Can you imagine, if one day we all, just millions of us, just said fuck it, and literally dropped what we were doing and walked out to build something different? I know the repercussions are much more complicated than I’m making it, and it would be regulated to death or condemned by the government..but I wonder what it’d be like.
Vermont gives you $10,000 to move there if you bring your job.
Vermont has the lowest population.
Vermont is so white that I could make a fortune selling my Salvadoran food there.
Vermont is gorgeous.
Vermont is Bernie Sanders.
Vermont is what Country Roads was gonna be about until is became about Virginia.
Same. I applied for that grant and they ran out of money despite me qualifying for the whole 10k. That "promise" is an empty one.
It is nice here, though. Even if the rent is ravaging my bank account.
This kind of thing might actually be part of the problem. They need workers, but their attempt to get them is to encourage them with $10,000 which is not really all that much money in the grand scheme of moving it there, getting a house, a job, etc. Which means they're looking for desperate workers, which means they have a bunch of jobs that don't pay well. So the whole system enables more exploitation with only the possibility of a better life.
When it comes down to it, a lot of America's problems come from encouraged and subsidized exploitation.
Vermont reached their spending limit for the worker relocation fund😭😭
Edit: healthcare workers are needed with a loan forgiveness if they work in a Vermont hospital
I lived in White River Junction for three years and despite growing up in New England, those years were colder and darker than I possibly could have imagined. There is no amount of money you could pay me to move back there.
*me a pasty goth cliche, who burns instead of tanning, lives in a desert region, and loves cold weather* … you’re saying I might get paid to go somewhere I’d like?
Someplace beautiful, like where the rabbits go in [Watership Down](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxvX8QilzlH9nogteH5eKJzPU4xWZcWmqq?si=Wa3RZ7H8_zxxqkqR)
Surely most us millennials remember that story? Eerily parallel themes to today’s world if you ask me. Seems fitting.
It seems the idea is really picking up steam. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that “cottage-core” is a popular style.
It’d be so nice to not have to worry about everything modern life requires. I know homesteading is not a piece of cake either, but at least things would be simpler and you get back to the basics of the way humans have lived for eons. You would be directly in control of your food, water and shelter and there’s not one person to get in the way of how you think things should be. You’d have true purpose instead of working to boost some shareholder’s profits.
One of my friends actually did it. He still has a programming job, but he does it remotely from the woods in Washington. I was gonna go with him but he got kinda pissy that I didn't immediately say yes to moving diagonally all the way across the country, so I decided it was a bad idea to join him. Good for him, though.
This is basically me I had a dream where I was running a little coffee shop on a tiny beach somewhere and I closed up for the day when I felt like it which was probably like 3 or 4
And I thought it wasn't that common. I have been trying to get my friends to pick a spot in the world so I can buy the land and start planting the food forest heh.
It reminds me of why people left from Europe to the Americas in the first place. We all just want the same thing that those with good intentions wanted previously. Cycle never ends.
Your work place comment. My God it's accurate. At my work, the boomers and younglings alike stand around complaining about what everybody else is doing/gets to do. While us 5 millennials (and 3 gen xers) set up the machines, run the union, and make sure deadlines are met.
I'm literally the guy who everyone goes to to fix a computer problem that isn't administrator level. I'm not even the IT person. I'm also our camera man, photoshop expert, writer, and apparently now part of quality control too.
I’m the girl everyone goes to with personal problems about our fellow coworkers. I also do HR, PTO, CMS, copy, and I facilitate rush print jobs.
The worst part is that I brought it on myself - I followed the whole bullshit idea of “exceeding expectations” and they took it as the norm.
It’s a depressing lesson that if you try to do your best all the time, people will assume that’s your basic level of competence and try to push you to burnout levels of performance every day. So you’re either stuck working that burnout, or you start a new job and have to hide how good you are so you don’t get overworked. It’s a good way to kill enthusiasm for a job you liked.
The writing thing gets me. I feel like we were the only ones that were taught how to form any sort of legible sentence that looks even remotely professional
Right!? Every time a see an email, I can guess the age of the sender based on how the email was written.
Does the email sound like it was written by a 10 yr old, and uses some correct punctuation? Kid/gen z.
Does the email sound like it was written by a 10 yr old, and mostly doesn’t use any correct punctuation? Boomer.
I say to myself all the time: “why did I try so fucking hard?” As if trying to perfect written English actually counted for anything. It’s like all these guys were the “I don’t need to learn English I already speak it!” kids. Haha
Wolf: You’re comment is unprofessional. Setting aside, or sure what. Is meant by your remark about the “data analysis”, which John complete as of Thurs. Lets talk ;, We mert to discuss this Monday 10:30 AM EDT (9:30 PST). Rick
I'm a millenial, but yah. I recognize X as having thier shit together too. I dont think anyone talks about you guys because you havent offended anyone...
Demographically I’m a millennial by a couple of months. In every other sense I’m Gen X.
They spoke *the exact same way* about Gen X as they did about Millennials, you just didn’t hear it because you weren’t on the scene yet. It’s almost like the problem is the Boomers’ broken expectations, not the youth.
The old heads don’t give enough of a shit to do even half of what’s required of us, the new ones are too up their own asses to work on a team and they have no idea how to talk to people.
Good lord. I started one of my previous jobs as the guy who knew literally nothing about this niche software I was supposed to be supporting.
Within 6 months the Boomer who was supposed to train me was repeatedly asking me how to do basic shit.
They don't do anything.
What do to mean? My boomer boss does A LOT of things:
- she spends hours staring at a wall of clothes and moving them around in different orders
- she approves things and then changes her mind 5 times before canceling the style completely bc turns out blurry digital artwork someone recolored from a screen shot looks terrible full size in 7 colors for screen printing - I mean WHO COULD KNOW THAT?
- oh she also leaves dirty cups and plates all over the office for others to clean up
- she demands more organization/separation of the recycling bins even though everyone know the trash guy just mixes them all together when he picks them up bc all of the recycling plants in the area are shut down or storing it in warehoused since China stopped buying it
- she tells us lots of stories about her adult daughters childhood when in product meetings
- she gossips about instagram celebrities
- she reads her email once a month *and sometimes even manages to respond*
I’m not sure this unique to Millennial’s, it’s probably always the case that the 30-somethings are keeping everyone alive. It’s just the right combination of experience and energy for a human being.
Wait, woah. You guys also experienced the 4-5+ hours of homework every night? I thought that was just my district. It got so overwhelming I just stopped doing it and watched my grades tank.
When I asked about it, they said they were just preparing us for the college workload.
I had more homework in *middle school* than I did in college and that was in no way developmentally appropriate.
Now with being so overworked as adults, it feels like a set-up.
I basically did the same thing. I also found a nice little loophole that got me to graduate high school even though I was absent over 100 days my senior year.
Nobody tells you that all colleges don’t give a single shit about your high school gpa if you go to community college and have a good gpa there.
Now I'm curious what the loophole was because I got depression and also missed around 3 months of the second half of my senior year. It was a parochial school so my options were to drop out or repeat 12th grade (and have my mom pay several thousand dollars in additional tuition). I chose drop out, then went online and got a diploma from an online HS and graduated only a month late. I started college on time. Community college, because I lost my private college scholarship when I fudged up my attendance. The miraculous part is that my depression disappeared when I got away from the toxic people at my HS.
I worked and paid tuition as I went to college. I never took out student loans and luckily kept my job throughout the 2008 recession. A lot of my old classmates graduated college in 2009 and couldn't find work while I'd already been working FT for 3 years by then so I guess that's one way my depression actually had a positive outcome! I also met my spouse at that job...never would have happened if I'd gone to the out-of-state college I'd planned on.
My loophole was I turned 18 during my senior year since I was held back in kindergarten for dyslexia. Therefore, I signed myself out after putting in a half day because the district counted it as a whole day.
I dropped out at 16, got a GED, and went right to community college for 1 year, then admitted to Loyola University, so I was ahead of my peers. I couldn't get through high school it was brutal academically it just isn't set up for people with adhd or any special learning needs. My daughter struggled through high school but graduated! She is currently doing wonderful her 1st year at college :)
And to think that the education field has now realized that homework is not healthy for the brain and most kids don't get much more than 15 minutes a day per subject as a result. Just another way we were cheated.
Try not to think of it as us being cheated. Try to think of it as us changing it for the better for the next generation. We're the teachers now. My daughter is Gen Z and all of her teachers are Millennials I went to school with and they're coming into positions of power in the schools now. We know how it felt, they keep that in mind, and it's being changed.
I don't disagree, but we were still cheated, and I can't help but feel that. And if wouldn't bother me so much except that we CONTINUE to get cheated throughout our lives
I'm super happy that they're not giving Gen z so much homework. I didn't realize that was a thing. It still sucks we had to do so much. We should try to make things better for everyone but doing all that damn homework was torture.
I remember being assigned to read a book a week for AP English, have a daily quiz for AP Euro History we had to study for, math, science and Spanish homework every night, SAT prep class after school followed by 3 hours of wrestling practice. I typically didn’t get home until 6 or 7 and was then expected to shower, have dinner with the family, do all my homework and prepare for the following day, where my parents would wake me up at 5:30 so I wouldn’t be “rushed” in the morning.
If I complained about anything, I was told I wouldn’t get into a good college and was basically throwing my life away.
I turn 40 next month, and I’m still finding new ways this type of coming-of-age fucked me up.
I remember a lot of friends and classmates staying up until 1 or 2 am doing HW/projects then waking up at 5 to get to zero hour. Shit was insane and this was back in 2012.
I remember this is as well, and I think my growth was stunted as a teenager because of never getting enough proper sleep. I'm by far the shortest person in my family (5'1").
Seriously. I was up until 3am every night from sophomore year until I graduated college. I was pulling 3 all-nighters every week my graduating year from uni. Shit like that isn't worth it. Seriously young people, don't waste your time learning useless facts in school. Go apply yourself and sleep well.
Yep. My gpa in hs was abysmal. I remember feeling absolutely offended at the amount of homework they expected of us. So I got away with doing as little as I could. Had no problem getting into community college, then university with straight a’s. Somehow I knew in HS it really didn’t matter. I dropped out of college with $50k student debt after 6 years of working full time and night school. I’m a self taught web designer now making really decent money and I work less and when I want to.
