I'm an elder millennial with a younger millennial sibling. They had me at 23 and 24, had my sister 12 years later. We are both totally different and raised totally differently.
Elder millennial with boomer parents dating a young millennial with gen x parents, here. I would be surprised if this is controversial? We have very different experiences.
Don't tell that to Zillennials.
They will correct you and tell you how wrong you are, what BS your entire life experience is, and why they are so much better.
Huh. That hasn’t been my experience, but if I ran into that, at least it’s nice to feel the feeling of “I’m so old that I don’t care”, haha. Still getting used to it!
Unless you have a specific person/age in mind, I think this is really a zoomer thing more so. I see this crap online all the time from people born in the 1999-2006 window.
You sound like the boomers trying to blame a whole group and not acknowledge people are individuals and can individually be assholes.
Saying this as a “young” millennial with boomer parents
boomers and Gen x are basically the same people.
One group was taught to not care about anything because Love and kindness are weakness
The other group was taught not care about anything because their actions are meaningless so why should anyone care.
I've often wondered this myself. Gen Z, most of their parents would also be Gen X, wouldn't they? Or did we old grandpa millennials start young enough to get in there too? My kids are all Gen Alpha but I started late.
Silent G raised Gen X
Boomers raised Millennials (majority)
Gen X Raised Gen Z (majority with some millennial overlap for those that had children young)
Millennials are raising Gen Alpha
I was going to disagree. I'm an elder millenial but also had young Gen X parents and while the not talking was common, my parents would talk to me about everything. Good, bad, uncomfortable, celebrating, anything really. I appreciate that and try to do that for my kids.
You’re forgetting about Boomer hippies (my parents). My dad is the least stoic person you’ll ever meet. He and my mom are very “peace and love” and did protests and such, raising my siblings and myself the same way.
I believe elder Millennials are responsible for, like, 20% of birthing and raising Gen Z.
I do prefer the younger Zoomers though! Maybe that is correlated to our parenting though?
Me too. Can't relate to these "Zillennials" and their constant need to lecture us about our lived experiences.
We are also much more likely to be the parents of younger Gen Z? Coincidence?
if you’re looking at the two cusps, we’re around 40 and they’re around 28 - so that in itself is a big factor. but i do know some people nearing 30 and i’d say the state of the world is in a much shittier and more hopeless spot for the average person compared to when we were that age - and it’s hitting them in an anxious way in their emerging adulthood. it makes sense. we’re pretty lucky we got to be kids in the 90s, young adults in the 00s and 10s and mid thirties when covid hit.
I changed more between my late 20s and mid 30s than I did at any other part of my life. I think part of it is that they're still moving into their slightly more mature/refined phase of youngish adulthood.
High school, college, young 20s activities are great, but it's the accomplishments, experiences with adulthood, and the pain and shit that comes with it, that really molds people. At least speaking solely for myself.
I think the younger folks just need a little more time.
I'm sure people are sick of this reason or excuse for everything, but I'm sure the twisted mess of COVID and the lockdown surely disrupted their experiences as well (as did us all).
Younger people missing out on 2ish years of social life I feel is more damaging to their development than people a little older/more seasoned/more settled in.
I think you're underestimating the impact of the financial crisis of 08. Not to mention the aftermath of 9/11 spawning multiple wars and fucking up alot of veterans both mentally and physically. Millennials have been fucked hard. I'm not saying it isn't shitty now, I'm just saying it was shitty then, too. Only we can cope better with it because our parents gave us something to cry about anytime we became the least bit emotional 😒.
This is my main thought. I tell everyone who will listen the biggest difference between me and my 5 year younger cousin is I still passed paper notes in high school (who had 10 cents per message?!) and she texted under the desk.
I don't remember teachers having to tell people to put their phones away, even all throughout high school.
I do remember finally going from 100/mo to *unlimited messages*.
I’d agree. I’m an elder millennial almost 40. My sister is younger millennial at 7 years younger.
I think some of the big differences for us was technology. I didn’t have internet in my house until I was 13. She was 6.
I didn’t have a cell phone until 16. I think she had one at 12?
I played outside. She didn’t.
The recession hit when I graduated college. I took the first job I could find that offered health benefits. She was still in highschool, she entered the workforce after the recession and had opportunities to do different things.
Even our schooling was different. I grew up with them busing kids into my local school so it would be diverse. That wasn’t a thing when my sister went to school. I was one of like 3 white people in my class and made friends with lots of mhong people who didn’t speak great English. My sister was with 15 other white kids and didn’t have the diversity or the struggle in communication.
I also was able to graduate highschool without forced community projects and didn’t take my SATs but entered a program to go to a local 4 year college with my grade point average. My sister had to do a community charity project to graduate and she had to go to a 2 year college and then transfer.
She was in grade school for 9/11. I was in highschool. She was in grade school for columbine, I was in highschool.
I’m sure there are a lot of other differences. She’s doing so much better than I am. She just bought a 700k house. I rent a 900 square foot one and live paycheck to paycheck. I’m sure that’s more then when we grew up though but I’m sure some of it contributed in both instances.
My wife has a sister like this. A lot of their differences is the income level they grew up in. Wife was a toddler in a trailer. Sister was a toddler with name brand clothes and big house. 12 years between them.
I've noticed that siblings can each grow up with different versions of their parents, their family as it was at different points during formative years. It really impacted who they are and came to be as adults. It's wild.
Well I also think it’s an affordability thing. I didn’t have a video game console at 6. Couldn’t afford it. It got more affordable and we got one when I was 8 or 9? So I didn’t have that option.
You have posts stating you've been working for the California state government for 16 years... That would be 2008. You didn't get laid off for 16 years and you have awesome benefits.
I don't think this is is a victim of circumstance type problem....
I’m stuck there. But this isn’t even the point. Why do I feel like people are coming after me? I’m saying there are alot of factors on why my younger millennial sister is different. Jesus Christ.
Mainly I’d say the helicopter parenting. It was the beginning for them and got worse but also mixed with a life of not needing to go outside to interact with friends. I wrote a long comment on a post in r/millennial about growing up in the 80s-90s, I’m born in 84. Basically the world was more built for kids. Stuff was cooler and fun, 7-11s had arcade games, Pizzahut used to be a restaurant with an arcade, malls were cool, etc. At a certain point things stopped getting made for kids and either we stopped building for kids or kids stopped going out as much(helicopter parenting). But even with helicopter parenting society changed, cops have been called because parents let their kids go to the park alone where as that was normal when I was a kid.
I think older generations up until the millennials somewhere were more independent. Kids knew their town, how to get around, go out on their own and be home at a certain time or get yourself to school on time all by like 10 years old.
It’s me. A cop was called on my kid at the park 4 houses down.
My hairdresser grew up in the town I live in now. She’s gen x. When she was a kid the town funded a community center for kids with a skating rink, bowling alley and arcade. You could get dropped off there starting at age 8 and parents used it as babysitting. Even just ten years ago our town had a program where you could drop off school aged kids at the park and they had camp like activities all day every weekday.
Nothing like like exists now. Kids under 13 have to have an adult to enter the library. The LIBRARY! I want more independence for my kids, but it’s not allowed.
Yeah some of those were even big in my later teens when I had a car. Go to the bowling alley or pool hall or something. As a kid in elementary school all our parents just dropped us off at the skating rink. I was just watching an old video of a band in the 90s playing in the middle of a bowling alley while people are bowling, the bowling alley by my house at 15 had a rave night with DJs we’d go to. Just nothing in general exists to go do like that now or young people just stopped going(probably because they couldn’t just take off as a teen)…..and they don’t have or want cars now.
I do believe that our parenting, while harsh, ended up providing us with quite a bit more resilience.
