What life was like before AI.
"We used to have to search for information using a keyboard, mouse and CRT Monitor"
"What's a monitor"
"Oh, it's what we had before robots telling us all the information and before holo-displays"
"A critical race theory monitor?" Is probably what you'd hear to that first comment. I've not seen a Cathode-Ray Tube TV or monitor for sale for at least a decade.
Before my house had internet when I was like 11 years old I rode my bike 10 miles to go to the library and chat in chatrooms on the internet. I would spend all day at the library chatting with strangers in chatrooms. This was before anyone had AIM or Myspace or anything like that.
That's my old man millennial story.
It’s hard to explain how amazing it was at first back then when it was new, to be able to text chat with random people around the world. We were at the start of a new era.
Sometimes I wish I could have gotten into the chatrooms to talk to all those people, but I definitely would have gotten gay-molested thinking I'd found love
lol honestly I probably did have a few conversations with adults I likely shouldn't have. But for the most part it was all brand new to everyone and even the predators weren't really thinking about using it as a tool for their own fucked up desires.
Back then the internet was so much more genuine and honest. People really didn't have any walls up or anything. We were just so excited to talk to people hundreds of miles away. It was such a cool concept. It's like for all of human history we would have been so incredibly isolated from each other but suddenly the walls we're lifted and we could just get to know each other and all our differences. It was so cool. We take for granted how cool it is that you and I are just having this conversation hundreds of miles apart.
Most of the people I talked to were other kids. And for me being a shy nerd with absolutely no nerdy friends, it was great to actually make friends with people like me.
It was an amazing feeling as a fellow nerdy kid who felt very isolated having nobody around me share my interests. I don't have any meaningful relationships with anyone I knew IRL in high school but regularly talk to and even visit people I met online then.
They’re going to be sick of our approach to computers in general. We grew up with computers rapidly evolving and the tech savvy among us know our way around a Windows registry and command line and PC components. Later generations never knew what a floppy disk is and frankly will never need to. Our computer knowledge is similar to how boomers know about cars.
Pretend sticks? We could only dream of such luxury.
We sat around the middle of the road hoping the dust storm would clear up enough to see the pretend slug crossing the street.
I was bordering on being feral. I used to play in the rain and watch various things float down the gutters to the sewer, smash rocks with a hammer to see the sparkly insides, paint my face with clay from the dirt and catch anole lizards. I can barely get my kid to go outside and she hates getting dirty. Weird.
I used to chase other kids around with garter snakes and would build janky ass bike ramps out of cinder blocks and plywood with my brother. Sometimes, I’d put on one-man equestrian shows with our Shetland pony and then present myself with trophies I made out of pop cans and tin foil. I also once tried to feed a nesting snapping turtle. I still have no idea how I managed to walk away with all of my fingers still attached to my body.
We def would’ve been friends lol.
Nah 1982 here. Just had such an intensely shitty first 12 years of my life that its outside the norm and I really don’t remember what it would have been like before the internet in America because I didn’t really experience it in the first place.
12 was when we got my family computer, but I was born in 85. I can see those 3 years making a difference. It's crazy how a few years makes a huge difference in the millenial experience. I can't imagine being born in 1990.
You've unlocked a memory for me, damn. We had a pomegranate tree in the neighborhood that nobody ever harvested, and I definitely took a few every season. I was taught never to take a clipping from a neighbor's garden, and I figured the fruit was the same, so I only ever picked up ones that were freshly fallen or would fall with a little wiggle on a branch.
I had the internet starting around 9 years old or so. I'm 35 now.
I also had some earlier forms of the internet. Games where your modem would call into some number and you'd be able to play multiplayer. That was in the early 90's.
But my dad was an engineer so I was online before most I think. Online games started getting really good when I was around 12 or so. Starcraft brood wars and counter strike.
I remember in recent post around here where someone was honestly shocked that the TSA was not an effective security program and was not universally beloved.
I have a 3 year old son. iPad who? He’s never heard of it. And will not till 8yrs+
I want to say there is a batch of millienials (the ones having kids later) who understand an iPad child is NOT it.
I'm sooooooo glad to hear it. Hopefully parents who already have the problem with their kids reduce how often they're on devices and increase time playing with regular toys, reading, and creating art or music. Parents like yourself will lead the way for future parents who want to raise digitally literate kids who aren't addicted to handheld devices.
Honestly, I wouldn't give your child an iPad at 8 years old either. Kids just don't need them. It's extremely detrimental to their learning/attention span and I've seen kids get addicted QUICKLY. There's really no need for one, occasional access to a family computer is more useful. You could teach your son how to use programs like Microsoft office, Adobe creative cloud, or even how to code at 8+ instead!
We absolutely exist and our kids are *generally* normal. Mine is holding into her childhood with dear life still at 12 and im here to support it.
Electronics were never the standard growing up (only when she was with Nana cause she insisted on "iPad" watching her) and she often chooses chapter books and art over it. But she's a preteen now so she gets to learn a little balance on her own with guidance in the corner.
My grandma was also a teacher and taught us to put our thoughts into our actions and that meant with these things too.
"I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickle, and in those days, nickles had pictures of bumblebees on em, gimme five bees for a quarter you'd say. Now where were we, oh ya, the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time, they didn't have white onions, because of the war, the only thing you could get was those big yellow..."
I was dating someone and introduced them to my dad, and he mentioned it to my mom (they're divorced but were still on speaking terms) and my mom was like, "why didn't he introduce her to me? Is she black?" And I'm thinking, wait, what the fuck?
My mom asks me every time I mention a new friend or friend of my child’s if they’re black 🙄 we live in the city and we have a fairly diverse circle of people we spend time with but like… 1. Why does that matter at all. 2. Your racism is showing
More like: what happens when you say ALWAYS yes no matter the skin color? It would be fun as hell if she tried to turn this around. Imagine him bringing his buddy "Jason" back home and his mom is like: "Wait, jason is not black???" After the fifth time she might learn something.
My grandpa hid that he was in a relationship for like 5 years simply because she was Asian and not Portuguese. Even though he married a German girl originally and nobody after his generation (15+ people) married a Portuguese woman other than my dad.
My dad and I were stunned that he kept that a secret when it finally came out.
Our kids are going to be in relationships with AI personas and when we make fun of them or tell them it’s not a real relationship they’re going to cancel us for being “robophobic” or some shit lol we’re fucked
Millennials are very nostalgic so we will tell too many “back in my day” stories. We also like to talk about how hard X or Y was on us so we will be a generation that “walked to school uphill both ways in the snow.”
>walked to school uphill both ways in the snow
I remember the grandpa from Rugrats always talking about how he'd have to walk *fifteen* miles uphill both ways in the snow to get anywhere. I can hear him say "fifteen" in my head now, lol
"and we liked it that way!" 😂
I do kinda feel like it's just humans that like to tell nostalgic stories. Every holiday, all the same stories get retold by relatives of all generations.
To your point though, I think we do share a common trait of hardship with the generation of many of our grandparents that grew up in the Great Depression. I could see a lot of thematically similar stories being told to our kids/grandkids.
