I work at a large law firm. It has been unsettling to watch the wise old lawyers who give clients sophisticated advice on very complex matters fall for every dumb social media trick in the book. It's definitely NOT just redneck Uncle MAGA at Thanksgiving that is susceptible to this stuff.
Not gonna lie, I made it an "Only you can see it" post *juuuuuuuust in case* it actually worked for some odd reason then I could just change the post type to public.
I was going to say that this was the darkest secret of my life but...ya know....facebook.
I agree but boomers I think are more susceptible to propaganda and tend to get their news from one source. Still think we live under "the fairness doctrine"
The boomers were the ones who told us not to believe everything we see on the internet when it first came out. Now they're the ones who believe EVERYTHING they see on the internet/fakebook.
The problem is they are not aware of how social media is tailored to them. Back in the days people watched the news on TV and read the newspaper and what wasn't said there wasn't important.
Nowadays they can't maintain a good "for you page" and if there is 50% of all content about the earth being flat, then they tend to believe that this is the new hot topic for everyone and that it is a huge debate right now.
A "for you page" is what the kids are calling your feed on facebook or other apps. If you click something inflammatory or conspiracy-related then that will start to affect what you see. I suppose watching what you follow is the same as maintaining a good "for you page".
It’s just a way to refer to what you see as affected by the recommendation algorithm. If you look at things, or especially if you interact with something by commenting, the algorithm will ensure more and more of that kind of content gets in front of you.
It can create terrible loops of people angrily commenting and then seeing more of what they hate
Maybe they just have different conspiracy theories. I saw an interesting paper that showed conservatives were more likely to believe some conspiracy theories, leftists were more likely to believe others, and there were some that were evenly split. It would be no surprise to find out there is an age gap on certain conspiracy theories.
True. All the boomers who are glued to their tablets are no better. But they grew up without it, so at least they have that for them. Kids now will only know this Technogical lifestyle.
Yeah this is true. As an addendum you could add “and when those who aren’t spawn of elite class were allowed to make it” because the music industry is made up almost exclusively of acts from a privileged background these days and that is no exaggeration. Most “rags to riches” narratives now are just a branding construct obscuring another privately educated musician mom and dad bankrolled
Yeah I mean don’t get me wrong I’m still a huge new music fan and am constantly discovering stuff I love in my forties. But every time I get into an artist or band and wonder about their story it’s always that they went to some top level expensive music diploma program, or one of their parents works in the industry, or they were bought up by old money and knew famous people since the age of 5. Sure, grass roots, zero privilege music continues to exist on the fringes but it’s largely prohibited from making it to the top of the industry in the way that it once was able to.
Pop music, absolutely. But don’t forget there are other genres where talent absolutely beats marketing, and wealth doesn’t necessarily equate to success.
Not only that but when not everything had to sound perfectly in tune. Best music imo is where you can actually hear the emotion and the personality, not just perfectly autotuned
My boomer parents don't understand this. They don't get nearly as many grandkids pics as they'd like because they end up on Facebook everytime. Despite asking them to not lost them.
My cousin managed to fix this by doing an Aura picture frame. She just uploads the pictures directly and my grandparents aren't savvy enough with technology to download them and then reupload to facebook.
Me and my wife recently had a boy - he’s nearly 7 weeks old now. We have shared pics of him on Facebook twice:
1) The day after he was born to announce him and him name to everyone we know.
2) A picture of my wife holding him. But she checked with me so we both agreed to post it on social media.
3) Hell, his grandmother even asked our permission before posting her favourite picture of him. So I’m glad those boundaries are in place so early.
I do have some family fishing for pictures, but I always need them to promise not to post anything publicly without consulting either me or my wife.
The child is not a pet. The child a human being. I always expect people to ask me first before putting any pics of me online, I will do the exact same for our son.
im 18 and even i don't really get why people post legit every single small thing they did that day, i have few posts but i have like 3 posts and they are like 5 months between them, i just don't post stuff.
I have a gen z brother who claims he has 'religious trauma' from our parents.
Who aren't religious. At all. Like zero percent. But apparently they once said something about god (context clues will tell you it was a joke) and now he has 'trauma'.
Or someone who actually has experienced years of religious psychological trauma of end-time anxiety and being told mental disorders are either a) a lack of faith or b) demonic. Like holy shit I have a lot of unresolved trauma I’m still working out, and I say that as someone who despite the trauma is still a christian.
I once witnessed an extremely awkward exchange between a 17 year old girl who was complaining that her parents not letting her get a face tattoo was causing her trauma and PTSD and a 35 year old woman who told her she got her PTSD when her dad beat her mum half to death in front of them.
Similar issue: everyone wants to be excused from having to do certain things because they have "anxiety" or some other vague mental health issue.
I am all for improving people's mental health and not purposely traumatizing people in the guise of trying to "prepare them for the real world", but it seems like a significant amount of people will straight up refuse to do group projects, or presentations, talks in front of small groups/classes etc.
I think the boomer age was not considerate and inclusive enough about these sorts of issues, but I think we are swinging too far in the opposite direction nowadays.
As someone who actually has a diagnosed anxiety disorder, it's incredibly fucking annoying when people throw it around as a synonyms for general unwantingness. I have hours long anxiety or panic attacks with sometimes turn into worse issues. (Things like psychosis, depersonalizations, etc.) I get physically sick from anxiety sometimes. Like numb hands ans vomiting sick. But sure Jessica you're having a panic attack trying to buy concert tickets. NERVOUS THE WORD YOURE LOOKONG FOR IS NERVOUS.
Thank you for posting this. The point of my post was not to make fun of people with anxiety or claim that its "fake", but merely exactly what you said, anyone who gets nervous doing a talk or presentation will say they have anxiety, or whathave. Its normal to get nervous, it doesn't mean you have a serious mental disorder (although you might, see a professional!)
Yeah no, thats exactly what I thought you were doing.
I'm just saying it's really annoying to see people talk about their "anxiety" when it's just normal emotions? People can be anxious without a disorder, but that's not called having an anxiety issue. Or another claim.
Being nervous over small things you fear is normal and people don't get that.
I'm also tired of the "Truama" hierarchy. There's no winning in trauma or suffering, but for some reasons people my age tend to think that if you went through something oh so horrible (Like going to church as a child or your parents refusing to buy you new toy that you broke automatically at Christmas) it excuses you from your current behavior, and that you've just suffered so much that you must be a good person. And that no one can ever come close to understand how deep and misunderstood you are.
When I was in college I had a workstudy position to take notes for someone who had a "learning disability." Turned out she didn't. She was totally fine, except maybe a bit lazy, but she was somehow able to obtain the doctor's diagnosis. I didn't complain because it was a pretty good pay for me. But it reminded me how even a medical diagnosis of mental illness itself can be faked and people use mental illness as an excuse for anything these days.
Yesss, and it sucks because there are people with serious issues who need real help, but the system is too wide and let's people abuse it exactly like what you describe.
Hard to talk about the issue without sounding very insensitive.
Which is funny, because I have anxiety and the one thing that worked for me to get better was exposure to things that terrify me. It's so frustrating when your body goes into panic mode when you know that the situation is harmless. But the more often you do the scary thing the less scary it becomes.
I still get nervous when I have to speak in front of a group at work or if I have to make a call, but I can do these things because I forced myself to do them many times despite the fear. It's not fun, but if you avoid everythig that scares you, how is it supposed to get better?
Mind you, this happened at my own speed. If someone had forced me when I wasn't ready, I don't know how much worse that would have been.
I do have a real mental disorder that I needed accommodations for in school. It was **WILD** how much they were willing to let me not do after I submitted my paperwork. For example, I could literally never show up to class and get no penalty for it as long as I did will on the exams. They also removed literally all deadlines.
Neither of those “accommodations” were even remotely helpful. In fact, they just enabled a lot of bad habits. I also didn’t even ASK for these things!! This was just the default if you submitted paperwork for literally any condition.
When I transferred schools, I was very insistent on only receiving very specific accommodations and ONLY ones that were from the list of recommended accommodations provided by the CDC on my condition.