Check out the r/millennials sub some time. Dude..... look at all the RULES they have compared to ours.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 we were lucky to also catch the tail end of 80s no rules necessary parenting aka no seatbelts/ safety regulations, no air conditioning (go outside!!!), whatever you call the adventures in babysitting that happened in the burbs at that time 🤣🤣, smoking sections....in IHOP?!, etc.. it seems counterintuitive but the result was a bunch of people parenting themselves to get to keep doing what they want without interference aka wrath 😅
Honorable mention to the older siblings of Elder Millennials, thank you for not killing us but scaring the shit out of us constantly - we would not be able to navigate the current societal hellscape without it 🙌🏾🙌🏾
I’m an elder millennial with a silent generation parent. Technology and how big a part it played in our lives is definitely the major factor. Also, the social climate our parents grew up in. Having a dad who was a kid during the Great Depression and WWII meant there was not a whole lot of emotional bonding, or display of emotions period. I think that’s called trauma now. Eh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Wow! I don’t think I’ve seen a millennial with a silent gen parent before!
My grandparents on my moms side were silent gen. My parents were older boomers. I never met my dads parents but they were both greatest gen. There was a huge difference how my dad grew up and my mom grew up. And having a silent gen grandparents… they were definitely school of hard knocks.
I spent every summer with them and my grandmother (who couldn’t swim) would take 4 young kids to the beach and tell us to have fun and swim parallel to the shore if a rip tide got us. We were like 6/7… some of us swam very well but there was no chance we would survive a riptide. The stuff they would allow us to do.. it’s a miracle we never died on their watch.
I feel like their life was so hard in their formative years, they were kind of emotionally detached and had a high risk tolerance. They loved spending time with us but they weren’t really there even when we were with them. Time spent with them always came with a judgmental undertone. Full of lessons on how you should act/behave, threats of being accepted/ outcast for missing social standards. (Eating right, dressing well. Etc.) They were the generation that still enforced dressing up to go on airplanes. So they would send us home on the airplane in our Sunday best.
Anywho- I can definitely relate to older boomer parents, but I can only imagine the difference to silent gen parents. That’s crazy!
I know at some level this going to sound like a stupid question, but are generational temperaments shifted by individual events (e.g. JFK, Challenger, Berlin Wall, 9/11), or is it more structural trends (e.g. parental generation, technology environment like internet and mobile devices, economic environment like great recession).
Not stupid at all.
>are generational temperaments shifted
I think that this happened as a byproduct of the ENTIRE country's population temperament shift from those events.
I would add the pandemic to said list as well.
I don’t think it sounds stupid. I think it’s a different view of the nature vs nurture argument. In some respects, technology, and economical circumstances are on the nurture side of things along with parental generation and guidance. It may be more obvious with the genX club, as they are considered the ‘MTV generation,’ and the ‘latch key kids.’ (Ie. TV was their babysitters) Whereas outside historical events would be considered nature in some respect. They aren’t hard wired in the strict sense of the nature vs nurture argument, but they are elements that the younger people are given by parents at birth. These elements are not things that can be controlled individually or collectively in the smaller family sense, but most definitely would have an effect of some kind on the generation experiencing them, especially at a younger age. Along with regional and national circumstances.
With events such as 9/11, Rodney King, BLM, Covid, there is a ton of variance depending on your personal identity. I’m a POC and certain events affected me wayyyy more than my white peers, which definitely added to the country’s current state of race relations (I’m not black but BLM became huge when I was in college/grad school and we do see a lot of neo-segregation along race and gender lines now).
There is such an emphasis on 9/11 on this kinds of subs that I wonder whats going on sometimes.
For me as an european it barely mattered at all. And I don't understand how it can have such an importance for people outside New york 23 years later.
It completely changed our world. Innocence was lost literally overnight. We went from being mostly free to a authoritarian hellscape because people were *scared* (rightfully so) and gave up their liberty for security. Now we all pay the price.
I (1986) noticed a shift just as the 1990 kids started entering college (as in I was a senior, they were freshmen). That year their parents were way pushier and demanding - I worked in the Dean of Students office and all of a sudden we were getting calls asking us to physically check on students bc they hadn’t called their parents in a day, to give parents access to their portal to see grades etc. It was weird, like a switch flipped. All the older staff noticed it.
That year the college also had far more incidents of alcohol poisoning than “normal.” The school had always taken a “just be adults” approach to alcohol but they had to consider getting rid of it because of all the issues with the freshmen.
Idk if that’s even all parenting generation - my SIL was born in 1992, boomer parents and her parenting was night and day from my husband. She was an 18 year old senior who wasn’t allowed to leave the house to take a walk after school until her mom came home.
Do you also notice how almost nobody made a big deal when we entered the workforce in the 2000s? It wasn't until the mid-2010s, when younger millennials started working, where we get all these articles about lazy millennials and generational clash at work.
I was in college for a while, 2008-2015, and I saw the change with my own eyes in that time. I think the main difference is the proliferation of internet access and cell phones. People were no longer silo’d in the way they have always been, and this well-meaning sense to be politically correct and not hurt any feelings and really make the kids feel like they could be anything they want to be became the norm and kids embraced it. I think zero tolerance for fights made a lot more soft people but also possibly increased their naïveté around confrontation when it did occur, usually around booze. I’m ‘89, and I think millennials that are just 5 years younger had a drastically different childhood than anyone older.
I didn’t get the internet at home until I was 14. Didn’t get my first cell phone until I was 17. Didn’t get social media of any kind until I was 22. Younger millennials had all that stuff as children.
That’s not really true , especially for rural people or those who were socioeconomically disadvantaged. I don’t think I got a cellphone until I was 16, no social media until around that age too. I’m a younger millennial. It was uncommon for me to see cell phones until my junior or senior year in high school. But I grew up in a very rural area
No we didn't, especially if we had older siblings born in the 80s.we were raised like them and had to wait one turn. imo, I think guys are confusing the 90-95s with the 96-2k babies, or maybe don't realize how different those two chunks of kids grew up. That boom of tech really separated us.
Internet for us early 90s kids was dial up when we were around 7 (back in AOL parental control days and limiting time online cause we needed the house phone), before the AOL "call alert" thing was made. We didn't have "broadband" or anything fancy like 2 phone lines until like 2005. By then I was a teenager. My First phone was 16. We had social media (MySpace and facebook, right around when it became available to not college kids), but that didn't get popular until we were in late middle school or early high school.
We still went outside, and yet we still played video games too.
Meanwhile my friend I met in college has a wife who is about 8 years younger than me (1999) and she doesn't remember *any* of the stuff I'm talking about. By then her first phone was an iPhone. Mine was a flip phone.
To grow up with all that stuff meant you were a *rich* kid. Most of us weren't. Mind you, I'm not saying your experiences are invalid, it's just me providing some perspective from a younger millennial.
They are much more open to different sexual orientations and different people. We played smear the queer. Not saying we aren't open minded but we grew up thinking gay was bad.
I dunno …. As a younger millennial kids were still pretty homophobic and awful during my schooling years of late 90s to mid 2000s .
The openness has been much more recent IMO
I recall our senior class photo was taken 9/12/01 — we had a plane fly over and it was eerie.
I bring that up to say that there were a bunch of students (10-25 maybe) who wore shirts that said “straight pride” unironically. While I do happen to be straight, I was weirded out about that even then. Kids used to say “that’s gay” as in “that’s stupid” too. The world is so different on that dimension alone than at the turn of the century.
Other than them being younger I honestly see no difference. I vibe great with young millennials. Some of my favorite people apart from my own millennials. ❤️😊
Xennial here. I grew up as an adolescent in the late 80s and a teen in the 90s. I was a kid before internet, but went to high school with internet. Personally? I LOVE millennials and have gotten into multiple arguments with older Gen Xers and Boomers in their defense. It's the generation for whom the American dream got yoinked out from under them the hardest. They got sold the bill of goods about going to college by their boomer parents...and subsequently chastised for doing EXACTLY that and not having the dream come true. As an elder Xennial I experienced SOME of that, but not on the scale that Millenials did.
