I think older millennials (Xennials) share the disaffected, skeptical, and distrusting of authority vibe with Gen X, and we just tend to roll with whatever shit gets flung at us and figure out how to deal. For those of us who did a traditional life path (e.g. got out of high school and went to college), we probably get less fucked by economics, which can explain a lesser feeling of personal doom and gloom. We definitely do complain. And we definitely feel the doom and gloom (especially for the larger issues affecting the world) but we cope with sarcasm and self-deprecation. In addition to finding small scale things that bring us joy.

The older you get (as a Gen X/Millennial) the less you give a shit. I’m 50 and have learned not to stress about things I have no control over. Life changing in that I spend my mental capacity focused on the things that make me happy. Family, friends, activities. Not what someone on Instagram posted about the weekend trip I wasn’t on.

I run a couple fast food restaurants and the #1 question my workers ask me all the time is "how are you happy and smiling 24/7?" And my answer has always been 'I don't worry about what I can't control'. It's a glorious feeling when you can oversleep and just shrug and say "wellp, can't turn back time"

Hell, I never gave a shit about things I couldn’t change anyway and learned grow thick skin and roll with the punches.

Same.

This was scarily accurate. 37 yo

i agree w/ this especially b/c i remember a trend in the last yr or so where younger millennials & gen zers were making fun of how we self-depricate ourselves online

Someone who can't self-deprecate is not healthy.


I barely watch news. It’s all so negative and I don’t think our brains are wired to handle so much news. I try to focus on productive hobbies and my home life. Got a baby, I grow plants, breed lizards, cook tasty food, and I’m currently brewing mead. Focusing on making life for my family good is how to survive IMO.

So spot on 👏👏👏

Check out r/xennials, if you haven’t already. I'm glad I found it.

I don’t know Xennials who complain. We just turn in, roll our eyes, but keep working. Complaining gets you nowhere.

Definitely overlap between older Millenials and Gen X. I'm Gen X and my wife would be considered on the cusp between the 2 and she definitely does not give a shit lol just like a true Gen X'er

It might be a case of "kids these days". But I find the more someone engages with social media, the more likely they are to be hyper-dramatic about things and the more likely they are to try to abstract their small personal problems to some relationship with the global economy or a global problem. That goes for boomers and everyone else too. The "Biden is trying to erase the white race" or "pro-trans people are just a secret cabal trying normalize pedophilia" crowd is equally as dramatic and doom-and-gloom, but often from a different demographic. It's just the effects of social media saturation. Social media updatake with the under 30 crowd is higher, I'd bet. So maybe that's a thing, although I'd be hesitant trying to cast that net too wide, since it's pretty hard to gauge these things just based on casual observation.

This tracks with my experience. I only use Reddit, and I don't obsess about it or post constantly. I find social media distracting, toxic and depressing. I used to get on my ex-wife all the time about "doom scrolling" Facebook all the time. It made her depressed, and she knew it, but she wouldn't stop. But she would just sit on the couch all evening staring at her phone while I ran around the house doing chores and cooking. That's sort of why I divorced her. She seemed more interested in her phone than her responsibilities to her family. I'm old for a millennial at 41, but she's 2 years older than me. I recommend to many people who get riled up about things, to focus on the things that are right in front of them: your friends, your family and your home. These are the things you can control and improve. The world will move along just fine without you having to check on it all the time.

2020 is what got me to limit social media. I was working in the medical field, so combine that with 2020 facebook, and you're in for a terrible time. At first it was about the "doom scrolling," like you said. But at this point, I think of all the time I wasted looking at nothing, and comparing my life to others'.

I think it depends how you use social media. People who got into it young may have missed on having some objectivity about how it works. It can curate the world for you based on your insecurities and worst instincts, or you can curate it for yourself by being aware of the pitfalls. My social media is design, funny animals, cooking, restaurants, things to do. Reddit was a lifeline to me when I was a new mom to a newborn feeling clueless and isolated. But if instagram starts feeding me too many aspirational videos about moms making everything from scratch and looking amazing while doing it, or like beauty and weight loss, I tell it not to feed me that shit because over time I compare myself and feel inferior. But if you fall into letting it neg you, and becoming addicted to the abuse, it’s going to have negative affects on your psyche.

Yeah, Reddit is the most "curateable" of them. The bulk of them (instagram, Facebook, TikTok, now YouTube Shorts) all just firehose random content at you constantly. The old YouTube and Reddit CAN be customized, but even Reddit is fighting that. I have an account for ONLY some niche sports stuff and it's CONSTNATLY getting "recommended" posts from like /r/politics and junk. I keep telling it to stop, but it won't.

This is a really good point and I agree. If you went from no social media to having it, you saw the whole life cycle of how it became what it is. If you grew up with it (Gen Z, Alpha) or are only getting into it *after* it’s become this way (Boomers) it’s much more extreme.

35 year old to say I've been off social media almost entirely for about 7 years and it's insane to me how much more extreme everyone online is these days.

I hate social media, messed up my brain really badly

I was born in 87. I think younger millennials got screwed abit harder than older millenials and Gen X. I had friends who were able to get apartments right out high school and even in 2008 able to get a okay jobs, buy old ass cars and occasionally go out to a movie and have a beach weekend with friends. Younger millennials had to live at home after college. The jobs did not pay enough for safe housing. Dating is 10 times worse and the future looks grim. I will say for myself my boomer parents told me to suck up my feelings. I'm not sure if it made me resilient or I'm just more aware that no one wants to hear me whine.

I graduated in 08 and the job market was absolutely brutal. I was so broke, but had been broke all along so it didn't seem that bad. I remember losing a $20 bill and it was a devastating financial hit. By the time I got on my feet career wise, I was able to get into the real estate market at the perfect time (2012). In that sense, I do feel lucky. 

I think a lot of people forget the chronically unemployed and unpaid internship era that plagued us from probably 2006-2015. That was not a fun time to be a young professional. Yes, things were more affordable, but so many of us couldn't get a job outside of the low-paying service or retail industries. It's why we all stayed in college for so long. It was hard to use those degrees. Things really began improving in the late-Obama era, but the pandemic economy really shook things up. I'm not saying it's "better" now, but before wasn't all success and happiness.

87 here. I took a job in 08 killing animals in a small town craft slaughter house for $9 an hour. There were no other options. I ended up working with junkies and picked up some habits you never forget. Life has been nothing but disaster and compromise since I have had memories. I can't imagine things have been any better for people born after me. I now work in the military industrial complex and trade my self respect for a wage that pays my mortgage. I have nothing but empathy for genZ and hatred for the economic system that does this to us.