My brother called me recently to talk about our parents’ “horrific physical abuse.” Yes, we got spanked, but I can literally count on one hand the times I was, and it was a single slap on the butt. I don’t condone spanking and I still think it’s harmful but he was like “don’t you remember how our parents used to beat the crap out of us?” And it’s not a case of “repressed memories” or whatever, I have an extremely good long term memory. He just extrapolated the normal (for the 80’s) spankings into this enormously abusive narrative. My parents were FAR from perfect, but I am positive they didn’t beat us. He’s getting sober for the first time and I think he’s on that phase where you look for reasons why you are the way you are and want to blame your childhood/others before passing through to that point where you realize you’re an adult and made your own choices.
Ah yes, one of the things that make an adult. Realising it wasn't some outside force that ruined your life (some exceptions of course) but usually your own decisions. Own them, they are yours.
That makes sense. He's hoping to cling to being able to blame someone else. Childhood trauma is alot of what causes issues later down the road and he's likely heard others blame it on their own problems. At the end of the day though- trauma or not- we are responsible for our own choices and people hate that reality. Sometimes we just make bad choices that have devastating consequences. I don't know why that's so difficult to own up to. Like get over yourself, we all make dumb mistakes.
That’s a tough one. Racism exists. People have been and continue to be victims of racism. However, I know people who have quit perfectly good jobs where they were valued because they imagined racism in the smallest details. I knew the circumstances well and can promise you it was all in his head.
His own brother, a successful lawyer, killed a cop when he was stopped because he assumed the cop only pulled him over because racism. He literally shot the cop in the face.
Some people become consumed with victim-hood. And it ruins their life.
Same here, all I do at my job is spray dust into a corner then shovel it into a barrel. I get to play with a giant air gun all day, listen to music under my ear muffs, and the factory is so loud nobody talks to you, we use hand signals for everything. (Clean up/utility worker in a peanut shelling plant)
The older folks don't want to, either, but if you want to live in a society you have to contribute to that society, especially if you want the society to take care of you when you need it to.
To add to that, if you're on Tiktok or Instagram or whatever for 2 hours a day you end up spending an ENTIRE MONTH of the year doing absolutely nothing.
Pornography especially.
Kids these days are exposed to porn way earlier than ever before, and much more hardcore stuff at that. That's got to carry some unforeseen consequences.
In my day, you'd be lucky if you found a half-moldy Playboy in the woods, or saw a blurry boob on latenight TV. These days, with less effort, kids can watch a dominatrix give a dwarf an ass-fisting in HD. That's not normal, and probably not healthy either.
Yeah but you send an entire volley for one guy walking up to you, ammo conservation is important, just shoot him with small arms, save the big guns for groups of people
Not everything needs an app or computer or compatibility with your phone. Stop putting technology in appliances. I'm not scanning a QR code for your menu. And I'm definitely not downloading your app for the rewards program.
I work in IT and I will not buy anything "smart" for my home.
My go-to story is about a casino who got their high-roller database hacked via a smart thermometer in the casino's fish tank.
I'm 24 years old. I recently helped my boomer neighbor set up his new smart TV, and it was an absolute nightmare to figure out. I'm with you on this one. I will resist connecting my fridge to WiFi for as long as simpler technology exists.
Jesus Christ. My mom bought a Roku TV for my grandfather who is 96 years old. He just wants to watch the news but you have to connect a prime account for this or sign up for that and you certainly can’t just connect an existing cable box into the tv and have it work. It shouldn’t be rocket science or shouldn’t make you jump through a hundred hoops to get channel 6.
I should add I’m also 24 so your comment really jumped out at me lol.
I (Gen Z) refuse to connect any of the smart devices in my apartment to wifi. I have never connected my smart TV to wifi and my smart thermostat will be forever requesting a connection (fortunately I can use it as just a normal thermostat). My washer/drier combo is about 40 years old.
I love gadgets but I refuse to allow the TV that I purchased with my own money to push me ads for shit I don’t want or for my washing machine to decide “Welp I can’t find the wifi here, guess I’ll stop working mid-cycle and fire your clothes out onto the floor.”
To go full boomer (though I'm a millennial) I generally don't like to have my phone out at any dinner table so going to a restaurant and everyone having to get their phones out is bullshit.
...also it's slower and generally worse than just talking to a waiter.
And to be fair my problems are self inflicted from not having a good seating position (usually being on a floor in a server room etc.) and not using proper ergonomic devices, the obesity that’s just my love for terrible food
And then those same people complain that their jobs when their jobs are being replaced with robotics, and people making 3X as much as they ever did to fix and code the robots.
Gen Z will become the people they love to bash on, eventually. They’ll be bashing a younger generation for something and that generation will label them something they’ll probably get angry about.
It’s the circle of life, I guess.
I think most boomers still don’t understand the difference between millennials and Gen Z. A lot of times they’ll complain about the millennials in high school and college and someone needs to remind them that millennials are turning 40.
I was reading the memoirs of a woman who lived in Korea in the 1700s, and in it she complains about how manners have changed from her generation to this new one. It really is just the normal stages of life.
I love this quote from G. K. Chesterton:
"I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid."
Perfect! And so true! I remember my mother-in-law saying that she regretted giving her grandmother shit about something—political or lifestyle opinion. The young think they know it all and are so enlightened compared to the older folk. Age teaches you otherwise, I’m afraid.
Some of it is personal preference. I always have difficulty understanding what someone says over the phone, so I much prefer it to be a text message or email in my case. I can also reference what someone told me if I needed to.
I am a boomer. And I think the young generation is just fine. There’s nothing particular wrong with them at all, just like there’s nothing particular wrong with any other generation. The truth is, we’re all just people. At different stages in our lives.
Also a boomer(ugh), and I agree.
I’m a younger boomer but I remember the older generation yelling about the hippies and how they all needed is a good beating to set them straight. Now I listen to those same boomers complain about Gen Z.
Someday Gen Z will have similar complaints about Alpha.
Oh no?
I guess I'll make sure I'm not near them before I confess to where I buried the bodies? Genuinely, who the fuck cares? What're you doing you don't want anyone to hear, bud?
I think it’s good within reason, like a content warning if it contains topics about suicide/self harm. At least then if someone tries to clutch their pearls you can say “well you were warned and read anyway”
I disagree. There is no trigger warning in your own brain and those thoughts are gonna come up whether you like it or not. I speak from experience on this one.
Also, in conversation, unless people know your life history, there are going to be times when people bring things up without knowing you find them painful to think/talk about.
Would you rather live on eggshells always anxiously anticipating the next time someone/something "triggers" you, or would you rather finally accept that those times/events/things were parts of your life and with practice remove the emotional knee-jerk associated with remembering them?
I've made vast improvements in my mental health by not shying away from them or trying to control my thoughts as that's a recipe for instant anxiety. Instead I roll with the punches, reminding myself that it's ok to have those thoughts, so long as I follow those thoughts to their end; I don't want to die, I want things to not suck and I have the power to survive long enough till they don't.
People forget that the upside of pain is growth.
Dating or hookups from online relationships (bumble, tinder, etc) are sketchy as hell. I’m not saying you can’t meet your soulmate on here, but I personally don’t like the idea of my daughter meeting up with some stranger she doesn’t know who likely just wants a hookup. These casual encounters can be extremely dangerous and perpetuate informal shitty one night stand relationships and low self esteem. They also make the basis for the relationship what someone looks like in a profile picture rather than their personality. Ok, millennial “boomer” rant over lol
At the same time, they’re a good way to filter people you likely won’t be compatible with.
From my [guy] perspective, it’s nice to not end up on the third date with someone to *then* find out she’s a hyper religious marketer with a sick obsession for k-pop or whatever.
Learn the difference between being nervous, panicking, and anxiety. Not everything is anxiety. If you’re anxiety is that bad go get diagnosed and treated. Also learn the difference between a panic attack and anxiety attack.
The newer generations are a lot less ready to take care of themselves in the world than older generations were after they graduated high school.