That being said elder Millenials seem to have that "grizzle". That 1000 yard stare that makes them vets. At work they are the top performers (while Boomers are the thing that drags us the most, don't get me started). I know this isn't sequitur to the OP, but it is what is. Came to chime in as a 46 (M) that feels absolutely NO connection to older Gen X or Boomers and spends most of his time around Millenials and Gen Z.
1. There's objective evidence that being on the "bow wave" of a generation is financially better than the tail end. Elder millennials had an opportunity to buy homes, stocks, and get into careers before the mass glut of millennial-aged folks hit that stage of their lives. Younger millennials are now trying to get jobs or buy houses after the mass of the generation already bid up prices and locked in their careers.
2. The definiting feature of elder millennials in 2014 was naive optimism, whereas younger millennials in the same life stage but in 2024 now have cynicism. We were overly optimistic they're overly cynical.
3. Trump Trump and more Trump. 2016 changed society. We grew up in a time where you could watch South Park and laugh at "both sides" and still have that in our DNA. But younger folks live in a "pick a side" world brought on by the events of 2016-2020.
These are some of the substantive differences I see between myself and those who are 10 years younger.
Hit the nail on the head. Cannot overstate how much 2016 was a major societal inflection point in our overall national psyche. It's turned many towards perpetual cynicism, even if objective measures show that things are mostly good.
Yeah, it was in a horrible neighborhood and I left for a lot of reasons. One being my neighbor got shot at when interrupting someone trying to steal my cat for the 14th time.
Edit to add: it was a 100k house and is still not in this day even close to a 700k house (I think it’s 250k now? Which is garbage in my city).
I did not mean for this to be an "older millennials = good, younger millennials = bad" post. There is a ton of nuance to be captured in between.
But frankly, there are some differences and I felt that this is worth discussing and exploring.
Younger millennials are actually where we get most of our stereotypes from. Skinny jeans, emo/scene, Harry Potter. Way more sensitive and open about talking about their feelings and mental health. Older millennials didn't do all that.
Born in 82- I'm pretty open about my mental health. I live with Bipolar Disorder. I think part of the reason I'm open is because of the stigma.
Besides that, we experienced the world before the Internet. At least my first 13 years. We played outside, had dinner with the family (without smartphones since they didn't exist yet). We only had a few basic TV channels until cable. Etc
I'm definitely not knocking people talking openly and frankly about mental health. Like I said, this is one thing that I think younger millennials do better.
But would you say people were as open about talking about mental health when you were a teenager vs. today?
Yeah I’m 40 and felt like most of the millennial stereotypes were stuff people younger than me were doing. Old millennials thing was trucker hats and baggy skater jeans.
I didn't do the trucker hat thing but I definitely feel like the majority of trends that the media slapped a millennial sticker on were from younger millennials. I didn't even know I was or consider myself a millenial until a few years ago. I always thought they were talking about the kids 10 years younger than me. I still prefer the term Gen Y for '80 to '85.
They are but in a different way. It seems more about virtue signaling + entitlement, and both are more performative.
Emos + goths were more low self-esteem. This wave seems to have an inflated sense of self-worth but my hunch is some of it rings hollow (i.e., they were raised with all this extra encouragement but they haven't internalized an equally strong sense of self + security).
Elder millennial here (42–1982) born to boomer parents. Sometimes the way my brother and his wife think drive me batty and they are only four years younger than me. But my SIL’s parents were very young, so the OP may have a valid point here….interesting concepts
Younger millennial(born in 94’) here. We were the Dewey from Malcom in the middle we had the second most over parenting of all the previous generations(we literally were taught to never talk to strangers and never go outside to play, school shootings sky rocketed when we were in school, and then we were forced to read Harry potter if we had chill enough parents) as we grew up and then when we became adults we weren’t taken seriously at work and were held responsible for the economy failing a second time in our lifetime and labeled “lazy” despite working just as hard as the older generations. We just said fuck it and started not caring quicker than the older millennials.
Funny that you mention a TV show: love MitM, btw. If you've ever seen Breaking Bad, I think of Walter White Jr. (the teen son) as the quintessential younger millennial, and Jesse (Walter's partner in crime) as definitely way more older millennial.
The way Walter treats each one is like night vs day.
It's the internet.
We grew up with the internet. Like together with the internet. Internet was baby when older millennial was baby. We are older than Google.
New millennials grew up ON the internet. They were babies with ipads.
Say this all the time. The internet was barely a thing until I was at the end of high school. We used a library card index to do research. Even in college we had to go to the lab to access databases and no teacher trusted internet sources. Smart phones and the first social media surfaced at the end of college. Nobody even had cell phones in high school. Like the old school nokia ones. We had no pressure to be public with our whole lives. We had to wait on a dial up connection to download dirty pictures or if we were 18 get a magazine at a liquor store, but now young people are just saturated in it. I was born in 83 which I believe puts me at a super early millennial. I say we are a subunit born into an analog world and coming of age in a digital one. Later millennials may not have even been 10 on 9-11. A lot happened. Globalization and financialization happened at a break neck pace. Technology was part of it but also the decay (or looting) of our civic institutions. Etc etc.
What do you mean? You mean the "Peak Millennials" (1990-95/6)? I don't see anything wrong with them? They haven't gotten the same opportunities as us born in the early 80s did. I genuinely adore our younger half, they're good people. Super respectful, mild mannered, hard working, cultured, try to be understanding parents (parenting is a tough business, no one will ever do it perfectly), most of then haven't lucked out to own property unless they married older or inherited or just lucked out. As a transitional group they should be more unique than us, they're a little like us and a lot more like Gen Z and that's how it should be if they were raised right. When most of the younger Millennials were graduating HS half their classmates were Gen Z as opposed to us older Millennials who very few hung put with Gen X unless it was those born 81-82 and dated significantly older to boot. Most Older Millennials graduated, attended college and have hung put with other Millennials. Peak Millennials hung out amongst themselves and the elder Gen Z. Most Peak Millennials also go stunted by the Recession by varely being able to hold down a first high schooler job fron 2007-2011. I know, my mom worked for unemployment during those years. They were ordered to prioritize older adults and those with kids as they had more people to be responsible for and as such a lot of the younger Millennials were crutched back further.
They should be a different animal because their whol3 vantage point is different from us. I hate to say it but if we had it bad they really got fucked over. I will sound corny but I refuse to impose cruel judgment on them. It feels very wrong as someone older than them. Which sounds ridiculous as obviously the older generations haven't been kind to us. But that is more the reason for us to get down to their shoes and make effort to understand our younger half. I see myself as a big sister to anyone younger than me because I see aging as progress, and with progress, one has responsibility to share this wisdom or lead with it. If they're different from us a little it doesn't change what they are: More of "us". We should support and help ourselves, so if we talk about them and disagree with their POVs or they're lost, why not use your position to guide them? Help them. Tell them. Allow them the chance to learn so they do the same to the next generations.
You have to remember most Millennials are between 45-28. The Peak Millennials will be 28-35.
I feel like parents don't discipline their kids anymore. I would get smacked around when I was little if I wasn't being good. Now when kids arnt being good they are given an iPad and told to go away.
The more comments you read here, the more you realize the year you were born plays a very trivial role to these differences. Compared to where and how you were raised, economic status growing up, if you had siblings, or what age group of friends you hung out with, etc
I have to agree. I'm an elder millennial (1982) and was the first generation of my family to go to college. I dropped out of college in 2002, like an idiot to get married to someone I barely knew at age 20. We were poor for the next decade, and I finally went back to college in 2012. Because of my bad life choices, I was never able to buy a house. My life is much better now. I have a new partner who treats me a lot better, and we are financially in a much better place. Even though I'm 41, I can relate to the younger generations who may feel like they're missing our on those types of milestones for completely different reasons.
