It’s easy for older generations to blame Millennials for just about everything. There’s even a grain of truth in these criticisms, but how much really is their fault?
An online discussion looks at topics millennials are tired of being blamed for.
1. The Moral Decline
Is OnlyFans a good look for Millennials? Nobody is claiming selling salacious pictures to the general public is morally pure. That said, the tree that bears the fruit of OnlyFans and Millennials’ other moral shortcomings has root, if you catch my drift.
What’s worse, a Millennial’s OnlyFans or Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme? Every generation has its fair share of bad apples.
2. Entitlement
Older generations literally started the “entitlement” programs. While many Millennials and younger have melded entitlement into new forms (living with parents until their 45th birthday, for example), the entitlement trend dates back far further than 1981.
3. The Birthing Crisis
There is some validity in the blueprint of having a kid and figuring it out. On the other hand, you can’t disregard the increased cost of living, more complex job market, and oppressive student debt Millennials face that prior generations of Americans did not.
4. Bad Movies
Have you seen Reefer Madness? While Millennials deserve some blame for the never-ending stream of comic book movies, Bedtime for Bonzo came out in 1951. Every generation has its own brand of bad movies.
5. Cancel Culture
See: Orwell, George. Or Vladimir Lenin. Or any tyrant born before Millennials.
Canceling has been a thing for quite a while, and it’s a bad thing at that. But cancel culture is not a purely Millennial phenomenon. In fact, the Millennial strain of canceling is comparatively mild.
6. Participation Trophies
Countless Millennials played sports throughout the 90s and early 2000s. Most of them never received a participation trophy, nor did they want one.
You could say Millennial parents have fanned the flames of the participation trophy crisis. It seems more likely that the outrage is overblown and misdirected.
7. The Ills of Social Media
Social media is a scourge that spans virtually every generation (except you, Poppy). While it’s fair to worry about the effects of social media on kids, it hardly seems genuine to rant about Millennials’ social media addictions on your Facebook page.
8. Student Loans
Did you know there is no minimum age for accepting a federal student loan? Offering tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to someone who can’t buy a Coors Light seems like a bad idea, no?
9. The State of the Economy
From the passage of NAFTA to overly ambitious union bargaining and the acceleration of globalization, the seeds of America’s economic shortcomings entered the ground while most Millennials were in the womb, if not well before.
10. The Rejection of Ambition
What’s that? You want me to take on additional shifts at my telecom job that pays $14.30 an hour to show I’m ambitious? When you bump your head into the professional ceiling enough times, the whole “ambition pays” mantra rings a bit hollow.
11. Political Apathy
Many Millennials have trekked an accelerated path to political apathy. The internet allowed a peek behind the political scene, leading many to conclude that no matter how they vote, they will not see the political action they vote for. Can you blame them?
12. Over-Education
Granted, anyone who gets their Ph.D. in Wizardry Studies deserves some blame for a pile of debt and a shortage of quality job prospects. However, older generations guided their Millennial children into the Bachelor’s degree path.
Many of those students found that once they were in the educational cycle, the only pathway out of the sinkhole was more education—at least, it seemed logical at the time.
13. Lack of Respect for Elders
Respect should be given as a basic courtesy, but not to the elder who hurled their Wendy’s bag back in my face because there were pickles on the burger. The Golden Rule cuts both ways.
14. The Demise of Beanie Babies
Don’t put that on us. We loved Beanie Babies just as much as you did.
15. Phone Addiction
If you ask anyone born before the Millennials, they might tell you the younger generation’s biggest problem is phone addiction. If you ask a Millennial the same question about older generations, they might give you the same answer.
Source: Reddit.
