#Generation Y

[gryficowa]

Boycott!

Something depresses me about the fact that generational wars are usually about bullshit… Because what else can you call it all when genocide and wars are taking place in this world?

Now that I have your attention:

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Die Katze

[delusion-with-mel]

Can we please stop putting 2010 kids with gen alpha? Im 14 years old i dont wanna be associated with the brainrot generation

Like bffr i am NOT gonna be seen as the same as kids that dont even remember the pandemic.

[into-september]

please reblog for sample size

[divine-mystic-princess]

[nando161mando]

The meat shield generation since 1981.

[yahoo-a-post]

To the kids and the teens out there;

NEVER wish to become older.

ALWAYS tell the truth.

Advice from a 36 year old.

Yahoo, unsolicited advice!

[millennialsargueback]

[sailoreuterpe]

I have far more in common with the Boomer who lives in Section 8 housing and uses food stamps than I do with Mark Zuckerberg.

[stardustviolet]

“I was at the supermarket, picking up some little pre-mixed martinis to enjoy in the sun, when I sensed the store manager hovering behind me. “Got any ID for that?” he asked, sighing protractedly. I didn’t. “But I’m 30 years old,” I said, motioning towards my face. “See? 30.” He laughed as if I were an over-confident sixth grader trying my luck. “Yeah, I don’t think so,” he said, scooping up the cans. “Sorry, no can do.”

Right then I felt like kicking over a nearby cereal display, spilling Shreddies everywhere. Think I’m a teenager? Watch me act like one, then. But I’m 30, so…my impulse control kicked in.

People love to say “consider it a compliment!” when you get mistaken for someone a lot younger, but I don’t at this point. I graduated from college nearly 10 years ago. I’ve worked as a journalist and editor for almost as long, been in multiple relationships, and navigated intense life experiences. I own a Hetty hoover. I’ve published a book. I remember AOL! When someone says I look younger than I am, what I really hear is: None of that counts. I still don’t take you seriously. Not that people in their 20s don’t get taken seriously, but I’m a different person to who I was at 24, 25, even 26. I want that to show, externally.

I don’t think I actually look physically younger than 30. But—like other millennials—I possibly give off a younger “energy.” My arms are covered in stick ’n’ pokes from my 20s. I look at ease in a cozy hoodie and low-slung jeans. Plus, I barely scrape 5’2”. The way I speak and hold myself hasn’t changed much in the past few years. And I’m not alone in this: my friends, who are broadly the same age as me, could easily be five years younger. My fiancée is a full-time musician with bleached blonde hair and a penchant for motocross jackets. As a kid, I didn’t picture 30 looking like this. My high school teachers were 30. We definitely look different from them. We act differently from them, too.

Much has already been said about millennials’ inability to “grow up.” We’re lambasted for not owning homes or having kids soon enough (who can do either of those things unless you have a hefty two-income household and/or an inheritance?). We’re living with friends and roommates like overgrown students for a lot longer (plenty of my single friends can’t afford to live alone). And things like marriage, or toiling away in the same career, appear to have lost their shine for many. Even so, that doesn’t explain why we don’t always look like the 30-somethings of yesteryear—or why I can’t get served a pink martini in my local supermarket.

I’m not the only person to be mulling this over. TikTok is overrun with videos about why millennials don’t seem to be aging “normally” (“why don’t millennials age?” currently has around 19.4 million views on TikTok). Some have hypothesized that it’s because “tweakments” like filler and botox are cheaper and more widely available now. Others have joked that it’s because millennials “have depression, so we’re indoors all day, and we don’t let the sunlight age our skin.” Still others have wondered whether it’s due to camera phones, and the fact that we see ourselves more often than ever before, meaning we pay more attention to our looks and outfits. Or maybe we are aging normally, we just don’t think we are, so we don’t act like it.

There are likely countless reasons for this time-body-mind warp. One of my personal theories is that our image of a “real adult” is simply outdated, and fails to take more recent style and culture shifts into account. Your parents and grandparents didn’t post photo dumps, wear athleisure in the workplace, or DM their colleagues “lmao” in their 30s. But frames of reference evolve constantly, and that’s what 30-somethings are like now. You don’t just suddenly get a cropped haircut and start saying the word “trendy” as you age. We’re stuck with an image of a 30-something that is no longer relevant. I’m sure Gen X—the Britpop kids, the ravers—didn’t always resemble dads. It must have taken a moment to catch up.

Before I continue, I must add: I’m well aware that age is mostly meaningless, and that attaching labels to a person based on an arbitrary yearly marker is a disservice to their individualism. I know that most people don’t actually “feel” their age, because they just feel like themselves (same here). And I am so much more interested in a person’s mind than how old they are. But that doesn’t mean I am not intrigued and curious about how I appear to others now that I’m in my 30s. I find myself fearful of becoming a Benjamin Button-like character—like when you google a child actor and they look the same as an adult, just weird and with facial hair. Are millennials like child actors? Stuck, and frozen in time, forever?

One of the most frightening things about existing is that the world keeps spinning and time keeps hurtling onwards. Stop, you feel like protesting, I’m not ready yet, I’m not ready. But the universe does not hear you, and it doesn’t care anyway. That’s the great tragedy and gift of living. We all move forward. And one day soon, Gen Z will wake up and they will be middle-aged, and Gen Alpha will have children of their own, and their grandparents will not be wearing slacks and cardigans and taping money to Christmas cards. They’ll be wearing Juicy Couture and Post Malone Crocs and sending skull emoji reacts to their grandkids’ messages.“

[that-gay-jedi]

Sigh. Born too early to know or care about Percy Jackson, born too late to have formed a ring of nerdy pen pals after painstakingly eviscerating each individual episode of the spinoff show spawned by Disney's Hercules on the early internet.