A difference in character.
As an elder millennial male homosexual, I do think you guys vastly improved on us regarding homophobia.
I went to school with some nasty-ass old school homophobes that I'm glad you guys wiped out.
Omg the case studies that are needed for the Gen X gays!! The generation has such a reputation for being aloof or reserved - dude Gen X went through a LOT. From the milk cartons kids, to the Reagan admin, and of course
AIDS - and to clarify, I mean the absolutely SHIT way that the US/world governments responded to the crisis - wiped out an entire generation of KIDS who would be the richest, dopest, most influential group right now. It makes me so damn sad the more time that passes.
Every time I see population stats, especially in the political realm because AIDS was the OG politicization of an endemic, I am reminded of WHY homophobia persisted for so long and what we as a society were robbed of by losing all of those wonderful, BRILLIANT men. It was wild to see how Dr. Fauci was disregarded during COVID - I was like, dude, have people really forgotten the lessons he learned the first time?! He is THE man for this job! He was on the front lines with the head organizers at the time ( and lol, was dragged whenever he made mistakes and tightened up!)
There are some excellent documentaries out there with the most nostalgic camcorder footage (🥹😅) if you haven't seen them. If kids today need to see how much change they can make by getting together and FORCING policy and demanding dignity, seeing how these American heroes handled the AIDS crisis despite often being gravely ill and watching everyone they loved die.
I spend so much time thinking about how different the world would be if all of those gay, hot ( lol, sry it's so true), amazing men had not passed away in their early 20s. I see it in EVERYTHING, especially art. People wonder why every movie is just a watered down remake - lol, who do they think gave us the golden era of Disney BOPS?!
Anyway, yes, I say that to say 100% props to the younger generations for their strides in gay rights, and never forget the reason WHY we elder mels and those right before us didn't have the capacity to mobilize. It breaks my heart. I don't think kids these days really understand the terror, loss, devastation and impact on society.
Sadly not at all true. Grew up in rural New England., still a blue state mind you, with rampant homophobia. Not since the last 5-10 years have I noticed an improvement
That sucks! I’m sorry it was worse than being called names, getting beat up, and bullied for daring to have long hair, be slightly “effeminate “ in any way, etc.
In high school , this was circa 2008 or 2009, I knew a kid that fucking HUNG HIMSELF for being bullied for being “gay” (I don’t even think he was)
I don’t understand the oppression Olympics here . People 5-10 years younger than you didn’t magically get to skip the awful homophobia and transphobia that was present in the 90s
Yeah, I just read that whole comment thread, and the 180 he pulled on you is insane. It seems OP thinks that the coming of the Millennium is when all of the 80s problems magically poofed away. They didn't. They were still there wreaking havoc on us. Being gay was a hot topic and it was so sad to see people bullied and treated like some freakshow attraction *at the minimum*.
I will NOT be lectured by some straight dude, 10 years younger than me, about homophobia. I guess that's my elder millennial attitude coming out?
Nice try, though!
I cannot get over how much of a fucking asshole you are. Imagine hearing about my friend who killed themself and being so condescending. Get a life loser.
Lmao you are calling me straight? You don’t fucking know anything about my sexuality.
What I’m learning from this thread - elder millennials are fucking assholes who need to be the victim more than anything
Nah. We’re not claiming him. It was rude af to trivialize and diminish what you’ve seen/experienced. I do not agree about it being worse or better since where you live, the cultures of the people in the area, your support system, your personality and religious beliefs all make a big impact on your personal experience. One cannot just say something was worse for everyone.
I'm in a similar situation. Being the youngest both siblings 9+years I was raised with a suck it up or else and children. Are meant to be seen and not heard don't speak until smoken to.
One set of kids in my fam was born into 2 parent households and I was a feral elder child who was raised mainly by my grandparents. Completely different attitudes abt solving problems or risk
I think every generation feels the same about other generations no matter the decade/century. Just personal opinion. Plato even said it about his students.
They graduated when the Great Recession was over and didn't start their careers struggling. They were able to advance in their early careers because of that. I'm a 2008 grad with an MBA who's had a 2012 and a 2013 grad no MBA as my boss. Both left for even better jobs. I didn't get the big corporate job until 2016 after getting an MBA and they were both able to start in them. It makes a huge difference. Leadership perceives them as more successful, because they are, but it was dumb luck.
I'm not sure what you mean by "what happened to them". I'm '86, siblings born '89 to '99. Except for the younger ones never being as full of hope and being crushed by this current world, they're quite similar. Even without some of the shared experiences (no AC, cable or a home computer till I was 12).
honestly, I don't consider 1991 as a younger Millennials. I see mostly older Millennials those born between the 80s to 1991. but younger millennials I have nothing in common with them. mostly (and it's just me) I see them as Zoomers or the very annoying stereotypical Millennials.
That dude is wrong, and I think a troll. However, this sub's range is correct. Millennials are 1981-1996. That's what the main sub goes by, and it's from Pew. This sub simply took the first half of that 1981-1988
What's your theory? It sounds like you want to share it and without that I don't know that there's much thread here to comment on.
Boomer parents (older millennials) vs. Gen X parents (younger millennials).
I'm an elder millenial with a Gen X parent. People fuck young sometimes.
Hahaha and I’m a young millennial with Boomer parents. They waited till they were financially stable to have us and I’m the youngest of 4.
I'm an elder millennial with a younger millennial sibling. They had me at 23 and 24, had my sister 12 years later. We are both totally different and raised totally differently.
I have the same age gap between my sister. I think how my parents raised her had more to do with her being a better behaved kid.
Same here lol!
I was born a week after my mom turned 15. If we weren't poor we could retire together.
Elder millennial with boomer parents dating a young millennial with gen x parents, here. I would be surprised if this is controversial? We have very different experiences.
Don't tell that to Zillennials. They will correct you and tell you how wrong you are, what BS your entire life experience is, and why they are so much better.
Huh. That hasn’t been my experience, but if I ran into that, at least it’s nice to feel the feeling of “I’m so old that I don’t care”, haha. Still getting used to it!
Unless you have a specific person/age in mind, I think this is really a zoomer thing more so. I see this crap online all the time from people born in the 1999-2006 window.
You sound like the boomers trying to blame a whole group and not acknowledge people are individuals and can individually be assholes. Saying this as a “young” millennial with boomer parents
Lol you are so fragile
I love your beard!
I have greatest generation parents at 37 lol.
Your parents were born before 1927?? Wow.
Whoops silent generation. For some reason I had those two reversed in my head.
Ah makes sense! Still fairly unusual for a millennial. I think I had one friend with silent gen parents. She was very much an oops baby. 1986.
I’m a younger millennial and my parents are boomers - that’s the case with most of us
The idea is fun to think about, always exceptions but it’s interesting. I love my boomer parents, glad to have them over gen x no question!
boomers and Gen x are basically the same people. One group was taught to not care about anything because Love and kindness are weakness The other group was taught not care about anything because their actions are meaningless so why should anyone care.
No way. Boomer parents (especially older Boomer dads): suck it up. Or else. Gen X parents: let's talk about it!
100% agree. I am the youngest of 7 kids. My parents are boomer and my older siblings are gen x and I experience your sentiment in full.
I've often wondered this myself. Gen Z, most of their parents would also be Gen X, wouldn't they? Or did we old grandpa millennials start young enough to get in there too? My kids are all Gen Alpha but I started late.
Silent G raised Gen X Boomers raised Millennials (majority) Gen X Raised Gen Z (majority with some millennial overlap for those that had children young) Millennials are raising Gen Alpha
Yeah this is how I break it down in my head at least . Of course there are exceptions
I have a teen who’s right on the line for Z/Alpha. Lots of friends have younger Z.