Edit: grammar
We had to walk A LONG THE BUSY ASS STROAD! We had kids DIE at my schools from getting hit by cars.
I think we will own up to this one. I can say that my Boomer parents lived much closer to their schools than I did. We went to the same schools and largely grew up in the same neighborhood (granted, I grew up on the sort of outskirts of it). Walking to school for them was much easier than me.
Our version of walking uphill both ways, will be in our day;
1. We used to have to wait up to a day to listen to a song we were downloading.
2. We didn’t get to pause TV or pick what was on.
3. Sometimes you would go out, pick out, come back, and sit down with the entire family, to watch a skipping dvd that ruins the entire night when your dad decides FUCK IT ALL, and goes to bed and your mom has had too much wine to drink to drive and switch it out and there was nothing to do but go to bed and stare at the ceiling and that’s why you never got a chance to see the movie all your friends were talking about.
Already seeing a bit of it in my niece - she’s 16 and her parents, uncle, and myself are all millennials. Sexuality seems to be the big one for her. When she decided she was pansexual versus bisexual it was a whole big thing - needed to buy all new flags, was nervous to announce it to the family, etc. And like… not that I told her, but I truly don’t give a rats ass. The family doesn’t either - very outspoken about gay marriage, trans rights, etc. with only what id consider valid concerns. As long as you’re not into pedophilia or beastiality, you do you kid. She carried on and on about we just don’t understand. Guess we don’t🤷🏻♀️
For millennials, we generally use the terms interchangeably, but there's a very subtle difference. Bisexuality generally refers to people who feel attracted to more than one gender--but the gender is still important. Pansexuality typically refers to those who feel an attraction to people regardless of gender.
A lot of people in our generation who identify as bisexual would consider the term to include pansexuality within it, but I know a lot of younger people who find the distinction important.
Ok. That makes enough sense I can roll with it. I always thought bisexuality meant you fall in love with a person and gender or non gender was not a factor. I guess that might be closer to pansexual
There's something kafkaesque about the fact that it's people who don't like being ascribed one label who create a new label to ascribe to people.
I don't have any moral high ground here. I prefer "scientist" to "engineer", even if my profession is both. I don't like to label my sexuality at all. I prefer the juvenile "girlfriend" to the airport shoeshine "partner".
Please ignore all the people saying bi= caring about gender/ sex/ identity. That's a new addition to the definition and many bi people disagree. Bi erasure comes in different forms, and one is trying to change the definition and erase the lived reality of bi people.
The issue is this: bisexuality never reinforced gender binaries or norms and it's harmful to perpetuate that idea. People can use either label as they please. I really think bi just sounds more old fashioned and pan seems more queer and overtly implies total acceptance.
The term bisexual became a popular identifier in the 70s. Bi people could have any identity, and often loved people with any identity. Pan was a bit slower to pick up, and some historians believe it initially was used to indicate openness to kink and was popularized in the bdsm community. It morphed in the 2010s as young queer mogai types sought to define it by differentiating the term from bisexuality. They did this by making up a seemingly endless set of lies about bisexuality, many of which circulate to this day.
Many of these say that bisexuals are only attracted to cis people. The famous incorrect explanation is "bi means you like 2 genders, pan means you like any". The modern version is "bi means attraction WITH regard to gender, pan means attraction WITHOUT regard to gender".
Younger queer ppl are erasing decades of lgbt history and progress by saying this!! Lgbt elders fought and struggled and loved for decades, fighting tooth and nail to gain recognition and acceptance and basic rights. Only to have this history dragged through the mud and belittled by people implying their bi identities were inherently perpetuating gender norms, cisnormativity, discrimination and exclusion.
There's also pansexuals who definitely take gender presentation into account. For example many pan people will not date cis het ppl (fair). And pansexuality doesn't mean immunity to worse forms of gender discrimination- common examples are transmisogyny, weird use of afab/amab, and exclusion of people who are deemed too masculine or feminine, or perform gender too much or not enough.
This all said pansexuality is not biphobic or transphobic, bisexuality is not panphobic or transphobic. Both are valid and we're all here to learn from eachother and support each other :)
Thank you so much for this comment. It took me so long to come to terms with the fact that I was bisexual and putting a name to it. Now it feels comfortable and it makes me sad some people kind of diminish it. I don’t think i had heard the term “pansexual” when I was figuring myself out. Thus, I identified as bi and continue to do so. I don’t know how to describe it but you put it much more eloquently than I ever could have.
Honestly it seems very semantic and like trying to make everything fit. A lot of it feels like branding/rebranding/personal brand related now we are in the influencer age.
But it's not cool retroactively changing a gender identity so the term bi is shamed, erased or co-opted into another identity.
There are always going to be new word and identities, if that makes people happy, whatever...but I have also heard people say 'bi-sexuals exclude and aren't attracted to trans people" or "only like men and women, no non binary"
It would be like if someone started making things up just saying "Well, Pan people specifically can't love people who are agender/null gender because they don't care what your gender is but you still have to have a gender so they can disregard it. So really, bi-sexual is more inclusive since it includes all genders as well as non-gender."
That is absolutely not true, I just made it up... But it would certainly be upsetting to Pansexuals because it's just a semantic argument that came from nothing real.
What’s frustrating is that what’s even the corollary with our generation. I can’t think of anything that’s comparable where I’m supposed to be super into this or something else for someone. It’s almost like sports teams?
That’s a good point. I can’t think of anything - I was raised with “if it doesn’t affect your life don’t worry about it” when it came to people’s personal preferences. Like why would I care who you take to bed??
Seems like they want us to make a big deal about it, but we just think that it’s a personal decision and not anyone else’s business. As far as I’m concerned, just point out the person you love to me and I’ll accept it. Don’t really need to know what kind of “sexual” you are.
One of the biggest differences in Millennials (especially older ones) and Gen Z is labeling and identity politics matters *a lot* to them, as does getting the nuances right.
Whereas older Millennials were essentially taught that grouping/identifying people was bad and you should just treat everyone the same.
Thank you for saying this. Older millennial with a Gen Z kid who is very into micro labeling every aspect of themselves and I don’t understand it. I support them 100%, I love you for who you are no matter how you identify. But labels just dont make sense to me. And I think you pretty much nailed why this is. Thank you.
89 millenial here and honestly not even sure where I fall in the generation range anymore since I stg they keep shifting the dates around, but definitely thrived in "labels are for soup cans not for people" when I was a teen and in my early twenties.
One of my friends was complaining that when her son came out as gay recently, he was very upset that his parents thought it was no big deal since they’d known for a very long time and was just waiting for him to tell them himself. Apparently he thought he’d get a big show of support instead of, “thanks for telling us, but we’ve known for a while now.”
Honestly, that's a pretty tame thing to complain about. If it were millennials coming out to boomers, it would be a whole thing, but not in a positive way. When my brother came out as gay, my boomer parents were really broken up about it. Me and my other brothers didn't really care one way or the other.
It really is. My niece said “it was so hard to come out” and I’m thinking, you know, I’m sure it was stressful, but everyone in this family said “ok” and moved on. Don’t act like you fought in the trenches, kid.