[crystal-charlotte-lynch]

Telling Stories: she wore daisies

By Crystal Charlotte Lynch

I want to tell you something.

The story of a girl with daisies in her hair.

She was funny and brilliant.

Bright full of love and light.

She was light in life.

Giving her all to everyone.

She rarely got mad or even sad.

You didn’t know what she held up inside.

She always sported a smile and spoke with her heart.

There was grace in her presence and she held wisdom in her soul.

Her eyes full of wonder and mysteries.

You wouldn’t know it looking at her but her heart carried sorrow and misery.

On the inside she was wilting and withering away.

You wouldn’t believe that her lovely smile was just an empty mask.

This was the story of a young girl.

She wore daisies in her hair.

[icemankazansky]

Fellow millennials, we may not ever be able to buy a house or retire or stop feeling this sense of existential dread/liminal space/peri-apocalyptic depersonalization, but we are doing some really great things for journalism, and I mean that.

(One of these articles was written by a friend of mine from grad school. Guess which one, and... you will have correctly guessed which one.)

[darthkieduss]

A Request of Generation Z from a Millennial Activist.

(If you know Lance Henriksen, please read this in his voice in your head. Best voice actor I’ve ever heard.)

This July 5, 2023, I will leave my twenties and enter my “Dirty Thirties” as my wife calls it.

As time goes on and I grow older, I have a message for the Generation Z. But not just a message, I will also have a request for them. For any “Zoomer” reading this, before I go on, please know this isn’t condescending or looking down on you. This is from one older comrade to the younger comrades. And I personally couldn’t be more proud of your generation TBH.

As 80s millennials enter their 40s and us 90s millennials enter our 30s, just know that unlike the generations that came before, most of us will NEVER forget who we are. We will always remember what it was like to be young. To be thrust into a world that was rigged against us. To crush on a girl in class that you had NO chance with. The senior home coming dance. Getting your driver’s license. Getting your first job. you know. But We also remember telling our parents thing they DIDN’T want to hear. Like coming out as gay or trans. Or not Christian anymore. Or coming out as a Socialist Catholic in my case. Yeah, my parents DID NOT like that. Point is we will always be young at heart. 

We are comrades united because we are fighting for the same cause. The fight you’re fighting now is the same one we stood for when we were teens and you were kids exploring Minecraft. (am I hip yet?) I remember going to pride parades as a straight ally at 21 in the months before Oberefell v. Hodges legalized same sex marriage in 2015. Though I couldn’t vote in 2008 (I was 15), we millennials made the huge turnout to elect the first black man into the White House. I remember getting tear gassed as an “old” 26 year old during the BLM protests.

Let me say as a millennial I am so proud of your generation, Zoomers. You’ve stepped to the mantle when called. In some cases, you’ve outshined us. That’s why I’m asking you, not to revere us millennials, but simply to remember us. Not because we were in the fight first, but because we’ve been in this fight so long and we’re just getting fucking started lol. Remember that unlike us when we were younger, you are not alone. We millennials were alone because we were the first to recognize the rot in the system made by the previous generations, especially the Boomers. But now y��all are coming of age and taking up the fight for our futures. You swell our ranks and I can’t thank you enough. One day as time goes on, we will take this country back. TOGETHER.

We stand with you.

The war against the system is not yet over. It’s only just begun. So as President Kennedy said in his inaugural address, “Let Us Begin.” But we’ve made some victories from 2008 to last years 22 midterms.

In 2020, Millennials and Gen Z united to kick Donald Trump out of the White House.

In 2019, millennials entered Congress for the first time. We Georgians elected the First Millennial to the United States Senate (Jon Ossoff) in 2020-21. And now Maxwell Frost has the honor of the being the first Gen Z in Congress in 2022.

We’ve suffered many losses, but we won the last two elections. These victories belong to each of us. Every man, women and child. Every person in every state.

Now as we take our first steps toward restoring what we lost, we must remember what it took to win. These weren’t victories by a single party, a single voting bloc or a even by a single generation. If this war has taught us anything, it is that we are at our strongest when we work together. And if we could put down our grievances to defeat something as evil as Donald Trump, imagine what we can achieve now that he is defeated. It will take time, but we can rebuild everything that was destroyed. Our homes. Our lives. Our economy and country. All of this and more.

Together we can build a future greater than any one of us could imagine. A future paid for by the sacrifices of those who fought, bled and even died alongside us. A future that many will never see.

And while we still have many challenges ahead of us, We can face them Together. And we will honor those who fell to give us that future.

That’s why I’m asking Gen Z as you come of age and take power, remember us. For we were your age once and one day you will were we are now. And one day, the Generation Alpha that my four nephews belong to will succeed you. For inspiration, look to yourself and your millennial brothers and sisters beside you.

We stand with you so stand with us.

Sincerely, a 1993 Millennial.

PS: please stop eating tide pods. at least cinnamon is meant to be eaten. JFC

[nando161mando]

At Least Gen Z and Most Millennials Aren't Fooled

[millennialsargueback]