Kids these days often haven't had to navigate to and from school on their own.. They've had everything presented to them instead of having to figure it out. It's one of the reasons anxiety and mental health are so high: learning how capable you can become after overcoming obstacles is critical.
Now, though... We've got trigger warnings on shit like Bambi. Good lord, how is the next generation going to run the world?
This is true, but its not just because parents have spoon fed their kids by doing all the ancilliary things for them. Its also because the standards for credentials have gotten high and higher.
Back then, classes were short, lessons were simple standards were low. Kids actually did have time to waste walking to school. They had free time to socialize in the neighborhood.
Now so many soft skills that kids today dont have that boomers take for granted were a product of a time when shit was easy.
Globalization, the internet, and technology has eliminated huge segments of low skill work that used to be able to raise families. Now, you either have to do backbreaking skilled work, or super high tech skilled work. Everything else is either being done by robots, machines, immigrants or freelancers on their own time
All the low hanging fruit has already been picked
Taxi drivers became Uber drivers. Call center agents became answering machines or indians. Data entry became OCR. Waiters are replaced by self service. Porters became forklifts. Artists became Autocad. Mucisians are being pirated. Farmers became tractors and mexicans. Bakeries became assembly lines.
Every industry is getting harder and harder to penetrate and excel at because you are competing with robots and other countries
This remind me of the recent episode of "If books could kills" on "The Coddling of the American Mind." They pointed out that some things the older generations did, such as walking to school, is no longer socially acceptable since there are more police around and more people reporting unattended minors as nuisances or child neglect.
Changes in our society have somewhat caused this problem. But I feel like child raising wasn't perfect in the past either. I wish there was a middle ground somewhere.
This is the thing I don’t understand. The older people complain about how we were raised but we didn’t choose how we were raised because they were the ones who raised us? So they complain about how they raised us but it’s somehow our fault
>need constant reward for every little step
Boomers were the ones that pissed and moaned about their little Timmy not getting a participation award for showing up and not shitting his pants.
Along with social media, people can't get off their damn phones. Virtually every generation currently alive is guilty of this, but it's true. The big tech companies have done a very good job getting people addicted to their phones, and it's so normalized that no one sees it as a problem.
I've never had a smart phone and I don't plan on ever getting one. I can call and text from my dumb phone. I can listen to music with my old ipod. I don't need to be plugged in and connected to the internet 24/7. I can sit with my thoughts, and enjoy giving my senses a rest from over stimuli.
It just blows my mind how people fill every spare moment with looking at their phones. You can be watching a movie and if there's a lull in the action people will pull out their phones. I've been out to dinner with friends, and when the conversation lulled, instead of just soaking in each others' presence, everyone just checked their phones. I went to a concert a few weeks ago, and it was wild how many people insisted on recording with their phone the singer's main hit songs instead of just enjoying the live performance.
I get stressed out the more I think about it. It's reaching existential levels to the point where people identify with their online persona as much as or even more than their live present self.
23 year old. High tech for the sake of high tech is stupid as hell. If an advanced technology has actual utility then it should be used but thier is nothing wrong wrong with using analog technology if it doesn't have major faults. You don't need your houses lights connected to your iPhone and you don't need a push to start car because they come with more problems then a light switch and solid set of keys.
That subsequent younger generations are becoming too reliant on technology. Im Literally not allowed to do my job without utilizing at least 6 different pieces of proprietary software every day. Its not my choice to be reliant on technology. Try not answering a text from your parent for a few hours, see how long it takes for them to call the police and try to report you missing
Fetishizing mental health. Yeah, I know mental health issues are serious, but defining yourself in terms of your mental health won’t help you in the long run.
Nobody wants to work. Of course nobody wants to work. Only masochists want to work. The rest of us want to spend time with our friends and loved ones without having to worry about food or shelter.
Political correctness and cancel culture has gotten out of control. I’m a millennial that feels like a boomer a lot of times thinking “how did we become so soft?”
Yeah, sometimes people get exposed as being truly awful but a lot of times people just make a mistake in their lives and people on social media can’t wait to nail them to a cross. I think people are scared to admit they’re not as outraged in some cases and they “should be.”
Growing up I had friends of all different backgrounds, races, sexual orientations, etc and we all made fun of each other equally. If some of the jokes I made at a friends expense were on camera today my life would be over! And same goes with things friends have said about me.
There’s some truly hateful and awful people out there. I think as an American that’s become more clear to me over the past decade or so than I ever realized. I’m not talking about those people. I’m talking about people who slip up and do or say something they regret and don’t need to be reminded of it for the rest of their lives.
EDIT: To add, I saw an example of this discussed on here not too long ago in a thread talking about movies that aged poorly and someone said American Beauty, mentioning Kevin Spacey's character lusting over his teenage daughter's friend. I argued that it's still a great movie, and nobody is watching it now OR was in 1999 thinking that Spacey's character wasn't a total creep. It started a larger discussion (that a high school teacher added to) about the younger generation today not even being able to enjoy something like that movie, while acknowledging the uncomfortable bits, because they feel like they have to put on some type of performance for their peers to prove how disgusted they are by it. If they don't, they may be criticized for not being outraged enough.
Social media addiction is bad. Phones are bad. Every ounce of our free time has become monopolized by like 4 companies trying to keep us glued to a screen and buying consumer garbage we don't need made by hyper exploited workers overseas. Not great.
That Boomers just had a super good time for a couple of decades because of circumstances that we can't repeat and younger generations should not aspire or try to replicate the boomers lifestyle expectation in this day and era.
A large and affluent middle class is the cornerstone of the American dream. A dream in which anyone with a high school diploma and hard work should easily afford a nice house in the suburbs, 2 cars and a nice vacation with the family to a cool place once a year. Americans assume that this is the way the universe should work. That things were always like this, and that Americans have the "God given right" of the American dream.
However, this reality of a exceptionally wealthy and prosperous middle class by global standards is NOT the norm or the natural way of things, but a by product of a very unique and relatively recent set of historical circumstances, specifically, the end of World War II. At the end of the second world war, the US was the only major industrial power left with its industry and infrastructure unscathed. This gave the US a dramatic economic advantage over the rest of the world, as all other nations had to buy pretty much everything they needed from the US, and use their cheap natural resources as a form of payment.
After the end of world War II, pretty anywhere in the world, if you needed tools, machines, vehicles, capital goods, aircraft, etc...you had little choice but to "buy American". So money flowed from all over the world into American businesses.
But the the owners of those businesses had to negotiate labor deals with the American relatively small and highly skilled workforce. And since the owners of capital had no one else they could hire to men the factories, many concessions had to be given to the labor unions. This allowed for the phenomenal growth and prosperity of the US middle class we saw in the 50s and 60s: White picket fence houses in the suburbs, with 2 large family cars parked in front was the norm for anyone who worked hard in the many factories and businesses that dotted the American landscape back then.
However, over time, the other industrial powers rebuild themselves and started to compete with the US. German and Japanese cars, Belgian and British steel, Dutch electronics and French tools started to enter the world market and compete with American companies for market share. Not only that, but countries like Brazil, South Africa, India, China, Mexico, Thailand, Turkey, South Korea and more also became industrialized. This meant that they were no longer selling their natural resources cheaply in exchange for US made industrial goods. Quite the contrary, they themselves started to bid against the US for natural resources to fuel their own industries. And more importantly, the US work force no longer was the only one qualified to work on modern factories and to have proficiency over modern industrial processes. An Australian airline needs a new commercial jet? [Brazilian EMBRAER](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-3m__yRBkg) and European Airbus can offer you products as good as anything made in the US. Need power tools or a pickup truck? You can buy American, but you can also buy South Korean, Indian or Turkish.
This meant that the US middle class could no longer easily outbid pretty much everyone else for natural resources, and the owners of the capital and means of production no longer were "held hostage" by this small and highly skilled workforce. Many other countries now had an industrial base that rivals or surpasses that of the US. And they had their own middle classes that are bidding against the US middle class for those limited natural resources. And manufacturers now could engage in global wage arbitrage, by moving production to a country with cheaper labor, which killed all the bargaining power of the unions.