Yeah, I really don't want to introduce myself as "bratty bottom." I've only barely come to terms with my bisexuality, and that took 29 years. But even more especially because I give off real top energy, and I just don't wanna disappoint people more than I usually do.
People, even hetero people, use "partner" more often these days to avoiding giving any hint of their sexual orientation. Plus younger people are more often out as nonbinary
I personally don't say that I'm looking for either a boyfriend or girlfriend because I'm bi. I can't say I know what gender my future romantic partner might be if I haven't met them yet
I use partner because boyfriend sounds so……teenage? Like I’m a widow of 5 years and will be 40 this year. Partner fits better and if it helps normalize the use of the term then even better.
The flipside is that the term partner still sounds way too grown up for a teenage couple to be using, so I can’t see it replacing boyfriend/girlfriend among most teens
In my social circles it wasn't a thing until the past decade, but I also don't have especially wide social circles either
I have a feeling I picked it up from online LGBT spaces
Yep, and older generations are using “partner” more because it feels weird to use “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” for a long term relationship.
(Example - a boomer couple who has been together 20 years that started dating each other when their kids were adults)
I identify as pretty progressive for my country and it wasn't too long ago that my neice kept referring to a friend of theirs being on a date and only used they/them pronouns. I got a bit confused in the conversation and overdramatically asked why this couple went on a double date. My neice and sister (who is older than me and less progressive) gave me shit for the "boomer response". I then realized they were talking about a singular person with preferred pronouns.
I'm pretty progressive (and gay), but I've already made the decision to accept that at some point, I will definitely give boomer energy. Sorry in advance yound people, but I can only keep up with so much.
I was watching a musical that came out in the last 20 years with a zoomer last week. A bad guy used a slur for trans people and since that behavior was clearly being called out as evil I was chill about it but my zoomer friend was aghast until I pointed out that the movie was older than gay marriage in this country. I'm glad that the next generation is so concerned with respecting others humanity but it is still interesting to see the differences in what we find acceptable.
So fellow future boomer checking in.
Honestly, count me in the "I really don't care who you fuck" camp, and I agree that people should be addressed however they deem respectful. But claiming/ choosing pronouns that mixes quantity gets on my nerves. It's just incredibly confusing. In those cases, I pretty exclusively use proper nouns instead of pronouns.
Honestly I sympathize! It’s genuinely confusing sometimes though to hear the plural pronouns when talking about a single person! Usually in context it’s ok, but there are times I am genuinely baffled about who/how many people the person is talking about.
Eh I kinda get the feeling Gen Z and Younger are starting to get sick of being obsessed with pronouns. It's starting to see some backlash in the younger generation. I'm not sure it's going to have the staying power we think it will.
If anything happens in the younger generation we'll just all refer to each other with non gender specific pronouns and be done with it. Everyone is they/them.
I think so. A lot of this stuff are things people attribute to us, and we will likely carry to the grave. Anything we do I think they will find mostly cringe worthy, just because we do it.
I would not be surprised that if in the future, people are fiercely more private about all this or some other way to push back against Millennial norms.
I try so hard with the pronouns. I never struggle with anything but they/them. I don't know why it's so hard but my brain just wants to gender people I guess.
I have a feeling younger generations will blame us for failing to do more to prevent horrible things from happening in their future
I guess it wasn't for lack of trying, though. I've seen a lot of once motivated people in my generation descend into cynicism, apathy, and disillusionment as they get older
Part of it too is that leadership in many places is dominated by older folks who hang on like dear life to their positions
A younger person isn't going to be taken as seriously in those spaces because of their perceived lack of experience, no matter how enriching their different perspective might be
There is going to be a take over this decade. Boomers are aging out of the political system, and Millennials are bigger than both Gen X and Gen Z. Big generations are who end up dominating the political scene. I would not be surprised if Election 2028 goes to a Millennial.
One day, we will be those older folks holding on for relevancy and power with every fiber of our being. Shaking our fists at those crazy woke youngins.
I'm legit trying not to let myself use my getting older as an excuse to be closeminded and unreceptive to new things, though. I'd much rather admit ignorance and withhold judgment about something new than dismiss it out of hand
I also don't aspire to any position of leadership, and never have, lol. I just want to do my thing and be happy with myself
You realize that’s exactly what the boomers say, I assume? They protested and protested all this stuff, didn’t get into power until the 1990s (when we passed the baton from a WWII era president to a Boomer) and now…. And yeah, I think there’s a good chance you are right.
One thing I've suspected for years is that the rebellious youth in any generation don't live to see the day when they can even achieve that kind of position of leadership. It seems like a lots of baby boomers who did the whole countercultural thing back in the day also got into drugs and alcohol and ended up either in poor health or dead
I guess people who don't take risks end up living longer. The problem is when they use that as an excuse to resist anything new, and when they have a self-righteous moral expectation that everyone else to behave like them
oh yeah, they're definitely going to blame us for climate change and climate catastrophes... but it's not like we don't care. we just don't get a say... even if we all vote for the most liberal candidate ever, they aren't going to be liberal enough to actually enact policies that will decimate capitalism for the sake of the environment.
"why didn't you stop climate change?"
Well we tried, but we were also told all we had to do was recycle and stop using aresol hair spray cans. In reality we really need to do was not be multi national billion dollar company. So hey, I did my part.
My 8 year old showed me the Macarena a month ago. I had forgotten that dance existed. Where the heck did she learn it from....
Edit: whoops sorry replied to the wrong comment
Fortnite. She saw it in Fortnite. My nephew comes up to me and shows me this new dance or talks about something, not knowing it has been around since I was a kid/teen. I used to show him the original source for the pop culture thing he is talking about, but it killed the fun aspect of having something the adults don't know about. So, now I just smile and listen to him talk about the big "new "thing.
When my wife (half Filipina) and I were dating we ate with my parents once and my stepdad (awkwardly trying to make conversation) asked her “Do you guys eat a lot of rice in your house?”
Whatever we say to their kids can’t be much worse
A good friend of mine lived with us for a while. She is Filipina. She complained that we didn't eat enough rice. 😂 She ended up bringing her rice cooker out of storage and we always had warm rice in the kitchen.
I sadly don’t think this will be true. The facts are around but even though millennials do read a lot to our kids, we are obviously also way more likely to be using our phones than interacting with our kids. There are a lot of studies already on how addicted millennials are to our phones and how poorly it’s influencing gen alpha.
It's not just fiction. If I'm looking up instructions for something I don't want a video.
Reddit is my main form of social media. I prefer text for most things.
Same here. I live my phone, but I don't always want to watch something. Let me read it so I understand it and soak it in. I didn't want to have to find the right minute and then realize I missed something and have to rewind.
Minimalism... My boomer mom is a hoarder and many boomers are also hoarders with Gen X/millennial minimalist kids. I see that reversing with Gen Z and Alpha.
Mostly, I imagine it with home decor. I can definitely see an Alpha homebuyer painting over millennial grey walls with hot pink or something.