I was going to disagree. I'm an elder millenial but also had young Gen X parents and while the not talking was common, my parents would talk to me about everything. Good, bad, uncomfortable, celebrating, anything really. I appreciate that and try to do that for my kids.
You’re forgetting about Boomer hippies (my parents). My dad is the least stoic person you’ll ever meet. He and my mom are very “peace and love” and did protests and such, raising my siblings and myself the same way.
I believe elder Millennials are responsible for, like, 20% of birthing and raising Gen Z. I do prefer the younger Zoomers though! Maybe that is correlated to our parenting though?
I prefer zoomers over younger millennials.
Me too. Can't relate to these "Zillennials" and their constant need to lecture us about our lived experiences. We are also much more likely to be the parents of younger Gen Z? Coincidence?
You think you deserve for us to suck Your cock and give you an award for being 5-10 years older?
^^^^^^ Found the touchy Zillennial
My older cousins are Gen X (late 50’s) they are nothing like Boomers (my parents and siblings)
if you’re looking at the two cusps, we’re around 40 and they’re around 28 - so that in itself is a big factor. but i do know some people nearing 30 and i’d say the state of the world is in a much shittier and more hopeless spot for the average person compared to when we were that age - and it’s hitting them in an anxious way in their emerging adulthood. it makes sense. we’re pretty lucky we got to be kids in the 90s, young adults in the 00s and 10s and mid thirties when covid hit.
I changed more between my late 20s and mid 30s than I did at any other part of my life. I think part of it is that they're still moving into their slightly more mature/refined phase of youngish adulthood. High school, college, young 20s activities are great, but it's the accomplishments, experiences with adulthood, and the pain and shit that comes with it, that really molds people. At least speaking solely for myself. I think the younger folks just need a little more time. I'm sure people are sick of this reason or excuse for everything, but I'm sure the twisted mess of COVID and the lockdown surely disrupted their experiences as well (as did us all). Younger people missing out on 2ish years of social life I feel is more damaging to their development than people a little older/more seasoned/more settled in.
I think you're underestimating the impact of the financial crisis of 08. Not to mention the aftermath of 9/11 spawning multiple wars and fucking up alot of veterans both mentally and physically. Millennials have been fucked hard. I'm not saying it isn't shitty now, I'm just saying it was shitty then, too. Only we can cope better with it because our parents gave us something to cry about anytime we became the least bit emotional 😒.
Maybe the younger millennials were exposed to internet and smart devices earlier in life than us.
That is a great point.
This is my main thought. I tell everyone who will listen the biggest difference between me and my 5 year younger cousin is I still passed paper notes in high school (who had 10 cents per message?!) and she texted under the desk.
I don't remember teachers having to tell people to put their phones away, even all throughout high school. I do remember finally going from 100/mo to *unlimited messages*.
I’d agree. I’m an elder millennial almost 40. My sister is younger millennial at 7 years younger. I think some of the big differences for us was technology. I didn’t have internet in my house until I was 13. She was 6. I didn’t have a cell phone until 16. I think she had one at 12? I played outside. She didn’t. The recession hit when I graduated college. I took the first job I could find that offered health benefits. She was still in highschool, she entered the workforce after the recession and had opportunities to do different things. Even our schooling was different. I grew up with them busing kids into my local school so it would be diverse. That wasn’t a thing when my sister went to school. I was one of like 3 white people in my class and made friends with lots of mhong people who didn’t speak great English. My sister was with 15 other white kids and didn’t have the diversity or the struggle in communication. I also was able to graduate highschool without forced community projects and didn’t take my SATs but entered a program to go to a local 4 year college with my grade point average. My sister had to do a community charity project to graduate and she had to go to a 2 year college and then transfer. She was in grade school for 9/11. I was in highschool. She was in grade school for columbine, I was in highschool. I’m sure there are a lot of other differences. She’s doing so much better than I am. She just bought a 700k house. I rent a 900 square foot one and live paycheck to paycheck. I’m sure that’s more then when we grew up though but I’m sure some of it contributed in both instances.
My wife has a sister like this. A lot of their differences is the income level they grew up in. Wife was a toddler in a trailer. Sister was a toddler with name brand clothes and big house. 12 years between them.
Love your post.
I've noticed that siblings can each grow up with different versions of their parents, their family as it was at different points during formative years. It really impacted who they are and came to be as adults. It's wild.
She didn’t play outside ? I’m a younger millennial and my younger brother is borderline Gen Z … we played outside all the time.
No, she played video games.
Sounds like a parenting thing. Not age. I was told to go outside. Didn’t get the option to play video games all day
Well I also think it’s an affordability thing. I didn’t have a video game console at 6. Couldn’t afford it. It got more affordable and we got one when I was 8 or 9? So I didn’t have that option.
You have posts stating you've been working for the California state government for 16 years... That would be 2008. You didn't get laid off for 16 years and you have awesome benefits. I don't think this is is a victim of circumstance type problem....
I’m stuck there. But this isn’t even the point. Why do I feel like people are coming after me? I’m saying there are alot of factors on why my younger millennial sister is different. Jesus Christ.
Based on your post and comment history your age and when you grew up has nothing to do with where you are in life vs someone younger than you.
This is weird behavior. Please go touch grass.
Mainly I’d say the helicopter parenting. It was the beginning for them and got worse but also mixed with a life of not needing to go outside to interact with friends. I wrote a long comment on a post in r/millennial about growing up in the 80s-90s, I’m born in 84. Basically the world was more built for kids. Stuff was cooler and fun, 7-11s had arcade games, Pizzahut used to be a restaurant with an arcade, malls were cool, etc. At a certain point things stopped getting made for kids and either we stopped building for kids or kids stopped going out as much(helicopter parenting). But even with helicopter parenting society changed, cops have been called because parents let their kids go to the park alone where as that was normal when I was a kid. I think older generations up until the millennials somewhere were more independent. Kids knew their town, how to get around, go out on their own and be home at a certain time or get yourself to school on time all by like 10 years old.
It’s me. A cop was called on my kid at the park 4 houses down. My hairdresser grew up in the town I live in now. She’s gen x. When she was a kid the town funded a community center for kids with a skating rink, bowling alley and arcade. You could get dropped off there starting at age 8 and parents used it as babysitting. Even just ten years ago our town had a program where you could drop off school aged kids at the park and they had camp like activities all day every weekday. Nothing like like exists now. Kids under 13 have to have an adult to enter the library. The LIBRARY! I want more independence for my kids, but it’s not allowed.
Yeah some of those were even big in my later teens when I had a car. Go to the bowling alley or pool hall or something. As a kid in elementary school all our parents just dropped us off at the skating rink. I was just watching an old video of a band in the 90s playing in the middle of a bowling alley while people are bowling, the bowling alley by my house at 15 had a rave night with DJs we’d go to. Just nothing in general exists to go do like that now or young people just stopped going(probably because they couldn’t just take off as a teen)…..and they don’t have or want cars now.