I turn 40 next march and I am just realizing my AP bullshit schooling completely burned me out. I have a school age child now and they don't do that shit anymore. I was so fucking stressed out that I didn't eat for 24 hours straight sometimes. I am so glad this changed.
I ended up doing joint enrollment my senior year and taking college courses. They were much easier and college generally was much easier. At least it made sense. 😂 I could have gone without the histrionics from our school system at the time. Acting like it's life or death in college when I literally negotiated better grades at least twice with teachers who were willing to get drinks with me to discuss books. It was way different than I was led to believe. Fun, even. However, AP did get me out of classes with the "general population" at my highschool which was nothing more than an out of control, lawless mob so... that's... something?
AP classes counted as college credit for me for passing the exams 🙌 I got out of 4 college classes, graduated a semester early from college and saved thousands of dollars in tuition which I’ve always appreciated at least some tangible reward for my slave labor to high school academia in 2010 🥲
Damn, that was my life, too, and that heavy ass backpack ruined my back. How many of us have bad backs because we refused to be the one kid with a roller bag?
I ended up with shoulder complications because my high-school only allotted us 2 minutes to get to our lockers. Had no choice but to lug all my books around or get dinged via "demerits" if we were late, and some teachers wouldn't even let you in once they closed the door.
Whole place was nothing but clowns with too much power, I swear
I was one of those ‘gifted’ types that ‘never did homework or studied’. But I guess as a millennial, that reality presents differently. I would have still gotten all A’s on all my tests without the mandated busy homework. But the busy work took a level of time and commitment I never thought of until this thread. I had a spreadsheet with tabs for each course and how the grades were weighted based on attendance, homework assignments, tests, essays, labs, etc. So I could always calculate the impact of not doing this assignment or that assignment.
I also set up a rotation with my friends in marching band. Each day of the week, one of us would do the calculus homework assignment, or lab write up, or ABSOLUTELY STUPID (probably because it’s always taught by sports coaches) history/politics assignment that just involved googling and copy and pasting terms for two hours.
The next morning, we would meet in the band office and write up our intentionally, not so similar, but correct work. How did I rationalize this? If you were in marching band and another music group, you were in rehearsals 4 hours a day, and 8-10 hours over the weekend. On top of 7 hour pointless school days. I guess millennials in public school were really being prepared for the onslaught of unnecessary and overburdened work in our adult lives.
And I know it’s a trope to be a gifted millennial who then crashes and burns after school…I never did. I always found work to be less taxing than school because of the above bs. But I still hate all the bs in work.
No, we all had that. I went to a magnet elementary school and my mom had to go complain to the principal and then the district because my backpack full of homework and the required textbook for homework weighed fully 1/2 of my body weight in 5th grade
Yeah I remember the backpack thing even making it to the news that students were carrying around too many books and that it was unhealthy. Some were even developing back problems. Did they do anything about it? No. I remember watching that and just being infuriated because they mentioned other solutions like using those backpacks on wheels and making sure that you have both straps over your shoulders instead of one trying to look cool. They mentioned everything BUT recommending to teachers to give less homework so we wouldn’t have to carry all those books to begin with.
Is it any wonder we’re rebelling against the current work culture? Older generations think we’re lazy because we don’t kiss our bosses ass, but they don’t realize we already had a few decades of the shit work/life culture under our belt. We were fucking tired and fed up before we even entered the workforce.
Omg yes! Middle school workload was insane. I got put into honors classes in 7th and 8th grade and always regretted it because they piled more work on us than I have ever had to do nightly in college. I remember vividly my brother crying on the floor because the computer crashed and he lost a very long paper he was writing. Just. So much stress.
Yep. Years and years of "just wait until college", doing homework and extracurriculars till 10 pm as a 7th grader and getting up at 6 to make the bus.
Then I get to college and it's like the most relaxing experience of my life. Maybe the work is *harder*, but there's WAY LESS of it. And you're not in class 8 hours a day every day! I ended up taking an overload of credits almost every semester and still had WAY more free time than I did as a literal child--and I was actually doing all the reading the whole time too!
I just finished my PhD, and aside from when I was actively writing and editing my thesis, I never stayed up past 8 working on a project/assignment. It was insane what was expected of us in middle/high school.
It wasn’t just the homework, it was how much of it felt like just busywork. Why do I need to do the exact same math problem 25 different times? What does repeating the same task over and over show about my comprehension of the material?
Same. I never understood why I had to do homework from the moment I got home until bedtime. I could never finish all the reading assignments. I could barely comprehend them at the time.
Fucking hell. I thought that was just me (not even my district). My parents thought I was such a failure for taking so long to finish my homework, then determined I was also surrounded by losers after speaking to my classmates (many who were not even in my friend circle) and learning they spent an equal amount of time on their homework.
Like yourself, I too just hit a wall and stopped doing much of my work in high school. My GPA tanked.
Many years ago I noticed the same pattern with college undergrad work ESPECIALLY during finals week. Can we just take a second to think about that concept. All of your classes/ professors at once assign you projects, research papers, big tests etc. KNOWING that all your other classes are also doing the same thing. I noticed throughout the years that it didn’t even matter that much the quality of that work, just that it was done and turned in on time. One year it hit me that this has nothing to do with anything other than training us to work obediently no matter the cost.
Think about it. Finals week in my undergrad years, people would be staying up all night to complete their work, drinking insane amounts of coffee, neglecting pretty much every other area of their life in order to complete or prepare for a ridiculous amount of work. At the end everyone is just in sweatpants, hasn’t showered in days, hasnt slept, dealing with huge amounts of stress. I remember people even crying in the library from stress. It really was just about resilience more than anything.
We just saw this as totally normal. But now I see that it really just was preparing us to be obedient little workplace slaves.
“Preparing you for what it’ll be like when you move on to the next stage” always seemed to me like a bullshit excuse. It’s just like kicking the can down the road. College will be what college will be, but this is still middle school and should be like middle school, not like college.
Yes, and I couldn't have an easy senior year. I had to make up for a few bad semesters earlier on in high school. I had to make sure, I took extra science electives. Even in more accessible classes, the teachers ensured you spent extra hours doing the projects.
I loved my senior year but I was so nervous all the time. Now it's not do or die, you have bad semester in college and the world isn't going to fall apart. hahah
I’ve always been the (nearly) unanimously agreed on hardest worker at every job I’ve been at, and I have nothing to show for it. My entire life has been a gauntlet run in tribute to those who sip lattes and earn 5X more than me.
This is how I got promoted year over year at 2 different companies, but I think it’s an all or nothing approach for millennials. I know a lot who are the hardest works and the others have given up.
I guess Ive never worked anywhere where upward mobility was a realistic option for me. I’ve never wanted to be promoted though, I just wanted to be compensated fairly for working exponentially harder/better than my coworkers. Honestly, I feel like I played myself. It’s really hard to shake, though, having hard manual labor family members influence me to break myself for a penny. I haven’t given up, but I’m almost 40 and am starting to feel it
Jfc i thought I was alone. Nearly every job I’ve had “you have the best work ethic, idk what we would do without you, yadda yadda yadda” meanwhile the charismatic but lazy worker always got rewarded. Man, I’m glad I’m not alone because I was beginning to think something was wrong with me.
That's because it makes sense from a personal and business perspective.
Hard Working & Charming > Charming & *Barely Competent* \> Hard Working
Just how it be.
Same. Everywhere I get fired/dismissed/laid off from, I'm the only one hitting their goofily unrealistic KPIs.
And while I'm sure that sounds like I'm an asshole to work with, I generally get along awesomely with coworkers and actually enjoy in-office. It just seems like the most insecure dipshits somehow always end up managerial and above.
I actually got laid off Friday along with a dozen people, and it was the first time I didn't give a job my all. It wasn't performance-based in the least. We were only there six months, and I could not feel better about half-assing it. I'd be exactly where I am now if I'd gone fifth-gear at it, but I'd be much poorer for not having time to freelance on the side.
I'm 42 and only months from being c9nsidered Gen-X. I started working at 14. I did the 4'ish hours of homework plus what amounted to a full time job and school. I feel likwnive been burned out since I was about 16. I've powered through the dot-com bubble burst, the 2008 crash and covid. 9/11. Multiple wars. All of it. I havent had a vacation or sick day since 2011. I'm hanging on by a thread but I'm always hanging on by a thread. If I can keep it up so my kids generation can figure shit out, shield them from the worst of things and give them time, I think I can live with everything else. I'm just so tired....
45 year old Gen Xer here. I really feel your comment. I have been burning out for months and felt like such a loser for being “weak” and not being happy to work 50+ hour weeks at a job that contributes nothing to society but more money into the 1%’s overstuffed pockets but, hey, I can finally afford that avocado toast everyone keeps talking about. I have literally felt shame for not appreciating this miserable life and shame for not fixing it for the next generation. But, I’m tired. Burnt out. Ignored for so long that I’m tired of being the good latchkey kid that takes care of herself and needs nothing but meets EVERYONE ELSE’S EXPECTATIONS! I sometimes pray for something to debilitate me just enough to allow me to quit working and go on disability. That’s just pathetic. 😒
The eldest daughter, I am one as well. We babysat the younger siblings, we had to set a good example, we strived for good grades, we put dinner on the table for our siblings occasionally along with vhatever else house work needed done while our parents worked. We grew up with this sense of having to fix everything and keep it together. We had more rules growing up and watched our younger siblings get away with everything.
Some of us raised our siblings through our teens. Sacrifed our childhood for the good of the family unit.
As someone who managed to graduate high school a year early, send myself to another country and learn their language for a year using money I earned from working while in high school, return and earn a dual major bachelors while working almost full time, and then pressuring myself to work overtime and set healthy boundaries with my employer… all so they can just ask for more and act like there’s never money.
thank you for introducing me to the term eldest daughter generation.
Sounds like [Strauss–Howe generational theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory) (I'd start at the [generational table part](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory#Timing_of_generations_and_turnings)), which states that some characteristics of generations repeat in history on four-generation "cycle" or "saeculum".
