4 ms·

>Why is the response to the statement "millennials have problems" so commonly angry and defensive? Because many millennials want to have their cake and eat it

>Why is the response to the statement "millennials have problems" so commonly angry and defensive? Because many millennials want to have their cake and eat it too. You can't have it both ways: - You can't choose to attend an $80,000 per year private liberal arts school and then complain you have too much student debt - You can't move to the most expensive place in the country with no money and a low paying job and then complain it's too expensive - You can't regularly use convenient and artificially cheap gig-economy services (like Uber and Instacart) and then complain when their business model doesn't support giving you a $150,000 a year job - You can't demand free speech protection and then violently oppress viewpoints you disagree with (for the record, I am a political moderate) The Millennial hypocrisy is astounding, but I'm sure every generation goes through this to some extent. The real generational moment of revelation is when you realize that every choice you make has consequences - and not just the choices/consequences you choose to believe. If I buy a cheap toy at Walmart, I know that some labor exploitation was involved. If I buy fruit at Costco, I know that burning of fossil fuels is involved. If I choose to use Google services, my data will be exploited for profit. What everyone is asking Millennials to do is take some responsibility, acknowledge that your actions are part of the problem, and that you have some power to drive solutions. It's fine to lament about some level of inequity handed down from previous generations, we have all done it. What everyone is getting a little tired of is the classic Millennial argument that paints an entire generation as helpless victims and essentially says "You did this to us and now we want you to make the bad man go away!" Kind of like an entire generation of Robin Arryns for all you Game of Thrones fans.

