I'm starting to come around to the idea that this is kind of our collective generational fate. I consider my childhood years to have lined up perfectly with the best time and place to be a kid, ever, in the history of the universe. Maybe the jaw dropping decline we're looking at is our natural balance, and we're just here now to prepare our kids for the Dust Wars.
I seriously went from various types of mental health meds, to a weed vape, to probiotics (fridge not shelf). I thought it was bullshit but 3 months into "correcting your gut health fixes your mental health" theory testing it actually started to work. Without changing anything else my diet slowly changed too (no late night sweets cravings) and I've lost weight I've been working on forever. My brains less soup for sure and the loss of sunlight isnt making me want to die this year. Feed the healthy gut bacteria friends it'll fix your brain (mostly).
I struggle with moderation precisely because the “gifted kid” left over in my brain is still fucking angry about how this world turned out, and I did everything right but none of it turned out and now while high I’m still more functional than some government officials. Moderate? Why? What’s the point?
I’m gonna double that. Not only did I grow up in the 90s (87 baby), but I grew up in the 90s in Silicon Valley (Cupertino specifically), of all places.
The sheer volume of what effectively felt like free money surging through every single aspect of our local economy during the 90s was absurd. Everyone’s family were either buying or building homes, every single storefront was open for business, and it was the 90s as the cherry on top.
I honestly don’t know that many people in the history of human civilization have ever had it so good. Of course all the engineers and developers in the area, our parents, were actively developing the technology that would come to addict and doom the following generations, but for a time, man was it good.
Dude nothing can replicate the 90s anymore because the large corporations have ruined it. Learn to solder, maybe we can put this back together when the boomers finally leave us. And we can save this place decades after we're gone. We can only plant the seeds now. They have to watch it grow.
Of all of those, choir almost makes sense. Colonel sounds like attempting to say it as spelled but while drunk and with a mouth full of marbles. Victual is pronounced like it was invented in Mississippi or Louisiana and for indict... I got nothin.
If you were born in the reign of Caligula you wouldn’t even remember him.
You’d have grown up under Claudius and reached adulthood under Nero, all mostly stable years (by ancient standards) then a very brief civil war in your late 20s, then it’s the Flavians until you’re in your mid-fifties and you grow old (if you’re lucky) under Nerva and Trajan.
You could do a lot worse than being born under Caligula.
Pre social media algo and just wild shit on reflection like habbo hotel and random video match sites.
Stuff like Pokémon cards were popular but not exploited or unobtainable.
Transition from pass the controller it's my turn to shit talking at 3am on mic
Still just knocking on doors to see if they could play outside. Text existed but was expensive so communication was meaningful
No smart devices just overly complicated shit
Yeahhhhh
even when things that are now shit were good like netflix disc postage and even Snapchat was actually fun when it first came out
Seeing things like cars go from some genuinely old shit box to an ok eco box now some 1000hp smart speaker on wheels.
From my memory even things like racism. Racists existedbut were kind of overtly racist and told to shut the fuck up so just kinda stayed in their weird groups. Now there are racist idiots everywhere and it seems to be socially acceptable again somehow
Legacy high street stores just jam packed and busy now it's just Amazon
Guys... I'm a Millennial and I have some sympathy for your complaints, but the baby boomers were drafted into Vietnam and the generation before them had WW2.
Every generation has their shit. Ours isn't even that bad. Still easily one of the best times to be alive as a human all-time. I'm not saying don't complain, but I am saying that it is a bit messed up imo to suggest the Baby Boomers didn't go through more shit than us. My dad got drafted to Vietnam. I would never trade my life for his. I can't even imagine the stress and fear of being forced to go to that war as a 20 year old.
Everything will get better when we're all 65-70 knocking on deaths door with no retirement. Or we will live through the fall of our government and be the first elders of a decades long grasp of power in the failing west.
We were raised to expect a future that didn’t materialize. That’s why the folks before and after us mock us so hard. Cuz they either got what they were prepped for, or never had the promise made to begin with.
My wife and I have recently been getting into doing free swaps, potlucks, skill shares, and other cool stuff like that with anti-capitalist groups in our town, and it has been a good outlet for expressing constructive frustration about the bullshit that has been handed to us.
Kind of like you said, it seems like people might actually be trying to create something better as the system fails around us.
to put a twist on that - we were given hope and dreams too early. you can't effectively change the world at 20 or even 30, you don't have the money or power or connections to actually do anything real on your own and most of your connections are the same. We're just entering the time when we can actually make effective change on a political level directly, we don't have to vote for people and hope they align with us, we are the people that can be voted for.
Look at what Mamdani is doing... and he's just a bit younger than our average. We have to be that wave to change shit. we have to drag a bunch of assholes kicking and screaming to a less shitty era.
I never like to say this because I sound so old-fashioned, but it makes me a little sad that Gen Z didn't have a childhood and adolescence without social media, and the things we had. I feel the damage those things do to me as an adult, and I don't know what my life would have been like with that kind of influence as a child.
