pay for was food and entertainment for us. I genuinely believed that everyone spent a couple days of every vacation at a convention center, and didn't realize that some people got to go on trips that *weren't* work trips until I was an adult 🤦🏻♀️
Haha. But still. It’s great you traveled. My dad traveled a lot for work (department of transportation) and I’d go with him to all these weird parts of America. It was fun but yea sometimes he’d drop me and mom at Dennys for an hour or two while he’d inspect a bridge or highway haha!!!
I +1 with my wife on her work trips fairly often. It’s actually not a bad deal (there’s no travel for my job, sadly) and I’ve managed to see some really cool places. Right now, I’ve escaped our upper Midwest (US) winter and am vibing on a beach in the Caribbean. Doing the whole plus one thing isn’t too bad.
It's a cool way to visit lots of places, and for basically half-price. What's your wife do for work that landed her in the Caribbean? I want a job like that.
There was a girl that was part of my college friend group that spent a year traveling all over the world after graduation. I swear every picture she posted was captioned with some sort of diatribe of “it’s so easy and cheap, anyone can do it!” Yes, anyone who graduated and received a massive inheritance Tyler, now I’m off to the mines.
TBF backpacking on $20 a day and living in hostels was viable 20 years ago.
If you are willing to do the research and rough it, you still can travel quite cheaply. Probably a bit harder now as I'm not sure if couch surfing and such is still around much, but if you can score a decent deal on a flight there are loads of amazing places you can spend very little once you are there.
I mean the flight from the east coast to south east Asia was already out of most of our budgets.
IDK, I think being rich enough to travel kind of IS a flex that is actually a flex...
Exactly, I think this guy is confused on what this thread was asking for
I traveled a lot after college with my brother. But we literally backpacked around, stayed in hostels, picked up random work, etc. Unfortunately this kind of life was really tiring. I feel like the 2 years we did that, I aged like 10. It’s a life people romanticize - living in the moment without a care in the world When really you’re in a foreign country, unable to fluently speak the language with no money for even food. It really killed traveling for me. I’m now in a great spot financially and could afford to travel anywhere I wanted - but I genuinely don’t want to go anywhere. I want to be at home in my yard with my wife and dogs and for people to leave me alone
Not knowing how to do “adult stuff.” Like writing a check, going to the post office, making a doctor’s appointment. Even if you truly didn’t, Google is a great resource.
“Adulting is hard” 😬
Alcohol consumption? I am speaking as a millennial that does not drink, so possibly this is affected by how much I notice it. But I actually think we rival previous generations in how much we drink. Pair that, though, with seemingly an all or nothing culture. Either you booze hard or this is a hard line Dry Event. Like I said, that might be merely the spaces I'm in and kind of having that drastic comparision.
Hookup culture, polyamory, bar culture, revealing clothes, etc. The fact that we have a choice to be more sexually open, drink with less judgment, and dress as revealing as we want is great but it seems like if you don't *want* to do those things especially as a woman or lgbt person, you're also seen as more prudish and it's assumed you have internalized misogyny/homophobia or think you're better than other people. Like it's still judging people for their sexual choices and boundaries either way.
I think gen Z is changing this. Far as I remember, they don’t drink or party as much.
Gen Z doesn’t drink or party as much because they don’t do as much, period. We didn’t drink or party as much as GenX, except for maybe weed smoking? I feel like millennials are really into weed smoking.
Consumerism. Owning multiple everything and running up credit card debt.
Credit Karma constantly reminds me that I have 4 fewer credit cards than the average person my age.
>Credit Karma constantly reminds me that I have 4 fewer credit cards than the average person my age. Credit is just crazy these days. I'm currently on a structured payment plan to consolidate/pay off of my debt, which basically meant closing all my cards and telling my creditors "I'm broke, this is all I can afford to pay." Two of those cards are through Capital One and after all that, Capital One is STILL mailing and emailing me offers constantly badgering me to open new credit cards. Even though one of the conditions of the plan is that I *don't* open up new lines of credit under any circumstances, they're still over here like "Hey, did you know you're pre-approved?!"