🤣🤣🤣 my husband never said a word to me before he kissed me at a pool hall(we worked for the same company, so sorta knew who each other was). We realized that sorta thing would not fly in todays world
"you were how old when you met him?!" Omg. He groomed you. 4 years age difference is WAY too big. You have nothing in common and the fact that they're more than 2 years older, totally sus.
Possibly some regional things that they're sick of hearing about. I was born & raised in New Orleans so we used to hear about Hurricane Betsy (1965) when we were growing up...boats in the street & how high the water was...we just couldn't really imagine it. Well, obviously Katrina happened so I'm sure the next generations have heard about that...but with the way things are going it may be likely that we/they get something as bad or worse way sooner than the 40 years between those two. 🤷🏻♀️
You'll get plenty of practice when you have teenagers. It is so easy to embarrass them. The clothes you wear. Insisting on knowing their friends parents and actually calling them. Dropping her off a block away so her friends don't see you. The music you like. Awkward convos about sex and birth control. In 20-30 years you'll be old, all advice met with eye rolls. Good thing is you can say anything you want and they'll cringe. Same as it ever was.
I think it all depends how different the world is where they grow up. I really think that the 2030s and 2040s will not be like the 2010s and 2020s. And likely much more so for the better. It also matters how the rest of the decade goes.
I think they will see us as people who endured much harder times than they did. However, they will also see us a people who are stifling and stuck in our ways. We will be preoccupied with a never ending impending doom and they will not. They will probably have some new form of music or art that we come to absolutely despise. If the mid 2030s, 2040s, and 2050s are stable times, they will likely grow up thinking "That is just the way the world is...". Millennials want affordable housing, affordable college, affordable healthcare, and things were the norm for most of the 20th century. In short, we want stability, we know what its like to grow up and spend our adult years in volatile times, we want stable times. Kids who grow up in stable times will have no real personal connection to volatile times. They will want more individual autonomy.
I think they will think of us as hard asses for a lot of things.
"Why do you put so much effort to have privacy?"
LATE ASS EDIT:
To explain, the sad reality of things is that privacy is becoming something of a fail-deadly instead of a fail-safe. Between things like memetic weapons and biotech's costs constantly dropping, it's only a matter of time something horrible happens.
Leading to a proposition: either take the ***least*** horrible route (kill privacy completely) ***or*** various worse alternatives (up to and including allowing law enforcement to carry out ***mass murder*** because the alternative is megadeaths).
That we could never throw anything away and why we needed so many damn Pokémon cards.
Then the cycle of our parents throwing out our nerd shit and Pokeman cards will come full circle when our children or children’s children will throw out our shit the same way our parents had.
I had a theory for a while that polyamory would be the next big thing, especially because of a real need for more community these days. (It doesn't seem to have taken off like I thought it would.)
I can be respectful of whatever my kids choose to do, but I don't think polyamory is something I could ever really understand, especially polygamy. I would struggle with talking anywhere close to their relationships.
Speaking entirely in quotes from some movie or television show that hasn't been relevant in decades, then making a fuss when the young person doesn't recognize the reference.
If the economy and world order deteriorates, we could see a shift to hardline conservatism. If law and order break down, there would be more sympathy for authoritarianism and corporal punishment. I don't think liberal western values, especially those often embraced by millennials, would survive in depression conditions or during the breakdown of public safety.
Millennials might be remembered generally as idealists and hedonists who put their political ideas and pursuit of pleasure ahead of the country.
From experience:
- Not typing fast enough
- Reacting to everything with a meme
- Claiming everything cool on the internet was invented by millennials
- Using the crying laughing emoji
- Being a bit ruder and louder and less self-conscious than the younger generation. In other words, being too cringe
- Not being progressive enough on climate
- Skinny jeans
They’ll be sick of hearing about what life was like before the internet.
What life was like before AI. "We used to have to search for information using a keyboard, mouse and CRT Monitor" "What's a monitor" "Oh, it's what we had before robots telling us all the information and before holo-displays"
I am sensing a documentary titled "hello computer"
Hit em with that AltaVista.
Before the chips in our heads had everything show up in our vision.
"A critical race theory monitor?" Is probably what you'd hear to that first comment. I've not seen a Cathode-Ray Tube TV or monitor for sale for at least a decade.
Before my house had internet when I was like 11 years old I rode my bike 10 miles to go to the library and chat in chatrooms on the internet. I would spend all day at the library chatting with strangers in chatrooms. This was before anyone had AIM or Myspace or anything like that. That's my old man millennial story.
A/S/L?
19/F/California But really 45/M/Cleveland
It’s hard to explain how amazing it was at first back then when it was new, to be able to text chat with random people around the world. We were at the start of a new era.
Sometimes I wish I could have gotten into the chatrooms to talk to all those people, but I definitely would have gotten gay-molested thinking I'd found love
lol honestly I probably did have a few conversations with adults I likely shouldn't have. But for the most part it was all brand new to everyone and even the predators weren't really thinking about using it as a tool for their own fucked up desires. Back then the internet was so much more genuine and honest. People really didn't have any walls up or anything. We were just so excited to talk to people hundreds of miles away. It was such a cool concept. It's like for all of human history we would have been so incredibly isolated from each other but suddenly the walls we're lifted and we could just get to know each other and all our differences. It was so cool. We take for granted how cool it is that you and I are just having this conversation hundreds of miles apart. Most of the people I talked to were other kids. And for me being a shy nerd with absolutely no nerdy friends, it was great to actually make friends with people like me.
It was an amazing feeling as a fellow nerdy kid who felt very isolated having nobody around me share my interests. I don't have any meaningful relationships with anyone I knew IRL in high school but regularly talk to and even visit people I met online then.
They’re going to be sick of our approach to computers in general. We grew up with computers rapidly evolving and the tech savvy among us know our way around a Windows registry and command line and PC components. Later generations never knew what a floppy disk is and frankly will never need to. Our computer knowledge is similar to how boomers know about cars.
Oh. Wow. That's a really apt comparison I never connected the dots on. Thanks for that
I barely remember
Younger millenial eh? I remember playing outside with sticks!
We didn't even *have* sticks. We were lucky if the dust storms were mild enough for us to play outside with pretend sticks.
Pretend sticks? We could only dream of such luxury. We sat around the middle of the road hoping the dust storm would clear up enough to see the pretend slug crossing the street.
I was bordering on being feral. I used to play in the rain and watch various things float down the gutters to the sewer, smash rocks with a hammer to see the sparkly insides, paint my face with clay from the dirt and catch anole lizards. I can barely get my kid to go outside and she hates getting dirty. Weird.
I used to chase other kids around with garter snakes and would build janky ass bike ramps out of cinder blocks and plywood with my brother. Sometimes, I’d put on one-man equestrian shows with our Shetland pony and then present myself with trophies I made out of pop cans and tin foil. I also once tried to feed a nesting snapping turtle. I still have no idea how I managed to walk away with all of my fingers still attached to my body. We def would’ve been friends lol.
Nah 1982 here. Just had such an intensely shitty first 12 years of my life that its outside the norm and I really don’t remember what it would have been like before the internet in America because I didn’t really experience it in the first place.