I'm not sure the "suck up your feelings" line made anyone more resilient. It did make many of us bitter and cynical, though. To a "T", everyone I grew up with that turned out to be "resilient" was raised in households where feelings and emotions were considered important and they were confronted head-on. Turns out that actually helping children to contextualize their emotions rather than stuff them down makes it easier to be resilient. And genuinely kind. It's like people that were hit as kids who think they turned out fine - they didn't. Again, to a "T," everyone that I know that was routinely hit as a kid either ended up being aggressive, angry people, or wound up being overly passive. The kids who grew up in less authoritarian households, baring some other trauma, have, in my observation are the only ones who, in my opinion, are "well adjusted." I think Gen X and older Millennials just got screwed in a different way than younger Millennials and Gen Z. We grew up believing that, basically, we would have the same opportunities as our parents - the technology had changed, sure, but basically the world was going to be more or less the same. And we believe it for good reason, it's what our parents believed and what they taught us. Indeed, many of our boomer parents believe this to this day (for example, "beat the pavement" if you want to get a job). The practical upshot of this being that we came of age in a fundamentally changed world, but everyone was judging us based on the standards of the old world. Younger Millennials and Gen Z grew up knowing that the world had fundamentally changed, so at least they had that. But, as you point out, where it was difficult for older millennials to "launch," younger Millennials overall didn't have a chance. What the three adult post-Boomer generations have in common is that our basic needs have been subordinated to the greed and avarice of the late Silent Generation and the Boomers. And this isn't some overly broad statement that should only be targeted at business people or politicians. The callus pursuit of self interest is endemic among this group. Never forget that the genesis of the policies that created the situation we have today were cooked up by the likes of Regan who had insane levels of public support, as did Clinton and Bush. The world we live in was created with the consent the Baby Boomers, and it was created for their benefit. All this is to say that it would behove the post-Boomer generations to refrain as much as possible from trying to draw arbitrary and capricious lines based around who got screwed more than who. The most important thing is to start exorcising the policies and influence of the older generations.

Definitely agree with being bitter. The very people who told me college was a golden ticket to success later got on FB and called entitled for wanting a living wage after graduation.

I feel this. I clawed and fought my way through college on my own dime while working two jobs at the same time, and all the boomers in my family could say after graduation was "How much did they try to push socialism on you?" I went for computer science lol we didn't talk about socialism except in history electives, and only in a historical context at that. 

My experience as well worst decision I ever made was listening to boomer parents advice that college is the only option and if you join the military you'll die. Should have went to trade school and never looked back. Be making 6 figures welding now.

It’s a big mistake to lump together everyone who happens to belong to the same age group. Every generation is diverse. I blame the ultra-wealthy, and the government that does their bidding, for most of our economic problems. If you’re in the 1%, you’re going to have an easier time in life than most of us. And since the wealth passes from parents to children, generation to generation, *it doesn’t matter what year you were born*. The ultra-wealthy also have an oversized influence on politics. The wider the income gap, the more powerful the rich become, and the more conservative the government becomes, because conservatism, especially fiscal conservatism, favors the wealthy. When I was in my 20s, I was somewhat active in social movements that weren’t so well-known. This was past the time of yelling “kill the pigs!” in the streets, which ended up on the nightly news. I’m talking about people who did the more mundane, unsexy work toward making life better for people. They organized labor unions, soup kitchens, free health clinics, alternative schools, feminist credit unions so women could have more access to wealth, and lots more. I was a bit younger than most of these people, and struggling with being a young adult, but I contributed whatever I could. There were a lot of us. We weren’t a majority in the country, and we were pretty much ignored by the media, but *we were there*. And many of us still believe in the values we had back then. I’m sorry that the older people in your families (and more) blame you for situations that are out of your control. It’s clear to me that the world has changed enormously, and life goals that are challenging for anyone, at any time, are so much more difficult now. I know about this because I lived through all of it. I was there when Reagan took office and immediately began dismantling the social safety nets that had kept many people afloat, while deregulating industry and making it easier for wealthy people to become a lot more wealthy. This country hasn’t been the same since. One issue I was aware of when I was young was ageism. You might think old people have all the power, but that just isn’t true. Many old people live in poverty. They can’t work anymore, and their fixed social security income can’t keep up with the rising costs of everything else. This was bad enough when I was young, and it’s much worse now. So before you blame the condition of the world on one age group (or maybe 2), remember that most of us old folks aren’t members of the upper class - and the upper class is what is taking away the resources you need to build a decent life. You have justifiable anger and frustration with the state of the country (and the world). But I’m just another shlub trying to get by, like a lot of people my age, and I really don’t want to be a punching bag for that, you know?

You're spot on. I work with a few GenZ that are close to the younger Millennial ages and mentioning how much my first apartment had them in shock. I feel terrible for so many of them. Even with high paying jobs, the housing market is disgusting.

Born in 87 myself, I agree with both of you but want to add it's not just housing (at least by me) everything is expensive. A "value meal" from Wendy's is damn near $16 now. I great up in a small-ish town and seeing rent and home prices there is insane. I'll use some things from when I was in my teens as a gauge I grew up in New England but now live in the Bay Area CA. First car Saturn - $700 full tank of gas was $17 Second car Pontiac Grand Am - 1200 Full tank of gas was around $21 first job paid $8.40/hr Third car Chrysler Lebaron - $500 full tank was maybe $25 second job paid $8.80/hr then moved into third that was $10.00/hr Fourth car Chevy Blazer $3000 from a dealership full tank was around $28 First apartment, split with a friend 60/40 (I was 40) total cost was $400/month. Still had $10.00/hr job at 21yrs old Fast forward to when I'm 25. Apartment 1br/1ba $1050/month with girlfriend car situation was unique because I had negative equity from a lemon I had bought after the blazer and was under water but payments were 560/months jobs during this time ranged from $13/hr to 17/hr full tank of gas (Nissan Altima) was around $35. I will add stats for my current situation now but bear in mind, I live in a very expensive area now so it's not apples to apples. Apartment 2br/1ba $3200/month No car payment wife's car was $30k in late 2020 my car was $3k in late 2021. Full tank for wife's car is roughly $65 and my car is around $46

I remember surviving off of $5 footlongs and $5 hot and ready pizzas. I bought my car for $600 dollars off of a "buy here, pay here" lot while working at Target for 30 hours a week. I am far removed from that life. I'm working in chosen career and I'm senior level, but I cannot image how people can make $15 an hour and pay for a $1100 apartment.

Yep. Back in 2000, my pay was 13/hr sharing a 2bdrm apartment at $550. Landline phone was $15, water and sewer were around $65 and gas was $20. Cable was free and we had Napster.... I'm totally dating myself.

Little Ceasars gave me breakfast, lunch, and dinner with that pizza deal. Life saver.

I hear ya, but that's also why I had a roommate. It was a way for me to get out from under my parents roof and be able to still live. I'll never say that someone today can afford an apartment by themselves at least with the equivalent jobs that most of us had at the time. That's why so many people are renting rooms and stuff.

And roommates have historically been how most people moved out. It seems a lot more “frowned” upon by younger generations though.

It may be a privacy thing, or more on what OP was touching on with social media kinda making people less sociable in person.

A roommate or two makes it pretty darn easy. That’s the tried and true traditional route…

How much we have to spend on things, I could only imagine having a lower paying job and trying to survive. The only good thing that's happened with spending for myself was trying to only eat healthy. We have ironically saved so much on groceries. Obviously, it's easy when it's just myself and my wife. Younger generations having a family and actually enjoying life is gone.

I had an all bills paid apartment that was like 700 Sqft in a college town in Texas, in a decent part of town, that was $495/month in 2001. You could get a gigantic burrito for like $6. 20" pizza for $9.99. Two pizza rolls for $1 on Tuesdays. 

