2 ms·

Just an overall impression, in the idea that "Millenials are this", "Millenials are that". Most of the times when someone frames a group of people into common c

Just an overall impression, in the idea that "Millenials are this", "Millenials are that". Most of the times when someone frames a group of people into common characteristics, it sounds condescending to me.

lonelappde 7y ago
It's a term to refer to "the current crop of young adults". I so rarely see the anti-"Millennial" crowd complain about the term "Baby Boomer"; usually it's the opposite, in fact.
- jhbadger 7y ago
  But that was a real cohort with an actual cause (soldiers returning home from WWII and starting families, leading to a large increase in births in the decade following 1945). Later generations called Generation X and Millennials are much more arbitrary because there isn't really a defined cause for their existence.
  - pwinnski 7y ago
    If the complaint is the name, as you seem to be suggesting, then pick whatever name you wish. If the complaint is that not everybody of a given age should be lumped together as one, then that's as true of any generation than any other. Either way, Millennials are not being singled out. Signed, a reluctant member of GenX.
    - jhbadger 7y ago
      While I don't think people born in the same time are all the same, the fact is a lot of Baby Boomers had at least a shared experience in having a father who came back from the war. I don't think there is anything comparable for us GenXers (who were basically defined as "not Baby Boomers") and the Millennials when the marketers realized the GenX term was going on for too long.
      - pwinnski 7y ago
        If I'm getting my dates right, "Baby Boomers" includes both the hippies who were shot at Kent State and the law-and-order types doing the shooting, so to speak. I still think that your objection applies as much to other generations as to Millennials, and that in all cases, the labels are shorthand for a very rough approximation of shared experience. As for Gen X, the X is lazy, for sure. What we have in common are Baby Boomer parents.
        jhbadger 7y ago
        Oh not even that. The older GenXers like myself (born 1970) have "Silent Generation" (1925-1944) parents that were born before or during the war (a rather small generation as the Depression and war weren't great times to have kids in). My parents were never hippies nor did my father face the risk of being sent to Vietnam -- they were too old for either.
  - BlueTemplar 7y ago
    The issue is that the boom went on for 30 years, so it's even more problematic to lump them in the same generation as the current 18-40 year old millennials.

lonelappde 7y ago

It's a term to refer to "the current crop of young adults". I so rarely see the anti-"Millennial" crowd complain about the term "Baby Boomer"; usually it's the opposite, in fact.

jhbadger 7y ago
But that was a real cohort with an actual cause (soldiers returning home from WWII and starting families, leading to a large increase in births in the decade following 1945). Later generations called Generation X and Millennials are much more arbitrary because there isn't really a defined cause for their existence.
- pwinnski 7y ago
  If the complaint is the name, as you seem to be suggesting, then pick whatever name you wish. If the complaint is that not everybody of a given age should be lumped together as one, then that's as true of any generation than any other. Either way, Millennials are not being singled out. Signed, a reluctant member of GenX.
  - jhbadger 7y ago
    While I don't think people born in the same time are all the same, the fact is a lot of Baby Boomers had at least a shared experience in having a father who came back from the war. I don't think there is anything comparable for us GenXers (who were basically defined as "not Baby Boomers") and the Millennials when the marketers realized the GenX term was going on for too long.
    - pwinnski 7y ago
      If I'm getting my dates right, "Baby Boomers" includes both the hippies who were shot at Kent State and the law-and-order types doing the shooting, so to speak. I still think that your objection applies as much to other generations as to Millennials, and that in all cases, the labels are shorthand for a very rough approximation of shared experience. As for Gen X, the X is lazy, for sure. What we have in common are Baby Boomer parents.
      - jhbadger 7y ago
        Oh not even that. The older GenXers like myself (born 1970) have "Silent Generation" (1925-1944) parents that were born before or during the war (a rather small generation as the Depression and war weren't great times to have kids in). My parents were never hippies nor did my father face the risk of being sent to Vietnam -- they were too old for either.
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  The issue is that the boom went on for 30 years, so it's even more problematic to lump them in the same generation as the current 18-40 year old millennials.