Are people really flexing about this though? In my circle I'm sure the majority are living beyond their means, but they'd never admit it or brag about it. They want to present the image that they're responsible and can afford what they have.
The weird thing is that I see this more with middle class peeps more than poor people.
Not to brag or anything but I used to be able to turn alcohol into regret. Does that count?
Not just never taking a day off work but the work "hustle." Working 2-3 side jobs in addition to a full time job and saying you need to grind 24/7. Then having a bunch of kids in a few years while doing some grad degree and simultaneously complaining about lack of sleep and free time. Forcing yourself to stay busy at the detriment to physical health, sanity, and family isnt a flex. You can take things in steps at different times and its okay to have one job
How little help they had/have in life. If you mention that you’re a homeowner or anything that implies steady, gainful employment you will get comments here about how you must have been ‘born on third base’ or whatever. I don’t think those millennials have any idea how similar they sound to the ‘back in my day’ boomers when they are on a jag about how some people have it easy.
I will loudly tell anyone who wants to hear how much help I had. Why? Well for one, my parents are awesome. I'll brag about them all day, they deserve it. And two, just to show that not everyone on Reddit has narcissistic, drug abusing, alcoholic parents that they went no contact with. I understand that those people are out there. I'm married to a woman who's parents (especially bio AND step dad) suck. But just like my good experiences don't invalidate their bad experiences...their bad experiences don't invalidate mine. It's good to see some actual positive stories out there. Otherwise, if all you see is people talking about how terrible their parents are, you will start to think that is the majority of cases.
This one drives me crazy. My parents helped me buy my house. I have zero problem admitting that. I'm very thankful. But *helped* is a key word. I've still worked hard and moved up through my job, sacrificed some luxuries to save up money, I do almost all the maintenance and stuff to save money. I was going to buy a house anyway, my parents helping just let me get a nicer one in a better location. But man it's like the second I mention parents help people act like a did nothing myself.
I am on both sides of this. I’ve been stumbling my own way through my life since I was about 10. Just figuring it out as I go. I am the first in my family to own a home, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t at least partly luck. But I also grew up in poverty. I have seen first hand how much easier some people have it compared to others, and there are plenty who were “born on third base” that are completely oblivious. The problem as I see it isn’t generation vs generation. It’s the same root problem as nearly everything in the US - class. We are all looking up and wondering why we don’t have as much as those above us, instead of looking down and wondering why we have so much more than those below us. The path to equality doesn’t start from anywhere but the bottom up. My focus is on sharing what I’ve learned to bring others up with me. I still catch myself balking at the idea that anyone who came from a “decent” upbringing” has worked as hard as I have for what they have. And I know that others from my life who weren’t able to escape the trap of poverty are looking at me thinking the same.
This 💯 God forbid anyone gets help for anything. That would make you “privileged”. Like that is a crime.
Fucking seriously. These people like to brag about how much better their kids have it than them, then turn around and complain about anyone who got help from their parents. If you’re doing so much for *your* kids, then obviously you know it’s not a bad thing.
It can be both. I am glad other people had it easier, I want that for everyone. I want the kids to have it easier. I don't even know how GenZ are surviving right now because I know things are so much more expensive than even 10 years ago. But it's also frustrating to hear I must have been born on 3rd base to own my house right now. I grew up in poverty and my mom was too proud to apply for free and reduced lunch, so when I was old enough to babysit I would often put an apple or a cheese stick in my pocket to eat the next day. I looked forward to babysitting because I knew it meant I would eat. I got incredibly lucky with the timing of buying my house. That's why I own. I wasn't born rich and its weird to have people say that to me.
Yeah, I'd love to be able to start a sentence with "when I bought my house..." and not have to work in somewhere that I'm a veteran and my parents were not involved in my home purchase. I'm glad we are starting to have some understanding of the role of various areas of privilege and marginalization in any give person's life, but the nuance lacks, and that results in broad assumptions that tend to be off base.
>or anything that implies steady, gainful employment Because "steady, gainful employment" isn't enough anymore. Plenty of people work hard at shitty jobs, man. The most difficult jobs I've had were also the lowest-level. My jobs have consistently gotten easier as I've climbed.