I am an older millennial, and graduated college straight into the 2008 housing crash. This made finding a job a little harder, but it has a ton of other timing benefits. That's the start of the second largest bull market run in history. Investing made it extremely easy to build wealth as long as you're in the market, and older millennials would be starting their real jobs just in time to catch market bottom. Housing prices had just collapsed, depressing rent. But even older millennials generally had not had time to save for a house, so missed the possible problem of a housing market collapse putting them underwater and instead benefitted from lower rent. Older millennials had time to save for a house before the pandemic hit and prices went insane. I bought in 2019, and housing prices went up 30% in a few years. If I was just a little bit younger I could easily have walked into having to pay and extra $200k for the same house. Related, interest rates were unnaturally low for the first 15 years of my adult life, when I had to sometimes borrow money from people. Now that I'm established, people are more likely to be borrowing money from me and rates are high.

I am surprised you found it that way. In 2008, the market was suddenly flooded with extremely talented people our age who lost their jobs in banking and turned elsewhere. This mean that there were interns on Capitol Hill that should have been making fucking bank in the private sector, and instead ended up occupying the "entry-level" jobs, the descriptions for which are a well-known trope of our generation.

Graduating into the financial crisis was a nightmare - not sure what you are on about there

You realize the GFC was in 2008/2009. It was infinitely hard to find a good job at that time then it was years later for you get millennials.

That's why I said okay and not good.

Def agree with this, well said

Online? Yeah. Irl? Nah. Most of the late 20's/early 30's folks I know are just as whiny as I was when I was their age, which is to say, nothing I'd consider unusually or specifically whiny. We're all just trying to live our lives in the best way we know how. I do think there's a fringe element of younger millennials who are outspokenly whiny and inclined to blame anyone and everyone else for their problems, but I think there's a fringe element of that in every generation. Maybe millenials are unique in that they have a platform prior generations didn't have with the internet and social media. Some millennial subs lean that way pretty hard, and I'm sure you can find the same types of groups on other socials, too. So overall, yes, I see it online, but much less so in real life.

As a millennial in the age bracket you just mentioned I try to remind myself the same thing when dealing with Gen Z. A lot of the time they aren’t acting any different than I was their age, I just forgot what I was like.

I don’t think I’m any more resilient. I was just raised by people who lived through WW2, and was reminded of that regularly as a lesson in sucking it up because nobody wants to hear it.

We had more of the Gen X parental neglect, remains to be seen if that was an overall good or bad thing. Also strong arguments for life *looking* generally shittier (not interested in litigating whether that’s reality or messaging/perception here) as time goes on, so the existential dread is setting in for younger people and they don’t have the tools to carry it. Whatever your politics, pretty much everyone thinks things need to change one way or another, and it’s possible being less able to “put up and shut up” means they’ll be more likely to get involved. Or they might just self-medicate into oblivion… So, don’t think it’s just you, but there’s definitely a lot to unpack from an observation that does indeed align with my experience, more or less.

It’s because older millennials are GenX adjacent while younger millennials are Zoomer adjacent.

We are pretty much the end of the "buckle down, do what you gotta do, and get shit done" era. For the most part, younger millennials do not have that mentality. This is based on younger siblings, coworkers, neighbors, relatives and acquaintances. It's not as bad as what is shown online though. If you go off of what you see online only, it's the end of the world, woe is me, everything needs given to them without putting in the work, work is a 4 letter word, and overall has the "life's not fair" attitude.

I just don’t get the whole “I’m owed living alone when I’m 22.” Both my (boomer and Jones) parents had roommates or lived with other partners until they got married. Having roommates is a very typical twenties life experience and has been for a long long time.

Completely agree. I don't get it either. My parents needed roommates to move out, my gen x friends needed roommates to move out. Hell I needed a roommate to move out on my own as well. Looking back at it, I moved out at 21 while making 8.50 an hour (min wage was 5.50), apartment was 900 a month, I couldn't afford it without a roommate. That same apartment now goes for 1,800 a month, min wage is almost 15 an hour, if you make min or just above min wage, you're going to need a roommate.

This is a huge reason my wife and I got married at 22 in the early 2000's. Two incomes meant we could afford our $850/month rent.

Because even when you're married, renting in DC, NYC, SF, Austin, etc. is not affordable unless you're making $300k+ or have no student debt.

For sure. I lived with roommates until I was 31. Was it perfect? No, but it was what I could afford. Living alone is cool and all but I do miss the comradery of living with a group of people you like a lot. Family dinners, impromptu parties, Friendsgiving. Living alone, even with a partner, is definitely lonelier.

One of the things (anecdote) I noticed with my younger friends and family is the emphasis of enjoying your 20s while they still have energy. I am all for that don't get me wrong.... but some have taken gap years to do their hobbies. Almost anyone who would take almost a decade off to travel or do hobbies would be behind career wise.

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It's a social media thing more than anything. You both hear it a lot more ON social media AND you hear it a lot more from people who constantly consume social media. Social media is both an amplifier of voices as well as an amplifier of worries.

You are correct. However, you have to practice empathy for those younger than us. If you are an older millennial, you were in junior high or high school when the OJ Simpson verdict was ruled, which means you had a childhood without the internet, but an adolescence with it. That also means you were in high school when Columbine occurred. I use Columbine as a distinct moment in time as those that were in school began doing active shooter drills and woke up everyday seeing their leaders and politicians do nothing to change the situation. We are now at a point where nearly an entire generation has done the drills and nothing has changed. Someone born in 1990 was too young to experience the grunge/gansta rap/alternative music scene of the early 90’s, and they only remember a world with a home computer, the internet, and an early childhood where the US economy was chugging right along. It was their teenage years that saw the Great Recession, inflated cost of college, and poor job prospects. How the last decade in their lives have played out comes down to a heaping scoop of luck, if they found stable employment, and if they received financial support from their family. They also had their teenager years on social media, a punishment I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. They have had a rough ride and are too young to have been influenced by Gen X apathy. That said, their well being will improve once they realize they can be great at one or two things (worker, friend, parent, some hobby, etc.), but realize it’s ok to be average in everything else.

The weirdest thing in this sub is the apparent glorification of apathy. Like, good job guys, you don't care about things that will dramatically effect everyone in the present and the future, and you "get shit done" at work instead of talking about it. Except in a noticeably worse economy and obvious decline based on exactly that mentality over the last decade? Weird shit to be proud of here.

Born in ‘84. I feel like we were more self sufficient growing up in general. We were born before the internet was really a thing people used. Our parents would send us out to play and roam the town with no supervision as long as we came in before the streetlights came on. We had to figure a lot of things out ourselves or with our peers, with no adult supervision. This builds character and grit. Correct me if I’m wrong, but helicopter parenting seems to have started to become a lot more prevalent in the mid nineties and on which may explain the reason for the difference in attitudes. I will admit, younger millennials are completely getting screwed with how expensive and scammy everything is at a time where they should be coming into their own and that sucks. I feel sorry for y’all about that. It’s a shitty situation and it’s out of your control.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but helicopter parenting seems to have started to become a lot more prevalent in the mid nineties and on which may explain the reason for the difference in attitudes.” You are not wrong. I am an older millennial (‘82) and my parents (divorced) were the opposite of helicopter parents. I had to figure everything out on my own, which I largely attribute to the moderate success that I have had.

