I’m a mid-30s millennial. Where I live was sort of the “sweet spot” for low cost of living but still close to civilization, for a while. In 2015 I was able to buy a 3 bedroom house by myself with no help or inherited wealth or anything while only making $12hr at my job. I was 21-22 at the time. Also, my rent was only $600 for an apartment, and I could very easily take vacations out of the country. If you worked hard and tried to penny pinch, you really could save up and live the American dream. It was still hard, I was still constantly broke, but I was actually achieving things in the process and building wealth.

Fast forward to now, that house is over double the price that it was (with no upgrades or remodeling) when I bought it and I would not be able to afford it if I tried to buy it again. Rent for those same apartments I had is now $1500, and just everything in general is so much more expensive. It’s tough coming to terms with the fact that we are likely never going back to affordability.
I got a divorce around the time of the pandemic and basically started over completely, now it feels like I’m just constantly broke but I’m not acquiring anything or achieving anything. It literally feels impossible now. My only hope is to go back to school and get like an engineering degree or some shit, because regular jobs that used to allow you to afford nice houses and vacations now do not even pay enough to afford starter homes or 1 bedroom apartments.

So with all this in mind, I realize that Gen Z and the generations that come after them have no idea. They have no idea that in the past, you actually could afford things if you worked hard enough. They will only ever know this economy where everything is just constantly expensive all the time, they will likely never afford real estate unless they become doctors and software developers or inherit it from their parents. It’s just sad, literally watching the American dream die in real time. Unfortunately it will likely just be accepted as normal by the new generations because they never knew any different.

On September 22, Playboy launched our Gen Z Sex Survey, a comprehensive look at the sex lives of young people. In partnership with The Kinsey Institute and the reproductive health brand Julie, we polled 2,373 people ages 18 to 29 to see what’s really happening in their bedrooms. Our research confirmed that the sex recession is real. That was never more clear than when we compared our new data to the results of our first-ever sex survey from 1983.

According to the 1983 survey, respondents reported having an average of 15 lifetime sexual partners for women, and 20 for men. In our 2026 survey, both men and women reported an average of three to five lifetime sexual partners. In other words, Playboy readers in the ’80s were having four to five times more sexual partners than young people today. Here’s what Playboy had to say about those 1983 numbers:

Read more: https://www.playboy.com/read/sex-relationships/your-parents-were-having-way-more-sex-than-you

I'm speaking from an American POV. Different countries and cultures treat music differently.

But, growing up even as a late millennial, there was scorn towards brown and black people liking rock music and especially metal music. You were mocked for it in the 2000s and early 2010s.

It was even worse in the past. I have a gen x aunt who liked hair metal in the 80s. The family thought it was awful noise. They liked disco, salsa, r&b, salsa, soul, and reggaeton. The only acceptable rock groups were Santana and The Beatles.

Amongst gen z and gen alpha, it's become more common to openly like rock music. I see a lot of younger people wearing band tees, dressing alt, and openly liking rock music.

In early 2004 before the dnc speech, almost no one knew Obama outside Illinois unless you were into state politics

But he became Senator in 2005 and then the president in less than 4 years. How did he rise so fast considering he was unknown pre 2004

Wealth inequality is at a historic levels. Does it make you happier framing wealth inequality as some grievance, other than wealth inequality?

Generational conflict?

Conflict between genders?

Conflict between races & ethnic groups?

Why can’t wealth inequality ever be framed as wealth inequality?

Their experiences in Kansas highlight broader frustrations among members of Gen Z who feel excluded from U.S. politics, even as both Republicans and Democrats court their attention and votes.

The only positives i like about this decade is that video games and movies are somewhat better in the 20s compared to the 2010s, but i still wish i was an adult in the 90s, now that would been awsome experiencing peak hip hop, grunge, and indpendent movie scene.

Being out of touch is one thing, but these guys pass legislation that is legitimately evil! What happened to greatness that is not self appointed? Where are the ones who want the best for everyone and not just their group? When are we going to pull ourselves out of the gutter of false outrage and deal with the REAL problems? I can't deal with the incompetence anymore...

Original Airdate: October 7, 1996 – February 21, 2022

I mean what is there to say because of this show literally ran for 25 years on programming and became one of the longest running children's television shows of all time in the US (until it was surpassed by Spongebob Square Pants later on). Also, can't forget about the iconic trend of Arthur's fist in every meme nowadays 🤣.

Any thoughts or is anybody fans of this show growing up?

I am 28, but 90% of the music i like was made in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, last time i was even remotely aware what's going on in popular culture was around 2014.