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
> You can't choose to attend an $80,000 per year private liberal arts school and then complain you have too much student debt 1. This assumes that everyone went to a private liberal arts college, which isn't true. 2. Historically a degree wasn't as necessary because employers actually provided growth potential and entry-level positions to people. Those aren't options for millennials. That kind of forces people to get degrees to have any chance of economic growth. > You can't move to the most expensive place in the country with no money and a low paying job and then complain it's too expensive If those are the only regions of the country experiencing economic growth, then what else are they supposed to do? Work in Dollar General in a city of 12,000 people their whole life? > You can't regularly use convenient and artificially cheap gig-economy services (like Uber and Instacart) and then complain when their business model doesn't support giving you a $150,000 a year job People will always use the cheapest or most efficient option when it comes to purchasing services or items. It's not their fault that such services are legal, it's the government's. > You can't demand free speech protection and then violently oppress viewpoints you disagree with. I agree with you here. The internet has made it so that those who complain the most are perceived to be the majority when they're not.
- wott 9y ago
  > what else are they supposed to do? Work in Dollar General in a city of 12,000 people their whole life? And here we go... it did not take long. Why on Earth would living in a 12000 inhabitant city be infamous, be a failure, be a shame? Not fancy and shiny enough for you, eh?
aalleavitch 9y ago
The problem here is that you are applying all the worst examples of a group to the majority of the group. None of these things are widely representative of the actual population of people we're talking about. They're just the things that make you angriest. The other problem is that plenty of people (millennial or otherwise) are trying to fix the systemic problems, and others are actively moving to oppose us. It's like there's a house on fire, and I run to the neighbors and am like "help! this house is on fire!" and the neighbors respond with "stop crying and put it out yourself you hippie". It's not even my house! And the neighbors are too busy getting angry at the gall of me for asking for help putting out this house to realize that the fire's starting to spread to their house too.
- joejerryronnie 9y ago
  Here is the perception of non-millennials: It's like you running to the neighbors and saying "Help, this house in on fire! And you started it by having that bbq two weeks ago. I'm sure the natural gas you used, in addition to ravaging the environment, was somehow at fault. By the way, you really should be eating this new meatless meat that's all the rage. Oh yeah, and while you're busy putting out that fire, I'm gonna hang out with my buddies drinking kale shakes and eating avo toast. Let me know when everything is all good again and I'll slip into that newly remodeled loft." Clearly (and supported by the comment threads here) there is a wide gap between millennial and non-millennial perception of the existing problems and the proper solutions. You should do what us Gen-Xers did, figure out how to play the game to get what you want and work on solutions to the most important issues. Pick your battles - raging about every single issue and injustice desensitizes the rest of us to the real troubles you are having.
  - Apocryphon 9y ago
    Somehow you have confused an entire generation with the conservative stereotype of latte-sipping limousine liberals.
    - aalleavitch 9y ago
      And therein lies the problem. The entire premise is based on a politicized stereotype that has been forced down the public's throats specifically because it's emotionally resonant regardless of accuracy. It's literally just a list of "things I use to differentiate myself from another group of people that makes me feel insecure".
wfo 9y ago
Millenials aren't whiny, they are angry. They have been screwed and want revenge. They correctly asses that boomers climbed up the ladder then burned it to the ground. They took cheap publicly subsidized education then massively defunded it. They benefited from regulated financial markets then gifted them to oligarchs. They took pensions then ensured no one would ever get one again. They destroyed unions and therefore the middle class. They destroyed the environment for their own personal profit. They took all the benefits of the new deal, and the moment it looked like those benefits would start helping the new generation they stripped them away. The boomers will go down as the most selfish and short sighted generation in US history. And millenials are very tired of these people who have had it so easy and worked to make it so much worse for their children, talking about "personal responsibility" and "participation trophies".
- malvosenior 9y ago
  No one had it easy. Millennials have a much better life all things considered. You can’t get drafted to go die in a war, you brush off 70s stagflation like it was a non-event. Rascism is much less prevalent. It’s precisely this ease of living that is part of the problem. Why not rack up tens of thousands of college debt to get a useless degree when you’re historically more privileged than 99% of people that have ever lived? Reality is harsh and that seems to have escaped many millennials.
  - Apocryphon 9y ago
    > Reality is harsh and that seems to have escaped many millennials. I think part of the disillusionment was having grown up in the prosperous, peaceful '90s, that Boomers hyped up as the End of History. And then the western world became immersed in a seeming unending war, with the security state overreach accordingly, and then the bottom fell out of the economy after. Can you blame them for being pissed off that the promises of their childhood were a lie? At least previous generations that dealt with hardships were not lied to first.
    - malvosenior 9y ago
      I agree with your analysis and think we're very close to talking about the same thing. The difference between gen-x and millennials is that boomers told both groups the same lies, it's just that gen-x didn't believe them. Gen-x cynicism is a real thing. We're back to my original point of millennials not being close enough to boomers to know that they were lying (or ill informed).
watwut 9y ago
I like how you simultaneously blame them for spending too much money and for using cheap services too. And also blame them for relocating to place where the jobs are supposed to be. I also like how everyone blames Millennials for lack of responsibility and then complains about them doing responsible choices - be it living cheap, postponing having children, having sex later and not dating enough, going less to restaurants, being overly focused on grades ... all real complains I have seen last weeks. There is nothing hypocritical about demanding low wage workers protections, higher taxes for richer segments population, healthcare reform and the same social services other western countries have. You may disagree with those policies, but buying cheap toys at Walmart is in no way opposition to them. Uber being artificially cheap is not Millenials doing.

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago

> You can't choose to attend an $80,000 per year private liberal arts school and then complain you have too much student debt 1. This assumes that everyone went to a private liberal arts college, which isn't true. 2. Historically a degree wasn't as necessary because employers actually provided growth potential and entry-level positions to people. Those aren't options for millennials. That kind of forces people to get degrees to have any chance of economic growth. > You can't move to the most expensive place in the country with no money and a low paying job and then complain it's too expensive If those are the only regions of the country experiencing economic growth, then what else are they supposed to do? Work in Dollar General in a city of 12,000 people their whole life? > You can't regularly use convenient and artificially cheap gig-economy services (like Uber and Instacart) and then complain when their business model doesn't support giving you a $150,000 a year job People will always use the cheapest or most efficient option when it comes to purchasing services or items. It's not their fault that such services are legal, it's the government's. > You can't demand free speech protection and then violently oppress viewpoints you disagree with. I agree with you here. The internet has made it so that those who complain the most are perceived to be the majority when they're not.

wott 9y ago
> what else are they supposed to do? Work in Dollar General in a city of 12,000 people their whole life? And here we go... it did not take long. Why on Earth would living in a 12000 inhabitant city be infamous, be a failure, be a shame? Not fancy and shiny enough for you, eh?