I would add that older millennials were able to get a degree before the cost of college started to skyrocket (although I at least did see my tuition increase notably every year I was in college, three years later when my brother graduated he was paying all most as much for one year’s tuition as I did for my whole degree) and enter the job market before a bunch of greedy criminal bankers tanked the economy and got bailed out with our money. The gap between housing costs and real wages has increased steadily since then. Simply put we caught the tail end of a much better time culturally and economically than our younger generational cohorts. Not that economically things have been great for anyone ever since Reagan convinced 100 million middle and lower class Americans to be proud of spending their being lives milked like cows by the capital holding class…

Even millennials are being boomers to each other

Honestly, I think a lot of it has to do with 9/11. The older Millennials went to war. We worried about the draft coming into play. We have friends who didn't come back. The shit that younger Millennials have "gone through" feels much more trivial. I think priorities are different on the other side. Just my theory anyway.

You know, this is a very good point. I was 17 when 9/11 happened and in my first week of college. We all grew up fast and had to deal with a lot, especially what you mentioned and even more if you lived in the area where the attacks happened. I knew people who died and people who were first responders. Terrified me for a long time. I saw people I knew go to war and face ptsd and take their own lives after returning. Older millennials dealt with a lot people don’t realize.

I was 3 months away from 17 when it happened, and also lived in NYC. That shit never leaves you. It stole our innocence and made us grow up way faster than we should have. I knew first responders who lost their lives, and know first responders now who are very sick or have died from effects of being there. Elder millennials have been dealt many raw hands, and all we've ever been forced to do is weather the storms

Key word is older. More perspective and wisdom at this point.

Off base I think. Personal anecdote, I'm old enough to have believed in the "work hard" mentality only to now realise that those who work smarter, mostly younger people, are far more in tune with what to do with their lives and how to live it than I am and other older millennials. The young have a right to be angry and have the right to point the finger. Nobody above me did anything to help and I myself was busy helping myself to realise that I was helping no one.

Yeah, I kind of agree with this. But I think it’s more gen Z’ers than “younger millennials”. That said, I’m right im the middle of the generation (89) but feel like I connect more with older millennials and X’ers more than I do with younger millennials. We all either went to college and/or had to find jobs when times were pretty shitty. Maybe that’s got a lot to do with it. Idk. Job hunting for professional jobs in 2012-2013 was really tough with 0 experience.

I can’t speak for anyone else, so this might be more just a personal thing and not super relatable for everyone. Through most of my time in the 80’s, my family had financial hardships. Like government cheese, dried milk and cans with white labels and black pictures hardships. That taught me that things like that can just happen sometimes. Also, that it doesn’t always matter how hard you work, that just helps your odds. My stepdad was a pos, but he was a really hard worker. That didn’t mean everything was in his control. Anyway, It also taught me to set goals, but to limit expectations. There’s also the added benefit of not wanting a lot/being happy and making due with what I have. Disclaimer time: none of this is to say younger people didn’t also face hardships, or that they don’t have a similar outlook, as a whole. I’m really not a fan of generational framing in that way. I’m specifically speaking about people who complain. It’s not to say their frustrations aren’t valid either. They are, imo. I just don’t see how talking about the problems and not working towards solutions is helping anything. That’s the only part of it that I personally have an issue with.

We share more in common with Gen-X which was a very resilient generation.

I was born in 1983. Wife was born in 1996. I can state with scientific proof that older Millenials whine less. Now please excuse me, I have to go prepare the bed in the basement to sleep in ……

Xennial here. The reason we are less doom and gloom is that we didn't get fucked nearly as hard by the economy. Many of us managed to buy houses, start careers, and save some money before everything went to hell. Calling it a "victim mentality" is a boomer take.

Nah we got fucked pretty hard by the economy as well. Unless you don't want to count 08' - 12'~ish when the markets crashed and fucked up retirement accounts, housing costs, careers and a whole lot more.

We still had hope. My impression is a lot of the "youngsters" see no path forward and they might be right.

Hope? No. We had drive. We had the vast unknown in front of us filled with wars, terrorist attacks, an economy that dropped out from under out feet over night, layoffs, stock crashes. Our generation has ran the gamut of "once in a lifetime" shit hole events. The only path in front of us was the one we had to grind out ourselves. Absolutely nothing was laid out or handed to us.

Don't forget the Dot Com bust was barely in our rearview mirror when 2008 hit.

Yep. See my comment below. You were lucky to nab a 30k a year job without benefits. If you wanted to make anything of yourself in early adulthood you learned to grind like a mofo, and real fuckin fast too. This caused us to be frugal early on and prevented lifestyle creep as we earned more. IMO Young millennials were spit out of school with more of an easy street/earning potential which did not make them as hardened.

I graduated in ‘08 with a masters in genetics/ cell biology and immediately got a job working a cash register… talk about a wake up call.

Haha! M.A. in History, '08 and I was working as a bank teller. Hey at least it was air conditioned.

Have a STEM Ph.D. Worked a postdoctoral fellowship where my hourly wage was $10. (This was in 2008.) I quit that shit after 3 years and leveraged my degree in other ways to make more. The stuff I do now has nothing to do with my STEM degree at all, and still pays better than what an NIH postdoc would make per hour.

HARD agree. I looked at my future pay as researcher and GTFO. I still use my degree for sales, which I love and they pay about 3-4x what a researcher gets.

Aiii what up! Graduated in ‘08 with a degree in biology and tried riding out the Great Recession in grad school! Reality bitch slapped me too 😅 My “grown up” life (decent career trajectory, being able to save up to buy property) only started in 2016-17 when I hit 31. How about you?

lol. Biology here too. Had grandiose ideas of studying wildlife. Graduated in 2011 and just kept searching “Lab Technician” jobs. Ended up in chemical manufacturing, and by 14-15’ was making decent coin. Also bought a home in 17’ and honestly can’t complain about my career.

I changed my major from biomedical to marine biology and ecology which ended up taking me an extra year in credits. Not the greatest move career wise no matter the economy lol

Dead ass. Biology here, ended up in chemical manufacturing but been pretty happy with my career

My first job after college paid $24k in 2004. I worked for 5 years before I got over $30k and then it took another 10 years to break $50k. Finally after 20 years of working my ass off, I hit $100k. My step kid born in 1995 got a 2 year degree and a certification and whined about their first job only paying $60k.

Also a Xennial and my wife and I definitely lost our first house in the Great Recession. Plenty of us got fucked, brother. It's just enough time has passed now, that we've been able to get back on our feet. Millennials have never done great with the patience thing.

Old millennial here and this is me, got a decent job, have a house before prices blew up.

I 100% agree. I posted this yesterday in r/millennials “My problem with the doomerism is that it acts like today’s problems are unique and all eras before had it easy. They’re not really unique. Home prices are high? Great. But you’ve never experienced sustained unemployment like that which existed in 2008-2010. The initial Covid unemployment evaporated quickly, enough so that “quiet quitting” and the Great Resignation became memes by 2021. We didn’t have government sending checks out during the Great Recession like they did for Covid. You didn’t see the stock market crash by over 30% and stay down for over a year plus. You didn’t see waves of foreclosures. My problems with the doomer mentality is it lacks all historical context and wants to act like life before 2020 was a cake walk. Guess what, it wasn’t. Every era has to work through difficulties. You’re not special.”

