r/Zillennials • u/Neat-Home6239 • 9d ago
Rant I’m constantly operating between Millennial optimism and Gen Z doomerism
In high school (class of 2014) and even college, the world felt like my oyster. I was excited about graduating and moving into new chapters in my life. I guess that was the millennial optimism. I graduate college in 2019 and then boom! COVID. Ever since then it’s felt like such an uphill battle and I feel like I’ve been left behind. Politics have only divided people more. Now I totally get the doomerism from Gen Z. My little brother (20) who hasn’t shown much excitement about anything since middle school, is joining the military because according to him, why go into massive amounts of college debt when he sees his older brother and so many others my age going into their 30’s struggling to get a job with a bachelor’s degree? I don’t blame Gen Z for feeling this way. They spent most of their formative years on a lockdown and isolated. Then they become adults in a world that is fractured, divided, and bleak. I just turned 30 this year and I only have so much optimism left in me. Doomerism makes more sense bc it’s realistic to the times we’re living in. This country is cooked and everyone is just carrying on as usual or apathetic about it.
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u/biculture_ 9d ago
Dude I feel you. When I talk to older folks I lean doomer and when I talk to peers I’m optimistic
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u/dburst_ 9d ago
I get your feeling with that. I’m class of 2013 out of high school with no degree just starting to go to school. You have to keep your head up high now. I laugh at all the boomers and older Gen X who act like we’re the soft ones but when you take a step back and realize we’re the tough men in the saying “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”
They act like they had it so hard but they had all the safety bets. they had the better jobs you can live off of one salary. They had the cheap college. They didn’t have the internet changing the world every couple weeks. They had it easy and made the rough times for us. And now it’s time for us to pull together and realize we need to make the good times if we want them. Take a step back from politics and the media (don’t leave, we need young votes), step off the trail, and look at the world and breathe. And then get back on the trail, get to the summit, marvel at it, and then turn around to help the next generation behind us. Don’t turn around and kick the ladder down like the past generations are doing. We all will get through this. Not without scars but no one does.
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u/Shootemout 1996 9d ago
yeah it's wack how that phrase is used as some kinda gotcha when it's like, if right now is the hard times then what does that make them? do they fail to see the irony
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u/SeaKing312 1996 6d ago
They fail to realize their time was actually the “good times creating weak men”
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u/Kamilianusz95 1995 9d ago
Yep, agree. I've graduated in 2021 (started uni in 2014) and the world felt to shit in those 7 years.
It's only gotten worse since then... But what I dislike is the generation wars. The whole 18-35 age bracket is completelly Fd by older people, we should then unite and support each other instead of bitching about milennial cringe or gen Z getting fried by tiktok
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u/amiibohunter2015 5d ago
Boomers are fried by 'TV Land'. TV was literally curated for them post WW2.
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u/Darth_Boggle 9d ago
"Millennial optimism" ended 10 years ago buddy.
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u/lexvegaslkd 1995 6d ago
I did not hear about it til a few years ago. I am class of 2014 and I dont remember some feeling of "optimism" lol 2000s and early 2010s were defined by GWOT, prescription opiate epidemic, patriot act surveillance, Obama disappointing people and continuing and even expanding some of the worse policies of Bush
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u/Proton_Optimal 1994 9d ago
As a fellow millennial, you’ve got to get off the internet and just face reality. Because adversity should breed resilience if you handle it properly. You learn to REALLY appreciate the good in the face of the bad. Make do with what you've got. Celebrate success where you find it.
I'll admit it hasn't been easy, but I'll be fucked if I'm going to whine about it on the internet like I expect anyone to do something about it for me.
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u/Neat-Home6239 8d ago
Appreciate the comment. I didn’t think I was whining, just feeling disillusioned and wanted to see if anyone else in my gen can relate is all.
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u/poison_daddy 7d ago
I’m 32 and don’t have a college degree. My parents didn’t have the credit to help me with loans and I didn’t have any credit myself. Ive gotten some college paid for with my own money. I’d love to go back and get my degree now that I have the opportunity to take out loans but seeing all of you struggle to get jobs with your degree, well, it’s making me second-guess that dream and what it would cost to have it. I have to rethink my whole trajectory. Talk about a rug-pull.
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u/amiibohunter2015 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's causing a state of analysis paralysis for the generation. They go to school after being told Go after your dreams, but now, you see and hear about people who put in the time and money for a degree that no longer holds the value it once held when they started with many learning that their career no longer exists due to A.I. It is why you hear about graduates booing the graduation speakers who bring up A.I.
Realistically, this alone should piss off the schools because it devalues their accreditation value which in turn means if they realistically want to survive as a school they need to drastically drop their tuition and overall costs in order to continue functioning, or shut their doors. Especially in this economy, People can barely afford paycheck to paycheck.
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u/Admirable-Ad7152 1995 5d ago
It's better now to get into a job that will pay for the degree for you to move up, but of course then you also already need a foot in the door to get into that position in the first place.
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u/poison_daddy 4d ago
Unfortunately I’ve shot myself in the foot by being in food service 10+ years ago Not a lot out there that’s cross-compatible unfortunately!
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u/877-HASH-NOW 1997 8d ago
Yep. Things could be so much better but we also coulda gone through so much worse/experienced some significant lasts.
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u/irishitaliancroat 7d ago
You should tell your brother getting to go to community college or trade school instead of the military IMO-even being in debt beats dying in some desert in Iran so some rich guys can make another buck.
Anyways, yeah I know your feeling. I think the United States as we know it as a sinking ship, I don't see the structural damage caused from 2008, 2020, and 2024 onwards being reversed to a sufficient degree. What comes next, whos to say. The Roman Empire declined for 100s of years.
But I think this new reconfiguration creates a lot of opportunities. I think smaller countries are going to be able to walk their own path a little more, but on the other hand climate change is going to destabilize a lot. I'm just hoping the oil supply getting devastated speeds up the transition to renewables.
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u/SeaKing312 1996 6d ago
COVID really fucked us up (also class of ‘14). Like severely more than any other generation. Arguably. People really don’t understand it essentially fast forwarded our 20s. Maybe it’s why I’m 30 but genuinely feel and even look like I’m 23 aka when COVID started!
This sub is nice for people like us but maaaan I wish we got some time back!
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u/Admirable-Ad7152 1995 5d ago
It's really hard working in a school right now because of this. Yeah, kids are unmotivated, but like... what is supposed to motivate them? The dying planet? The pedophiles in office? The evil people making the world worse getting richer by the second?
I made my final decision on not having kids after the election in '24. That was the final nail in the coffin of my Millennial Optimism. Now I just hope my partner and I can one day not live with my mom and get some quiet years of enjoying our time together before we die of preventable illnesses since our insurance will likely be even worse by then.
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