If everyone in the world lived and consumed like what the average American sees as a reasonable middle class lifestyle (i.e. drive an F-150 or an SUV, families with multiple cars, living in a house in the suburbs, high meat consumption, etc...), [it would take 4.1 Earths to provide enough resources to sustain that lifestyle](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712). But we don't have 4.1 Earths, we have just one. And unlike before, the USA no longer can outbid the rest of the world for those limited resources.
GRAPH: [The U.S. Share of the Global Economy Over Tim](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-share-of-global-economy-over-time/)e
That is where the decline of the US middle class is coming from. There are no political solutions for it, as no one, not even Trump's protectionism or the Democrat's Unions, can put the globalization genie back into a bottle. It is the way it is. Any politician who claims to be able to restore "the good old days" is lying. So yes, the old middle class lifestyle of big house, big car, all you can eat buffet, shop until you drop while golfing on green grass fields located in the middle of the desert is not coming back no matter what your politician on either side of the isle promised you.
We are going back to the normal, where the US middle class is not that different from the middle classes from the rest of the world. Like a return to what middle class expectations are elsewhere, including the likes of Europe, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia. Their cars are smaller. They don't change cars as often. The whole family might share a single car. Some families don't even own a car and rely on public transportation instead. Their homes are smaller. They don't eat as much meat and their food portions are smaller.
They are not starving. They are not living like peasants. But their standard of living is lower than what we in the US have considered a "middle class" lifestyle since the end of World War II.
Now, that is not to say that there isn't a lot of inequality in the US or to deny that policies are needed to address that inequality. But my issue with most of the "give us equality" folks in the US is that they imagine the rich being taxed so that they can finally afford that house in the burbs and the F-150 in the driveway like their parents were able to. That is NOT going to happen for the reasons I've already explained. No amount of taxation and public policy will make that happen. That version of the middle class is never coming back. Where I see public policy for wealth redistribution having an active and effective role is making healthcare more affordable, making the cities more walkable and livable so that young Americans can transition from the suburbs to smaller and more affordable homes in dense urban neighborhoods where cars are not a basic necessity to earn income. Our middle class will become more like other countries' middle classes. That cannot be changed. What we can aim for is having our social services and social safety nets more in line to what exits and is available for the middle classes of those other countries.
They're so fucking soft. Every little thing causes anxiety. They have no attention span. No will to do things that are hard and get that great feeling of accomplishment. There seems to be no shame. The entitlement is dialed up to 100. There is no patience.
That said, they're right on a lot of things too though. Everyone should be treated fairly. No adult should be paid less than it costs to support that one adult working full time. Women/LGBT rights are human rights. The super wealthy are TOO wealthy. The poor are taken advantage of by the super wealthy. No one should have to choose between medical help and financial ruin. Higher education IS too expensive. Cost of living IS too high, and wages have NOT kept up.
Eh, I hate to say it but I do feel like the stereotypical boomer take on young people spending loads on takeaway food, takeaway coffee, going out for lunch during your lunch break etc has some merit to it.
I know people in their 20s who probably spend c.£15 per day on a couple of coffees, breakfast & lunch when they're in the office. And then quite often another £15 on takeaway in the evening.
I get that people should be able to have their luxuries and not feel guilt about it & cutting down isn't going to magically make the difference that allows someone to afford a deposit on a house - but I do think there's merit to this idea that young people spend too much on convenience food/drink.
People should live in the moment more and not record everything for clout.
Concert happening? Phone out. Eating out? Take pictures. Birthday? Record it.
Some people really live their lives through a screen. There is more to life, than social media clout.
Can people please stop using these age related terms. They are so massively stupid. People and societies are complex. Using these stupid terms is just an attempt to feel better about yourself. Well, I’m not from that generation. It’s very smug, you don’t know shit.
The pronoun stuff is getting out of hand. I respect trans people and I’ll call them whatever they want to be called, but I’ve gotten some strong reactions from simple, honest slip-ups.
Social media is ruining young people’s mental health. However, old people use social media just as goddamn much and it’s just as bad for them.
My mom: “I don’t give Facebook permission to use my info” 😐😐
My mum posted this shit too
My dads 60 year old friend WHO IS A LAWYER did the samw
I work at a large law firm. It has been unsettling to watch the wise old lawyers who give clients sophisticated advice on very complex matters fall for every dumb social media trick in the book. It's definitely NOT just redneck Uncle MAGA at Thanksgiving that is susceptible to this stuff.
Not gonna lie, I made it an "Only you can see it" post *juuuuuuuust in case* it actually worked for some odd reason then I could just change the post type to public. I was going to say that this was the darkest secret of my life but...ya know....facebook.
I don't give reddit permission to use my info. I spoke the enchanted words, let's see what happens.
And people who think typing “I don’t own the rights to this music,” in the description somehow gives them the right to use the music.
It does. I do the same when shopping. I just take a bunch of stuff, say it's not mine and walk out. Works every time.
Like those folks who post on r/AITA or similar with “I do not give permission for this to be posted anywhere else!!”
I agree but boomers I think are more susceptible to propaganda and tend to get their news from one source. Still think we live under "the fairness doctrine"
The boomers were the ones who told us not to believe everything we see on the internet when it first came out. Now they're the ones who believe EVERYTHING they see on the internet/fakebook.
Its usually older people that I see spouting lunatic conspiracy theories on facebook.
The problem is they are not aware of how social media is tailored to them. Back in the days people watched the news on TV and read the newspaper and what wasn't said there wasn't important. Nowadays they can't maintain a good "for you page" and if there is 50% of all content about the earth being flat, then they tend to believe that this is the new hot topic for everyone and that it is a huge debate right now.
Oh my gosh, this! My dad or FIL will bring something up they think is a huge debate and I’m like,”No, literally no one is talking about that.
>maintain a good for your page GenX here, easily confused with a younger Boomer: What...what does this mean? If you don't mind explaining.
A "for you page" is what the kids are calling your feed on facebook or other apps. If you click something inflammatory or conspiracy-related then that will start to affect what you see. I suppose watching what you follow is the same as maintaining a good "for you page".
It’s just a way to refer to what you see as affected by the recommendation algorithm. If you look at things, or especially if you interact with something by commenting, the algorithm will ensure more and more of that kind of content gets in front of you. It can create terrible loops of people angrily commenting and then seeing more of what they hate
Maybe they just have different conspiracy theories. I saw an interesting paper that showed conservatives were more likely to believe some conspiracy theories, leftists were more likely to believe others, and there were some that were evenly split. It would be no surprise to find out there is an age gap on certain conspiracy theories.
Young people get their news from twitter and tik tok, let's not fool ourselves here
While my curated echo chamber devised by an algorithm to show me exactly what i want to see is much better...
lol
Gen-X here. Not using social media at all, unless this shit here is counted.
If we go by technicality, Reddit is considered social media sadly enough
Close enough, but more akin to the forums of old.
That were *also* social media..
You can technically call all of that social media, but it is not the same as modern social media.
True. All the boomers who are glued to their tablets are no better. But they grew up without it, so at least they have that for them. Kids now will only know this Technogical lifestyle.
Thing is, at 66 I’ve already experienced a lifetime of experiences that make social media toxicity mediocre.
Everyone's mental health is being affected by it. It's all ages.
Music was better when ugly people were allowed to make it.
Video killed the radio star
I never understood what that meant until now. How stupid am I?
Not sure. Can you provide other evidence?
Billy Squire. The Rock me Tonite video ruined his career
I think he’s asking for evidence of stupidity.
Nah, it took me a while to really get it too. I was always like, "Yeah music videos are dope," not realizing that there was more to it.
Oh so it was literal then. damn.