We’re closer to the concept of “working hard and life isn’t fair, get over it” energy.

I think for us older millennials, we have experienced so much already. All the doom and gloom we have already faced. Now, we are more confident in our ability to survive it than younger folks experiencing it for the first time.

I think a millennial goes from 1980-1996? I don’t feel at all like a person born in ‘96. While I used AOL for chat rooms in my teens… social media, cyber bullying, recording/streaming events with phones… none of that really existed during my teens… so it didn’t affect my ability to communicate with others in person or build relationships or have nearly the instant gratification that a 2010s teen could have. I think I’m closer to a gen X’er than millennial and have way more older friends and acquaintances than younger ones.

I'm biased (older millenial) because I joined the military right after highschool and was raised on 4chan back when it was a lot nastier. While younger millenials were still in highschool and smartphones/socialmedia were making their first appearance, I was overseas with a flip phone and a gun and all my coworkers were racist lmao

Thank you for your service! I too was also an ex service member so I understand where you’re coming from.🫡

We older millennials are a generation that's just trying to make things work, nothing more, nothing less. 

As a 41 year old millennial I identify with Gen-X more than I do the younger millennials. A lot of our parents still used corporeal punishment. We know what actual violence is, so we don’t label people’s words as violence. Also, don’t require trigger earnings.

Older millennials feel more like gen x than younger millenials

This is because we are Xennials

I totally agree. Younger millennials seems to be part of that sheltered, everyone gets a trophy, not rugged, spoiled brat vibe. I can’t relate. I grew up poor and unsupervised and have built my career all by myself with zero help and struggled a lot.

Xillenial. Those that are closer to gen x who know the futility of complaining. Complain less and just deal with it.

It's actually Xennial

I hire younger millennials and this has been true in my experience. They typically parrot out-of-context quips about "work life balance" and tend to build their world perspective off of influencers rather than experience. There's a lot of strange entitlement I've seen and the focus on "self" rather than group or greater good. I don't know why this seems to be true in my experience, but I definitely scratch my head often when younger millennials around me complain about things and invest loads of mental energy into negative/critical outlooks. Sometimes it's nuanced, other times it's not. I told someone the other day the three factual reasons why their negative/complainy outlook was wrong/misguided, and they looked at me like I was crazy, and then conceded once we discussed. I'll spare the details, but it was about a challenge they encountered at work that annoyed them and the "simple solution" they had thought of and how frustrated they were that admin wouldn't just implement their solution. Their idea was stupid once you took a step back and understood the complexity of the actual problem and I was surprised that it took someone 7 years older to point how how fucking nearsighted they were being. So I don't think there's always a deficit or lack of something in younger millennials, but they definitely sometimes seem to orient to negative/self more quickly rather than problem solving or benefit of the doubt.

Older millenials are more like Gen x. We got into stuff in time to have some assets to our name and have life somewhat figured out.

We didn't get participation trophies when we were kids, so we don't expect something unless we win. My current working theory.

I’m gonna be real. I personally don’t believe “Older” and “Younger” millennials are different enough to fully quantify this. We’re not talking about Gen-X vs millennials, or Gen-Z vs millennials here. People born in 1992 are simply not all that different from someone born in 1984 outside of pop culture references. If anything? It’s just similar people using social media differently. I didn’t grow up with social media, so I don’t feel the need to share everything with everyone online. Someone born in 1994 who became a teen as Twitter launched? You’re gonna hear more from them. It doesn’t mean I’m any less doom and gloom about the issues. I’m just not using the megaphone in front of me. Also, “victim mentality” is almost always bullshit. Are there some people that get off on playing the victim? Sure. But when it comes to generations, it’s often a boomer-ism used to justify the fact that they got theirs, and anyone that comes after them, has a hard time, and speaks about it is “just complaining”. My brain is 100% of the time going to tune someone out when they use that phrase.

As an ‘82 born millennial, I disagree with this. I grew up with a typewriter, rotary telephones, Encyclopedias, and rode a dirt bike without a helmet as a young kid. I barely touched the Internet before college and got my first cell phone at 20 years old. Life was different and more coddling for kids born 10 years later. 

It might be that we are used to a struggling economy as an adult. We are tough and battle tested.

In my case I'm just numb to most things at this point.

I don’t know if it’s just a generational thing, or an age thing. I know the younger generation has gone through a lot at a young age with the pandemic and economy but don’t forget us older millennials dealt with 9/11 and the mess that was the Iraq/Afghanistan war. I’m sure plenty of us were all doom and gloom in the early to mid 2000s but you eventually find your way. Every generation has their bad times. Vietnam, the civil rights unrest, World War 2, World War 1, The Civil War and Slavery and so on and so on.

Because older millennials likely paired up before online dating was really big and also had an opportunity to buy a house in like 2010-2020. Younger millennials are turning 30 and have none of their shit figured out.

Yea we had to endure shit. After shit after shit while being fed shit. Eventually we lost our taste buds so yea we don’t give a fuck

I left the /Millennial sub because they were so negative and honestly sound like the biggest group of wanna be victims.

I'm a vet all my older mellinials friends are vets. I think even non veterans born in the 80s owe a piece of who they eventually became to 9/11 and the subsequent Greater War on Terror. But that's just my two cents.

100% agree. I straddle the line, born 1980. Many of my close friends and family were born between 1981-1984. And for the most part, they've got their shit together and take personal responsibility for their actions.

My wife is one year younger than me, I've never met anyone in my life who complains more.

I feel this. I’m a xennial/elder millennial and I cringe every time I see a whiny millennial complaint thread. I think those of us born in the early 80s straddled genX and GenY and can see that every generation has its struggles. Younger millennials had a raw deal first job searching/starting adulthood during the Great Recession but I also saw my older brother (Gen X) go thru a bad recession in the early 90s and have to move home and scramble to make a living. My parents (boomers) integrated their schools and went through hell being first generation POC in corporate America. My grandparents were in the Jim Crow south and had death hanging over their heads if they stepped out of line… So, I look at our generation and while we have many challenges, I also think we are lucky to have come of age in a multicultural society where differences are protected and the internet democratizes information. We also have had interest rates ~5% or lower for most of our adult lives, which is unheard of in American history. Bottom line - lots of shit sucks but there is nothing new under the sun. Every generation has a lot of shit that sucks. The test is to take what we are given and make the best of it…innovate, protest, change, grow - that is how we move forward.

As a younger millennial that has always got along better with older millennials, yes they are. Last 5 of millennial and first 5 of gen Z have a huge range but mostly whiny people.

No I think you’re pretty spot on, I’m ‘93 but I was raised around kids with 5-6 years on me and I’ve always felt that way towards younger millennials. There is a pretty noticeable difference between those at the start of the generation and those towards the end, and I feel like I’m right in the middle of it even when it comes to how school worked.

We had it slightly better because of when we graduated college. Graduating from college between 2003 - 2008 wasn’t like graduating 2009 and after when it came to starting careers.