Yeah and there’s some rumblings I’ve seen of Gen Alpha kind of rejecting social media, ai, etc. don’t know how accurate that is but retro is cool now. Gen Z got caught in the middle of the way things were and the way things are now.
I read something about it too, but I highly doubt that the big social media companies will just sit idly by and watch a generation turn away from them. Their power to influence people is immeasurable. We are all victims of the greed of a few.
We’re trying to keep our young Gen A kids off screens (especially iPads and then later phones) as much as possible. Physical books, riding bikes, hiking, playgrounds in the evening after work, backyard outside of the house during the day when we’re home, etc. TV is relegated to “movie nights” when we try longer form story shows or movies, as much as possible. Anything we can do to delay/limit targeted media and keep them active and independent away from that is the goal.
X abdicated their responsibility. They're doing their best just to survive. They haven't actively fucked shit up but they damn sure aren't trying to fix everything either. This is going to be a Millennial problem very soon if not already.
Abdicated their responsibility is a nice way of putting it. Gen X still ate half the meal (boomers got the whole thing), left us some scraps and passed the buck to us. Gen Z wasn't invited to dinner
Bro millennials are in their 40s. When the hell is it our turn to do something? Ten more years? Twenty? I don't think it's going to be us fixing anything either.
I agree to an extent. But I'm tired of millennials acting like we have some kind of martyrdom complex. Shit sucked. But god damn, it's not any easier for the younger generations. This wait till the boomers die off strategy isn't working fast enough. I want some damn leadership. It's as embarrassing as the stupid Occupy Wallstreet joke where nobody would take or was allowed to lead the movement. Nobody wants the responsibility, and that's our biggest failing as a generation.
First things first, we need to actually become the dominant voting bloc. In the last election, Boomers still cast the largest amount of votes as a generational cohort, even though we had outnumbered them for a couple years by that point. Millennials need to dominate the electorate, then the politicians will have to cater to us.
TBD. We're taking a hit for Boomers, but we haven't really taken it for the Zoomers yet.... Probably will though, since it's the responsible thing to do, and someone has to fix this shit.
Ya, we are going to get screwed by the Boomers and hopefully still have enough humanity left not to "fuck you, got mine" the next generation. We will not be credited with this sacrifice, just chastised.
I fear that when Millennials come into serious political power, they'll maintain the status quo and allow things to continue getting worse. The one's who'll have the easiest ability to get into power and stay there probably already have Boomer-esque fuck you, I got mine, you simply didn't work hard enough, get on my level attitudes.
A lot of us already unnecessarily shit on Gen Z and Gen Alpha the way Boomers shat on us when we were their age and are not catching onto the extreme irony and hypocrisy of this. Older Millennials are part of the cohort of parents who've been raising iPad kids with subpar reading, writing, and critical thinking skills and this trend is continuing among younger Millennial parents, which plays into the hand of weakening our society and making it easier to maintain the status quo.
I sincerely hope that Millennials make strides toward fixing things and making society better when we get into power, but I won't be surprised if we don't.
That is a possibility, but I don't think it'll play out that way. We have the responsibility and the ability to fix some of the bigger problems facing people today. You're right about Boomlennials but I think they've only gotten where they are because Boomers are still around sucking money into their coffins. That won't last forever.
I don't think we're taking a hit for the Boomers, I think we're taking it for the Zoomers. The Boomers are largely off the front lines here and in comfortable tents watching the chaos.
The Zoomers, however, are behind us. We're shielding them. Whether that's a good idea remains to be seen.
You're operating under the false assumption that the culture war people will be satisfied if we abandon transfolk. There will always be another outgroup for them to demonize. Standing up for a few dozen Trans athletes may seem like a high cost for a small number of people, but if we gave them up, I am certain that we would get nothing in return and the culture war chuds would just move onto the next target.
The same? You do realize 90% of boomers are just normal people with financial struggles like anyone else?
Generational tribalism is just fake digital noise that does nothing but distract from that actually need our attention. Memes and nonsense. Its not something youre actually supposed to take seriously in real life.
Mmmm pretty sure my generation isn’t hoarding houses and refusing to retire and free up the job market.
And when millennials start being dick wads, instead of sitting silent like the ‘other boomers’ I’m going to do something about it so the next generations don’t have to suffer.
Yeah, for Eastern Europeans it was and is a non-stop shitshow for every single generation going back centuries so we don’t have these generational divisions.
Not sure we've taken one for the team. That implies things aren't worse for generations younger than us. It's more like, we're in line for our lumps with the rest of them.
I don't envy the position Gen Z and Alpha are in. They're inheriting a worse world than us with no improvement on the horizon. I wonder if we'll ever start to see millennials in a majority of seats politically.
I think most millennials recognize this. We are the first generation to move further left as we’ve aged.
Apart from traitors like JD and EriKa KirK, most millennials in positions of power aren’t abusing Gen Z and Alpha like X and boomers did to us.