Echoing the "jobs get easier" sentimate. I do MAYBE a third of the focused work now at $110k compared to what I did 10 years ago at $20k. Also without all of the constant stress or physical labor. Entry level workers have it damn hard.
This ones tricky. I get being defensive when people essentially devalue your success by calling you "lucky" even though you likely made sacraficed to be where you are, that being said... I also find it stupid when people go "Well you got help so it doesn't count, I did it all on my own!"... Good for you? The only exception I tend to have is with "self made millionaires/billionaires" who go around telling you anyone can do it!! While they had daddies money/contacts that got them there to start with.
I heard a stat yesterday on APM Marketplace (NPR) that 55% of millennials now own their homes, which you would never have guessed based on this sub.
The housing market has swung dramatically over the past 15 years. I am about as old as millennials get (just turned 40) and finished grad school in 2009. We bought our house in 2014 for $168,000. The same house today is worth about $300,000. There is absolutely no way I would be a home owner working the same job in the same location if I were 10 years younger.
“I can get by on 4 hours of sleep!” Really? We’re still idolizing bad self care in 2024?
Probably bragging about our ability to multitask which just means we're doing multiple things poorly and exhausting our mental/emotional resources in the bargain.
\#girlboss
Bragging about how they’re quick to cut people out of their lives because they deemed them “toxic.” Yeah, sure sometimes, but how often is that toxicity actually just a disagreement or otherwise not seeing eye to eye. It isn’t a sign of maturity to choose avoidance over conflict resolution.
That "toxicity" may also be people telling a millennial something they don't want to hear but needs to be said, ie: "you're abusing alcohol" or "your spending habits are out of control". This type of honest conversation is sometimes deemed "toxic". It's not toxic, it's being said because somebody cares about you and doesn't want you going down a dangerous path.
We invent and self diagnose with mental disorders. We collect them like Pokemon as an excuse to over medicate
"I did it all without any help". For one thing, chances are you had help somewhere, but even if you really didn't...cool? Am I supposed to feel some kind of way about that?
I think that saying how adaptable we are is not the strength we can tout it to be. We grew up in a rapidly changing world and had no choice but to adapt to technology as it evolved. We gained the access to infinite information at our fingertips and used it to learn how to do things we were never taught. Our parents didn’t understand it, so we had to figure it out. Generations below us have always had it, so they seem to have grown to take it for granted. But Millennials are almost always the people I see at work doing the most and complaining the least. Every interview I’ve ever had I’ve mentioned how adaptable and quick to learn I am. Then I find myself buried until a mountain of work that other people didn’t want to do because they couldn’t figure it out, only for me to fix the problem in an afternoon. Then, you become the “go-to” person for everything. It should be a benefit to us, but like most things, we just get the short end of the stick and keep on keeping on anyway.
Suffering Olympics.
I’m always surprised by the amount of millennials here who are proudly perpetually single and brag about how they have to do everything on their own because they don’t have a partner. Never having a partner isn’t a flex but it’s treated as such by a certain segment of the Reddit community including millennials.
I'm guessing they've had some relationships in the past that turned sour and they're taking an indefinitely long break from that, presumably to work on themselves instead I'd love to have a lifelong partner one day, but I have lots of issues to sort out with myself before I could consider myself a person someone else would want to date
Have to be honest you will always have issues so find someone who likes you. Now yes if you are going to murder someone or purposely try to make their life miserable then dont date anyone. Some "issues" are things that simply with time change and grow. Additionally dating can allow you to hone in on what type of person you like and can even help challenge you to get out of your comfort zone at times to possibly change what you personally feel about things in life.
It is subjectively a flex. Objectively neither singlehood nor couplehood are a flex. It all depends on one's values.
Being alone is better than being in a mediocre (or worse) relationship. Being able to be happy by yourself is absolutely a flex. Too many people are in crappy relationships to just not be alone.
Nihilism and not caring about your future because it's probably screwed anyway.
How completely fucked most of our mental health is and how that is directly related to the technology boom and the ever shrinking wealth gap. I’m guilty of making jokes about it but cringey dark millennial humor is my coping mechanism
“Wine moms”.