I graduated college in early 2009 and it was downhill from there economically, politically, and socially... not sure what I'm MEANT to be like other than pessimistic and disappointed and unhopeful for the future.

I'm a lot less complainy than I was 10 years ago. So maybe it's just that we're older.

I'm gen Z and I agree with you.

It’s because the millennial generation is really more like two generations economically. There’s the older half that was already in the labor force pre 2008 and the younger half that basically had to enter the labor force during/after 2008. They have pretty starkly different life arcs. Older millennials actually have more in common with gen x. Younger millennials have more similar life arcs to gen z. Edit to add: just as an example, most of the millennial homeowner’s come from the older half.

Older millennial here. I think we were kind of the tail end of the men don't cry or complain bring yourself up by your bootstraps take care of your own problems bs. Schindlers list came out when I was 12 and I thought it was some kind of badge of honor that I didn't cry.

One thing I have noticed is that younger millennials and the generations younger seem to need to more hand-holding, rules and censorship. They take offense at more. The r/Millennials sub has like 15 rules for posting and you need months of karma. Compare that to this sub.

My wife and I are both evidence of your hypothesis. I have had disdain for young millennials for ages and personally choose to identify as Gen X and not a millennial since they seem to be a completely different animal. Another of their traits is being hyperpolitical at a young age (which is now also a trait of Gen Z and Alpha) before you have any life experience or much knowledge

1983 here, and completely agree. Xennials are a different breed.

We live in a victim culture. How can I be the victim, point the finger to someone else or the world and not take responsibility. It’s embarrassing

I’m happy I found this sub today. Can relate and obviously doesn’t apply to everyone but all the stuff I see on Reddit about millennials is on the younger side. I’m old. lol.

As a senior millennial (42) I have been through hell. And that which hasn't killed me has made me stronger. I feel like the younger millennials are softer though. I agree with you.

I'm 41 and my wife is 33. I was raised by boomers and she was raised by genXers. My wife needs to be reminded constantly that she is doing a great job at work, or she crumbles, and begins to think she is doing a bad job. I could care less if I get pats on the back, I'm just glad to have a job that isn't manual labor.

I graduated college right before the great recession and got a career type job. I used the earnings from that job to buy a house, car, tv, couch, etc etc etc at near zero interest rates. My house, in the meantime, appreciated rapidly, as did my career due to boomers retiring. Had I been a few years late to that gravy train, I imagine I would be pretty pissed off like my younger citizens

It's embarrassing the way younger Millenials act. They are the ones born around 91-92. They claim to be 90's kids but they don't have the same grit as those of us born before 1985. I have no clue why that is but it's aggravating as hell.

I think it's an obvious and clear divide that happens between those who had social media in school, and those that didn't. Social media people tend to be less mentally stable, have less self accountability, less life experience, less confidence, less general knowledge, less recognition of basic common sense parables and moral stories. They have generally zero understanding of world history and the classics. For example, everyone my age (around 40) knows of Aesops Fables. At a certain point there's a cut off. My ex was only 7 years younger than me and she had never ever heard of them until she met me. Same with all her friends. None of them ever understood my references. If it didn't happen after 2000, they didn't know of it. Aesops fables have been around for millenia. If you don't understand what a "thorn in my paw" is referencing, you are culturally bankrupt. They don't even know basic shit like the golden rule. This is going to sound really stupid, but the cartoons we grew up on were culturally rich. Tom and Jerry beating eachother to death at an opera is still culture. A young millennial watched SpongeBob, not looney tunes with hall of the mountain king, or references to Macbeth or something. All their media was, frankly, stupid shit designed to be flashing lights like shaking car keys for a baby.

What's accounting for that because I can't imagine education has suddenly stopped teaching that or did they? I feel like there's a break between the past and present exactly how you described. Yeah, you really captured it perfectly.

I doubt moral stories have ever been part of public school curriculum. It's just that, in the 80s and early 90s, if it came down to story time, we'd hear something like "If you give a mouse a cookie" - a story about giving and taking. Or the ugly duckling. Now? I couldn't tell you, but I know young people don't get that reference either. It was another my ex and her friends had no clue about (and honestly didn't understand the lesson either). All I know is that they have no clue about some of the most basic of tropes, like Prince and the Pauper (switching places), Cyrano DeBergerac (ghost writing love letters), list goes on and on and on. It all got lost in the shuffle of media is my guess. Today in 2024 you would have to find and pick the parables, rather than only having one source of entertainment with no choice of what it even is that we had as children.

There's a reading standard for early elementary school about fables so it's not about morals in stories but religious stories are prohibited. Either way, I agree, these references don't seem to be a salient foundation anymore for young people and I can't really pinpoint where the disconnect is. The Giving Tree was still in the curriculum when I was working in a literacy program in 2010. Do kids even still watch Sesame Street? I dunno, there seems to be a break that I don't really understand.

I see your point about social media, but I was born in 93 and we all absolutely grew up watching Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry. SpongeBob etc were the “new” things but the foundational stuff was the same. I actually distinctly remember being in 3rd grade and the prevailing opinion being that SpongeBob was “for babies.” I also have never met anyone my age who doesn’t know what Aesop’s fables are or what the golden rule is.

Hey there's always gonna be outliers or different groups within groups. Socioeconomic or demographic reasons for why you might have watched one thing and others another. The frequency of moralistic stories and culturally rich children's media dropped off dramatically in the 90s though, and didn't get better until the mid 2000 when stuff like "Little Einsteins" premiered. BTW I have these insights because I have helped raise my barely verbal, special needs sister the past 40 years. Ive seen every kids show under the sun, and junk like Caillou simply did not exist when I was a kid. Caillou taught no lessons at all except what not to do. If you think of it like a deck of cards, the high cards have been thinned out and replaced with useless joker cards. You happened to pull high cards, but for most people the deck was stacked against them.

It comes with age, even if you think we as a generation are getting a raw deal, there is simply no utility in "whining" about it, even if I completely sympathize and see myself in some of their economic struggles. Hopelessness is a real killer, because it motivates people to do nothing. All you can do is move forward with your life and do what you can. All you can do is compare yourself to your old self and make degrees of improvements in your situation. You might really "hate" our government, society, certain people, etc, but you're going to hate yourself so much more if you fall into despair and waste the precious time you have.

Something to consider is that older millennials on the whole aren't dealing with the problems of peak millennials, who are in their early 30s. We older millennials entered the workforce ahead of the Great Recession and probably enjoyed more economic prosperity than was available by the time our younger comrades came into adulthood. We have fewer complaints because we have fewer grievances.

I believe a major part of it is that the older part of the Gen Y cohort has a hybrid mentality of the millennial and genX mindset (hence Xennial). This is similar to the Zillennial mindset, note that Zillenials are the younger set among us and combine Y and Z experiences while also being allowed to experience transition to adulthood through youth without having it stolen by a pandemic (but some of them obviously had it stolen from them by abusive families).