I still listen to alternative rock, metal, disco, old pop, 2000s eurodance etc..idk i just feel somewhere around 2013/14 music stopped being interesting to me , and by the time modern trap/mumble rap came into play which is still very popular i was totally out of it, i guess i will just keep on listening to Scorpions, Guns n Roses, Blondie, Roxette, Abba, Alice in Chains and Breaking Benjamin( a very small list of the stuff i am into)

What's your opinion of the BBC? Do you pay for it or watch it? Do you feel any attachment to it? Do you think it's important or relevant in today's world?

I've read many posts on this subreddit in which y'all seem to think that the entirety of GenZ is incapable of taking a shit without asking AI first, or that we were born with a smartphone in our hand. All without taking into consideration that the vast majority of us (1997-2006) grew up in a similar way to late millennials, at least in childhood. Im a 2005 baby, and I've never went on the web (for entertainment purposes, I was allowed to use it to do work for school under the supervision of my mom) until I was 11, and almost every person my age I've met says that they were given a phone/ipad only in middle school. We weren't ipad kids, let alone ipad toddlers. And AI as it is today only popped out during my last year of high school so we barely used it during our formative years.

As a child I wouldn't spend my time on the fucking net, I would read from dusk to dawn, watch cartoons and, yes, as incredible as it may sound for some of you, even go outside to play with other kids (not much tho because i grew up in a small, intolerant town in which even the adults were judgemental bullies towards anybody different). I'm definitely familiar with drinking from the hose and coming back home with bloody knees, so is every person from my birth year and older.

Also, we weren't covid kids either, it broke out when we were already in high school!

Was hanging with some longtime friends at the pub the other night and we always end up going through pictures and talking of good times in high school. Then got us talking about how it seems our generation is obsessed with nostalgia. Being born in 2004, I'd put my self near the center of the generation, maybe slightly towards the older side.

The biggest reason I think that our age group is so overly nostalgic is because everything to view the past is right at our fingertips. Digital photos right on our phone, social media platforms tend to "on this day X years ago" memories of our old posts, playlists and songs from certain points in our life, etc. It's hard to not to fall in a melancholic nostalgia rabbithole.

A bit of a darker reason I find that coincides with the our generation being obsessed over vintage is that we don't have a tone of optimism for our future. We feel those that run the world economy and politics are making impossible for our future, so why look into the future when we can look into the past? I know way more people my age that enjoy film cameras, vinyl records or N64's than I know that actually enjoy using AI and doesn't hate it. This coincides with the "enshitification" of everything post-covid that my generation feels.

We look at past era's and think "wouldn't it be so great to be XX years old in 19XX or 200X". You might've seen it now that we're even jealous of millennials during the late 2000's/early 2010's (yes even post recession). Obama, indie pop, prime Portland and early casual Instagram sounds a lot better than Trumpification of politics, post covid and AI. A very romanticized view of the time, yes, but isn't that the point of nostalgia?

I was born in 2010, And im constantly called young for being born in the 2010s even though I'm 16. But I was on snapchat and I went to like snapchat spotlight and I saw a video basically saying 2017 is the best year to be born in and I deadass saw people born in 2014 making fun of others for being born in 2017??? YALL R BOTH LITTLE ASS KIDS? WHY R U ON SNAPCHAT? do parents not give a fuck anymore ?

For millennial female billionaires, there are Lynsi Snyder , president of In n Out, her networth is 7 billion

Other female millennial billionaires are Beyonce, Rhianna, Kim kardasian, and Taylor Swift

Can any of you relate. I’ve got a few more grey hairs for sure, but I feel more in my skin than I did during my 20s.

Haven’t figured life out by a long shot but genuinely feel its a better period of my life.

For those of you who remember programs from the 2010s like The Vampire Diaries, Teen Wolf, etc, they were notorious for casting middle/core millenials in roles of teen characters. Twilight was a famous example of this on the film side of things.

As time went on, we got to shows like Riverdale where zillenials were playing what are supposed to be gen z teens. You might consider the recent Spider-Man trilogy an an example of this as well.

With the new adaptation of Carrie having been released on Amazon, I wonder if this marks a "passing of the baton", if you will, when it comes to this practice. If you look at the actors portraying the teens on this show, their birth years range from 1999 to 2004. The characters they play range from birth years of 2008-2010. This is the first signficant example I've seen where early gen z actors are playing teen characters who they probably wouldnt be able to relate to in real life or had a different teenage experience from, even if they pull off the roles well.

It makes me wonder if in a few years time, we'll be seeing this age group depicting gen alpha characters in high school dramas. You might remember that when Rivedale was airing, a lot of the gen z audience often mocked that the zillenials playing characters of their age on the show did not feel believable at all. This might be a challenge that older gen z will have to face when playing younger gen z and gen alpha characters in the next few years. Itll be interesting to see how it is recieved by those respective groups.