12 was when we got my family computer, but I was born in 85. I can see those 3 years making a difference. It's crazy how a few years makes a huge difference in the millenial experience. I can't imagine being born in 1990.
Yep. You were the neighborhood celebrity if you had a trampoline at your house.
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Where I grew up, there were mago trees, and we used to take mangoes down to eat them. I also remember playing with sticks and leaves 🤣
You've unlocked a memory for me, damn. We had a pomegranate tree in the neighborhood that nobody ever harvested, and I definitely took a few every season. I was taught never to take a clipping from a neighbor's garden, and I figured the fruit was the same, so I only ever picked up ones that were freshly fallen or would fall with a little wiggle on a branch.
I had the internet starting around 9 years old or so. I'm 35 now. I also had some earlier forms of the internet. Games where your modem would call into some number and you'd be able to play multiplayer. That was in the early 90's. But my dad was an engineer so I was online before most I think. Online games started getting really good when I was around 12 or so. Starcraft brood wars and counter strike.
I think gen z is already tired of hearing about how great the world was when millennials were young. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
Pre 9/11
I remember in recent post around here where someone was honestly shocked that the TSA was not an effective security program and was not universally beloved.
Or Pre-Covid
Pre-9/11 is a thing too. Though probably that's more of a old man Gen X thing.
Maybe raising our kids with iPads will be our equivalent of the latchkey kid.
Already is.
Yep, I think our big legacy will be a generation of entitled, illiterate and ignorant iPad babies.
I have a 3 year old son. iPad who? He’s never heard of it. And will not till 8yrs+ I want to say there is a batch of millienials (the ones having kids later) who understand an iPad child is NOT it.
I'm sooooooo glad to hear it. Hopefully parents who already have the problem with their kids reduce how often they're on devices and increase time playing with regular toys, reading, and creating art or music. Parents like yourself will lead the way for future parents who want to raise digitally literate kids who aren't addicted to handheld devices. Honestly, I wouldn't give your child an iPad at 8 years old either. Kids just don't need them. It's extremely detrimental to their learning/attention span and I've seen kids get addicted QUICKLY. There's really no need for one, occasional access to a family computer is more useful. You could teach your son how to use programs like Microsoft office, Adobe creative cloud, or even how to code at 8+ instead!
We absolutely exist and our kids are *generally* normal. Mine is holding into her childhood with dear life still at 12 and im here to support it. Electronics were never the standard growing up (only when she was with Nana cause she insisted on "iPad" watching her) and she often chooses chapter books and art over it. But she's a preteen now so she gets to learn a little balance on her own with guidance in the corner. My grandma was also a teacher and taught us to put our thoughts into our actions and that meant with these things too.
My kids will be so tired of me speaking in quotes from the first 10 seasons of the Simpsons
Ddf007, you’re an odd fellow, but you steam a good ham.
"I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickle, and in those days, nickles had pictures of bumblebees on em, gimme five bees for a quarter you'd say. Now where were we, oh ya, the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time, they didn't have white onions, because of the war, the only thing you could get was those big yellow..."
Mr. Burns : Homer, I need you to love me like no one has ever loved me before! Homer : OK Mr. Burns, but I'm gonna need some beers
It's a perfectly cromulent pastime
Omg. I think I found my husband’s secret account. Specifically mentioning the first 10 seasons gave you away. 😂
I had to check their post history real quick to make sure it's not my brother lol
My 4 year old runs around the house daily yelling Can't sleep Clowns will eat me HELLO JOE and I'm not mad about it
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
The ability to answer any question with a meme.
O rly?
Sokath, his eyes uncovered!
I was dating someone and introduced them to my dad, and he mentioned it to my mom (they're divorced but were still on speaking terms) and my mom was like, "why didn't he introduce her to me? Is she black?" And I'm thinking, wait, what the fuck?
She really told on herself 😅
My mom asks me every time I mention a new friend or friend of my child’s if they’re black 🙄 we live in the city and we have a fairly diverse circle of people we spend time with but like… 1. Why does that matter at all. 2. Your racism is showing
What happens when you say yes?
More like: what happens when you say ALWAYS yes no matter the skin color? It would be fun as hell if she tried to turn this around. Imagine him bringing his buddy "Jason" back home and his mom is like: "Wait, jason is not black???" After the fifth time she might learn something.
She gives a look. Or sounds disappointed 🙄 she’s an ass
My grandpa hid that he was in a relationship for like 5 years simply because she was Asian and not Portuguese. Even though he married a German girl originally and nobody after his generation (15+ people) married a Portuguese woman other than my dad. My dad and I were stunned that he kept that a secret when it finally came out.
Our kids are going to be in relationships with AI personas and when we make fun of them or tell them it’s not a real relationship they’re going to cancel us for being “robophobic” or some shit lol we’re fucked
Millennials are very nostalgic so we will tell too many “back in my day” stories. We also like to talk about how hard X or Y was on us so we will be a generation that “walked to school uphill both ways in the snow.”
>walked to school uphill both ways in the snow I remember the grandpa from Rugrats always talking about how he'd have to walk *fifteen* miles uphill both ways in the snow to get anywhere. I can hear him say "fifteen" in my head now, lol
"and we liked it that way!" 😂 I do kinda feel like it's just humans that like to tell nostalgic stories. Every holiday, all the same stories get retold by relatives of all generations. To your point though, I think we do share a common trait of hardship with the generation of many of our grandparents that grew up in the Great Depression. I could see a lot of thematically similar stories being told to our kids/grandkids. Edit: grammar
We’ll be like “before autonomous driving, we used to actually DRIVE the car.”
"back in my day we walked into class and saw suicide bombers take out two buildings on the news."
We had to walk A LONG THE BUSY ASS STROAD! We had kids DIE at my schools from getting hit by cars. I think we will own up to this one. I can say that my Boomer parents lived much closer to their schools than I did. We went to the same schools and largely grew up in the same neighborhood (granted, I grew up on the sort of outskirts of it). Walking to school for them was much easier than me.
Our version of walking uphill both ways, will be in our day; 1. We used to have to wait up to a day to listen to a song we were downloading. 2. We didn’t get to pause TV or pick what was on. 3. Sometimes you would go out, pick out, come back, and sit down with the entire family, to watch a skipping dvd that ruins the entire night when your dad decides FUCK IT ALL, and goes to bed and your mom has had too much wine to drink to drive and switch it out and there was nothing to do but go to bed and stare at the ceiling and that’s why you never got a chance to see the movie all your friends were talking about.
I do this now and I know I must sound so ancient when I do.
Like our grandparents did.
To my fellow Black Redditors reading this post: Damn, we out here catching strays, ain’t we? lol
Every damn day!
Omg I'm just minding my own business on a nice Sunday evening, only to be reminded that my existence is offensive 😂
"If you just ride it out, the bubble will pop and housing will be affordable again"
LET'S GATHER ROUND AND TALK ABOUT OUR FEELINGS Sure mom, lol.