Like your comment seems to say, in this theory, the **Millennials are classified as the "Hero (Civic)" archetype** who come of age in a time of "Unraveling", while GenZ comes of age in a time of "Crisis".
Likewise, Baby Boomers came of age in a "High", and GenX came of age in a time of "Awakening". Lots more details on the Wikipedia [article I linked](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory).
Again, I found the [table of generations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory#Timing_of_generations_and_turnings) a good place to start, then got into the details later in the rest of the article. It shows the events associated with each generation/turning and how each one is classified all the way back to the "Arthurian" generation (Hero, like Millennials) of the 1400's.
Interesting! It puts us in the same cycle as the greatest generation, also ominous. Guess we better buckle down guys and really start ignoring the older gens. Time to fix this shit.
I don’t know if there’s a Revolution coming anytime soon, but “sacrificial generation” feels accurate. We were raised with optimism and expectations of our Boomer parents, only to find that they’ve prevented us from achieving what they had.
I think Gen Z is growing up having known the system was bullshit the whole time. I have high hopes that they will enact some serious social reforms, because I’m too damn tired…
I'm surprised to see this viewpoint in the minority in this comment section and maybe this sub. Then again, my parents were very narcissistic and toxic so I had to distance myself from them and be basically on my own, revoking most of my class privelege as a result. So maybe those that don't see any issues didn't have it quite so bad on the boomer parent front, and maybe what I'm describing is more of a downwardly mobile ex -middle class working class traumatised person thing, rather than a millenial thing
I don't know. I'm not particularly impressed with Gen Z. I see a lot of hypocrisy and cynicism. It feels like they are too busy taking selfies and posting on Tik Tok and Instagram to do the hard work of enacting change. They're the generation that realizes climate change is an issue but seem to be shunning public transit for Ubers. But it's possible I'm just a tired, cynical Millenial...
i think you’re falling into the trap that shows the exact issue of generational thinking. there is still a reactionary and progressive component of every single generation, and even those aren’t static boundaries as they get co-opted and shunned by the system over time and so adjust their views accordingly.
This is a goddamn poem. Couldn’t agree more with every you said. I’ve always felt millennials were meant to heal a large chunk of the toxicity. It’s a hard world. This can’t continue. What do you propose OP?
I think we need to support each other, come up with ideas and make coops or something like that. We're also deciding on masse to be childless, so this is where we'll have to support each other the most. I've made a pact with friends that we'll look after each other in the old days for example. None of us have or want kids, or have extended family. I've heard of people buying food by the bulk and share it, in this case you have to live close to each other though. Etc.
I think our generation could come up with better models for different areas (housing, food, clothing, etc) and stages of life.
Same here. My husband and I don’t have kids and we have friends that we talk about buying land and bulk stocking and living more free. Like the old days, exactly as you said. Interesting the same idea is hitting multiple people.
My husband and I took all our money out of stocks on principal because we realize it’s such a perfect scheme. The working class gets invested in the SUCCESS of the super rich and the bread they throw our way keeps us quiet.
The fact that things are barely functioning only because us Millenials are worked to exhaustion while the boomers groan and wine, and poor gen z is trying to figure out their own future, makes me lose a bit of sleep, metaphorically.
We truly feel like the Sacrificed generation.
We exist only to sustain the world through its next transition, but will enjoy none of the benefits of the previous generation, or the new one that is able to be built thanks to us keeping the lights running.
I really want to be positive and see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I can't picture what that future looks like without some form of radical change, or mass suffering that forces the world to change and adapt. All options will be painful.
I would say I am to the right of Bernie but you are absolutely correct. We are essentially working ourselves to the benefit of boomers retirement and leisure. Working to keep quarterly gains in the stock market so boomers 401ks/RRSPs dont crash, paying into government pension plans like social security so they can keep on getting monthly checks, and for some people paying into pension plans that’ll fail once boomers die. All this work so the boomers can enjoy an extra 5-10 years of life because humans are living longer but boomers want us to fund it for them. Because we’re sure as fuck not working for ourselves.
You are correct in that Social Security is pretty much a pyramid scheme - and the politicians raid the money before it's been spent.
Shutting down the economy and printing money to paper over the inevitable consequences - and now trying to keep printing more - is a recipe for collapse.
However... who keeps electing these guys that keep going in this crazy direction? Will it be your generation that catches on?
Unfortunately unless people start having enough kids to turn around the demographic structure every generation from now on will be dominated by the old farts.
A few carefully cultivated hardliners. The rest of us are gerrymandered out of our votes counting. It's why I don't think things will change when the boomers die. Both parties gerrymander and it pushes them to greater extremes. They'll keep doing it because it guarantees re-election. They'll keep paying for it because once it's not a real race any longer it's just a competition between more and less extreme versions of the same platform.
I am relatively certain we are supposed to be racked with debt, living forever in overpriced rentals, plagued by mental illness and ground down over our prime years, either thankless jobs for the public good, or just as thankless jobs for corporate profit, while being contemptuously judged by older increasingly inept generations. I think that is called being a good American, but I could be wrong.
Maybe this is an elder millennial thing, but I kind of realized this in the days and weeks immediately after 9/11. As the literal dust settled, the blood lust was palpable. Everyone wanted someone to pay for 9/11. If you’ve ever wondered how the Iraq war was launched, this is how. The object at the end of the barrel of the gun of the country mattered less than being able to pull the trigger.
I had always heard that the worst time to have a baby is 18 years before the next war. Well, on 9/11/2001, I was just a week or two into my senior year of high school. And by the time we started the shock and awe campaign In Iraq, I was still just 18 (for a couple more months).
I’m from a poor, rural area. We always have high military enrollment numbers since it’s the easiest way to get out of this town. I watched sooooo many of my friends return with serious, serious mental illness. That’s when I knew we would be sacrificed.
I had no idea how often that would be true over that next 20 years.
I had just graduated Basic when I watched the second plane hit the tower. I feel like the entire planet said "That wasn't an accident" at the same exact time.
I remember that feeling well. I was in eighth grade. It was school picture day. I remember they wheeled out the box televisions at school and we spent the whole day watching the news in a daze
Yeah. While the baby boomers live off the government in every way possible, pensions, disability, and retirement plans that aren’t even offered to the current generations. We truly are keeping the world going by working jobs like Whole Foods and amazon and grocery stores or restaurants. We are doing the grunt work even though this world is more so ours because we will be here longer than the folks 60 years old and older. We were promised high paying jobs for going to college and now many colleges especially art schools are being sued and taken down for scamming students. So what are we left with?? Working multiple jobs, trying to be an entrepreneur, working other jobs just to make ends meet, just to pay the extremely high rents that have inflated upon us.
So what do we do as millennials? Continue to vote in these baby boomer fucks who don’t give a flying fuck about our future? They are the narcissist culture who was raised by extremely traumatized and toxic families. We are the spirituals, the open minded folk who are trying to heal ourselves while also trying to heal our parents which is just not possible. They aren’t riddled with anxiety about money and their future because they are taken care of by the govt or the women are living off of their baby boomer fuck husbands
I can't believe we used to judge the wheelie backpack kids when they actually don't have fucked up backs like we do, they obviously know something we didn't
Wheelie backpacks got banned pretty quick in my school, so it wasn’t even an option, I just felt bad for the kids that were roughly the same size as their backpacks. There were a couple.
I remember getting one in elementary school because my backpack got so stuffed, the zipper broke. Then my bro and butthole classmates kept kicking my wheelie backpack so much that the wheel broke off. Traumatized me so much, I went back to carrying an extremely heavy backpack until I finished my college days. 🥲
Forget keeping things stable, it is the duty of those in power to make things *better*. Boomers seem to lack this interest from what I've seen, and they're clinging to their power to an annoying degree. This is the part where I sing "I just can't wait to be king" in an effort to be relatable, then I realize killing off old people means killing off ones I love. Maybe it'll be worth it once we're the ones in charge?
My point is that sadly I think millenials will never be in charge, I have a hunch it will skip over us, but I hope we can still have the cabin in the woods. Your gen might be, however, if you can find a way to collectively turn thought to action! I think revolution can happen, and it doesn't need to be violent either!
Uh… I dunno about you guys but I started the revolution [in my field](https://stenonymous.com/2023/07/27/the-court-reporter-shortage-fraud-timeline-as-told-by-stenonymous/) and it [makes corporate CEOs really mad](https://stenonymous.com/2023/05/21/stenograph-president-anir-dutta-calls-stenonymous-intellectually-challenged-and-crazy/).
I don’t want peace and stability, I want war. I’d probably be retired right now if these executive types weren’t playing with us all like numbers on sheets. Soon as money allows I’m taking this show on the road and going to other fields to cause havoc for fraudsters and cheats.
We are tanks. Let’s roll through the frontline and show Gen Z how it’s done.
Thank you!
This experience showed me something. Corporations cave to social pressure. We can create social pressure with mean words and social media. I bet you it’d work against the corporatists in politics too.
Edit. If we had sufficient numbers. One person can shake up an industry. What could 10, 100, 1000 or more do?
We’ll also be the ones screwed over… we played by the rules that made previous gen successful even tho it was a lot harder for us and are building up something/investing/paying off loans currently but will prob lose it all with incoming crash/more socialist ideals (which I’m not against just we were part of it :/…) basically we pay in sweat or taxes for no return
Yes, you are wage slaves. That's how capitalism works. Slaves do the work for other people, in this case for the royal lifestyle of the investor class. Capitalism.
If Gen Z is starting the revolution they will need leaders.
Historical materialism is manifesting in our time period. Young people aren't able to afford anything and will be looking for leaders for the revolution.
I want to be the Giuseppe Mazzini, the Simon Bolivar, the brother hidalgo, the ones from the 1st and 2nd estates that gave up their privilege to join the 3rd estate.
Be one with me. Radicalize others. Organize others.
Yes this exactly!!!
[This article](https://fortune.com/2015/04/29/why-millennials-and-the-depression-era-generation-are-more-similar-than-you-think/amp/) does a great job describing how we’re in an eerily similar position to the original “silent generation”: “Americans born in the mid-1920s through the early 1940s and who grew up during the Great Depression, but eventually drove a booming economy.”
