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I've wondered for a while now if this whiner generation actually complains about how the world is against them more, or if it's just easier for them to be heard

I've wondered for a while now if this whiner generation actually complains about how the world is against them more, or if it's just easier for them to be heard. In particular, I'm thinking social media is the big culprit here. I also would expect some sort of tipping point: "Oh, you can't afford to live in the city because you can't get a job in pharma too? Wow, our generation is having a tough time." I'm 30, own about 15% of a home and have a wife and kids. I've never been unemployed. I attribute this to not expecting the world to give me anything, like a living wage, student loans, cheap mortgage, etc. Plenty of people in my peer group are also successful, but there are still those who 'fail' and go from scheme to scheme trying to get a high paying, easy job. At the end of the day, life is not a video game and you are not the hero. If you're lucky, you might might be a middle manager on the death star construction team.

sanderjd 15y ago
Get over yourself. It's great that you're 30, have assets and a good life, and have never been unemployed. Huge swaths of the generation you so casually refer to as "whiners" will never have the chance to make those claims regardless of what they do or don't expect from the world, and you scoff at them from your comfortable perch. Let's have some perspective - when kids decide whether and where to go to college, and agree to take on its debt, they are 17 and know nothing about the world, about job markets, about mortgage rates, about growth industries and dying industries. They are told by their parents and other adult influencers to study what they are passionate about because in America you can be whatever you want to be if you try hard enough and if you go to a good school. So the dumb 17-year-olds of this "whiner" generation went to college during a strong economy and played along with all the adult assurances that they would do great, and they graduated to a world with no work and especially not for most people who studied something they were "passionate" about. It's such crap to scorn people for regretting decisions they were led into when they were clueless. People need to take responsibility for their own success, but our society needs to be thinking long and hard about how it has failed this generation and how to avoid failing the subsequent ones.
- infinite8s 15y ago
  The issue is that in the last generation the age of maturity/critical thinking has gone from early teens to late teens. I find it amazing that 17 year olds have been so isolated from the world that they believe that no matter what they study in college, they can graduate and easily get a high paying job no matter what they studied.

sanderjd 15y ago

Get over yourself. It's great that you're 30, have assets and a good life, and have never been unemployed. Huge swaths of the generation you so casually refer to as "whiners" will never have the chance to make those claims regardless of what they do or don't expect from the world, and you scoff at them from your comfortable perch. Let's have some perspective - when kids decide whether and where to go to college, and agree to take on its debt, they are 17 and know nothing about the world, about job markets, about mortgage rates, about growth industries and dying industries. They are told by their parents and other adult influencers to study what they are passionate about because in America you can be whatever you want to be if you try hard enough and if you go to a good school. So the dumb 17-year-olds of this "whiner" generation went to college during a strong economy and played along with all the adult assurances that they would do great, and they graduated to a world with no work and especially not for most people who studied something they were "passionate" about. It's such crap to scorn people for regretting decisions they were led into when they were clueless. People need to take responsibility for their own success, but our society needs to be thinking long and hard about how it has failed this generation and how to avoid failing the subsequent ones.

infinite8s 15y ago
The issue is that in the last generation the age of maturity/critical thinking has gone from early teens to late teens. I find it amazing that 17 year olds have been so isolated from the world that they believe that no matter what they study in college, they can graduate and easily get a high paying job no matter what they studied.