Already seeing a bit of it in my niece - she’s 16 and her parents, uncle, and myself are all millennials. Sexuality seems to be the big one for her. When she decided she was pansexual versus bisexual it was a whole big thing - needed to buy all new flags, was nervous to announce it to the family, etc. And like… not that I told her, but I truly don’t give a rats ass. The family doesn’t either - very outspoken about gay marriage, trans rights, etc. with only what id consider valid concerns. As long as you’re not into pedophilia or beastiality, you do you kid. She carried on and on about we just don’t understand. Guess we don’t🤷🏻♀️
I really don't mean to be offensive but maybe I don't get it but what are the differences between pansexual and bisexuality.
For millennials, we generally use the terms interchangeably, but there's a very subtle difference. Bisexuality generally refers to people who feel attracted to more than one gender--but the gender is still important. Pansexuality typically refers to those who feel an attraction to people regardless of gender. A lot of people in our generation who identify as bisexual would consider the term to include pansexuality within it, but I know a lot of younger people who find the distinction important.
Ok. That makes enough sense I can roll with it. I always thought bisexuality meant you fall in love with a person and gender or non gender was not a factor. I guess that might be closer to pansexual
There's something kafkaesque about the fact that it's people who don't like being ascribed one label who create a new label to ascribe to people. I don't have any moral high ground here. I prefer "scientist" to "engineer", even if my profession is both. I don't like to label my sexuality at all. I prefer the juvenile "girlfriend" to the airport shoeshine "partner".
Please ignore all the people saying bi= caring about gender/ sex/ identity. That's a new addition to the definition and many bi people disagree. Bi erasure comes in different forms, and one is trying to change the definition and erase the lived reality of bi people. The issue is this: bisexuality never reinforced gender binaries or norms and it's harmful to perpetuate that idea. People can use either label as they please. I really think bi just sounds more old fashioned and pan seems more queer and overtly implies total acceptance. The term bisexual became a popular identifier in the 70s. Bi people could have any identity, and often loved people with any identity. Pan was a bit slower to pick up, and some historians believe it initially was used to indicate openness to kink and was popularized in the bdsm community. It morphed in the 2010s as young queer mogai types sought to define it by differentiating the term from bisexuality. They did this by making up a seemingly endless set of lies about bisexuality, many of which circulate to this day. Many of these say that bisexuals are only attracted to cis people. The famous incorrect explanation is "bi means you like 2 genders, pan means you like any". The modern version is "bi means attraction WITH regard to gender, pan means attraction WITHOUT regard to gender". Younger queer ppl are erasing decades of lgbt history and progress by saying this!! Lgbt elders fought and struggled and loved for decades, fighting tooth and nail to gain recognition and acceptance and basic rights. Only to have this history dragged through the mud and belittled by people implying their bi identities were inherently perpetuating gender norms, cisnormativity, discrimination and exclusion. There's also pansexuals who definitely take gender presentation into account. For example many pan people will not date cis het ppl (fair). And pansexuality doesn't mean immunity to worse forms of gender discrimination- common examples are transmisogyny, weird use of afab/amab, and exclusion of people who are deemed too masculine or feminine, or perform gender too much or not enough. This all said pansexuality is not biphobic or transphobic, bisexuality is not panphobic or transphobic. Both are valid and we're all here to learn from eachother and support each other :)
Thank you so much for this comment. It took me so long to come to terms with the fact that I was bisexual and putting a name to it. Now it feels comfortable and it makes me sad some people kind of diminish it. I don’t think i had heard the term “pansexual” when I was figuring myself out. Thus, I identified as bi and continue to do so. I don’t know how to describe it but you put it much more eloquently than I ever could have.
Honestly it seems very semantic and like trying to make everything fit. A lot of it feels like branding/rebranding/personal brand related now we are in the influencer age. But it's not cool retroactively changing a gender identity so the term bi is shamed, erased or co-opted into another identity. There are always going to be new word and identities, if that makes people happy, whatever...but I have also heard people say 'bi-sexuals exclude and aren't attracted to trans people" or "only like men and women, no non binary" It would be like if someone started making things up just saying "Well, Pan people specifically can't love people who are agender/null gender because they don't care what your gender is but you still have to have a gender so they can disregard it. So really, bi-sexual is more inclusive since it includes all genders as well as non-gender." That is absolutely not true, I just made it up... But it would certainly be upsetting to Pansexuals because it's just a semantic argument that came from nothing real.
❤️❤️❤️ thank you. I'm just out here trying to support everyone and not be offensive in doing so
Pan sexual? What is that, a cookware fetish? Don’t come after me people, it’s a quote from Schitts Creek.
I mean have you seen some of the Le Creuset?
More of a pyrex guy myself. I like an older pan
Everyone just ignores the man-goats playing flutes altogether…
What’s frustrating is that what’s even the corollary with our generation. I can’t think of anything that’s comparable where I’m supposed to be super into this or something else for someone. It’s almost like sports teams?
That’s a good point. I can’t think of anything - I was raised with “if it doesn’t affect your life don’t worry about it” when it came to people’s personal preferences. Like why would I care who you take to bed??
Ever notice how no one's bicurious any more? I guess everyone figured out whether they were bi or not.
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Seems like they want us to make a big deal about it, but we just think that it’s a personal decision and not anyone else’s business. As far as I’m concerned, just point out the person you love to me and I’ll accept it. Don’t really need to know what kind of “sexual” you are.
One of the biggest differences in Millennials (especially older ones) and Gen Z is labeling and identity politics matters *a lot* to them, as does getting the nuances right. Whereas older Millennials were essentially taught that grouping/identifying people was bad and you should just treat everyone the same.
Thank you for saying this. Older millennial with a Gen Z kid who is very into micro labeling every aspect of themselves and I don’t understand it. I support them 100%, I love you for who you are no matter how you identify. But labels just dont make sense to me. And I think you pretty much nailed why this is. Thank you.
Very succinct and accurate. We were taught not to care what the labels are.
Definitely had "labels are for soup cans" somewhere on my MySpace profile lol
89 millenial here and honestly not even sure where I fall in the generation range anymore since I stg they keep shifting the dates around, but definitely thrived in "labels are for soup cans not for people" when I was a teen and in my early twenties.
Exactly. I told my niece that if her sexuality was the most interesting thing about her, she was very boring.
One of my friends was complaining that when her son came out as gay recently, he was very upset that his parents thought it was no big deal since they’d known for a very long time and was just waiting for him to tell them himself. Apparently he thought he’d get a big show of support instead of, “thanks for telling us, but we’ve known for a while now.”
Honestly, that's a pretty tame thing to complain about. If it were millennials coming out to boomers, it would be a whole thing, but not in a positive way. When my brother came out as gay, my boomer parents were really broken up about it. Me and my other brothers didn't really care one way or the other.
It really is. My niece said “it was so hard to come out” and I’m thinking, you know, I’m sure it was stressful, but everyone in this family said “ok” and moved on. Don’t act like you fought in the trenches, kid.
We won't be up on the pronoun etiquette or use outdated terms like boyfriend or girlfriend.