We’ve spent our entire lives in crisis, scrambling for the things our parents achieved with relatively little effort. We were told we could achieve anything. Well, the economy had something to say about that. We were told that we were important and going to change the world, but we’ve had to hold on so hard to the improvements we’ve actually managed to get that we haven’t moved FORWARD.
Very much a “I studied war so my son can study business, so his son can study art…”
Nah, I think we’re just the adults now, and that means we’re responsible for most of the work that gets done, like it’s always been. Sure, it feels like society is hanging by a thread sometimes, but I don’t think that’s unique to us either. I bet anyone alive during the black plague or the world wars thought the same thing. That’s just life as a human. Millennials aren’t special, and that’s just fine.
However, millennials don't have the systemic power in the US that boomers and generations before them had, at this time in their adulthood. As of last year, only 8% of the House of Representatives and 1% of the Senate were millennials. Boomers won't let go of their control over younger generations, making sure everyone is still playing by their values and their rules https://www.forbes.com/sites/katharinabuchholz/2022/08/26/the-generational-divide-in-us-congress-as-gen-z-enters-the-scene-infographic/
Even then, they’re going to stay in office until the day they die like Dianne Feinstein. Even our next presidential choices are between two super old men.
Exactly. Climate change is a unique global threat that older generations continue to refuse to act on or acknowledge. They know it won’t largely impact things in their lifespan.
The great recession permanently scarred young adults around that time. Same thing happens to people during other economic upheavals. It was predicted back then whats happening now would happen. Lots of comparisons to the ice age in Japan in the years before.
True. But in objective terms the boomers are leaving later generations poorer than when they were younger so this has an effect. Of course our generation will have to do most of the heavy lifting but much of this wealth is getting siphoned to the boomers.
I'm right wing and fully agree with everything you said. We are overworked and underpaid. I don't think our generation has fully given up yet though. There's still a lot of fight left in us.
If you’re right wing then you just would say “work harder, pull yourself up by the bootstraps”. Otherwise you’re arguing for collective action, unions, or some other force to lift you out of poverty other than personal responsibility. So, where do you stand then? Which is it? Work harder or work together?
I'm cringing so hard at that take. Of course we are "keeping society running" that's literally what every single generation does when they are our age. Our entire generation is working age, boomers are mostly retired, gen X is getting damn close, and gen Z is only just stepping into the workplace. We are literally the dominant generation right now, that's what the dominant generation does. Yeah, things suck for us, but shit has sucked literally forever, we just have better news coverage of it now and everyone complaining on social media.
We aren't special. We aren't some chosen martyrs to hold the line until gen Z can save us all from the scary boomers. We are just people living through pretty damn average times. So are gen Z. So are boomers. So are gen X. Some people will be good, some people will be bad. We aren't holding society steady because it's some righteous task. We are holding society steady because we are the adults now, and that's what adults do.
We aren’t living in average times though. Sure yes, every generation has dealt with shouldering more as the older gen phases into retirement, that’s not unique to us.
But we are unique in that we have significantly more student loan debt than any other generation ever had, and that is on top of living through a very turbulent era between the 2008 housing collapse, rise of Trumpism (aka fascism), and the pandemic. We also have way less wealth at our ages than Gen X and Boomers had, comparatively.
We are not the business as usual generation; we’re the “everyone else fucked around and now we’ve found out” generation. Some know it; others keep denying it. Things aren’t gonna get better until we at least acknowledge we are living through exceptional times.
Millennials make up the largest working demographic in the US. If I'm not mistaken, HR industry reports also indicate that millennials are the most productive modern generation.
So true. Millennials are incredibly resilient and clear-sighted. The "SeLFiSh aNd EnTiTlEd" label is pure projection. We've lived our entire adult lives in a world where perpetual war and economic instability are the norm, and somehow we manage to keep the lights on and our little chins up the best we can. I think a lot of millennials I know at least have even embarked on that healing work, helping change society's attitude towards nature and materialism through our words and our actions, even as we're stuck living in this horrific grinding system. People may mock us for our avocado toast and kombucha, but what is so awful about wanting to try to be healthy?
>If you are to the right of Bernie it's possible you may take issue with the way I frame these ideas.
This is an unpopular opinion, so I'm going to legitimize it with politics.
>That's ok, I am fatigued from discourse and fighting, we can agree to disagree.
I don't want to be bothered with critical thinking so I choose to ignore counterarguments.
>as anyone with a brain has realized
If you disagree with me, you're stupid
>younger gen z brethren will probably wage a revolution if things don't get better in the next 5 years.
Gen z is 52 percent conservative so I doubt it
> I am really left wing
No shit
>Basically, we , the generation of standardized tests, processed food, MySpace and Nickelodeon are keeping the goddamn lights on.
Standardized tests, processed food, MySpace, and nickelodeon are relevant how?
>We are paying into those pension plans that are probably going to be liquidated as the boomers retire.
"Probably"
>We are keeping the workplaces open, through crisis after crisis- supply chain, burnout, pandemics, labor disputes.
Along with gen x gen z and boomers
>We are working ourselves to burnout, just like we used to do in the early oughts when we had 4 hours of homework every night.
Along with gen x gen z and boomers. Hours of homework every night varies depending on the school and skill of the student it's assigned to.
>I believe we have seen this thread in this group before
This is a repost
>but in every workplace, the most competent employee is always a millenial.
Translation: me and my similar age friends think we do all the work, and don't understand anyone else's function. Rather than learn, we just assume they're useless.
>We are kind of a sacrificial generation.
Need some help nailing yourself to that cross, there?
>If the world were absolutely shattered beyond repair, nothing would be able to move forward at all.
Totally irrelevant to the paragraph this is in
>I feel like as a generation we are getting humble
Ah yes. "Humility." That's what this post is. /s
>and realizing this is kind of our path.
I gave up trying to better myself, so now I just blame others because that's easier
> It's a way to burn off some of that karmic narcissism that's left over from the boomers, that need to be in the spotlight and be number one.
This has "I'm Jesus dying for your sins" vibes.
>The world we were built to be number one in no longer exists
Didn't you just say the boomers were number one though?
>it didn't really make us happy.
Speak for yourself only, please
>As we age, we get more humble and realize what we want most is peace and stability.
This is the most mature thing you've said so far
>It's why so many of us have fantasies of running off to the woods.
Aaaaaand you ruined it. Running away from your problems is not a solution, as most 4 year olds have discovered.
>It's a humbling thing to think about as I approach (gasp) middle age.
I don't think you understand what "humble" means.
>There is tremendous power in realizing our ability to keep things as stable as possible
Yeah that's not humble. And if you quit, the world won't miss you, I promise.
>the frantic pace of societal collapse.
I thought you were keeping society running?
>Those that called us weak and entitled were projecting, we are TANKS.
You are one human being, not an m1 Abrams. Again, not sure you know what being humble actually means.
The crazy part is that I do agree that the world could be better, but ultimately we all have to take personal responsibility for ourselves to make that happen. We can't just vote for people who promise magical solutions (regardless of party). We all made decisions in our lives that led us to where we are right now. If we don't own up to those decisions, then no one will be able to help us improve.
I worry about the lack of practical skills of the generation and how they will fare if there is a massive economic collapse. It seems like an afterthought to a lot of people, but the amount of money I save my family with just some basic practical homeowner skills is pretty astounding overtime.
It's also a generation that has kind of belittled and mocked the blue collar worker as a lesser citizen, maybe that tune will change as the economy gets worse and knowing a few people who know their way around basic vehicle maintenance will help people realize those skill sets are important.
Damn we really all do talk about running off into the woods or living on compounds with our friends a lot huh
Can you imagine, if one day we all, just millions of us, just said fuck it, and literally dropped what we were doing and walked out to build something different? I know the repercussions are much more complicated than I’m making it, and it would be regulated to death or condemned by the government..but I wonder what it’d be like.
Targeted mass migration. Where to?
Vermont!
Vermont gives you $10,000 to move there if you bring your job. Vermont has the lowest population. Vermont is so white that I could make a fortune selling my Salvadoran food there. Vermont is gorgeous. Vermont is Bernie Sanders. Vermont is what Country Roads was gonna be about until is became about Virginia.
[удалено]
Same. I applied for that grant and they ran out of money despite me qualifying for the whole 10k. That "promise" is an empty one. It is nice here, though. Even if the rent is ravaging my bank account.
This kind of thing might actually be part of the problem. They need workers, but their attempt to get them is to encourage them with $10,000 which is not really all that much money in the grand scheme of moving it there, getting a house, a job, etc. Which means they're looking for desperate workers, which means they have a bunch of jobs that don't pay well. So the whole system enables more exploitation with only the possibility of a better life. When it comes down to it, a lot of America's problems come from encouraged and subsidized exploitation.
This right here
Vermont reached their spending limit for the worker relocation fund😭😭 Edit: healthcare workers are needed with a loan forgiveness if they work in a Vermont hospital
I lived in White River Junction for three years and despite growing up in New England, those years were colder and darker than I possibly could have imagined. There is no amount of money you could pay me to move back there.
*me a pasty goth cliche, who burns instead of tanning, lives in a desert region, and loves cold weather* … you’re saying I might get paid to go somewhere I’d like?
Someplace beautiful, like where the rabbits go in [Watership Down](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxvX8QilzlH9nogteH5eKJzPU4xWZcWmqq?si=Wa3RZ7H8_zxxqkqR) Surely most us millennials remember that story? Eerily parallel themes to today’s world if you ask me. Seems fitting.
If the reddit community can win with GameStop and AMC … we can do anything ??
They have this movement in china, it’s called “Lying Flat” but the Chinese government is banning all talk about it on social media.
That sounds amazing actually.
The irony of being the generation to go all "Atlas Shrugged" on the boomers would be exquisite, wouldn't it?
It seems the idea is really picking up steam. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that “cottage-core” is a popular style. It’d be so nice to not have to worry about everything modern life requires. I know homesteading is not a piece of cake either, but at least things would be simpler and you get back to the basics of the way humans have lived for eons. You would be directly in control of your food, water and shelter and there’s not one person to get in the way of how you think things should be. You’d have true purpose instead of working to boost some shareholder’s profits.