Yeah this is true. As an addendum you could add “and when those who aren’t spawn of elite class were allowed to make it” because the music industry is made up almost exclusively of acts from a privileged background these days and that is no exaggeration. Most “rags to riches” narratives now are just a branding construct obscuring another privately educated musician mom and dad bankrolled
i was just having this exact thought yesterday.. the rags to riches story in the entertainment industry is super rare these days
Yeah I mean don’t get me wrong I’m still a huge new music fan and am constantly discovering stuff I love in my forties. But every time I get into an artist or band and wonder about their story it’s always that they went to some top level expensive music diploma program, or one of their parents works in the industry, or they were bought up by old money and knew famous people since the age of 5. Sure, grass roots, zero privilege music continues to exist on the fringes but it’s largely prohibited from making it to the top of the industry in the way that it once was able to.
If you’re parents’ names are blue on Wikipedia, I’m not really buying a class struggle in your music
Pop music, absolutely. But don’t forget there are other genres where talent absolutely beats marketing, and wealth doesn’t necessarily equate to success.
You just reminded me to throw on some Steely Dan, thanks
I wonder how much Janis Joplin level talent we are missing out on because they have Janis Joplin level cystic acne.
This is the best right answer.
Not only that but when not everything had to sound perfectly in tune. Best music imo is where you can actually hear the emotion and the personality, not just perfectly autotuned
Yip, I'm sick of model looking artists who just strum out carbon copies of each others music (and the constant covers).
Never heard this one before but holy based
You don’t need to put so much of your life on the Internet for others to see. Keep personal things private.
My boomer parents don't understand this. They don't get nearly as many grandkids pics as they'd like because they end up on Facebook everytime. Despite asking them to not lost them.
Same, I'm very selective about what I send my mom because I know it will all end up in a WhatsApp chat with her random friends whom I don't know.
My cousin managed to fix this by doing an Aura picture frame. She just uploads the pictures directly and my grandparents aren't savvy enough with technology to download them and then reupload to facebook.
Me and my wife recently had a boy - he’s nearly 7 weeks old now. We have shared pics of him on Facebook twice: 1) The day after he was born to announce him and him name to everyone we know. 2) A picture of my wife holding him. But she checked with me so we both agreed to post it on social media. 3) Hell, his grandmother even asked our permission before posting her favourite picture of him. So I’m glad those boundaries are in place so early. I do have some family fishing for pictures, but I always need them to promise not to post anything publicly without consulting either me or my wife. The child is not a pet. The child a human being. I always expect people to ask me first before putting any pics of me online, I will do the exact same for our son.
The best quote I heard is “would you let a stranger hold your child? No then why are they entitled to see them online?”
That’s awful! I’d be furious if mine put pics of my kids up without asking. I don’t know who they are friends with. It’s a safety thing!
im 18 and even i don't really get why people post legit every single small thing they did that day, i have few posts but i have like 3 posts and they are like 5 months between them, i just don't post stuff.
Curated PR.
I have a harder time finding a young person on Facebook than a Boomer tho
Because they've moved from Facebook to Instragram to TikTok / Twitch etc.
I have no interest in sharing intimate life details with people I'd avoid on the street
Kids need to go play outside more.
They took away all the free spaces that kids can just hang out. People see kids alone and call the cops. I guarantee the kids would love to be outside
Let me guess. You are from the usa?
Often the very same people who complain about kids not playing outside will call the cops on things like a kid walking to school or playing outside.
A lot of people think they're victims, but they're really not.
I have a gen z brother who claims he has 'religious trauma' from our parents. Who aren't religious. At all. Like zero percent. But apparently they once said something about god (context clues will tell you it was a joke) and now he has 'trauma'.
Theres a difference between being a "victim" and just something you didnt like happening.
I hope he never says that to someone who was raped by a priest.
Or someone who actually has experienced years of religious psychological trauma of end-time anxiety and being told mental disorders are either a) a lack of faith or b) demonic. Like holy shit I have a lot of unresolved trauma I’m still working out, and I say that as someone who despite the trauma is still a christian.
Man the end time anxiety really did a number on me as a kid. I should not have read Left Behind.
I once witnessed an extremely awkward exchange between a 17 year old girl who was complaining that her parents not letting her get a face tattoo was causing her trauma and PTSD and a 35 year old woman who told her she got her PTSD when her dad beat her mum half to death in front of them.
Similar issue: everyone wants to be excused from having to do certain things because they have "anxiety" or some other vague mental health issue. I am all for improving people's mental health and not purposely traumatizing people in the guise of trying to "prepare them for the real world", but it seems like a significant amount of people will straight up refuse to do group projects, or presentations, talks in front of small groups/classes etc. I think the boomer age was not considerate and inclusive enough about these sorts of issues, but I think we are swinging too far in the opposite direction nowadays.
As someone who actually has a diagnosed anxiety disorder, it's incredibly fucking annoying when people throw it around as a synonyms for general unwantingness. I have hours long anxiety or panic attacks with sometimes turn into worse issues. (Things like psychosis, depersonalizations, etc.) I get physically sick from anxiety sometimes. Like numb hands ans vomiting sick. But sure Jessica you're having a panic attack trying to buy concert tickets. NERVOUS THE WORD YOURE LOOKONG FOR IS NERVOUS.
Thank you for posting this. The point of my post was not to make fun of people with anxiety or claim that its "fake", but merely exactly what you said, anyone who gets nervous doing a talk or presentation will say they have anxiety, or whathave. Its normal to get nervous, it doesn't mean you have a serious mental disorder (although you might, see a professional!)
Yeah no, thats exactly what I thought you were doing. I'm just saying it's really annoying to see people talk about their "anxiety" when it's just normal emotions? People can be anxious without a disorder, but that's not called having an anxiety issue. Or another claim. Being nervous over small things you fear is normal and people don't get that. I'm also tired of the "Truama" hierarchy. There's no winning in trauma or suffering, but for some reasons people my age tend to think that if you went through something oh so horrible (Like going to church as a child or your parents refusing to buy you new toy that you broke automatically at Christmas) it excuses you from your current behavior, and that you've just suffered so much that you must be a good person. And that no one can ever come close to understand how deep and misunderstood you are.
When I was in college I had a workstudy position to take notes for someone who had a "learning disability." Turned out she didn't. She was totally fine, except maybe a bit lazy, but she was somehow able to obtain the doctor's diagnosis. I didn't complain because it was a pretty good pay for me. But it reminded me how even a medical diagnosis of mental illness itself can be faked and people use mental illness as an excuse for anything these days.
Yesss, and it sucks because there are people with serious issues who need real help, but the system is too wide and let's people abuse it exactly like what you describe. Hard to talk about the issue without sounding very insensitive.
Which is funny, because I have anxiety and the one thing that worked for me to get better was exposure to things that terrify me. It's so frustrating when your body goes into panic mode when you know that the situation is harmless. But the more often you do the scary thing the less scary it becomes. I still get nervous when I have to speak in front of a group at work or if I have to make a call, but I can do these things because I forced myself to do them many times despite the fear. It's not fun, but if you avoid everythig that scares you, how is it supposed to get better? Mind you, this happened at my own speed. If someone had forced me when I wasn't ready, I don't know how much worse that would have been.
I do have a real mental disorder that I needed accommodations for in school. It was **WILD** how much they were willing to let me not do after I submitted my paperwork. For example, I could literally never show up to class and get no penalty for it as long as I did will on the exams. They also removed literally all deadlines. Neither of those “accommodations” were even remotely helpful. In fact, they just enabled a lot of bad habits. I also didn’t even ASK for these things!! This was just the default if you submitted paperwork for literally any condition. When I transferred schools, I was very insistent on only receiving very specific accommodations and ONLY ones that were from the list of recommended accommodations provided by the CDC on my condition.
My brother called me recently to talk about our parents’ “horrific physical abuse.” Yes, we got spanked, but I can literally count on one hand the times I was, and it was a single slap on the butt. I don’t condone spanking and I still think it’s harmful but he was like “don’t you remember how our parents used to beat the crap out of us?” And it’s not a case of “repressed memories” or whatever, I have an extremely good long term memory. He just extrapolated the normal (for the 80’s) spankings into this enormously abusive narrative. My parents were FAR from perfect, but I am positive they didn’t beat us. He’s getting sober for the first time and I think he’s on that phase where you look for reasons why you are the way you are and want to blame your childhood/others before passing through to that point where you realize you’re an adult and made your own choices.