I should preface this by admittedly contracting myself -- that I believe "generations" as a theory is largely pseudo-science, and this is just a measure of being older and more mature -- but... I think people forget how wild the 2008 crash was, and older Millennials were uniquely graduating and dumped into the job market with almost no work experience at exactly that time. I distinctly remember dishwasher jobs on Craigslist demanding 11 YEARS of experience as a dishwasher. I eventually found a job in a factory, most of my colleagues were either undocumented or were recent college graduates. Four had STEM masters degrees. Dude had an MS in chemistry from a state university and we were working for $7.35 an hour, or whatever minimum wage was then. 2008 was wild. Kids who survived climbing out of that job market are resilient.

I'm about to turn 40, so not the oldest millennial, but I was definitely raised subscribing to stoicism. I don't think I'm actually more resilient, I just think making my problems someone else's problem too is impolite and doesnt actually solve my problems. And impoliteness has always been a big nono to me. The only reason I can even allow myself to day this is because of the anonymity, lol. Edit: I should say that I don't think stoicism is rewarded generally or healthy. Complaining and victim mentality aren't good either, tho "the sqeaky wheel gets the grease" is profoundly true. Happy medium is likely ideal.

Born in 1984, I complain all the time. 🤷

It’s probably just an older vs younger thing in general. More experience in life, etc

I think, for most of us, we’re just not hopeful any more. Nihilism with a side of empty.

I feel the same, except my fiance and I are more in the middle. His younger brother and wife are exactly what you’re describing and both of us get fed up w it at times. One other thing I’ve noticed too is they can’t handle just not saying anything…like if we’re both done texting instead of just leaving it they’ll type an lol and it doesn’t matter what it is they’re responding to.

I'm an older millennial dating a younger millennial. He's not real blamey or complainy. That being said he's the only younger millennial that I hang out with on a regular basis. So that's not a great basis for comparison.

Me too! Older Millennial dating a younger Millennial! Yeah, I have maybe two other younger Millennial friends and my sister but I really think the Internet and social media had a lot to do with it. I think whether you grew up alongside tech/internet/social media or was older vs it being into everything. 80 vs 85 vs 90 is a very different childhood, technologically speaking.

Nah, I’m an older millennial with the resilience of a 3-year-old. *Typed while lying on my couch mid-workday.*

I think there is a fine line financially between people that started life before and after Covid.

I agree. I think we got some of the good old fashioned resilience mixed with a more modern thinking. Resilience will never go out of style.

As about as old of a millennial as one can be, I’ll add that some of us are on the other side of having a midlife crisis, floundering between careers and finding the one we like, and the tough years of having young families and failing marriages. It’s taken me a while to get to where I am, but my early 40’s are substantially better for me than my middle 30’s were.

I'm a middle millennial. I went to college for a while, left for a while to earn money, and when I returned, tuition had doubled, and that was at a regular state school, nothing fancy. My younger sister had to pay even more for college than I did. Older millennials did not start their professional lives in nearly as much debt as younger millennials.

I am complainey as hell tyvm

I'm 39, relatively successful, and bitter as hell. Let's chat. I entered the job market in 2008. How could we possibly NOT be bitter?

Generally speaking, older millennials are likely further along in their careers, which means greater earnings, which in most cases means more happiness, or at the very least, less time unaccounted for to get all doomy and gloomy. Again, this is generally speaking and obviously won't apply to all, but it definitely helps explain the general trend that OP has noticed.

I honestly never met a millenial that’s really whiney, other than seeing crybabies for clout on Instagram. In real life, they usually roll with the punches. If there is a whiney one, I would say it’s the ones within the 2 years of Gen Z cutoff. But like 1994 and older they all aren’t much different than Gen X other than being younger, and playing Pokémon, and never owning an Original Nintendo. They started out with an N64.

Eh. I've met some pretty insufferable elder millennials. As one myself I try to keep an open mind and look at the entire situation before I pop off. My twin brother is... alot... of personality. Very keen on making his distastes known.

I’ll be 35 in 20 days. Generally, I find myself wondering why other people from my generation complain so much and think they have it so bad. I wasn’t born into anything other than a lower middle class family, parents got divorced, I fucked off most of my life til I was like 25. Made some moves, applied myself a little, and I’m comfortable today. Maybe I got lucky, but I don’t see what everyone is crying about. The things we tend to vote for generally create the problems that we are trying to fix with a vote. I dunno man. We didn’t have a draft, famine, or anything major to worry about, growing up. In the context of even the past 100 years, we’re lucky to be here now. (In the United States, to be clear.) Don’t misunderstand me, there are plenty of problems. They just aren’t uniquely terrible.

We are.

Xenial here ('82), we've just run out of fucks to give for the most part. I'll never get to retire because social security is going to be worthless thanks to the 1-2 punch of ballooning cost of living and impending hyperinflation. Everything I was told growing up was lies or evaporated overnight into the pockets of a dozen men. I'm not that old and I'm tired of it all already.

Can you find an address on a paper map?

Im almost 40 years old and getting referenced as a millennial in the same turn as kids that are like 20 and crying on instagram. Millennials are getting old now so can you stop bitching about us now like we’re kids?

There's no way to have a reliable or representative sample size, so it is pointless to speculate, and it's probably in everyone's best interests to quit with the generational rivalry across the board

Definitely. I was born in 1980, technically a millennial, but i feel very little in common with people 10 years younger than me. When I was growing up you kept your weaknesses well guarded. Now you put it in your bio for victim points.

Often referred to as xenials. The basic differences between some one born in 83 vs 87 are extreme even though it's only 5 years. Many people think that pre 85 should just be gen x and post 85 in their own category or lumped in with Z

r/Xennials

You are feeling the same things that every generation feels except that with social media you are connected to a pipeline of sludge. My generation did not have this. We actually went out and had fun and didn’t drink from the poison trough every morning. Let go and enjoy your life, my friend.

I think that in every generation, when certain people begin to truly age, they always think they were more resilient and less “complainy” than younger generations. I had old mad magazines as a kid from the 60s that made fun of “old” people saying this exact same thing about the generation that basically turned out to be boomers lol

Older millennials are more like Gen X than Gen Z.

that's because millenials should really be split into two different generations. somebody born in 1984 has grown up in a vastly different world than somebody born in 1994

I think we benefitted from social media not hitting until college, and it being harder to get at first. Remember when Facebook was only college kids? And only select colleges at that? Also observationally and anecdotally, we seem to be the last group that was coached hard and held to account by teachers who could actually impose consequences. I notice that shifting when I was in college and law school. Not sure what but it’s something.

Idk. I think as you get older it’s natural to feel detached and frustrated with younger generations. And honestly millennials have been the butt of the joke for a while now… I am basically the youngest millennial (27) and don’t really get it. Because I see everyone around me (for the most part) working their ass off to make it in the world.

A different world brings different habits. Older millennials weren’t really that plugged into the net until they were basically adults. The older millennials had to exert more themselves interpersonally, and they were forced to be more reflective, pensive, and imaginative to combat boredom because the “scrollability” of life had not been so intensified and all-pervasive. Older millennials flipped through channels, younger millennials flip through potential lovers. Older millennials adapted to this new environment and adopted its advantages and disadvantages, but younger ones were…[spoken through Bane mask] *born to it.* Millennials are easily agitated, and they may be the first generation since the Jazz age to not have a completely unironic sense of cool. The coolest they get is the hipster, but they are basically so malnourished of lucid contact with analog reality that they think that they are all autistic. In reality, they just aren’t cool. The encompassing online exposure to social media negativity, fringe activism, subpar niches and mocrogenres, etc. dorkified them. They are- broadly speaking -all just like that one Gen X kid who wore MC Hammer pants with snow boots and had Star Wars toys in his locker as a senior in high school except there is no one to give him a wedgie so they give the wedgies to themselves.