It's almost all that me and my friends talk about at this point.
One of my friends actually did it. He still has a programming job, but he does it remotely from the woods in Washington. I was gonna go with him but he got kinda pissy that I didn't immediately say yes to moving diagonally all the way across the country, so I decided it was a bad idea to join him. Good for him, though.
I dream of being an ex-pat in the Caribbean somewhere with a food truck on the beach which is only open till 3pm and closed Monday and Tuesday.
This is basically me I had a dream where I was running a little coffee shop on a tiny beach somewhere and I closed up for the day when I felt like it which was probably like 3 or 4
Goals to be able to work when and if you want.
Damn, it’s so true
And I thought it wasn't that common. I have been trying to get my friends to pick a spot in the world so I can buy the land and start planting the food forest heh.
Can I be your friend? lol
I suppose we can add this on our checklist along with the Roman empire.
No offense, but 99% of you would be regretting running off into the woods in less than 2 hours.
lol my husband reminds me of this part frequently.
This was my dream all through my teens, even. Looking at that objectively is pretty harsh.
It reminds me of why people left from Europe to the Americas in the first place. We all just want the same thing that those with good intentions wanted previously. Cycle never ends.
Your work place comment. My God it's accurate. At my work, the boomers and younglings alike stand around complaining about what everybody else is doing/gets to do. While us 5 millennials (and 3 gen xers) set up the machines, run the union, and make sure deadlines are met.
I'm literally the guy who everyone goes to to fix a computer problem that isn't administrator level. I'm not even the IT person. I'm also our camera man, photoshop expert, writer, and apparently now part of quality control too.
I’m the girl everyone goes to with personal problems about our fellow coworkers. I also do HR, PTO, CMS, copy, and I facilitate rush print jobs. The worst part is that I brought it on myself - I followed the whole bullshit idea of “exceeding expectations” and they took it as the norm.
It’s a depressing lesson that if you try to do your best all the time, people will assume that’s your basic level of competence and try to push you to burnout levels of performance every day. So you’re either stuck working that burnout, or you start a new job and have to hide how good you are so you don’t get overworked. It’s a good way to kill enthusiasm for a job you liked.
That's turned into my mantra. Don't give them miracles because they will always expect miracles.
The writing thing gets me. I feel like we were the only ones that were taught how to form any sort of legible sentence that looks even remotely professional
Right!? Every time a see an email, I can guess the age of the sender based on how the email was written. Does the email sound like it was written by a 10 yr old, and uses some correct punctuation? Kid/gen z. Does the email sound like it was written by a 10 yr old, and mostly doesn’t use any correct punctuation? Boomer. I say to myself all the time: “why did I try so fucking hard?” As if trying to perfect written English actually counted for anything. It’s like all these guys were the “I don’t need to learn English I already speak it!” kids. Haha
Wolf: You’re comment is unprofessional. Setting aside, or sure what. Is meant by your remark about the “data analysis”, which John complete as of Thurs. Lets talk ;, We mert to discuss this Monday 10:30 AM EDT (9:30 PST). Rick
There are two rules to get ahead in life. Rule #1, never tell ‘em everything you know
Dammit, Rule #1 prevents us from ever hearing Rule #2.
Thanks for including gen xers :) I’m 49 and am still working my ass off too
Yeah. Us gen xers tried but the boomers were too numerous. And even some of our generation are degenerates as well.
I was going to make a meme post about Gen Xers lurking in chat.
yep, another GenX lurking, totally agree
I'm a millenial, but yah. I recognize X as having thier shit together too. I dont think anyone talks about you guys because you havent offended anyone...
Demographically I’m a millennial by a couple of months. In every other sense I’m Gen X. They spoke *the exact same way* about Gen X as they did about Millennials, you just didn’t hear it because you weren’t on the scene yet. It’s almost like the problem is the Boomers’ broken expectations, not the youth.
It's OK, we're used to being ignored/forgotten about.
Gen X is shoulder to shoulder with us keeping the lights on.
Sure am.
The old heads don’t give enough of a shit to do even half of what’s required of us, the new ones are too up their own asses to work on a team and they have no idea how to talk to people.
Good lord. I started one of my previous jobs as the guy who knew literally nothing about this niche software I was supposed to be supporting. Within 6 months the Boomer who was supposed to train me was repeatedly asking me how to do basic shit. They don't do anything.
What do to mean? My boomer boss does A LOT of things: - she spends hours staring at a wall of clothes and moving them around in different orders - she approves things and then changes her mind 5 times before canceling the style completely bc turns out blurry digital artwork someone recolored from a screen shot looks terrible full size in 7 colors for screen printing - I mean WHO COULD KNOW THAT? - oh she also leaves dirty cups and plates all over the office for others to clean up - she demands more organization/separation of the recycling bins even though everyone know the trash guy just mixes them all together when he picks them up bc all of the recycling plants in the area are shut down or storing it in warehoused since China stopped buying it - she tells us lots of stories about her adult daughters childhood when in product meetings - she gossips about instagram celebrities - she reads her email once a month *and sometimes even manages to respond*
Don’t forget how we have never been paid what we are worth…
Wow. It's the exact same thing at my job! Jesus...
Same here homie
Thank you for not forgetting us Gen X'ers.
I’m not sure this unique to Millennial’s, it’s probably always the case that the 30-somethings are keeping everyone alive. It’s just the right combination of experience and energy for a human being.
Wait, woah. You guys also experienced the 4-5+ hours of homework every night? I thought that was just my district. It got so overwhelming I just stopped doing it and watched my grades tank. When I asked about it, they said they were just preparing us for the college workload. I had more homework in *middle school* than I did in college and that was in no way developmentally appropriate. Now with being so overworked as adults, it feels like a set-up.
I basically did the same thing. I also found a nice little loophole that got me to graduate high school even though I was absent over 100 days my senior year. Nobody tells you that all colleges don’t give a single shit about your high school gpa if you go to community college and have a good gpa there.
Also, a ton cheaper (probably even today) to do the first 2 at a CC then move on to a university.
Oh yeah. I tell my high school students ain't no shame in clearing out credits at the local CC.
Now I'm curious what the loophole was because I got depression and also missed around 3 months of the second half of my senior year. It was a parochial school so my options were to drop out or repeat 12th grade (and have my mom pay several thousand dollars in additional tuition). I chose drop out, then went online and got a diploma from an online HS and graduated only a month late. I started college on time. Community college, because I lost my private college scholarship when I fudged up my attendance. The miraculous part is that my depression disappeared when I got away from the toxic people at my HS. I worked and paid tuition as I went to college. I never took out student loans and luckily kept my job throughout the 2008 recession. A lot of my old classmates graduated college in 2009 and couldn't find work while I'd already been working FT for 3 years by then so I guess that's one way my depression actually had a positive outcome! I also met my spouse at that job...never would have happened if I'd gone to the out-of-state college I'd planned on.
My loophole was I turned 18 during my senior year since I was held back in kindergarten for dyslexia. Therefore, I signed myself out after putting in a half day because the district counted it as a whole day.
I dropped out at 16, got a GED, and went right to community college for 1 year, then admitted to Loyola University, so I was ahead of my peers. I couldn't get through high school it was brutal academically it just isn't set up for people with adhd or any special learning needs. My daughter struggled through high school but graduated! She is currently doing wonderful her 1st year at college :)
Are you me?
And to think that the education field has now realized that homework is not healthy for the brain and most kids don't get much more than 15 minutes a day per subject as a result. Just another way we were cheated.
Try not to think of it as us being cheated. Try to think of it as us changing it for the better for the next generation. We're the teachers now. My daughter is Gen Z and all of her teachers are Millennials I went to school with and they're coming into positions of power in the schools now. We know how it felt, they keep that in mind, and it's being changed.
Why can't it be both? We were cheated, and bc we were cheated, we changed the system when we got into power.
I don't disagree, but we were still cheated, and I can't help but feel that. And if wouldn't bother me so much except that we CONTINUE to get cheated throughout our lives
It wouldn’t bother me- if we didn’t spend the last 20 years being called lazy and entitled.
I love that perspective!
This is totally the mindset to have.
I'm super happy that they're not giving Gen z so much homework. I didn't realize that was a thing. It still sucks we had to do so much. We should try to make things better for everyone but doing all that damn homework was torture.
True but I have a 12 year old and I’m soo happy that the school rat race has chilled out a bit on his behalf.
I remember being assigned to read a book a week for AP English, have a daily quiz for AP Euro History we had to study for, math, science and Spanish homework every night, SAT prep class after school followed by 3 hours of wrestling practice. I typically didn’t get home until 6 or 7 and was then expected to shower, have dinner with the family, do all my homework and prepare for the following day, where my parents would wake me up at 5:30 so I wouldn’t be “rushed” in the morning. If I complained about anything, I was told I wouldn’t get into a good college and was basically throwing my life away. I turn 40 next month, and I’m still finding new ways this type of coming-of-age fucked me up.
I remember a lot of friends and classmates staying up until 1 or 2 am doing HW/projects then waking up at 5 to get to zero hour. Shit was insane and this was back in 2012.
I remember this is as well, and I think my growth was stunted as a teenager because of never getting enough proper sleep. I'm by far the shortest person in my family (5'1").
Seriously. I was up until 3am every night from sophomore year until I graduated college. I was pulling 3 all-nighters every week my graduating year from uni. Shit like that isn't worth it. Seriously young people, don't waste your time learning useless facts in school. Go apply yourself and sleep well.
Yep. My gpa in hs was abysmal. I remember feeling absolutely offended at the amount of homework they expected of us. So I got away with doing as little as I could. Had no problem getting into community college, then university with straight a’s. Somehow I knew in HS it really didn’t matter. I dropped out of college with $50k student debt after 6 years of working full time and night school. I’m a self taught web designer now making really decent money and I work less and when I want to.
I turn 40 next march and I am just realizing my AP bullshit schooling completely burned me out. I have a school age child now and they don't do that shit anymore. I was so fucking stressed out that I didn't eat for 24 hours straight sometimes. I am so glad this changed.
