Author Topic: If there is 1 article that demonstrates why millennials are hopeless with money:  (Read 13270 times)

Bloop Bloop

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It's this one.

https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/behind-my-grin-and-designer-purchases-there-was-a-lie-20190822-p52jvz.html

By the way, the author is promoting some sort of book telling young people how to get into the property market. I will not name the author or the book as I don't want to give it oxygen. But the above excerpt shows how a person with a secure family, good health, and a steady job can nonetheless take all of it for granted and piss it up against the wall yet not even be ashamed of the goodwill, money and time wasted.

Wrenchturner

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There are a bunch of factors involved with this type of problem.  I think fundamentally the economic landscape has changed so much between generations and this probably won't slow down.  The gap will continue to get larger.  There is a tendency to honor those that have made unusual or exceptional successes like in the case of Instagram celebrities and the like, and it's often assumed by those that are prone to over-optimism that those successes are likely.  So that's driving a big part of it.  And in a world of low rates and desperation for innovation, it's no wonder.

Most of the issues faced by millennials are caused by an unwillingness to engage risk at a lower age.  I learned my lesson after maxing out a $1500 credit card after an injury.  I recently started looking after my health more after a pretty serious bout of illness.

The only way up is through, and the pain of challenge reminds you to be vigilant.  (I've been listening to David Goggins)
Oftentimes it is the secure family, good health and steady job that breed complacency.

Am I absolving this person too much?  Maybe.  But a trend suggests something more than individual deficiencies.  Where were their parents in all this, didn't they notice this excessive spending and advise against it?  Not that an adult child would listen, mind you...

Finally, I work in a shop, and there's a 17 year old shop helper who can't get enough things to do.  One of my coworkers is 22, has his Journeyman ticket, and a pile of money in an RRSP.  He doesn't even follow any early retirement material.  Those guys are harder working than at least half of the older adult staff.  So it's not all lost.

SwordGuy

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I couldn't stomach enough of the article to read it all.     

What I did read had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with her being a millennial.   It had to do with her being an emotional child with poor impulse control and no common sense.

I knew plenty of people like that in my generation too.   

Hopefully she got better and this isn't one of those "pity me" articles like the boomer writer who overspent on stupid stuff for decades and then wrote about it, expecting people to feel sorry for him.

Sibley

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Reading that, you know what I see? A child, refusing to be sensible or practical, unwilling or unable to delay gratification, greedy for the baubles she can't afford. Hardly something you could use to define an entire generation. And if you insist, then I'll just have to fire back with all the Baby Boomers who have destroyed the environment, plunged the US into massive debt and now stand in the way of any meaningful change.

Cassie

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It certainly has nothing to do with age but with people being morons. We have 2 friends that still work from home at 73 because they are bad with money. Their combined SS despite being professionals is only 1500/month due to being self employed and creative accounting. 

penguintroopers

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I also agree that this article has nothing to do with her age, its just her opinion of credit being the way to finance her "emergency" desires. That trait can be observed in any generation.

joleran

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Most of the issues faced by millennials are caused by an unwillingness to engage risk at a lower age.  I learned my lesson after maxing out a $1500 credit card after an injury.  I recently started looking after my health more after a pretty serious bout of illness.

Exactly this, her parents are still coddling and enabling her at 30, and that's far from unheard of these days.  If she had bought her designer stuff in her teens and been made to work manual labor paying them off she might have had a much better life.

OtherJen

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It certainly has nothing to do with age but with people being morons. We have 2 friends that still work from home at 73 because they are bad with money. Their combined SS despite being professionals is only 1500/month due to being self employed and creative accounting.

That’s their own fault. I pay both halves of FICA every quarter as a self-employed professional.

I agree with others...this article really doesn’t reflect my millennial friends, who often work ridiculous hours and are overly cautious with finances because they graduated from college into a recession. People who are dumb with money and abuse credit exist in every generation, including mine (Gen X) and my parents’ (early boomers).

Warlord1986

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I mean, I'm a millennial too, and I've got savings and I'm making a part-time job work. Her problems are not related to her age.

Alcoholism seems to be one of her problems.

economista

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I don't think she is a millennial. She stated that at 23 Facebook wasn't around yet. I'm a millennial and I had Facebook at 16. It's also an excerpt from her book, so she isn't 30 now, she probably turned 30 quite a few years ago. Ignoring those indicators and stating she is a millennial is simply buying into stereotypes.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2019, 05:50:28 PM by economista »

OtherJen

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I don't think she is a millennial. She started that at 23 Facebook want around yet. I'm a millennial and I had Facebook at 16. It's also an excerpt from her book, so she isn't 30 now, she probably turned 30 quite a few years ago. Ignoring those indicators and stating she is a millennial is simply buying into stereotypes.

Good catch. Google says that Facebook was released in 2004, so she was born in 1981 at the latest which (I think) is right on the border between Gen X and millennial. Yet more confirmation that stupid financial decisions are not solely attributable to one generation.

Bloop Bloop

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The reason I attach it to the millennial generation is because of the repeated mentions of social media, Instagram, etc., as well as travelling lavishly on a whim and an impulse while being attached to low-paying work. All while not saving up for a house deposit.

No doubt all ages can be bad with money - but it is only recently that people have tried to outsource their sense of belonging via social media. In the past you at least had to do it in real life via telling tall tales, or slide projectors, or whatever it might have been.

What happened to just being happy with what you've got, not bragging about (or even being concerned with) nice things, and keeping things close to your chest? What happened to measuring your happiness by your own goals rather than those of Instagram/Youtube? That's what I hate about my generation. All vanity.