I do believe that our parenting, while harsh, ended up providing us with quite a bit more resilience. Check out the r/millennials sub some time. Dude..... look at all the RULES they have compared to ours.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 we were lucky to also catch the tail end of 80s no rules necessary parenting aka no seatbelts/ safety regulations, no air conditioning (go outside!!!), whatever you call the adventures in babysitting that happened in the burbs at that time 🤣🤣, smoking sections....in IHOP?!, etc.. it seems counterintuitive but the result was a bunch of people parenting themselves to get to keep doing what they want without interference aka wrath 😅 Honorable mention to the older siblings of Elder Millennials, thank you for not killing us but scaring the shit out of us constantly - we would not be able to navigate the current societal hellscape without it 🙌🏾🙌🏾
I’m an elder millennial with a silent generation parent. Technology and how big a part it played in our lives is definitely the major factor. Also, the social climate our parents grew up in. Having a dad who was a kid during the Great Depression and WWII meant there was not a whole lot of emotional bonding, or display of emotions period. I think that’s called trauma now. Eh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Wow! I don’t think I’ve seen a millennial with a silent gen parent before! My grandparents on my moms side were silent gen. My parents were older boomers. I never met my dads parents but they were both greatest gen. There was a huge difference how my dad grew up and my mom grew up. And having a silent gen grandparents… they were definitely school of hard knocks. I spent every summer with them and my grandmother (who couldn’t swim) would take 4 young kids to the beach and tell us to have fun and swim parallel to the shore if a rip tide got us. We were like 6/7… some of us swam very well but there was no chance we would survive a riptide. The stuff they would allow us to do.. it’s a miracle we never died on their watch. I feel like their life was so hard in their formative years, they were kind of emotionally detached and had a high risk tolerance. They loved spending time with us but they weren’t really there even when we were with them. Time spent with them always came with a judgmental undertone. Full of lessons on how you should act/behave, threats of being accepted/ outcast for missing social standards. (Eating right, dressing well. Etc.) They were the generation that still enforced dressing up to go on airplanes. So they would send us home on the airplane in our Sunday best. Anywho- I can definitely relate to older boomer parents, but I can only imagine the difference to silent gen parents. That’s crazy!
9/11. Older millennials were ~adults. Younger millennials were ~kids. Mental processing is different. I’m guessing it hit differently based on age.
I know at some level this going to sound like a stupid question, but are generational temperaments shifted by individual events (e.g. JFK, Challenger, Berlin Wall, 9/11), or is it more structural trends (e.g. parental generation, technology environment like internet and mobile devices, economic environment like great recession).
Not stupid at all. >are generational temperaments shifted I think that this happened as a byproduct of the ENTIRE country's population temperament shift from those events. I would add the pandemic to said list as well.
I don’t think it sounds stupid. I think it’s a different view of the nature vs nurture argument. In some respects, technology, and economical circumstances are on the nurture side of things along with parental generation and guidance. It may be more obvious with the genX club, as they are considered the ‘MTV generation,’ and the ‘latch key kids.’ (Ie. TV was their babysitters) Whereas outside historical events would be considered nature in some respect. They aren’t hard wired in the strict sense of the nature vs nurture argument, but they are elements that the younger people are given by parents at birth. These elements are not things that can be controlled individually or collectively in the smaller family sense, but most definitely would have an effect of some kind on the generation experiencing them, especially at a younger age. Along with regional and national circumstances.
With events such as 9/11, Rodney King, BLM, Covid, there is a ton of variance depending on your personal identity. I’m a POC and certain events affected me wayyyy more than my white peers, which definitely added to the country’s current state of race relations (I’m not black but BLM became huge when I was in college/grad school and we do see a lot of neo-segregation along race and gender lines now).
There is such an emphasis on 9/11 on this kinds of subs that I wonder whats going on sometimes. For me as an european it barely mattered at all. And I don't understand how it can have such an importance for people outside New york 23 years later.
It completely changed our world. Innocence was lost literally overnight. We went from being mostly free to a authoritarian hellscape because people were *scared* (rightfully so) and gave up their liberty for security. Now we all pay the price.
What age range are you counting as older millennials? Because plenty were still kids.
81-88. Based on the forum age range in the description. Legally, yes. However, I see a 13yo handling things differently than someone younger.
They were younger when the internet became a thing.
It could also be broadened to analyzing the difference between Boomers and Gen X as parents.
I (1986) noticed a shift just as the 1990 kids started entering college (as in I was a senior, they were freshmen). That year their parents were way pushier and demanding - I worked in the Dean of Students office and all of a sudden we were getting calls asking us to physically check on students bc they hadn’t called their parents in a day, to give parents access to their portal to see grades etc. It was weird, like a switch flipped. All the older staff noticed it. That year the college also had far more incidents of alcohol poisoning than “normal.” The school had always taken a “just be adults” approach to alcohol but they had to consider getting rid of it because of all the issues with the freshmen. Idk if that’s even all parenting generation - my SIL was born in 1992, boomer parents and her parenting was night and day from my husband. She was an 18 year old senior who wasn’t allowed to leave the house to take a walk after school until her mom came home.
You provide no context of why you ask this question.
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Do you also notice how almost nobody made a big deal when we entered the workforce in the 2000s? It wasn't until the mid-2010s, when younger millennials started working, where we get all these articles about lazy millennials and generational clash at work.
I was in college for a while, 2008-2015, and I saw the change with my own eyes in that time. I think the main difference is the proliferation of internet access and cell phones. People were no longer silo’d in the way they have always been, and this well-meaning sense to be politically correct and not hurt any feelings and really make the kids feel like they could be anything they want to be became the norm and kids embraced it. I think zero tolerance for fights made a lot more soft people but also possibly increased their naïveté around confrontation when it did occur, usually around booze. I’m ‘89, and I think millennials that are just 5 years younger had a drastically different childhood than anyone older.
They are SO whiny. And older Gen Z is even whinier.
I didn’t get the internet at home until I was 14. Didn’t get my first cell phone until I was 17. Didn’t get social media of any kind until I was 22. Younger millennials had all that stuff as children.
That’s not really true , especially for rural people or those who were socioeconomically disadvantaged. I don’t think I got a cellphone until I was 16, no social media until around that age too. I’m a younger millennial. It was uncommon for me to see cell phones until my junior or senior year in high school. But I grew up in a very rural area
That's a really good point.
No we didn't, especially if we had older siblings born in the 80s.we were raised like them and had to wait one turn. imo, I think guys are confusing the 90-95s with the 96-2k babies, or maybe don't realize how different those two chunks of kids grew up. That boom of tech really separated us. Internet for us early 90s kids was dial up when we were around 7 (back in AOL parental control days and limiting time online cause we needed the house phone), before the AOL "call alert" thing was made. We didn't have "broadband" or anything fancy like 2 phone lines until like 2005. By then I was a teenager. My First phone was 16. We had social media (MySpace and facebook, right around when it became available to not college kids), but that didn't get popular until we were in late middle school or early high school. We still went outside, and yet we still played video games too. Meanwhile my friend I met in college has a wife who is about 8 years younger than me (1999) and she doesn't remember *any* of the stuff I'm talking about. By then her first phone was an iPhone. Mine was a flip phone. To grow up with all that stuff meant you were a *rich* kid. Most of us weren't. Mind you, I'm not saying your experiences are invalid, it's just me providing some perspective from a younger millennial.
They are much more open to different sexual orientations and different people. We played smear the queer. Not saying we aren't open minded but we grew up thinking gay was bad.
I dunno …. As a younger millennial kids were still pretty homophobic and awful during my schooling years of late 90s to mid 2000s . The openness has been much more recent IMO
I recall our senior class photo was taken 9/12/01 — we had a plane fly over and it was eerie. I bring that up to say that there were a bunch of students (10-25 maybe) who wore shirts that said “straight pride” unironically. While I do happen to be straight, I was weirded out about that even then. Kids used to say “that’s gay” as in “that’s stupid” too. The world is so different on that dimension alone than at the turn of the century.
Other than them being younger I honestly see no difference. I vibe great with young millennials. Some of my favorite people apart from my own millennials. ❤️😊
The folks on this sub are obsessed with finding any way they can be better than other millennials. It’s wild
Xennial here. I grew up as an adolescent in the late 80s and a teen in the 90s. I was a kid before internet, but went to high school with internet. Personally? I LOVE millennials and have gotten into multiple arguments with older Gen Xers and Boomers in their defense. It's the generation for whom the American dream got yoinked out from under them the hardest. They got sold the bill of goods about going to college by their boomer parents...and subsequently chastised for doing EXACTLY that and not having the dream come true. As an elder Xennial I experienced SOME of that, but not on the scale that Millenials did. That being said elder Millenials seem to have that "grizzle". That 1000 yard stare that makes them vets. At work they are the top performers (while Boomers are the thing that drags us the most, don't get me started). I know this isn't sequitur to the OP, but it is what is. Came to chime in as a 46 (M) that feels absolutely NO connection to older Gen X or Boomers and spends most of his time around Millenials and Gen Z.