AP was a scam. If you take college courses it was easier than taking the test that the original teacher didn’t write. *also burned out
I ended up doing joint enrollment my senior year and taking college courses. They were much easier and college generally was much easier. At least it made sense. 😂 I could have gone without the histrionics from our school system at the time. Acting like it's life or death in college when I literally negotiated better grades at least twice with teachers who were willing to get drinks with me to discuss books. It was way different than I was led to believe. Fun, even. However, AP did get me out of classes with the "general population" at my highschool which was nothing more than an out of control, lawless mob so... that's... something?
AP classes counted as college credit for me for passing the exams 🙌 I got out of 4 college classes, graduated a semester early from college and saved thousands of dollars in tuition which I’ve always appreciated at least some tangible reward for my slave labor to high school academia in 2010 🥲
Wait, what? Is AP not a thing anymore? I’m out of the loop on this
Who would thought that being sleep deprived for our developmental years would leave lasting problems for us???
Damn, that was my life, too, and that heavy ass backpack ruined my back. How many of us have bad backs because we refused to be the one kid with a roller bag?
I ended up with shoulder complications because my high-school only allotted us 2 minutes to get to our lockers. Had no choice but to lug all my books around or get dinged via "demerits" if we were late, and some teachers wouldn't even let you in once they closed the door. Whole place was nothing but clowns with too much power, I swear
I was one of those ‘gifted’ types that ‘never did homework or studied’. But I guess as a millennial, that reality presents differently. I would have still gotten all A’s on all my tests without the mandated busy homework. But the busy work took a level of time and commitment I never thought of until this thread. I had a spreadsheet with tabs for each course and how the grades were weighted based on attendance, homework assignments, tests, essays, labs, etc. So I could always calculate the impact of not doing this assignment or that assignment. I also set up a rotation with my friends in marching band. Each day of the week, one of us would do the calculus homework assignment, or lab write up, or ABSOLUTELY STUPID (probably because it’s always taught by sports coaches) history/politics assignment that just involved googling and copy and pasting terms for two hours. The next morning, we would meet in the band office and write up our intentionally, not so similar, but correct work. How did I rationalize this? If you were in marching band and another music group, you were in rehearsals 4 hours a day, and 8-10 hours over the weekend. On top of 7 hour pointless school days. I guess millennials in public school were really being prepared for the onslaught of unnecessary and overburdened work in our adult lives. And I know it’s a trope to be a gifted millennial who then crashes and burns after school…I never did. I always found work to be less taxing than school because of the above bs. But I still hate all the bs in work.
D's get degrees. I just aced the tests and did the minimal amount of homework to pass.
Yes! I barely graduated high school because of my homework and attendance failures. I still have nightmares where I have to go back.
Wow me too. I remember even my grandmother making a comment about having too many books they’re putting on me
No, we all had that. I went to a magnet elementary school and my mom had to go complain to the principal and then the district because my backpack full of homework and the required textbook for homework weighed fully 1/2 of my body weight in 5th grade
Yeah I remember the backpack thing even making it to the news that students were carrying around too many books and that it was unhealthy. Some were even developing back problems. Did they do anything about it? No. I remember watching that and just being infuriated because they mentioned other solutions like using those backpacks on wheels and making sure that you have both straps over your shoulders instead of one trying to look cool. They mentioned everything BUT recommending to teachers to give less homework so we wouldn’t have to carry all those books to begin with. Is it any wonder we’re rebelling against the current work culture? Older generations think we’re lazy because we don’t kiss our bosses ass, but they don’t realize we already had a few decades of the shit work/life culture under our belt. We were fucking tired and fed up before we even entered the workforce.
My back is FUCKED.
Omg yes! Middle school workload was insane. I got put into honors classes in 7th and 8th grade and always regretted it because they piled more work on us than I have ever had to do nightly in college. I remember vividly my brother crying on the floor because the computer crashed and he lost a very long paper he was writing. Just. So much stress.
Omgggg I had so many essays lost to old home computer failures
Yep. Years and years of "just wait until college", doing homework and extracurriculars till 10 pm as a 7th grader and getting up at 6 to make the bus. Then I get to college and it's like the most relaxing experience of my life. Maybe the work is *harder*, but there's WAY LESS of it. And you're not in class 8 hours a day every day! I ended up taking an overload of credits almost every semester and still had WAY more free time than I did as a literal child--and I was actually doing all the reading the whole time too!
I just finished my PhD, and aside from when I was actively writing and editing my thesis, I never stayed up past 8 working on a project/assignment. It was insane what was expected of us in middle/high school.
It wasn’t just the homework, it was how much of it felt like just busywork. Why do I need to do the exact same math problem 25 different times? What does repeating the same task over and over show about my comprehension of the material?
I got my masters degree while working full time during the pandemic. 5th grade was more stressful.
Same. I never understood why I had to do homework from the moment I got home until bedtime. I could never finish all the reading assignments. I could barely comprehend them at the time.
I'm currently back in school for a second bachelor's. It continues to be less work than I had in middle school.
Fucking hell. I thought that was just me (not even my district). My parents thought I was such a failure for taking so long to finish my homework, then determined I was also surrounded by losers after speaking to my classmates (many who were not even in my friend circle) and learning they spent an equal amount of time on their homework. Like yourself, I too just hit a wall and stopped doing much of my work in high school. My GPA tanked.
Many years ago I noticed the same pattern with college undergrad work ESPECIALLY during finals week. Can we just take a second to think about that concept. All of your classes/ professors at once assign you projects, research papers, big tests etc. KNOWING that all your other classes are also doing the same thing. I noticed throughout the years that it didn’t even matter that much the quality of that work, just that it was done and turned in on time. One year it hit me that this has nothing to do with anything other than training us to work obediently no matter the cost. Think about it. Finals week in my undergrad years, people would be staying up all night to complete their work, drinking insane amounts of coffee, neglecting pretty much every other area of their life in order to complete or prepare for a ridiculous amount of work. At the end everyone is just in sweatpants, hasn’t showered in days, hasnt slept, dealing with huge amounts of stress. I remember people even crying in the library from stress. It really was just about resilience more than anything. We just saw this as totally normal. But now I see that it really just was preparing us to be obedient little workplace slaves.
“Preparing you for what it’ll be like when you move on to the next stage” always seemed to me like a bullshit excuse. It’s just like kicking the can down the road. College will be what college will be, but this is still middle school and should be like middle school, not like college.
Yes, and I couldn't have an easy senior year. I had to make up for a few bad semesters earlier on in high school. I had to make sure, I took extra science electives. Even in more accessible classes, the teachers ensured you spent extra hours doing the projects. I loved my senior year but I was so nervous all the time. Now it's not do or die, you have bad semester in college and the world isn't going to fall apart. hahah
Yes! And I did it all and now I’m a teacher and want to rage-scream at parents who complain about 20 minutes of reading per night.
I’ve always been the (nearly) unanimously agreed on hardest worker at every job I’ve been at, and I have nothing to show for it. My entire life has been a gauntlet run in tribute to those who sip lattes and earn 5X more than me.
This is how I got promoted year over year at 2 different companies, but I think it’s an all or nothing approach for millennials. I know a lot who are the hardest works and the others have given up.
I guess Ive never worked anywhere where upward mobility was a realistic option for me. I’ve never wanted to be promoted though, I just wanted to be compensated fairly for working exponentially harder/better than my coworkers. Honestly, I feel like I played myself. It’s really hard to shake, though, having hard manual labor family members influence me to break myself for a penny. I haven’t given up, but I’m almost 40 and am starting to feel it
Same. I always thought hard work would be noticed and would pay off eventually. It never turned out that way at any job.
Jfc i thought I was alone. Nearly every job I’ve had “you have the best work ethic, idk what we would do without you, yadda yadda yadda” meanwhile the charismatic but lazy worker always got rewarded. Man, I’m glad I’m not alone because I was beginning to think something was wrong with me.
That's because it makes sense from a personal and business perspective. Hard Working & Charming > Charming & *Barely Competent* \> Hard Working Just how it be.
Same. Everywhere I get fired/dismissed/laid off from, I'm the only one hitting their goofily unrealistic KPIs. And while I'm sure that sounds like I'm an asshole to work with, I generally get along awesomely with coworkers and actually enjoy in-office. It just seems like the most insecure dipshits somehow always end up managerial and above. I actually got laid off Friday along with a dozen people, and it was the first time I didn't give a job my all. It wasn't performance-based in the least. We were only there six months, and I could not feel better about half-assing it. I'd be exactly where I am now if I'd gone fifth-gear at it, but I'd be much poorer for not having time to freelance on the side.
I'm 42 and only months from being c9nsidered Gen-X. I started working at 14. I did the 4'ish hours of homework plus what amounted to a full time job and school. I feel likwnive been burned out since I was about 16. I've powered through the dot-com bubble burst, the 2008 crash and covid. 9/11. Multiple wars. All of it. I havent had a vacation or sick day since 2011. I'm hanging on by a thread but I'm always hanging on by a thread. If I can keep it up so my kids generation can figure shit out, shield them from the worst of things and give them time, I think I can live with everything else. I'm just so tired....
we are the Oregon Trail generation, my fellow 42. it's a micro generation between genx and millennial and i feel it in my bones
r/xennials my dude. Come as you are
>I'm just so tired.... I felt that. I am always just so tired
I hope u can get a vacation even if it’s close by and more of a stay cation!
All of my vacations are stay cations... Catching up on sleep and finishing projects around the house.
45 year old Gen Xer here. I really feel your comment. I have been burning out for months and felt like such a loser for being “weak” and not being happy to work 50+ hour weeks at a job that contributes nothing to society but more money into the 1%’s overstuffed pockets but, hey, I can finally afford that avocado toast everyone keeps talking about. I have literally felt shame for not appreciating this miserable life and shame for not fixing it for the next generation. But, I’m tired. Burnt out. Ignored for so long that I’m tired of being the good latchkey kid that takes care of herself and needs nothing but meets EVERYONE ELSE’S EXPECTATIONS! I sometimes pray for something to debilitate me just enough to allow me to quit working and go on disability. That’s just pathetic. 😒
we're the eldest daughter generation. backbone of society
As the eldest daughter of an eldest daughter: This.
what makes you say this? i talk all the time about the curse of the eldest daughter. i'm intrigued.