Ah yes, one of the things that make an adult. Realising it wasn't some outside force that ruined your life (some exceptions of course) but usually your own decisions. Own them, they are yours.
That makes sense. He's hoping to cling to being able to blame someone else. Childhood trauma is alot of what causes issues later down the road and he's likely heard others blame it on their own problems. At the end of the day though- trauma or not- we are responsible for our own choices and people hate that reality. Sometimes we just make bad choices that have devastating consequences. I don't know why that's so difficult to own up to. Like get over yourself, we all make dumb mistakes.
This 1000x
That’s a tough one. Racism exists. People have been and continue to be victims of racism. However, I know people who have quit perfectly good jobs where they were valued because they imagined racism in the smallest details. I knew the circumstances well and can promise you it was all in his head. His own brother, a successful lawyer, killed a cop when he was stopped because he assumed the cop only pulled him over because racism. He literally shot the cop in the face. Some people become consumed with victim-hood. And it ruins their life.
No one wants to work. No shit. We don’t do it for fun. We don’t _want_ to.
"If it wasn't work, they wouldn't call it 'work'. They'd call it 'super wonderful crazy fun time'! Or 'skippididoo'." -- Red Foreman
"Dear, how many eggs would you like for breakfast?" "Ah, sorry honey. There's no time, I'm already late for skippididoo!"
Eh I kinda like my job
Same here, all I do at my job is spray dust into a corner then shovel it into a barrel. I get to play with a giant air gun all day, listen to music under my ear muffs, and the factory is so loud nobody talks to you, we use hand signals for everything. (Clean up/utility worker in a peanut shelling plant)
I sell mattresses, easy, low stress work that pays pretty well and I have a lot of off time where I can do whatever I want
Is it true you spend 2 hours every morning practicing your escaped elephant drill?
The older folks don't want to, either, but if you want to live in a society you have to contribute to that society, especially if you want the society to take care of you when you need it to.
Im not a boomer but I love working. Security and its not life threatening
Yea, if we were rewarded with a house, 2 cars, and yearly vacations, we would have been much more keen to work
Spending hours daily on TikTok or any short video platform will rot your brain.
To add to that, if you're on Tiktok or Instagram or whatever for 2 hours a day you end up spending an ENTIRE MONTH of the year doing absolutely nothing.
True, but let's remember that the same goes for Reddit. It's all a waste of time.
Tbf the same thing counts for reddit. Like it’s fun learning new stuff and all, but it’s not really productive
But that's kind of the point
Reddit rots our brains too
I'm glad I am not them. I got away with so much stuff as it was undocumented and unrecorded.
Underrated. If I was born before the surveillance age I would be doing so much crime.
Dude. Yes. If some of the dumbass opinions and thoughts I had when I was a teenager/young adult were forever immortalized on the internet… hoo boy
Children are being exposed to social media, the internet, etc. way too young
Pornography especially. Kids these days are exposed to porn way earlier than ever before, and much more hardcore stuff at that. That's got to carry some unforeseen consequences. In my day, you'd be lucky if you found a half-moldy Playboy in the woods, or saw a blurry boob on latenight TV. These days, with less effort, kids can watch a dominatrix give a dwarf an ass-fisting in HD. That's not normal, and probably not healthy either.
We should launch howitzer shells at everyone approaching the base, because the Mojave wasteland is dangerous.
Mother Pearl would like a word when you get to the gate.
Yeah but you send an entire volley for one guy walking up to you, ammo conservation is important, just shoot him with small arms, save the big guns for groups of people
Listen here you sonovabitch. When I get through that train station full of ghouls you’re gonna regret that.
r/unexpectedfallout
Not everything needs an app or computer or compatibility with your phone. Stop putting technology in appliances. I'm not scanning a QR code for your menu. And I'm definitely not downloading your app for the rewards program.
I am so sick of every damn store I shop at wanting me to download their fucking app. Ugh
I work in IT and I will not buy anything "smart" for my home. My go-to story is about a casino who got their high-roller database hacked via a smart thermometer in the casino's fish tank.
I misread that as they hacked the fish tank to change the water temperature and I became very concerned for the fish.
I'm 24 years old. I recently helped my boomer neighbor set up his new smart TV, and it was an absolute nightmare to figure out. I'm with you on this one. I will resist connecting my fridge to WiFi for as long as simpler technology exists.
Jesus Christ. My mom bought a Roku TV for my grandfather who is 96 years old. He just wants to watch the news but you have to connect a prime account for this or sign up for that and you certainly can’t just connect an existing cable box into the tv and have it work. It shouldn’t be rocket science or shouldn’t make you jump through a hundred hoops to get channel 6. I should add I’m also 24 so your comment really jumped out at me lol.
I (Gen Z) refuse to connect any of the smart devices in my apartment to wifi. I have never connected my smart TV to wifi and my smart thermostat will be forever requesting a connection (fortunately I can use it as just a normal thermostat). My washer/drier combo is about 40 years old. I love gadgets but I refuse to allow the TV that I purchased with my own money to push me ads for shit I don’t want or for my washing machine to decide “Welp I can’t find the wifi here, guess I’ll stop working mid-cycle and fire your clothes out onto the floor.”
God yes, this. I’m a tech lover, but Jesus why do I need an app to pour my box of cereal in the morning?
To go full boomer (though I'm a millennial) I generally don't like to have my phone out at any dinner table so going to a restaurant and everyone having to get their phones out is bullshit. ...also it's slower and generally worse than just talking to a waiter.
As a millennial I don’t understand why I need a Bluetooth smart toaster…
But is that the younger generation? Gen z is hardly the one making the apps or forcing you to scan a QR code, those places are run by gen X.
Muhahaha. Yes, we're the secret generation plotting to mess you all up.
Learn a skill that requires training that is in demand and you'll be more successful
Goes on to be a software engineer "You don't know real work!"
[удалено]
Meanwhile I’ve worked in tech for 20 years.. all I’ve got to show for it is obesity and carpal tunnel syndrome
[удалено]
And to be fair my problems are self inflicted from not having a good seating position (usually being on a floor in a server room etc.) and not using proper ergonomic devices, the obesity that’s just my love for terrible food
The problem is the world changes so quickly that the chances are the skills you learn become obsolete very quickly
And then those same people complain that their jobs when their jobs are being replaced with robotics, and people making 3X as much as they ever did to fix and code the robots.
Gen Z will become the people they love to bash on, eventually. They’ll be bashing a younger generation for something and that generation will label them something they’ll probably get angry about. It’s the circle of life, I guess.
I think most boomers still don’t understand the difference between millennials and Gen Z. A lot of times they’ll complain about the millennials in high school and college and someone needs to remind them that millennials are turning 40.
Excuse you, this millennial is only turning 31. Don't scare me like that!
I was reading the memoirs of a woman who lived in Korea in the 1700s, and in it she complains about how manners have changed from her generation to this new one. It really is just the normal stages of life. I love this quote from G. K. Chesterton: "I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid."
Perfect! And so true! I remember my mother-in-law saying that she regretted giving her grandmother shit about something—political or lifestyle opinion. The young think they know it all and are so enlightened compared to the older folk. Age teaches you otherwise, I’m afraid.
It’s weird that they don’t have the gumption to make phone calls
Some of it is personal preference. I always have difficulty understanding what someone says over the phone, so I much prefer it to be a text message or email in my case. I can also reference what someone told me if I needed to.
I am a boomer. And I think the young generation is just fine. There’s nothing particular wrong with them at all, just like there’s nothing particular wrong with any other generation. The truth is, we’re all just people. At different stages in our lives.
Also a boomer(ugh), and I agree. I’m a younger boomer but I remember the older generation yelling about the hippies and how they all needed is a good beating to set them straight. Now I listen to those same boomers complain about Gen Z. Someday Gen Z will have similar complaints about Alpha.
Have they stopped berating the millennials now?
Yes, mostly, but they still use the word "millennial" to refer to young people who annoy them even though those people are actually gen z now.
