Everything Wrong with Millennials Part 1

Hello My Imaginary friends,

On Monday night a friend, someone I genuinely respect, posted a video. I can’t find the video to show you but it made me angry. It was a young woman, from her accent she was American, bemoaning the horrors of Generation Y (AKA Millennials or the Entitlement Generation).

She went on a minute long rant about us being emotionally stunted, entitled, rude, and wasteful. In one part she said something about Gen Y only complaining on Facebook. It was particularly ironic that the video was uploaded to Facebook. The friend also added a melodramatic comment about how no one would listen and they worried about the future of our world.

I see these kinds of ageist rants a lot. I’m used to people attacking me for my age / generation. This was just particularly hurtful coming from a friend.

They’ve since apologized for what they said and painting a whole generation in one stroke. They’re not mean spirited and I’m sure the post was brought on by some bad experience.

Ageism

There’s a stigma about being young, or old. People dismiss your opinions as inexperienced or dated.

Every generation has said, “Kids these days!” and I look forward to being the old man on the internet yelling back, “Shut up. Don’t you remember what they said about us?” (Sorry in advance, Gen Z /Digital Natives/Post Millennials)

Millennials are getting it pretty bad right now. Search the term “Millennial Generation,” and you’ll find people trying to understand us like we’re some sort of alien culture, people decrying that we’re going to ruin the world, people worried that we’re entitled, irresponsible, etc.

I’m not sure what’s causes this fear and hatred, but it’s wrong.

The Desmarais Prejudice Test

My friend didn’t think to include me or my wife in their generalization. Probably didn’t realize that we were in that age group. We are the early Millennials.

In hopes of helping people avoid insulting other I give you the Desmarais Prejudice Test:

If you’re going to say something about a group of people, replace that groups name with “Black People” or “Jewish People”. If it sounds racist, your comment is showing prejudice and maybe you shouldn’t say it.

Of course, this only works if you don’t want to be prejudiced.

Dangers of Generalizing

We are currently approaching 7.5 billion people on this planet. It’s a human instinct to categorize and label things. That’s a normal trait. I’m Canadian, a Geek, a Writer, a French Canadian, and a book lover. I’m also Cis, White, Male, middle class, agnostic, and a millennial.

I share traits with all of the above labels, but that’s all they are: labels. Hot Dogs and Steak can both be All-Beef but they’re not the same thing.

If you start generalizing people based off their labels or generalizing labels based off of bad examples, you’ll end up hurting someone and possibly losing a friend.

 

Éric

Read Part 2

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