aalleavitch 9y ago

The problem here is that you are applying all the worst examples of a group to the majority of the group. None of these things are widely representative of the actual population of people we're talking about. They're just the things that make you angriest. The other problem is that plenty of people (millennial or otherwise) are trying to fix the systemic problems, and others are actively moving to oppose us. It's like there's a house on fire, and I run to the neighbors and am like "help! this house is on fire!" and the neighbors respond with "stop crying and put it out yourself you hippie". It's not even my house! And the neighbors are too busy getting angry at the gall of me for asking for help putting out this house to realize that the fire's starting to spread to their house too.

joejerryronnie 9y ago
Here is the perception of non-millennials: It's like you running to the neighbors and saying "Help, this house in on fire! And you started it by having that bbq two weeks ago. I'm sure the natural gas you used, in addition to ravaging the environment, was somehow at fault. By the way, you really should be eating this new meatless meat that's all the rage. Oh yeah, and while you're busy putting out that fire, I'm gonna hang out with my buddies drinking kale shakes and eating avo toast. Let me know when everything is all good again and I'll slip into that newly remodeled loft." Clearly (and supported by the comment threads here) there is a wide gap between millennial and non-millennial perception of the existing problems and the proper solutions. You should do what us Gen-Xers did, figure out how to play the game to get what you want and work on solutions to the most important issues. Pick your battles - raging about every single issue and injustice desensitizes the rest of us to the real troubles you are having.
- Apocryphon 9y ago
  Somehow you have confused an entire generation with the conservative stereotype of latte-sipping limousine liberals.
  - aalleavitch 9y ago
    And therein lies the problem. The entire premise is based on a politicized stereotype that has been forced down the public's throats specifically because it's emotionally resonant regardless of accuracy. It's literally just a list of "things I use to differentiate myself from another group of people that makes me feel insecure".

wfo 9y ago

Millenials aren't whiny, they are angry. They have been screwed and want revenge. They correctly asses that boomers climbed up the ladder then burned it to the ground. They took cheap publicly subsidized education then massively defunded it. They benefited from regulated financial markets then gifted them to oligarchs. They took pensions then ensured no one would ever get one again. They destroyed unions and therefore the middle class. They destroyed the environment for their own personal profit. They took all the benefits of the new deal, and the moment it looked like those benefits would start helping the new generation they stripped them away. The boomers will go down as the most selfish and short sighted generation in US history. And millenials are very tired of these people who have had it so easy and worked to make it so much worse for their children, talking about "personal responsibility" and "participation trophies".

malvosenior 9y ago
No one had it easy. Millennials have a much better life all things considered. You can’t get drafted to go die in a war, you brush off 70s stagflation like it was a non-event. Rascism is much less prevalent. It’s precisely this ease of living that is part of the problem. Why not rack up tens of thousands of college debt to get a useless degree when you’re historically more privileged than 99% of people that have ever lived? Reality is harsh and that seems to have escaped many millennials.
- Apocryphon 9y ago
  > Reality is harsh and that seems to have escaped many millennials. I think part of the disillusionment was having grown up in the prosperous, peaceful '90s, that Boomers hyped up as the End of History. And then the western world became immersed in a seeming unending war, with the security state overreach accordingly, and then the bottom fell out of the economy after. Can you blame them for being pissed off that the promises of their childhood were a lie? At least previous generations that dealt with hardships were not lied to first.
  - malvosenior 9y ago
    I agree with your analysis and think we're very close to talking about the same thing. The difference between gen-x and millennials is that boomers told both groups the same lies, it's just that gen-x didn't believe them. Gen-x cynicism is a real thing. We're back to my original point of millennials not being close enough to boomers to know that they were lying (or ill informed).

watwut 9y ago

I like how you simultaneously blame them for spending too much money and for using cheap services too. And also blame them for relocating to place where the jobs are supposed to be. I also like how everyone blames Millennials for lack of responsibility and then complains about them doing responsible choices - be it living cheap, postponing having children, having sex later and not dating enough, going less to restaurants, being overly focused on grades ... all real complains I have seen last weeks. There is nothing hypocritical about demanding low wage workers protections, higher taxes for richer segments population, healthcare reform and the same social services other western countries have. You may disagree with those policies, but buying cheap toys at Walmart is in no way opposition to them. Uber being artificially cheap is not Millenials doing.