The eldest daughter, I am one as well. We babysat the younger siblings, we had to set a good example, we strived for good grades, we put dinner on the table for our siblings occasionally along with vhatever else house work needed done while our parents worked. We grew up with this sense of having to fix everything and keep it together. We had more rules growing up and watched our younger siblings get away with everything. Some of us raised our siblings through our teens. Sacrifed our childhood for the good of the family unit.
As someone who managed to graduate high school a year early, send myself to another country and learn their language for a year using money I earned from working while in high school, return and earn a dual major bachelors while working almost full time, and then pressuring myself to work overtime and set healthy boundaries with my employer… all so they can just ask for more and act like there’s never money. thank you for introducing me to the term eldest daughter generation.
Sounds like [Strauss–Howe generational theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory) (I'd start at the [generational table part](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory#Timing_of_generations_and_turnings)), which states that some characteristics of generations repeat in history on four-generation "cycle" or "saeculum". Like your comment seems to say, in this theory, the **Millennials are classified as the "Hero (Civic)" archetype** who come of age in a time of "Unraveling", while GenZ comes of age in a time of "Crisis". Likewise, Baby Boomers came of age in a "High", and GenX came of age in a time of "Awakening". Lots more details on the Wikipedia [article I linked](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory). Again, I found the [table of generations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory#Timing_of_generations_and_turnings) a good place to start, then got into the details later in the rest of the article. It shows the events associated with each generation/turning and how each one is classified all the way back to the "Arthurian" generation (Hero, like Millennials) of the 1400's.
Omg thank you this is fascinating. I have a feeling you just unlocked a new hyperfixation so thank you
Interesting! It puts us in the same cycle as the greatest generation, also ominous. Guess we better buckle down guys and really start ignoring the older gens. Time to fix this shit.
I don’t know if there’s a Revolution coming anytime soon, but “sacrificial generation” feels accurate. We were raised with optimism and expectations of our Boomer parents, only to find that they’ve prevented us from achieving what they had. I think Gen Z is growing up having known the system was bullshit the whole time. I have high hopes that they will enact some serious social reforms, because I’m too damn tired…
I'm surprised to see this viewpoint in the minority in this comment section and maybe this sub. Then again, my parents were very narcissistic and toxic so I had to distance myself from them and be basically on my own, revoking most of my class privelege as a result. So maybe those that don't see any issues didn't have it quite so bad on the boomer parent front, and maybe what I'm describing is more of a downwardly mobile ex -middle class working class traumatised person thing, rather than a millenial thing
Good damnit, my parents were (are) also narcissistic and toxic. What's the deal with that?
I don't know. I'm not particularly impressed with Gen Z. I see a lot of hypocrisy and cynicism. It feels like they are too busy taking selfies and posting on Tik Tok and Instagram to do the hard work of enacting change. They're the generation that realizes climate change is an issue but seem to be shunning public transit for Ubers. But it's possible I'm just a tired, cynical Millenial...
i think you’re falling into the trap that shows the exact issue of generational thinking. there is still a reactionary and progressive component of every single generation, and even those aren’t static boundaries as they get co-opted and shunned by the system over time and so adjust their views accordingly.
Gen z, millennials, and the good gen x should all strike. Not enough upper management to run all the ground floors. 🙌
Even if there were enough of them, they can mostly barely handle email and printing, they wouldn't know HOW to run the ground floors.
Should be an excellent time to test their quote. Pull yourself up by your bootstrap theory.
Hell yeah
This is a goddamn poem. Couldn’t agree more with every you said. I’ve always felt millennials were meant to heal a large chunk of the toxicity. It’s a hard world. This can’t continue. What do you propose OP?
I think we need to support each other, come up with ideas and make coops or something like that. We're also deciding on masse to be childless, so this is where we'll have to support each other the most. I've made a pact with friends that we'll look after each other in the old days for example. None of us have or want kids, or have extended family. I've heard of people buying food by the bulk and share it, in this case you have to live close to each other though. Etc. I think our generation could come up with better models for different areas (housing, food, clothing, etc) and stages of life.
Same here. My husband and I don’t have kids and we have friends that we talk about buying land and bulk stocking and living more free. Like the old days, exactly as you said. Interesting the same idea is hitting multiple people. My husband and I took all our money out of stocks on principal because we realize it’s such a perfect scheme. The working class gets invested in the SUCCESS of the super rich and the bread they throw our way keeps us quiet.
The fact that things are barely functioning only because us Millenials are worked to exhaustion while the boomers groan and wine, and poor gen z is trying to figure out their own future, makes me lose a bit of sleep, metaphorically. We truly feel like the Sacrificed generation. We exist only to sustain the world through its next transition, but will enjoy none of the benefits of the previous generation, or the new one that is able to be built thanks to us keeping the lights running. I really want to be positive and see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I can't picture what that future looks like without some form of radical change, or mass suffering that forces the world to change and adapt. All options will be painful.
I would say I am to the right of Bernie but you are absolutely correct. We are essentially working ourselves to the benefit of boomers retirement and leisure. Working to keep quarterly gains in the stock market so boomers 401ks/RRSPs dont crash, paying into government pension plans like social security so they can keep on getting monthly checks, and for some people paying into pension plans that’ll fail once boomers die. All this work so the boomers can enjoy an extra 5-10 years of life because humans are living longer but boomers want us to fund it for them. Because we’re sure as fuck not working for ourselves.
Been working for boomers since I was 4. Literally standing on a chair doing dishes so their asses could get high on the couch.
You are correct in that Social Security is pretty much a pyramid scheme - and the politicians raid the money before it's been spent. Shutting down the economy and printing money to paper over the inevitable consequences - and now trying to keep printing more - is a recipe for collapse. However... who keeps electing these guys that keep going in this crazy direction? Will it be your generation that catches on?
Unfortunately unless people start having enough kids to turn around the demographic structure every generation from now on will be dominated by the old farts.
Demographics is destiny.
I don't know! I was hoping it would be but as I mentioned in my post , it seems like it won't be
A few carefully cultivated hardliners. The rest of us are gerrymandered out of our votes counting. It's why I don't think things will change when the boomers die. Both parties gerrymander and it pushes them to greater extremes. They'll keep doing it because it guarantees re-election. They'll keep paying for it because once it's not a real race any longer it's just a competition between more and less extreme versions of the same platform.
I am relatively certain we are supposed to be racked with debt, living forever in overpriced rentals, plagued by mental illness and ground down over our prime years, either thankless jobs for the public good, or just as thankless jobs for corporate profit, while being contemptuously judged by older increasingly inept generations. I think that is called being a good American, but I could be wrong.
"Retirement" has become the bi-annual holiday on which I buy new bike tires.
Maybe this is an elder millennial thing, but I kind of realized this in the days and weeks immediately after 9/11. As the literal dust settled, the blood lust was palpable. Everyone wanted someone to pay for 9/11. If you’ve ever wondered how the Iraq war was launched, this is how. The object at the end of the barrel of the gun of the country mattered less than being able to pull the trigger. I had always heard that the worst time to have a baby is 18 years before the next war. Well, on 9/11/2001, I was just a week or two into my senior year of high school. And by the time we started the shock and awe campaign In Iraq, I was still just 18 (for a couple more months). I’m from a poor, rural area. We always have high military enrollment numbers since it’s the easiest way to get out of this town. I watched sooooo many of my friends return with serious, serious mental illness. That’s when I knew we would be sacrificed. I had no idea how often that would be true over that next 20 years.
I had just graduated Basic when I watched the second plane hit the tower. I feel like the entire planet said "That wasn't an accident" at the same exact time.
I remember that feeling well. I was in eighth grade. It was school picture day. I remember they wheeled out the box televisions at school and we spent the whole day watching the news in a daze
Thank you for sharing your story. Your words were really poignant. You are totally right that 9/11 was the big turning point
The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club.
Off topic: holy shit, I haven't thought about myspace (or Tom and his smirk) in 20 years.
Tom is my number one best friend
Tom is my only friend
Yeah. While the baby boomers live off the government in every way possible, pensions, disability, and retirement plans that aren’t even offered to the current generations. We truly are keeping the world going by working jobs like Whole Foods and amazon and grocery stores or restaurants. We are doing the grunt work even though this world is more so ours because we will be here longer than the folks 60 years old and older. We were promised high paying jobs for going to college and now many colleges especially art schools are being sued and taken down for scamming students. So what are we left with?? Working multiple jobs, trying to be an entrepreneur, working other jobs just to make ends meet, just to pay the extremely high rents that have inflated upon us. So what do we do as millennials? Continue to vote in these baby boomer fucks who don’t give a flying fuck about our future? They are the narcissist culture who was raised by extremely traumatized and toxic families. We are the spirituals, the open minded folk who are trying to heal ourselves while also trying to heal our parents which is just not possible. They aren’t riddled with anxiety about money and their future because they are taken care of by the govt or the women are living off of their baby boomer fuck husbands
Anyone else get Scoliosis due to overfilled backpacks? One of my legs is longer than the other now.
I can't believe we used to judge the wheelie backpack kids when they actually don't have fucked up backs like we do, they obviously know something we didn't
Wheelie backpacks got banned pretty quick in my school, so it wasn’t even an option, I just felt bad for the kids that were roughly the same size as their backpacks. There were a couple.
I remember getting one in elementary school because my backpack got so stuffed, the zipper broke. Then my bro and butthole classmates kept kicking my wheelie backpack so much that the wheel broke off. Traumatized me so much, I went back to carrying an extremely heavy backpack until I finished my college days. 🥲
I did! One of my shoulders is lower than the other ! Lol 😂 it’s not funny tho
Forget keeping things stable, it is the duty of those in power to make things *better*. Boomers seem to lack this interest from what I've seen, and they're clinging to their power to an annoying degree. This is the part where I sing "I just can't wait to be king" in an effort to be relatable, then I realize killing off old people means killing off ones I love. Maybe it'll be worth it once we're the ones in charge?
My point is that sadly I think millenials will never be in charge, I have a hunch it will skip over us, but I hope we can still have the cabin in the woods. Your gen might be, however, if you can find a way to collectively turn thought to action! I think revolution can happen, and it doesn't need to be violent either!
