Time Magazine Article on Millenials

So, Time Magazine released an article (cover here◊), with this accompanying video.

The article is entitled, "The Me Me Me Generation - Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents. Why they’ll save us all.”

The article is much the same as the video, patronising, unrepresentative, vapid, cringe-worthy, and full of vast generalisations that cannot be fathomed.

So, I pose, what is up with all this? Considering that much of the troubles of today's youth can be attributed to the failures of the older generation to adequately do shit.

Maybe we're "lazy" because we can't get jobs, forcing us to live with our parents, meaning we have nothing to do all day except be narcissistic because that's the only thing left for us to do?

Well, I respect Time Magazine as much as the next guy, but man... what an accurate depiction of our generation...

We are self aware. We recycle. We are not racist. We grew up with technology, the second generation that did (after Gen X), so we learned how to utilize it without losing ourselves in it. We care about politics and we support worthy causes. We're smart enough to see through the lies and deception. We were the last ones who got to fuck around in "non-sanitized" playgrounds, returning home with bloody knees, torn t-shirts and sometimes a couple of teeth missing; we made tree houses, played with the dirt, made our own sandwich for lunch-time when mom wasn't around.

Furthermore, we grew up being told that we "Should study harder if ya don't wanna be flippin' burgers when you grow up son/young lady!", only to graduate with this fucking recession going on. (Which, by the way, we didn't cause...) Now, the only way our fancy-pantsy diplomas could be of any use to us, is if we wrapped the aforementioned burgers with them...

But you know what? Don't sweat it... Mr Stein used to work for Martha Stewart Living ferchissakes!

We know who we are, we know where we want to go, and we'll get there.

edited 13th May '13 7:18:15 AM by Basterd

It's Joel Stein. Guy's been writing crap for years that's usually confined to the last page.

Yeah I miss those playgrounds. Every fast food place used it have the,. There's still a few near me that do.

Every generation is considered lazier and more entitled than the one before it, isn't that how it goes?

Yet we have largely progressed further in all things, not degraded. For better or worse, this also includes business efficiency, which has the result of reducing the need for workers.

The contradiction is that many of the same people who enshrine hard work as a virtue are also the ones supporting an environment that minimizes the opportunities for such.

Evil, yes. But not hypocritical.

I offer a brief summary of why that article's bullshit.

I'd also like to note that this is the generation that's the first to start noticing, in large numbers, how close we are to a post-scarcity society and how easy it would be to make it work if we didn't care about current wealth distributions. Scarcity societies have a reason to promote values like "never buy what you can't pay for" and so on, but when you overextend their premises in a world where most lack results not from the failings of the poor but the inequalities supported by the rich, then you have a situation where people spend more money on prisons than on education or feeding children even though the latter reduces crime more, dollar for dollar. And worse, we're okay with that.

Scarcity values are "you shouldn't get what you don't earn". Post-scarcity values include "it's immoral to let the vulnerable go hungry and unprotected when it would be trivial to feed and shelter them." Next time someone tells you "you kids just want handouts", it may be appropriate to respond "you old folks just want to starve kids".

I am reminded of this:

You know what's wrong with the world right now?

Most schools stopped letting kids play dodge ball, and the ones that still do it use those fucking foam balls and not the red rubber ones that have the treads on them.

Bring that back and the world will fix itself. Of this I swear.

I have noticed a marked increase in sensitivity in kids these days though, and that gets really annoying. I don't like wangst. Not to say my peers didn't wangst all the time, but I hated it then too.

More dodgeball, less wangst, and the world will correct itself.

edited 13th May '13 3:42:55 PM by Barkey

I recall the same crap being shoveled my way, and I'm a Gen X'er. So yeah, nothing new, sadly.

I wonder what zingers the Millenials will come up with to describe their kids.