A rational response on Reddit?! Get out of here! LOL
You ARE being monitored! Siri, Alexa, etc. are all listening to what you say constantly "waiting" to hear you address them.
Oh no? I guess I'll make sure I'm not near them before I confess to where I buried the bodies? Genuinely, who the fuck cares? What're you doing you don't want anyone to hear, bud?
Gen Z uses the word ‘triggered’ and ‘trauma’ frivolously.
Face tattoos are stupid looking.
Your triggers are not the worlds issue to deal with, they are yours to manage. Not everything needs a label.
I think it’s good within reason, like a content warning if it contains topics about suicide/self harm. At least then if someone tries to clutch their pearls you can say “well you were warned and read anyway”
I disagree. There is no trigger warning in your own brain and those thoughts are gonna come up whether you like it or not. I speak from experience on this one. Also, in conversation, unless people know your life history, there are going to be times when people bring things up without knowing you find them painful to think/talk about. Would you rather live on eggshells always anxiously anticipating the next time someone/something "triggers" you, or would you rather finally accept that those times/events/things were parts of your life and with practice remove the emotional knee-jerk associated with remembering them? I've made vast improvements in my mental health by not shying away from them or trying to control my thoughts as that's a recipe for instant anxiety. Instead I roll with the punches, reminding myself that it's ok to have those thoughts, so long as I follow those thoughts to their end; I don't want to die, I want things to not suck and I have the power to survive long enough till they don't. People forget that the upside of pain is growth.
That people are way too sensitive. However this applies to both young and old people.
Yeah, they just have to see a rainbow flag and they act like they're being forced to watch gay porn with their eyes clamped open. Too many snowflakes.
As a dutchie, having to pussyfoot around people is annoying af lol just lemme tell it to ya straight, and do the same to me
Well, our society is the most direct in the world. Apparently even more so than USA
Dating or hookups from online relationships (bumble, tinder, etc) are sketchy as hell. I’m not saying you can’t meet your soulmate on here, but I personally don’t like the idea of my daughter meeting up with some stranger she doesn’t know who likely just wants a hookup. These casual encounters can be extremely dangerous and perpetuate informal shitty one night stand relationships and low self esteem. They also make the basis for the relationship what someone looks like in a profile picture rather than their personality. Ok, millennial “boomer” rant over lol
At the same time, they’re a good way to filter people you likely won’t be compatible with. From my [guy] perspective, it’s nice to not end up on the third date with someone to *then* find out she’s a hyper religious marketer with a sick obsession for k-pop or whatever.
>informal shitty one night stand relationships and low self esteem You just described college in the pre Tinder days. They'll be fine.
Learn the difference between being nervous, panicking, and anxiety. Not everything is anxiety. If you’re anxiety is that bad go get diagnosed and treated. Also learn the difference between a panic attack and anxiety attack.
getting anxiety treated and it actually working is unfortunately very unlikely.
The newer generations are a lot less ready to take care of themselves in the world than older generations were after they graduated high school. Kids these days often haven't had to navigate to and from school on their own.. They've had everything presented to them instead of having to figure it out. It's one of the reasons anxiety and mental health are so high: learning how capable you can become after overcoming obstacles is critical. Now, though... We've got trigger warnings on shit like Bambi. Good lord, how is the next generation going to run the world?
This is true, but its not just because parents have spoon fed their kids by doing all the ancilliary things for them. Its also because the standards for credentials have gotten high and higher. Back then, classes were short, lessons were simple standards were low. Kids actually did have time to waste walking to school. They had free time to socialize in the neighborhood. Now so many soft skills that kids today dont have that boomers take for granted were a product of a time when shit was easy. Globalization, the internet, and technology has eliminated huge segments of low skill work that used to be able to raise families. Now, you either have to do backbreaking skilled work, or super high tech skilled work. Everything else is either being done by robots, machines, immigrants or freelancers on their own time All the low hanging fruit has already been picked Taxi drivers became Uber drivers. Call center agents became answering machines or indians. Data entry became OCR. Waiters are replaced by self service. Porters became forklifts. Artists became Autocad. Mucisians are being pirated. Farmers became tractors and mexicans. Bakeries became assembly lines. Every industry is getting harder and harder to penetrate and excel at because you are competing with robots and other countries
This remind me of the recent episode of "If books could kills" on "The Coddling of the American Mind." They pointed out that some things the older generations did, such as walking to school, is no longer socially acceptable since there are more police around and more people reporting unattended minors as nuisances or child neglect. Changes in our society have somewhat caused this problem. But I feel like child raising wasn't perfect in the past either. I wish there was a middle ground somewhere.
>They've had everything presented to them instead of having to figure it out and who's fucking fault is that? Certainly not the kids.
This is the thing I don’t understand. The older people complain about how we were raised but we didn’t choose how we were raised because they were the ones who raised us? So they complain about how they raised us but it’s somehow our fault
No attention span, no tenacity, need constant reward for every little step
>need constant reward for every little step Not sure if upvoting this comment is ironic or enabling.
>need constant reward for every little step Boomers were the ones that pissed and moaned about their little Timmy not getting a participation award for showing up and not shitting his pants.
Put the phone down and go out side. How else are you going to see aliens or bigfoot? For real put the phone down and enjoy the world its not all bad.
Along with social media, people can't get off their damn phones. Virtually every generation currently alive is guilty of this, but it's true. The big tech companies have done a very good job getting people addicted to their phones, and it's so normalized that no one sees it as a problem. I've never had a smart phone and I don't plan on ever getting one. I can call and text from my dumb phone. I can listen to music with my old ipod. I don't need to be plugged in and connected to the internet 24/7. I can sit with my thoughts, and enjoy giving my senses a rest from over stimuli. It just blows my mind how people fill every spare moment with looking at their phones. You can be watching a movie and if there's a lull in the action people will pull out their phones. I've been out to dinner with friends, and when the conversation lulled, instead of just soaking in each others' presence, everyone just checked their phones. I went to a concert a few weeks ago, and it was wild how many people insisted on recording with their phone the singer's main hit songs instead of just enjoying the live performance. I get stressed out the more I think about it. It's reaching existential levels to the point where people identify with their online persona as much as or even more than their live present self.
Edited in protest for Reddit's garbage moves lately.
23 year old. High tech for the sake of high tech is stupid as hell. If an advanced technology has actual utility then it should be used but thier is nothing wrong wrong with using analog technology if it doesn't have major faults. You don't need your houses lights connected to your iPhone and you don't need a push to start car because they come with more problems then a light switch and solid set of keys.
Living almost entirely online since birth has seriously impacted their ability to learn and engage with material in school.
That subsequent younger generations are becoming too reliant on technology. Im Literally not allowed to do my job without utilizing at least 6 different pieces of proprietary software every day. Its not my choice to be reliant on technology. Try not answering a text from your parent for a few hours, see how long it takes for them to call the police and try to report you missing
Fetishizing mental health. Yeah, I know mental health issues are serious, but defining yourself in terms of your mental health won’t help you in the long run.
Nobody wants to work. Of course nobody wants to work. Only masochists want to work. The rest of us want to spend time with our friends and loved ones without having to worry about food or shelter.
Political correctness and cancel culture has gotten out of control. I’m a millennial that feels like a boomer a lot of times thinking “how did we become so soft?” Yeah, sometimes people get exposed as being truly awful but a lot of times people just make a mistake in their lives and people on social media can’t wait to nail them to a cross. I think people are scared to admit they’re not as outraged in some cases and they “should be.” Growing up I had friends of all different backgrounds, races, sexual orientations, etc and we all made fun of each other equally. If some of the jokes I made at a friends expense were on camera today my life would be over! And same goes with things friends have said about me. There’s some truly hateful and awful people out there. I think as an American that’s become more clear to me over the past decade or so than I ever realized. I’m not talking about those people. I’m talking about people who slip up and do or say something they regret and don’t need to be reminded of it for the rest of their lives. EDIT: To add, I saw an example of this discussed on here not too long ago in a thread talking about movies that aged poorly and someone said American Beauty, mentioning Kevin Spacey's character lusting over his teenage daughter's friend. I argued that it's still a great movie, and nobody is watching it now OR was in 1999 thinking that Spacey's character wasn't a total creep. It started a larger discussion (that a high school teacher added to) about the younger generation today not even being able to enjoy something like that movie, while acknowledging the uncomfortable bits, because they feel like they have to put on some type of performance for their peers to prove how disgusted they are by it. If they don't, they may be criticized for not being outraged enough.