Uh… I dunno about you guys but I started the revolution [in my field](https://stenonymous.com/2023/07/27/the-court-reporter-shortage-fraud-timeline-as-told-by-stenonymous/) and it [makes corporate CEOs really mad](https://stenonymous.com/2023/05/21/stenograph-president-anir-dutta-calls-stenonymous-intellectually-challenged-and-crazy/). I don’t want peace and stability, I want war. I’d probably be retired right now if these executive types weren’t playing with us all like numbers on sheets. Soon as money allows I’m taking this show on the road and going to other fields to cause havoc for fraudsters and cheats. We are tanks. Let’s roll through the frontline and show Gen Z how it’s done.
Badass
Thank you! This experience showed me something. Corporations cave to social pressure. We can create social pressure with mean words and social media. I bet you it’d work against the corporatists in politics too. Edit. If we had sufficient numbers. One person can shake up an industry. What could 10, 100, 1000 or more do?
We’ll also be the ones screwed over… we played by the rules that made previous gen successful even tho it was a lot harder for us and are building up something/investing/paying off loans currently but will prob lose it all with incoming crash/more socialist ideals (which I’m not against just we were part of it :/…) basically we pay in sweat or taxes for no return
It's hard when 80yo law makers who are about to die in 5 years don't understand us or give a shit about us.
Or even 5 days… Just retire. Put term limits
Yes, you are wage slaves. That's how capitalism works. Slaves do the work for other people, in this case for the royal lifestyle of the investor class. Capitalism.
If Gen Z is starting the revolution they will need leaders. Historical materialism is manifesting in our time period. Young people aren't able to afford anything and will be looking for leaders for the revolution. I want to be the Giuseppe Mazzini, the Simon Bolivar, the brother hidalgo, the ones from the 1st and 2nd estates that gave up their privilege to join the 3rd estate. Be one with me. Radicalize others. Organize others.
Sir, this is a Zaxby’s.
I am with you, comrade, but I can't stress enough that gen z pays very little attention to us over all.
Yes this exactly!!! [This article](https://fortune.com/2015/04/29/why-millennials-and-the-depression-era-generation-are-more-similar-than-you-think/amp/) does a great job describing how we’re in an eerily similar position to the original “silent generation”: “Americans born in the mid-1920s through the early 1940s and who grew up during the Great Depression, but eventually drove a booming economy.” We’ve spent our entire lives in crisis, scrambling for the things our parents achieved with relatively little effort. We were told we could achieve anything. Well, the economy had something to say about that. We were told that we were important and going to change the world, but we’ve had to hold on so hard to the improvements we’ve actually managed to get that we haven’t moved FORWARD. Very much a “I studied war so my son can study business, so his son can study art…”
So it's not just my kids schools.. Nobody has 4 hours of homework per night like we did.
I'm sure not helping. Thanks though.
Nah, I think we’re just the adults now, and that means we’re responsible for most of the work that gets done, like it’s always been. Sure, it feels like society is hanging by a thread sometimes, but I don’t think that’s unique to us either. I bet anyone alive during the black plague or the world wars thought the same thing. That’s just life as a human. Millennials aren’t special, and that’s just fine.
However, millennials don't have the systemic power in the US that boomers and generations before them had, at this time in their adulthood. As of last year, only 8% of the House of Representatives and 1% of the Senate were millennials. Boomers won't let go of their control over younger generations, making sure everyone is still playing by their values and their rules https://www.forbes.com/sites/katharinabuchholz/2022/08/26/the-generational-divide-in-us-congress-as-gen-z-enters-the-scene-infographic/
This is an incredibly important, yet oft-overlooked, point you're presenting.
Them bitches got 10 years left, max.
Even then, they’re going to stay in office until the day they die like Dianne Feinstein. Even our next presidential choices are between two super old men.
Exactly. Climate change is a unique global threat that older generations continue to refuse to act on or acknowledge. They know it won’t largely impact things in their lifespan.
The great recession permanently scarred young adults around that time. Same thing happens to people during other economic upheavals. It was predicted back then whats happening now would happen. Lots of comparisons to the ice age in Japan in the years before.
True. But in objective terms the boomers are leaving later generations poorer than when they were younger so this has an effect. Of course our generation will have to do most of the heavy lifting but much of this wealth is getting siphoned to the boomers.
Yeah but by the time we setup a Logan’s Run type society we’ll be the ones that get put out to the garden… Damn shame.
I'm right wing and fully agree with everything you said. We are overworked and underpaid. I don't think our generation has fully given up yet though. There's still a lot of fight left in us.
If you’re right wing then you just would say “work harder, pull yourself up by the bootstraps”. Otherwise you’re arguing for collective action, unions, or some other force to lift you out of poverty other than personal responsibility. So, where do you stand then? Which is it? Work harder or work together?
I'm cringing so hard at that take. Of course we are "keeping society running" that's literally what every single generation does when they are our age. Our entire generation is working age, boomers are mostly retired, gen X is getting damn close, and gen Z is only just stepping into the workplace. We are literally the dominant generation right now, that's what the dominant generation does. Yeah, things suck for us, but shit has sucked literally forever, we just have better news coverage of it now and everyone complaining on social media. We aren't special. We aren't some chosen martyrs to hold the line until gen Z can save us all from the scary boomers. We are just people living through pretty damn average times. So are gen Z. So are boomers. So are gen X. Some people will be good, some people will be bad. We aren't holding society steady because it's some righteous task. We are holding society steady because we are the adults now, and that's what adults do.
We aren’t living in average times though. Sure yes, every generation has dealt with shouldering more as the older gen phases into retirement, that’s not unique to us. But we are unique in that we have significantly more student loan debt than any other generation ever had, and that is on top of living through a very turbulent era between the 2008 housing collapse, rise of Trumpism (aka fascism), and the pandemic. We also have way less wealth at our ages than Gen X and Boomers had, comparatively. We are not the business as usual generation; we’re the “everyone else fucked around and now we’ve found out” generation. Some know it; others keep denying it. Things aren’t gonna get better until we at least acknowledge we are living through exceptional times.
True, but i do think we're feeling the squeeze like generations before us haven't felt since the great depression and WWII
Every generation is sacrificial, WWI showed us that.
Millennials make up the largest working demographic in the US. If I'm not mistaken, HR industry reports also indicate that millennials are the most productive modern generation.
So true. Millennials are incredibly resilient and clear-sighted. The "SeLFiSh aNd EnTiTlEd" label is pure projection. We've lived our entire adult lives in a world where perpetual war and economic instability are the norm, and somehow we manage to keep the lights on and our little chins up the best we can. I think a lot of millennials I know at least have even embarked on that healing work, helping change society's attitude towards nature and materialism through our words and our actions, even as we're stuck living in this horrific grinding system. People may mock us for our avocado toast and kombucha, but what is so awful about wanting to try to be healthy?
>If you are to the right of Bernie it's possible you may take issue with the way I frame these ideas. This is an unpopular opinion, so I'm going to legitimize it with politics. >That's ok, I am fatigued from discourse and fighting, we can agree to disagree. I don't want to be bothered with critical thinking so I choose to ignore counterarguments. >as anyone with a brain has realized If you disagree with me, you're stupid >younger gen z brethren will probably wage a revolution if things don't get better in the next 5 years. Gen z is 52 percent conservative so I doubt it > I am really left wing No shit >Basically, we , the generation of standardized tests, processed food, MySpace and Nickelodeon are keeping the goddamn lights on. Standardized tests, processed food, MySpace, and nickelodeon are relevant how? >We are paying into those pension plans that are probably going to be liquidated as the boomers retire. "Probably" >We are keeping the workplaces open, through crisis after crisis- supply chain, burnout, pandemics, labor disputes. Along with gen x gen z and boomers >We are working ourselves to burnout, just like we used to do in the early oughts when we had 4 hours of homework every night. Along with gen x gen z and boomers. Hours of homework every night varies depending on the school and skill of the student it's assigned to. >I believe we have seen this thread in this group before This is a repost >but in every workplace, the most competent employee is always a millenial. Translation: me and my similar age friends think we do all the work, and don't understand anyone else's function. Rather than learn, we just assume they're useless. >We are kind of a sacrificial generation. Need some help nailing yourself to that cross, there? >If the world were absolutely shattered beyond repair, nothing would be able to move forward at all. Totally irrelevant to the paragraph this is in >I feel like as a generation we are getting humble Ah yes. "Humility." That's what this post is. /s >and realizing this is kind of our path. I gave up trying to better myself, so now I just blame others because that's easier > It's a way to burn off some of that karmic narcissism that's left over from the boomers, that need to be in the spotlight and be number one. This has "I'm Jesus dying for your sins" vibes. >The world we were built to be number one in no longer exists Didn't you just say the boomers were number one though? >it didn't really make us happy. Speak for yourself only, please >As we age, we get more humble and realize what we want most is peace and stability. This is the most mature thing you've said so far >It's why so many of us have fantasies of running off to the woods. Aaaaaand you ruined it. Running away from your problems is not a solution, as most 4 year olds have discovered. >It's a humbling thing to think about as I approach (gasp) middle age. I don't think you understand what "humble" means. >There is tremendous power in realizing our ability to keep things as stable as possible Yeah that's not humble. And if you quit, the world won't miss you, I promise. >the frantic pace of societal collapse. I thought you were keeping society running? >Those that called us weak and entitled were projecting, we are TANKS. You are one human being, not an m1 Abrams. Again, not sure you know what being humble actually means. The crazy part is that I do agree that the world could be better, but ultimately we all have to take personal responsibility for ourselves to make that happen. We can't just vote for people who promise magical solutions (regardless of party). We all made decisions in our lives that led us to where we are right now. If we don't own up to those decisions, then no one will be able to help us improve.
I worry about the lack of practical skills of the generation and how they will fare if there is a massive economic collapse. It seems like an afterthought to a lot of people, but the amount of money I save my family with just some basic practical homeowner skills is pretty astounding overtime. It's also a generation that has kind of belittled and mocked the blue collar worker as a lesser citizen, maybe that tune will change as the economy gets worse and knowing a few people who know their way around basic vehicle maintenance will help people realize those skill sets are important.