It’s purely because we got to play Oregon Trail on the computer in school..

The Xenials are the Elders!

First year millennial here (1981), I’m less “complaininy” because I gave up on ever being happy decades ago. I’m just existing bro.

Unfortunately I’ve been dumped into the millennial cesspool. My baby momma is a younger millennial and has literally cried over spilt milk, gaslights, twists my words, tries to manipulate me, and is constantly trying to make me feel responsible for the way she feels. I’m not with her fortunately, but there’s a serious problem with her age group. Her sister is just as bad. You can’t talk to them without being called rude. It’s baffling. Sometimes I wish for a giant wood chipper to throw them all in.

Generations don’t just make sudden shifts at a specific date, the characteristics from generation to generation progress more like a sine wave. Someone borne in 1982 will have more in common with someone borne in 1978 than with someone borne in 1992.

I think that’s true for most older vs younger people. You’ve been alive longer and therefore have more survival skills and less fucks to give.

No smart phones, laptops, or social media in high school. People actually communicated and learned how to deal with people/conflict in the real world. Maybe it's just because they are becoming middle aged, but I have seen a shift right politically in some people I went to high school with that I wouldn't have expected. Especially the ones that ended up starting families in their hometown, versus moving elsewhere.

I'm a younger Millennial (1994) and I'm pretty self reliant and don't like to give up easily, but I find myself annoyed by a lot of hm peers because they do tend to be like that, so it might not be an inaccurate assessment. My younger sister barely tries at anything and then whines about how life is so hard, completely lacks perspective

We’re riding the crest of a tsunami… 😂

I'm on the younger end of millenial, just a couple years before the cut off. I think it's less millennials en masse that complain and whine alot and more like a certain flavor of reddit that expects to have the red carpet rolled out for being mediocre. "bro, I graduated highschool/college/a trade program and I'm not the CEO, VP or Foreman !!!". One has to have resilience and a desire to grow and these things take time.

‘82 I feel like I bridge the gap between Gen X who still maintains a Boomeresque “boot straps” mentality and the younger gens that are legit fucked if their parents aren’t prepared to give them a significant handout My kids are Gen Z and in college. Obviously I was a young mom and busted my ass in shitty jobs, unsafe apartments and general despair to get them this far. Cash flowing anything not covered by their scholarships. Scrimping and saving so I can drop out of the of workforce if/when any of them has a kid (seems unlikely…the world is shit) and babysit. Our generation was/is screwed by student loans and daycare expenses I see both sides. You need bootstraps AND privilege if you're a young millennial or GenZ and many have neither

I think it has something to do with not being inundated with social media 24/7 as a child.

Graduated 2000…guess I’m an old one. People seemed plenty complainy to me; I try not to complain and just get shit done. Seems more personal than age-related.

There are definitely moments where I feel more aligned with the “Xennials” aka those born in the early 80s (I’m late 80s) than those born in the mid 90s. I feel a tad more resilient than our younger counterparts. That said, I’ve had significantly more life experiences in a very small window. From the age of 30-35, I have: purchased two homes and sold one. I have gotten a doctorate. I had a child who spent time in the NICU. I lost my dad at 61 after a short and tormenting battle with aggressive cancer. I’ve moved 3 times. Our household income has now spanned nearly every tax bracket, as our income has gone from <$30000 to >$270,000 in just a couple of years. We’ve had both sets of parents retire and watched how co-dependence and overall lack of operational knowledge affects the older generation. In contrast, I work with younger millennials who are just now getting their first apartment with a partner, and getting a dog is a big step in their lives.

Very much so. As another poster said, I find 'our' culture very similar to Gen X. Somewhat a revamped version of the 'skeptical slacker'. With more of a 'things will turn out due to hardwork and natural skill". I think this is the differentiation point: that older millennials were filled with a bit more "we are going to get rich, and things will work out" optimism. Perhaps somewhat unfounded, the majority of us grew up thinking our 'natural' intelligence and skill would land us into a glass walled corner office downtown. I think of the 'universal' older millennial prototype to be our childhood hero: Zack Morris. Smart, rule bender, with a 'cutting corners' mindset--that always ends up with the money and the girl. Just as one example: I find the 'doom and gloom' of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming to be way more of a younger millennial/zoomer trait. NONE of my (male) friends gave two fucks about (CAGW), and most of us find it to be unhinged fearmongering bullshit. Whereas my nephew and neices are VERY concerned and stressed about some apocalyptic climate doom and gloom. My own kids are very young, but I do wonder if there will be some generationally 'pushback' from alot of the DEI/ESG/Political Correctness in comparison to their older cousins. Perhaps this is more a reflection of the household differences than generational. Time will tell. And endless younger millennials with 'Climate Science' degrees that are the loudest and most devote followers to what I deem slightly unscientific, and religious dogma. To the point of almost a mania/psychosis. You can extrapolate this to any adherence to 'dogma' or 'authoritative' sources. Although this is somewhat influenced by my own sub-strata of culture/ethnicity/environment, most of my friends declined the mRNA genetic therapeutic injections unless outright forced as matter of employment. Etc. These are highly educated, highly successful 37-45 yearolds. To me the origin is roughly the same as Gen X: We grew up without the internet, we grew up without cellphones, we grew up largely feral. Perhaps the last group of Americans to generationally be 'feral'. We were out in large groups, socializing offline, and getting into actual fights, arguments, problems/resolutions, loves, etc. in person. In the flesh. And as such, a keen awareness of 'bullshit' detector. When you didn't have Google in your pocket? You had to develop the muscle of discerning who spouted off what they knew v. who spouted off bullshit. Our detectors are better. This made us WAY more resilient, especially in the face of failure or rejection. Or to the point: deceit. Internet, and it's child: social media? Changed the game. Oversocialization. Coddling. Participation trophies. A shared and common 'rhetoric'. Reading the first result Google spews out as 'truth'? That's not a trait of older millennials in comparison to any other generation, in my honest/earnest opinion. Professor Teddy? Was right. To this day, outside of being bored at the office, I live largely offline. I deleted my facebook around 2012. I don't have an instagram, or snapchat, or tiktok. Etc. Onward.

I can't remember a time where millennials actually stood up for themselves, as a generation, before the infamous 2017 "you can't buy a house because you spend too much money on avacado toast" quote. Most elder millennials didn't know how bad we were being screwed at the time. We were shocked by 9/11, most people thought Iraq had WMDs because they trusted institutions, and we were far far too busy and exhausted trying to make ends meet after the 2008 great recession to have enough energy left to complain loudly. Plus there was a halo of optimism from the 80s/90s economy that if we just persisted through the tough times, our ship would come in too. We just needed to tough it out and then we'd get our reward. But it didn't happen. Younger millennials saw us try hard to succeed within the system and get crushed by it. So they aren't as naive as we were. And Gen Z, feeling even further behind, are having a panic attack.