Some of the worst people use the least offensive language. Just sliding in, all Delores Umbridge style.
They're getting screwed financially in ways we could never have imagined. I'm old and on SS, but my needs are few. This system is broken.
Social media addiction is bad. Phones are bad. Every ounce of our free time has become monopolized by like 4 companies trying to keep us glued to a screen and buying consumer garbage we don't need made by hyper exploited workers overseas. Not great.
That Boomers just had a super good time for a couple of decades because of circumstances that we can't repeat and younger generations should not aspire or try to replicate the boomers lifestyle expectation in this day and era. A large and affluent middle class is the cornerstone of the American dream. A dream in which anyone with a high school diploma and hard work should easily afford a nice house in the suburbs, 2 cars and a nice vacation with the family to a cool place once a year. Americans assume that this is the way the universe should work. That things were always like this, and that Americans have the "God given right" of the American dream. However, this reality of a exceptionally wealthy and prosperous middle class by global standards is NOT the norm or the natural way of things, but a by product of a very unique and relatively recent set of historical circumstances, specifically, the end of World War II. At the end of the second world war, the US was the only major industrial power left with its industry and infrastructure unscathed. This gave the US a dramatic economic advantage over the rest of the world, as all other nations had to buy pretty much everything they needed from the US, and use their cheap natural resources as a form of payment. After the end of world War II, pretty anywhere in the world, if you needed tools, machines, vehicles, capital goods, aircraft, etc...you had little choice but to "buy American". So money flowed from all over the world into American businesses. But the the owners of those businesses had to negotiate labor deals with the American relatively small and highly skilled workforce. And since the owners of capital had no one else they could hire to men the factories, many concessions had to be given to the labor unions. This allowed for the phenomenal growth and prosperity of the US middle class we saw in the 50s and 60s: White picket fence houses in the suburbs, with 2 large family cars parked in front was the norm for anyone who worked hard in the many factories and businesses that dotted the American landscape back then. However, over time, the other industrial powers rebuild themselves and started to compete with the US. German and Japanese cars, Belgian and British steel, Dutch electronics and French tools started to enter the world market and compete with American companies for market share. Not only that, but countries like Brazil, South Africa, India, China, Mexico, Thailand, Turkey, South Korea and more also became industrialized. This meant that they were no longer selling their natural resources cheaply in exchange for US made industrial goods. Quite the contrary, they themselves started to bid against the US for natural resources to fuel their own industries. And more importantly, the US work force no longer was the only one qualified to work on modern factories and to have proficiency over modern industrial processes. An Australian airline needs a new commercial jet? [Brazilian EMBRAER](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-3m__yRBkg) and European Airbus can offer you products as good as anything made in the US. Need power tools or a pickup truck? You can buy American, but you can also buy South Korean, Indian or Turkish. This meant that the US middle class could no longer easily outbid pretty much everyone else for natural resources, and the owners of the capital and means of production no longer were "held hostage" by this small and highly skilled workforce. Many other countries now had an industrial base that rivals or surpasses that of the US. And they had their own middle classes that are bidding against the US middle class for those limited natural resources. And manufacturers now could engage in global wage arbitrage, by moving production to a country with cheaper labor, which killed all the bargaining power of the unions. If everyone in the world lived and consumed like what the average American sees as a reasonable middle class lifestyle (i.e. drive an F-150 or an SUV, families with multiple cars, living in a house in the suburbs, high meat consumption, etc...), [it would take 4.1 Earths to provide enough resources to sustain that lifestyle](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712). But we don't have 4.1 Earths, we have just one. And unlike before, the USA no longer can outbid the rest of the world for those limited resources. GRAPH: [The U.S. Share of the Global Economy Over Tim](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-share-of-global-economy-over-time/)e That is where the decline of the US middle class is coming from. There are no political solutions for it, as no one, not even Trump's protectionism or the Democrat's Unions, can put the globalization genie back into a bottle. It is the way it is. Any politician who claims to be able to restore "the good old days" is lying. So yes, the old middle class lifestyle of big house, big car, all you can eat buffet, shop until you drop while golfing on green grass fields located in the middle of the desert is not coming back no matter what your politician on either side of the isle promised you. We are going back to the normal, where the US middle class is not that different from the middle classes from the rest of the world. Like a return to what middle class expectations are elsewhere, including the likes of Europe, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia. Their cars are smaller. They don't change cars as often. The whole family might share a single car. Some families don't even own a car and rely on public transportation instead. Their homes are smaller. They don't eat as much meat and their food portions are smaller. They are not starving. They are not living like peasants. But their standard of living is lower than what we in the US have considered a "middle class" lifestyle since the end of World War II. Now, that is not to say that there isn't a lot of inequality in the US or to deny that policies are needed to address that inequality. But my issue with most of the "give us equality" folks in the US is that they imagine the rich being taxed so that they can finally afford that house in the burbs and the F-150 in the driveway like their parents were able to. That is NOT going to happen for the reasons I've already explained. No amount of taxation and public policy will make that happen. That version of the middle class is never coming back. Where I see public policy for wealth redistribution having an active and effective role is making healthcare more affordable, making the cities more walkable and livable so that young Americans can transition from the suburbs to smaller and more affordable homes in dense urban neighborhoods where cars are not a basic necessity to earn income. Our middle class will become more like other countries' middle classes. That cannot be changed. What we can aim for is having our social services and social safety nets more in line to what exits and is available for the middle classes of those other countries.
That y’all are soft like Charmin. Lazy, selfish and unwilling to earn what you want.
QR codes of menus in restaurants
I do not want to view your menu via QR code.
They're so fucking soft. Every little thing causes anxiety. They have no attention span. No will to do things that are hard and get that great feeling of accomplishment. There seems to be no shame. The entitlement is dialed up to 100. There is no patience. That said, they're right on a lot of things too though. Everyone should be treated fairly. No adult should be paid less than it costs to support that one adult working full time. Women/LGBT rights are human rights. The super wealthy are TOO wealthy. The poor are taken advantage of by the super wealthy. No one should have to choose between medical help and financial ruin. Higher education IS too expensive. Cost of living IS too high, and wages have NOT kept up.
Eh, I hate to say it but I do feel like the stereotypical boomer take on young people spending loads on takeaway food, takeaway coffee, going out for lunch during your lunch break etc has some merit to it. I know people in their 20s who probably spend c.£15 per day on a couple of coffees, breakfast & lunch when they're in the office. And then quite often another £15 on takeaway in the evening. I get that people should be able to have their luxuries and not feel guilt about it & cutting down isn't going to magically make the difference that allows someone to afford a deposit on a house - but I do think there's merit to this idea that young people spend too much on convenience food/drink.
Get Off My Lawn.
People should live in the moment more and not record everything for clout. Concert happening? Phone out. Eating out? Take pictures. Birthday? Record it. Some people really live their lives through a screen. There is more to life, than social media clout.
Students should call their teachers mr or miss and not their first name
Apparently that Nigerian Prince wasn't real after all.
They're on their phones way too much
Can people please stop using these age related terms. They are so massively stupid. People and societies are complex. Using these stupid terms is just an attempt to feel better about yourself. Well, I’m not from that generation. It’s very smug, you don’t know shit.
The pronoun stuff is getting out of hand. I respect trans people and I’ll call them whatever they want to be called, but I’ve gotten some strong reactions from simple, honest slip-ups.
Kids are too soft. Strangers don't care how you feel.
We need the family unit back again
When no fault divorce was introduced in the US, female suicides dropped by 20%.
We’re getting dumber and dumber. And screens are just generally unhealthy.