Okay, stuff like that will make me burst out laughing and make people around me wonder if I've finally done snapped or something. But seriously, this is why I am all out of flips to give if my kids skin their knees or run into stuff headlong. I cheer and clap, and then they get up and move on. It's to the point now that my oldest fell on her face, dusted herself off and said loudly "I'm OK, didn't hurt!"

edited 13th May '13 3:44:58 PM by pvtnum11

Same ones our lot are using now, and what got hurled at us, probably. Don't you know? The old ones are the good ones.

my high school had the foam ball version, but some bitchy girl complained she got hit when she wasn't paying attention.

now our high school doesnt have it, but THE MIDDLE SCHOOL STILL DOES. It's bullshit.

and yes, the whole school hates that girl now.

Did you guys even read the article or are you just going "GUY WROTE AN ARTICLE ABOUT WHY WE ARE BAD"

Did you read all the ways our generation rocks? Or how the cover is "And how they'll save us all"?

I watched the video and thought it was utter tripe. And I have no interest in buying Time magazine.

My family gets it. It was a good article. It wasn't about "How this generation sucks" but just talking about trends that our generation does indeed have (like how we take so many god damn pictures of ourselves).

But also good things, like how nice we are, or how cautious we are in planning, or how we don't resent authority (Because we don't respect it)

Maybe I'm not seeing it through a defensive perspective since I"m not a huge fan of my generation anyway.

edited 13th May '13 4:19:31 PM by Thorn14

In my experience, resentment often goes hand in hand with disrespect of something. But when it starts out with calling a group narcissistic and lazy, don't expect many people to respect your opinion. Opening with an insult is going to greatly color what people think of the rest of what you say.

This isn't about the article itself but it's something I'm curious about. What is defined as "Millenial Generation"? I assume it would be those born in the nineties that became young adults in the 2000s but I've heard it applied to those born in the eighties as well.

edited 13th May '13 4:23:16 PM by Kostya

No it means like..."I don't see authority as a big deal, so I also don't see it as a threat" so we don't have a huge "DOWN WITH THE MAN" like movement against the government like previous generations.

And Joel Stein is a very casual writer who often takes jabs at himself and everyone else. Midway through his article he calls out his own hypocrisy about talking smack about the generation. Like saying "I turned this article a year later than I should have while saying they are lazy, and I just checked my email 2 times while typing this up, and I know how many twitter followers I have more than I know my car's mileage."

The fact people are taking to twitter and tumblr to complain amuses me to no end.

I believe they define it as being born between 1980(or 85, I forget) through 2000

They also say it will be the last generation that can be defined, and even now its barely defined, because someone born in 1990 is going to find themselves feel awfully different from someone born in 2000, thanks to how rapidly society is changing. (Like my generation didn't have smart phones for example)

I didn't watch the video, but the article was fine, and people saying it was extremely judging and dismissive didn't read it.

edited 13th May '13 4:26:01 PM by Thorn14

The video was problematic since it's basically "how 40-somethings view 20-somethings" rather than "how 20-somethings actually are." It was just kinda sad. The real problem is that at the end of the video he managed to dismiss the group due to his own ineptitude.

"It's a lot of work, being a millenial. I have a lot more respect for them. I'm sure they'll never get any actual work done. So uh, good luck with our bridges and infrastructure."

I can almost see where he was coming from, but most of the stuff he failed at doing, he failed at because he's no good at using technology, not because they're not conducive to getting anything done.

As for "what makes a millenial," the line appears to be pretty fuzzy, but it seems 1983-2001 is the generally-accepted range. I'd personally shrink that down to like 1985/7-1999

I don't know about that age range, I'm a stones throw away from 30, with quite a different worldview, and that would make me a "millenial".

Yeah, the age range on these things is kinda stupid big, depending on who you ask. Apparently, even the late '70s get included sometimes. "In high school or below during Y2K" is the widest range I'd personally accept, and even that's iffy since the oldest of that group would be 31 right now... old enough to have kids that would still called millenials. Something like "Still watching cartoons in the '90s" or "Young enough to have dressed up like a Power Ranger for Halloween" seems a decent starting point.

The video is a much different tone from the article.

Another article, this one about the buying habits of this generation:

the top comment is better than the article:

That about sums it up. If you want me to spend money on stuff then stop screwing up the system.