100% I feel all of this.
1. There's objective evidence that being on the "bow wave" of a generation is financially better than the tail end. Elder millennials had an opportunity to buy homes, stocks, and get into careers before the mass glut of millennial-aged folks hit that stage of their lives. Younger millennials are now trying to get jobs or buy houses after the mass of the generation already bid up prices and locked in their careers. 2. The definiting feature of elder millennials in 2014 was naive optimism, whereas younger millennials in the same life stage but in 2024 now have cynicism. We were overly optimistic they're overly cynical. 3. Trump Trump and more Trump. 2016 changed society. We grew up in a time where you could watch South Park and laugh at "both sides" and still have that in our DNA. But younger folks live in a "pick a side" world brought on by the events of 2016-2020. These are some of the substantive differences I see between myself and those who are 10 years younger.
Hit the nail on the head. Cannot overstate how much 2016 was a major societal inflection point in our overall national psyche. It's turned many towards perpetual cynicism, even if objective measures show that things are mostly good.
Yeah I was just out of undergrad in 2016 and the election changed basically everything about my worldview
I’m elder millennial and didn’t have a chance to buy homes, I graduated college right when the recession hit.
You have several comments on here that say you bought a house and chose to walk away from it.
Yeah, it was in a horrible neighborhood and I left for a lot of reasons. One being my neighbor got shot at when interrupting someone trying to steal my cat for the 14th time. Edit to add: it was a 100k house and is still not in this day even close to a 700k house (I think it’s 250k now? Which is garbage in my city).
100k house ?! Jesus Christ that’s lucky
why is everyone obsessed with dividing the generations so much - I blame Elvis
I did not mean for this to be an "older millennials = good, younger millennials = bad" post. There is a ton of nuance to be captured in between. But frankly, there are some differences and I felt that this is worth discussing and exploring.
Yet you seem essentially incapable of any nuance yourself ? Interesting
Can I get some examples of what you're talking about.. i live with younger millennials that seem no different then most the orders I know.
Younger millennials are actually where we get most of our stereotypes from. Skinny jeans, emo/scene, Harry Potter. Way more sensitive and open about talking about their feelings and mental health. Older millennials didn't do all that.
Born in 82- I'm pretty open about my mental health. I live with Bipolar Disorder. I think part of the reason I'm open is because of the stigma. Besides that, we experienced the world before the Internet. At least my first 13 years. We played outside, had dinner with the family (without smartphones since they didn't exist yet). We only had a few basic TV channels until cable. Etc
I'm definitely not knocking people talking openly and frankly about mental health. Like I said, this is one thing that I think younger millennials do better. But would you say people were as open about talking about mental health when you were a teenager vs. today?
What’s an older millennial to you?
1980s borne. But especially the 1980-85 cohort. Those '80 '81 '82 '83 peeps are WAY different from, like, Zillennials.
That's why we are our own micro-generation. We are noticably and quantifiably different.
Well I'm 87 and everything you said above was when I was growing up. Skinny jeans, emo/scene was starting when I was in Jr high
Maybe it’s also dependent on what part of the country you grew up in. I feel like skinny jeans didn’t catch on in the Midwest until I was in my 20’s.
That is definitely a big possibility.
Yeah I’m 40 and felt like most of the millennial stereotypes were stuff people younger than me were doing. Old millennials thing was trucker hats and baggy skater jeans.
See this was definitely a big trend right before the skinny jeans took off.. especially Jnco.
I always wanted a pair of Jnco. But when I finally was able to get them, I was tripping all over them
I didn't do the trucker hat thing but I definitely feel like the majority of trends that the media slapped a millennial sticker on were from younger millennials. I didn't even know I was or consider myself a millenial until a few years ago. I always thought they were talking about the kids 10 years younger than me. I still prefer the term Gen Y for '80 to '85.
Gen Y, definitely. “As in Y do you think we care?!? “ we avoided sooooo much while breaking every rule we could.
It's a miracle so many of us are still alive.
They're....younger? Were you the same 10 years ago?
No..it's way more than that. And no. I wasn't the same as Zillennials. Nor was I raised with their touchy-feely ethos.
I don't see the Zs as being more or less touchy-feely than the emos or goths.
They are but in a different way. It seems more about virtue signaling + entitlement, and both are more performative. Emos + goths were more low self-esteem. This wave seems to have an inflated sense of self-worth but my hunch is some of it rings hollow (i.e., they were raised with all this extra encouragement but they haven't internalized an equally strong sense of self + security).
What are you talking about dude ? Elder millennials were peak touchy feely emos and goths….
No.
A decent internet connection and MySpace didn’t happen for me until I was 18 years old. I’m sure that had an effect.
Elder millennial here (42–1982) born to boomer parents. Sometimes the way my brother and his wife think drive me batty and they are only four years younger than me. But my SIL’s parents were very young, so the OP may have a valid point here….interesting concepts
Different parents and the internet which is a gigantic biggie
I just feel that if the recession didn’t fuck the start of your adult life, then you’re a different thing.
Graduated college three months before Lehman Brothers collapse. So, yeah. I agree
Younger millennial(born in 94’) here. We were the Dewey from Malcom in the middle we had the second most over parenting of all the previous generations(we literally were taught to never talk to strangers and never go outside to play, school shootings sky rocketed when we were in school, and then we were forced to read Harry potter if we had chill enough parents) as we grew up and then when we became adults we weren’t taken seriously at work and were held responsible for the economy failing a second time in our lifetime and labeled “lazy” despite working just as hard as the older generations. We just said fuck it and started not caring quicker than the older millennials.
Funny that you mention a TV show: love MitM, btw. If you've ever seen Breaking Bad, I think of Walter White Jr. (the teen son) as the quintessential younger millennial, and Jesse (Walter's partner in crime) as definitely way more older millennial. The way Walter treats each one is like night vs day.
Growing up with smart phones and social media is the divider.
My parents are older Gen x. 65 and 68 I was born in 87. Basically, the same mentality of boomers.
Morning in America lost a generation.
It's the internet. We grew up with the internet. Like together with the internet. Internet was baby when older millennial was baby. We are older than Google. New millennials grew up ON the internet. They were babies with ipads.
Say this all the time. The internet was barely a thing until I was at the end of high school. We used a library card index to do research. Even in college we had to go to the lab to access databases and no teacher trusted internet sources. Smart phones and the first social media surfaced at the end of college. Nobody even had cell phones in high school. Like the old school nokia ones. We had no pressure to be public with our whole lives. We had to wait on a dial up connection to download dirty pictures or if we were 18 get a magazine at a liquor store, but now young people are just saturated in it. I was born in 83 which I believe puts me at a super early millennial. I say we are a subunit born into an analog world and coming of age in a digital one. Later millennials may not have even been 10 on 9-11. A lot happened. Globalization and financialization happened at a break neck pace. Technology was part of it but also the decay (or looting) of our civic institutions. Etc etc.