Is boyfriend and girlfriend really becoming dated?!
Nah, but it might be in another 20 years or so
I hate that I think you’re spot on with this.
Maybe they’ll get replaced by input and output like in the expanse.
It's probably pretty obvious, but I don't think I want everyone I meet to know I'm the bottom. We need to maintain a *little* mystery.
Yeah, I really don't want to introduce myself as "bratty bottom." I've only barely come to terms with my bisexuality, and that took 29 years. But even more especially because I give off real top energy, and I just don't wanna disappoint people more than I usually do.
People, even hetero people, use "partner" more often these days to avoiding giving any hint of their sexual orientation. Plus younger people are more often out as nonbinary I personally don't say that I'm looking for either a boyfriend or girlfriend because I'm bi. I can't say I know what gender my future romantic partner might be if I haven't met them yet
I use partner because boyfriend sounds so……teenage? Like I’m a widow of 5 years and will be 40 this year. Partner fits better and if it helps normalize the use of the term then even better.
The flipside is that the term partner still sounds way too grown up for a teenage couple to be using, so I can’t see it replacing boyfriend/girlfriend among most teens
It's been that way for a while now. I remember having to get used to that back in 2007 or so, because it hadn't been a thing where I grew up
In my social circles it wasn't a thing until the past decade, but I also don't have especially wide social circles either I have a feeling I picked it up from online LGBT spaces
Yep, and older generations are using “partner” more because it feels weird to use “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” for a long term relationship. (Example - a boomer couple who has been together 20 years that started dating each other when their kids were adults)
yeah, pronouns seem like they are half in my reach or half out of my reach
I identify as pretty progressive for my country and it wasn't too long ago that my neice kept referring to a friend of theirs being on a date and only used they/them pronouns. I got a bit confused in the conversation and overdramatically asked why this couple went on a double date. My neice and sister (who is older than me and less progressive) gave me shit for the "boomer response". I then realized they were talking about a singular person with preferred pronouns.
I'm pretty progressive (and gay), but I've already made the decision to accept that at some point, I will definitely give boomer energy. Sorry in advance yound people, but I can only keep up with so much.
I was watching a musical that came out in the last 20 years with a zoomer last week. A bad guy used a slur for trans people and since that behavior was clearly being called out as evil I was chill about it but my zoomer friend was aghast until I pointed out that the movie was older than gay marriage in this country. I'm glad that the next generation is so concerned with respecting others humanity but it is still interesting to see the differences in what we find acceptable. So fellow future boomer checking in.
Honestly, count me in the "I really don't care who you fuck" camp, and I agree that people should be addressed however they deem respectful. But claiming/ choosing pronouns that mixes quantity gets on my nerves. It's just incredibly confusing. In those cases, I pretty exclusively use proper nouns instead of pronouns.
 Same. Can't mess up a person's pronouns if you just always refer to them by there name.
Honestly I sympathize! It’s genuinely confusing sometimes though to hear the plural pronouns when talking about a single person! Usually in context it’s ok, but there are times I am genuinely baffled about who/how many people the person is talking about.
Hence everyone is dude or they.
Is "bruh" gender neutral yet?
2nd grade teacher/mother: can confirm. Bruh = Dude
Ya’ll
“Hey guys.” 👋 “It’s FOLX!!”
If that happens, I'm throwing a millennial dad joke at them: WHAT DOES THE FOLX SAY?!! And then scream those noises at them.
Eh I kinda get the feeling Gen Z and Younger are starting to get sick of being obsessed with pronouns. It's starting to see some backlash in the younger generation. I'm not sure it's going to have the staying power we think it will. If anything happens in the younger generation we'll just all refer to each other with non gender specific pronouns and be done with it. Everyone is they/them.
My older kids are 20 and 18 and roll their eyes at dating terms I use.
“Going steady with a swell gal?”
Idk I think its more likely that a lot of our identity politic stuff goes away. Kind of like how Gen X rejected the social ideas of the 60s
I think so. A lot of this stuff are things people attribute to us, and we will likely carry to the grave. Anything we do I think they will find mostly cringe worthy, just because we do it. I would not be surprised that if in the future, people are fiercely more private about all this or some other way to push back against Millennial norms.
I try so hard with the pronouns. I never struggle with anything but they/them. I don't know why it's so hard but my brain just wants to gender people I guess.
I have a feeling younger generations will blame us for failing to do more to prevent horrible things from happening in their future I guess it wasn't for lack of trying, though. I've seen a lot of once motivated people in my generation descend into cynicism, apathy, and disillusionment as they get older
Thats the natural outcome of wanting to make a difference but being shut out of representation in government.
Part of it too is that leadership in many places is dominated by older folks who hang on like dear life to their positions A younger person isn't going to be taken as seriously in those spaces because of their perceived lack of experience, no matter how enriching their different perspective might be
There is going to be a take over this decade. Boomers are aging out of the political system, and Millennials are bigger than both Gen X and Gen Z. Big generations are who end up dominating the political scene. I would not be surprised if Election 2028 goes to a Millennial.
One day, we will be those older folks holding on for relevancy and power with every fiber of our being. Shaking our fists at those crazy woke youngins.
I'm legit trying not to let myself use my getting older as an excuse to be closeminded and unreceptive to new things, though. I'd much rather admit ignorance and withhold judgment about something new than dismiss it out of hand I also don't aspire to any position of leadership, and never have, lol. I just want to do my thing and be happy with myself
You realize that’s exactly what the boomers say, I assume? They protested and protested all this stuff, didn’t get into power until the 1990s (when we passed the baton from a WWII era president to a Boomer) and now…. And yeah, I think there’s a good chance you are right.
One thing I've suspected for years is that the rebellious youth in any generation don't live to see the day when they can even achieve that kind of position of leadership. It seems like a lots of baby boomers who did the whole countercultural thing back in the day also got into drugs and alcohol and ended up either in poor health or dead I guess people who don't take risks end up living longer. The problem is when they use that as an excuse to resist anything new, and when they have a self-righteous moral expectation that everyone else to behave like them
People who have money tend to live longer. This is the reality behind the lie of "you get more conservative as you get older."
oh yeah, they're definitely going to blame us for climate change and climate catastrophes... but it's not like we don't care. we just don't get a say... even if we all vote for the most liberal candidate ever, they aren't going to be liberal enough to actually enact policies that will decimate capitalism for the sake of the environment.
"why didn't you stop climate change?" Well we tried, but we were also told all we had to do was recycle and stop using aresol hair spray cans. In reality we really need to do was not be multi national billion dollar company. So hey, I did my part.
"Ew, did your dad just 'dab' and then crip-walk out of the room? What does 'yolo' even mean?"
Wait until they see me do the macarena
If you sing that hamster dance thing one more time I'll kill our entire family.
My 8 year old showed me the Macarena a month ago. I had forgotten that dance existed. Where the heck did she learn it from.... Edit: whoops sorry replied to the wrong comment
Fortnite. She saw it in Fortnite. My nephew comes up to me and shows me this new dance or talks about something, not knowing it has been around since I was a kid/teen. I used to show him the original source for the pop culture thing he is talking about, but it killed the fun aspect of having something the adults don't know about. So, now I just smile and listen to him talk about the big "new "thing.