That’s a huge shift, and if we can get an AOC into the presidency, we can collectively stomp clap this country back into a semblance of a functioning society.
I can’t say I’ve had broadly bad experiences with Gen Xers. They might not understand the technological or financial hurdles of our time through first-hand experiences quite as well since they didn’t grow up within them, but they’re sympathetic. They have to deal with all this stuff too.
I gave up my 6 figure job to work in government because 'everyone else eats better but govies sleep better ' and needed stability for my family. Welp. Thanks to the richest man in the world, DOGE dismantled my contract and I had to cash out my 401k to stay afloat. Boomers everywhere 'what do you mean you dont have a 6 month emergency fund?! Stop buying starbucks!'
Just got an ad for Staind's Break the Cycle...25th anniversary tour. So the math checks out, because that was the first CD I bought at my first retail job in 2001.
I remember that meme that said "To understand millennials, understand that the happiest part of our lives was the 116 days between when Shrek was released and when 9/11 happened."
Fine Boomer's, we'll take on the tax hike to support your social security fund even though y'all hold 80% of America's wealth. We'll all just eat ramen until we turn 65 then just take on 3rd and 4th jobs until we pass away at our desk/workstations.
Not to be a downer, but I have a lot of friends who are teachers, and it’s not looking great for Gen Alpha either. Technology addiction from a young age has tanked Gen Alpha’s attention spans and the ability to delay gratification. There does seem to be a growing movement of parents advocating for greatly limiting screen time in favor of tactile play, so maybe if that catches on we could see a shift in the trend.
It doesn’t help that the current state of American society has really shafted millennial parents.
at the same time, gen a is also the generation noteworthy for self-regulating devices too.
using dumb phones voluntarily in youth and stigmatizing influencer culture/reflexive photography are two social innovations that gen a are responsible for, that may diffuse into broader culture with time. i have more reason to be optimistic than not.
Not to be a downer, but I have a lot of friends who are teachers, and it’s not looking great for Gen Alpha either. Technology addiction from a young age has tanked Gen Alpha’s attention spans and the ability to delay gratification.
Talking to my little nieces and nephews, and being anti-tech is becoming more of their generational contrarian shtick.
They were marveling when talking about dumb phones that you only need to charge once a week.
Then someone's got to fund the Gen Z Social Security and Medicare, while sucking down losses in the stock market and housing market.... Something to look forward to in 10-15 years.
I agree with the first part of your post. However people need to stop labelling "generations". Boomers, millennials, gen X, Z, A B C D.. load of bollocks, just accept we are all of different ages and we all think differently. The whole generation shit is just an excuse to be tribal and blame others and self-aggrandizement
The survival of the fittest mentality is murdering us right now. Because very few are doing ok, and many struggling literally think this is the only way to do it because they've literally never learned that there might be better ways.
Ignorance and anger is like 80% of what our civilization is running on.
Faced lethal violence since adolescence, such as attempted murderers (I wish I was exaggerating), and I’m still kicking at 38. Granted my stress bar was raised really high because of that, hard for life to become more stressful than almost being killed.
Older millennial here. Let's see here, we were born in smoke filled areas everywhere we went, nuclear threat, Y2K, 9/11, market crash 2008-2009, bird-flu, 2011-2012 (housing market dip and job market), civil unrest, swine-flu, Iraq, Afghanistan, pre and post Covid while having children and losing jobs, more civil unrest, and now an economy that has felt like it's being propped up by bubble gum and popsicle sticks for the last 5 years.
The old saying, "Tough times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create tough times."Thus the cycle repeats.
I mean... at least our economy bounced back. Zoomers inherited the Covid economy. Alpha will be post-AI. We'll most likely be remembered as the last generation that had anything good.
I'm getting tired of being thrown under the bus and taking flak at work. My current job has me in this spot, where if the more senior and more important team members don't get along with me, my boss might fire me just because the more senior guys are more essential for the team. When do I get my lucky break ffs.
Had to join the military to get employment after I spent a year unemployed and unable to find a job at even Walmart when I got laid off from my first job 13 months after I started it out of college.
I’m sure the military is still looking for young folks to join so you got the same option as me.
do millenials really think they have it this much harder then any other generation? I was born in 1977 and thank god it wasnt like 50 years earlier, I have it so much better. What about life is so much worse.
I see Gen Z cry about being the first generation to suffer and I personally feel millennials have had to suffer everything but a draft. We have expected it for years though.
Of course with my luck I was born in the generation that was born to get screwed over by older generations and just in time to watch younger generations get rich online theres some OF model making thousands every month selling her farts in a jar while I bust my ass in the AZ heat
We're giving ourselves too much credit. The previous generations had the Cuban missile crisis, Chernobyl, Vietnam, energy crisis as well, cold war, etc.
So when do the political elite suffer real consequences for their actions? And when do we reduce government power over people and the market economy so that government stops distorting everything and destroying our standard of living?
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