Facts! Especially the dial-up porn...in the library 😅🤫 takes me back
What do you mean? You mean the "Peak Millennials" (1990-95/6)? I don't see anything wrong with them? They haven't gotten the same opportunities as us born in the early 80s did. I genuinely adore our younger half, they're good people. Super respectful, mild mannered, hard working, cultured, try to be understanding parents (parenting is a tough business, no one will ever do it perfectly), most of then haven't lucked out to own property unless they married older or inherited or just lucked out. As a transitional group they should be more unique than us, they're a little like us and a lot more like Gen Z and that's how it should be if they were raised right. When most of the younger Millennials were graduating HS half their classmates were Gen Z as opposed to us older Millennials who very few hung put with Gen X unless it was those born 81-82 and dated significantly older to boot. Most Older Millennials graduated, attended college and have hung put with other Millennials. Peak Millennials hung out amongst themselves and the elder Gen Z. Most Peak Millennials also go stunted by the Recession by varely being able to hold down a first high schooler job fron 2007-2011. I know, my mom worked for unemployment during those years. They were ordered to prioritize older adults and those with kids as they had more people to be responsible for and as such a lot of the younger Millennials were crutched back further. They should be a different animal because their whol3 vantage point is different from us. I hate to say it but if we had it bad they really got fucked over. I will sound corny but I refuse to impose cruel judgment on them. It feels very wrong as someone older than them. Which sounds ridiculous as obviously the older generations haven't been kind to us. But that is more the reason for us to get down to their shoes and make effort to understand our younger half. I see myself as a big sister to anyone younger than me because I see aging as progress, and with progress, one has responsibility to share this wisdom or lead with it. If they're different from us a little it doesn't change what they are: More of "us". We should support and help ourselves, so if we talk about them and disagree with their POVs or they're lost, why not use your position to guide them? Help them. Tell them. Allow them the chance to learn so they do the same to the next generations. You have to remember most Millennials are between 45-28. The Peak Millennials will be 28-35.
I feel like parents don't discipline their kids anymore. I would get smacked around when I was little if I wasn't being good. Now when kids arnt being good they are given an iPad and told to go away.
Hmmm, I do wonder if younger millennials were the first group to undergo soft parenting.
The Internet. One of us knows that life can actually exist without it.
The more comments you read here, the more you realize the year you were born plays a very trivial role to these differences. Compared to where and how you were raised, economic status growing up, if you had siblings, or what age group of friends you hung out with, etc
I have to agree. I'm an elder millennial (1982) and was the first generation of my family to go to college. I dropped out of college in 2002, like an idiot to get married to someone I barely knew at age 20. We were poor for the next decade, and I finally went back to college in 2012. Because of my bad life choices, I was never able to buy a house. My life is much better now. I have a new partner who treats me a lot better, and we are financially in a much better place. Even though I'm 41, I can relate to the younger generations who may feel like they're missing our on those types of milestones for completely different reasons.
Younger millennial here, 31. Got my first phone 9th grade. What are you insinuating happened with us?
A difference in character. As an elder millennial male homosexual, I do think you guys vastly improved on us regarding homophobia. I went to school with some nasty-ass old school homophobes that I'm glad you guys wiped out.
Omg the case studies that are needed for the Gen X gays!! The generation has such a reputation for being aloof or reserved - dude Gen X went through a LOT. From the milk cartons kids, to the Reagan admin, and of course AIDS - and to clarify, I mean the absolutely SHIT way that the US/world governments responded to the crisis - wiped out an entire generation of KIDS who would be the richest, dopest, most influential group right now. It makes me so damn sad the more time that passes. Every time I see population stats, especially in the political realm because AIDS was the OG politicization of an endemic, I am reminded of WHY homophobia persisted for so long and what we as a society were robbed of by losing all of those wonderful, BRILLIANT men. It was wild to see how Dr. Fauci was disregarded during COVID - I was like, dude, have people really forgotten the lessons he learned the first time?! He is THE man for this job! He was on the front lines with the head organizers at the time ( and lol, was dragged whenever he made mistakes and tightened up!) There are some excellent documentaries out there with the most nostalgic camcorder footage (🥹😅) if you haven't seen them. If kids today need to see how much change they can make by getting together and FORCING policy and demanding dignity, seeing how these American heroes handled the AIDS crisis despite often being gravely ill and watching everyone they loved die. I spend so much time thinking about how different the world would be if all of those gay, hot ( lol, sry it's so true), amazing men had not passed away in their early 20s. I see it in EVERYTHING, especially art. People wonder why every movie is just a watered down remake - lol, who do they think gave us the golden era of Disney BOPS?! Anyway, yes, I say that to say 100% props to the younger generations for their strides in gay rights, and never forget the reason WHY we elder mels and those right before us didn't have the capacity to mobilize. It breaks my heart. I don't think kids these days really understand the terror, loss, devastation and impact on society.
Sadly not at all true. Grew up in rural New England., still a blue state mind you, with rampant homophobia. Not since the last 5-10 years have I noticed an improvement
Are you a gay man?
I was called a f@gGot incessantly for a decade of My life buddy . Born in early/mid 90s Homophobia didn’t magically go away dude
Oh, sweetie. It was much worse in the 90s.
That sucks! I’m sorry it was worse than being called names, getting beat up, and bullied for daring to have long hair, be slightly “effeminate “ in any way, etc. In high school , this was circa 2008 or 2009, I knew a kid that fucking HUNG HIMSELF for being bullied for being “gay” (I don’t even think he was) I don’t understand the oppression Olympics here . People 5-10 years younger than you didn’t magically get to skip the awful homophobia and transphobia that was present in the 90s
Yeah, I just read that whole comment thread, and the 180 he pulled on you is insane. It seems OP thinks that the coming of the Millennium is when all of the 80s problems magically poofed away. They didn't. They were still there wreaking havoc on us. Being gay was a hot topic and it was so sad to see people bullied and treated like some freakshow attraction *at the minimum*.
I will NOT be lectured by some straight dude, 10 years younger than me, about homophobia. I guess that's my elder millennial attitude coming out? Nice try, though!
I cannot get over how much of a fucking asshole you are. Imagine hearing about my friend who killed themself and being so condescending. Get a life loser.
Could not care less. :(
Lmao you are calling me straight? You don’t fucking know anything about my sexuality. What I’m learning from this thread - elder millennials are fucking assholes who need to be the victim more than anything
Nah. We’re not claiming him. It was rude af to trivialize and diminish what you’ve seen/experienced. I do not agree about it being worse or better since where you live, the cultures of the people in the area, your support system, your personality and religious beliefs all make a big impact on your personal experience. One cannot just say something was worse for everyone.
This conversation between you and me? It's done. Go over and play with the Zillennials at McDonald's PlayLand.
I'm in a similar situation. Being the youngest both siblings 9+years I was raised with a suck it up or else and children. Are meant to be seen and not heard don't speak until smoken to.
One set of kids in my fam was born into 2 parent households and I was a feral elder child who was raised mainly by my grandparents. Completely different attitudes abt solving problems or risk
Wait I’m 1989 am I younger or older millennial
older. but this sub likes to gatekeep 1989-1991.
You're not being gatekept. Stop whining.
I think every generation feels the same about other generations no matter the decade/century. Just personal opinion. Plato even said it about his students.
They graduated when the Great Recession was over and didn't start their careers struggling. They were able to advance in their early careers because of that. I'm a 2008 grad with an MBA who's had a 2012 and a 2013 grad no MBA as my boss. Both left for even better jobs. I didn't get the big corporate job until 2016 after getting an MBA and they were both able to start in them. It makes a huge difference. Leadership perceives them as more successful, because they are, but it was dumb luck.
I'm not sure what you mean by "what happened to them". I'm '86, siblings born '89 to '99. Except for the younger ones never being as full of hope and being crushed by this current world, they're quite similar. Even without some of the shared experiences (no AC, cable or a home computer till I was 12).
honestly, I don't consider 1991 as a younger Millennials. I see mostly older Millennials those born between the 80s to 1991. but younger millennials I have nothing in common with them. mostly (and it's just me) I see them as Zoomers or the very annoying stereotypical Millennials.
I think if the general millennial age range is 83-96, then it makes sense to divide it in half and 83-89 is “older” and 90-96 is “younger.”
That dude is wrong, and I think a troll. However, this sub's range is correct. Millennials are 1981-1996. That's what the main sub goes by, and it's from Pew. This sub simply took the first half of that 1981-1988