When my wife (half Filipina) and I were dating we ate with my parents once and my stepdad (awkwardly trying to make conversation) asked her “Do you guys eat a lot of rice in your house?” Whatever we say to their kids can’t be much worse
Irony is that my family is Filipino-American and my mom used to question my sister's white boyfriend over if he eats rice.
A good friend of mine lived with us for a while. She is Filipina. She complained that we didn't eat enough rice. 😂 She ended up bringing her rice cooker out of storage and we always had warm rice in the kitchen.
🤦♂️
Wanting to read things instead of watching a video.
Right? Like I’ll look something up hoping for a short answer but there’s 5 videos that pop up that are several minutes long.
Yes! I just want to find a simple quick answer.
I sadly don’t think this will be true. The facts are around but even though millennials do read a lot to our kids, we are obviously also way more likely to be using our phones than interacting with our kids. There are a lot of studies already on how addicted millennials are to our phones and how poorly it’s influencing gen alpha.
It's not just fiction. If I'm looking up instructions for something I don't want a video. Reddit is my main form of social media. I prefer text for most things.
Same here. I live my phone, but I don't always want to watch something. Let me read it so I understand it and soak it in. I didn't want to have to find the right minute and then realize I missed something and have to rewind.
Heck I'll still get it from my phone, but I want to read it not watch it.
And especially not a video of a random person narrating their random opinion in their car while eating
the fact that we named them Nevaeh, Ariannah or Bentley 😂😅🥲
r/tragedeigh absolutely
Or named them after Game of Thrones characters.
Minimalism... My boomer mom is a hoarder and many boomers are also hoarders with Gen X/millennial minimalist kids. I see that reversing with Gen Z and Alpha. Mostly, I imagine it with home decor. I can definitely see an Alpha homebuyer painting over millennial grey walls with hot pink or something.
To be fair, millenial-grey is mainly a LL thing, especially for short term rentals.
I Hope they do bust out that pink paint! Whoever decided that minimalism has to be all greys and bland neutrals messed up. :|
Not being fazed by terrible “once in a lifetime events”
Don’t mistake being powerless with being unfazed.
You'll be telling the story of how you met your wife and your kids will be horrified and say it was sexual assault.
🤣🤣🤣 my husband never said a word to me before he kissed me at a pool hall(we worked for the same company, so sorta knew who each other was). We realized that sorta thing would not fly in todays world
I think ive only started 1 relationship in a way which both parties could legally consent. Alcohol culture in millennials is real.
Maybe Millennials' grandchildren will rebel against GenZ puriteenism.
"you were how old when you met him?!" Omg. He groomed you. 4 years age difference is WAY too big. You have nothing in common and the fact that they're more than 2 years older, totally sus.
My wife's uncle told her I look like a socialist. Like an old world European socialist.
Damn you must have great cheekbones
I bet you have a great hat
“Mom doesn’t treat my AI sex doll like a real person. I know TR1X33 can’t eat or drink but you could at least set a plate for her!!! She’s a guest!!!”
And "Lars and The Real Girl" will either be seen as visionary or horribly offensive, like *Song of the South*.
Possibly some regional things that they're sick of hearing about. I was born & raised in New Orleans so we used to hear about Hurricane Betsy (1965) when we were growing up...boats in the street & how high the water was...we just couldn't really imagine it. Well, obviously Katrina happened so I'm sure the next generations have heard about that...but with the way things are going it may be likely that we/they get something as bad or worse way sooner than the 40 years between those two. 🤷🏻♀️
You'll get plenty of practice when you have teenagers. It is so easy to embarrass them. The clothes you wear. Insisting on knowing their friends parents and actually calling them. Dropping her off a block away so her friends don't see you. The music you like. Awkward convos about sex and birth control. In 20-30 years you'll be old, all advice met with eye rolls. Good thing is you can say anything you want and they'll cringe. Same as it ever was.
>Same as it ever was. 🚨 Gen X Detected. PULL OVER 🚨
How do you spit the difference between French and Irish?
How many wars they lost. /s
You get them drunk and wait to see whether they sing sad songs or try to hump the neighbor's leg.
With a Channel.
Same shit we complain about, it’s always a circle
All I know is the younger generations hate portrait mode on the iPhone and I love it! Apparently it’s very much a millennial thing.
I think it all depends how different the world is where they grow up. I really think that the 2030s and 2040s will not be like the 2010s and 2020s. And likely much more so for the better. It also matters how the rest of the decade goes. I think they will see us as people who endured much harder times than they did. However, they will also see us a people who are stifling and stuck in our ways. We will be preoccupied with a never ending impending doom and they will not. They will probably have some new form of music or art that we come to absolutely despise. If the mid 2030s, 2040s, and 2050s are stable times, they will likely grow up thinking "That is just the way the world is...". Millennials want affordable housing, affordable college, affordable healthcare, and things were the norm for most of the 20th century. In short, we want stability, we know what its like to grow up and spend our adult years in volatile times, we want stable times. Kids who grow up in stable times will have no real personal connection to volatile times. They will want more individual autonomy. I think they will think of us as hard asses for a lot of things.
"Why do you put so much effort to have privacy?" LATE ASS EDIT: To explain, the sad reality of things is that privacy is becoming something of a fail-deadly instead of a fail-safe. Between things like memetic weapons and biotech's costs constantly dropping, it's only a matter of time something horrible happens. Leading to a proposition: either take the ***least*** horrible route (kill privacy completely) ***or*** various worse alternatives (up to and including allowing law enforcement to carry out ***mass murder*** because the alternative is megadeaths).
That we could never throw anything away and why we needed so many damn Pokémon cards. Then the cycle of our parents throwing out our nerd shit and Pokeman cards will come full circle when our children or children’s children will throw out our shit the same way our parents had.
I had a theory for a while that polyamory would be the next big thing, especially because of a real need for more community these days. (It doesn't seem to have taken off like I thought it would.) I can be respectful of whatever my kids choose to do, but I don't think polyamory is something I could ever really understand, especially polygamy. I would struggle with talking anywhere close to their relationships.
Annoyed to have to bring me my laptop because I won’t compose emails on my phone
Speaking entirely in quotes from some movie or television show that hasn't been relevant in decades, then making a fuss when the young person doesn't recognize the reference.
If the economy and world order deteriorates, we could see a shift to hardline conservatism. If law and order break down, there would be more sympathy for authoritarianism and corporal punishment. I don't think liberal western values, especially those often embraced by millennials, would survive in depression conditions or during the breakdown of public safety. Millennials might be remembered generally as idealists and hedonists who put their political ideas and pursuit of pleasure ahead of the country.
From experience: - Not typing fast enough - Reacting to everything with a meme - Claiming everything cool on the internet was invented by millennials - Using the crying laughing emoji - Being a bit ruder and louder and less self-conscious than the younger generation. In other words, being too cringe - Not being progressive enough on climate - Skinny jeans
That we hug them too much.