Wrenchturner

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What angers me is how many single women think it is A-OK to turn 30 with no debt and only $2000 in a bank account.

It is like there is still this remnant that women don't have to take care of their own future, only themselves, for now, until someone comes along.   

Do guys do this too?

Yes but it's probably not as risky for men.  They don't get the maternal drive <40 like women, and...(trigger warning) they peak later.  Men can get away with effing around for much longer than women.  Women at 30 with no skills or assets?  Good luck competing with women in their 20s with no skills or assets.

Wrenchturner

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it is only recently that people have tried to outsource their sense of belonging via social media

Very true.

PDXTabs

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It's this one.

Wait, where does this accomplished journalist write about "why millennials are hopeless with money?" Though well written and painful to read, I didn't see "why millennials are hopeless with money" anywhere in the article.

My grandfather told me about the spendthrifts in the 1920s and I just went to an art exhibit about the excesses in France cerca 1900. I'm not sure anything has changed.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2019, 08:08:24 PM by PDXTabs »

UndergroundDaytimeDad

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It's this one.

Wait, where does this accomplished journalist write about "why millennials are hopeless with money?" Though well written and painful to read, I didn't see "why millennials are hopeless with money" anywhere in the article.

My grandfather told me about the spendthrifts in the 1920s and I just went to an art exhibit about the excesses in France cerca 1900. I'm not sure anything has changed.

My take on humanity has always been that aging is simply the act of waking up each morning to find that you are still alive.  It doesn't require any acquisition of, or internalizing of, new knowledge.  This has always been the case.  Some people manage to dodge learning opportunities, and this has been our reality since time immemorial.  To single out millennials is just to say, "oh this same nonsense that has always happened, is still happening". 

Imma

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I don't think she is a millennial. She stated that at 23 Facebook wasn't around yet. I'm a millennial and I had Facebook at 16. It's also an excerpt from her book, so she isn't 30 now, she probably turned 30 quite a few years ago. Ignoring those indicators and stating she is a millennial is simply buying into stereotypes.

In another article she mentions being 35, so born around 84. She was 23 in 2007 and in my country Facebook wasn't used much around that time - not until 2010 or something.

Spendypants people are a thing of all generations, not specifically a Milennial problem, but the object of spending is different. In the previous generation people were very obsessed about homeownership and usually owned by their early 20s. Spendypants in those days spent on home improvement or fancy cars or other markers of adulthood. That's not better or worse than avocado toast or international travel.

As a Milennial I'm kind of bored with the avocado toast cliché - I don't know anyone who eats it or even any place that serves it.

WhiteTrashCash

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She mentions that this was before Facebook, so that means it happened before the internet was as developed as it is today, so it was much more difficult to avoid the pervasive influence of advertising and marketing and much harder to find good solid information on responsible personal finance. I should know, because I lived through those days too. (Though, I was never as bad as she was, jeez.) It sounds like she was dealing with a fairly serious mental health issue too -- reading between the lines, of course.

I'm not making excuses for her, just suggesting some reasons for behavior that seems unfathomable in 2019.

Bloop Bloop

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I don't think she is a millennial. She stated that at 23 Facebook wasn't around yet. I'm a millennial and I had Facebook at 16. It's also an excerpt from her book, so she isn't 30 now, she probably turned 30 quite a few years ago. Ignoring those indicators and stating she is a millennial is simply buying into stereotypes.

In another article she mentions being 35, so born around 84. She was 23 in 2007 and in my country Facebook wasn't used much around that time - not until 2010 or something.

Spendypants people are a thing of all generations, not specifically a Milennial problem, but the object of spending is different. In the previous generation people were very obsessed about homeownership and usually owned by their early 20s. Spendypants in those days spent on home improvement or fancy cars or other markers of adulthood. That's not better or worse than avocado toast or international travel.

As a Milennial I'm kind of bored with the avocado toast cliché - I don't know anyone who eats it or even any place that serves it.

Most brunch places in my area serve it. My Instagram feed is full of that sort of brunch stuff.

I would say avocado toast and international travel are worse than, say, home improvement or fancy cars or home deposits (to use the examples you mentioned), because at least in the case of the latter, you get some sort of asset base out of it. Avocado toast and travel lead to continuing penury, if you're bad with finances like the author. Also, whereas if you really like avocado toast or travel (fair enough, as one is delicious and the other is amazing) by all means spend responsibly, but the article suggests that the author did it out of a sense of "keeping up with the Joneses".

That's what I don't like about my generation - there's this pervasive sense that you need not only to be successful, but that you have to be visibly successful. I would say it is debatable whether being successful (in any sense of the word) should even be your primary life goal, but certainly being seen to be successful is a completely fatuous aim.

Self-actualisation costs nothing.

OtherJen

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Yeah, “visible” success isn’t limited to millennials.

I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. In addition to houses in limited access subdivisions (in the right neighborhoods, of course), fancy cars and designer clothes were major deals. TV shows like “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” “Dallas,” “Dynasty,” and “Beverly Hills 90210” were everywhere. Even more “normal” shows usually featured well-off families in big suburban houses, often with a housekeeper (in fact, the housekeeper was the star of shows like “Mr. Belvedere,” “Who’s the Boss,” and “Charles in Charge”). It was also the era of the supermodel, a constant reminder of highly polished visible success in beauty and desirability. For people in coastal cities, the ability to eat at Spago or Le Cirque was such a huge deal that I, a midwestern teenager, somehow knew those names and what they meant. Travel was definitely a thing. Some of my peers from wealthier families made sure that everyone else knew about their families’ trips to ski in Aspen or to Maui or the Caribbean.

None of this is new. Only the signals and media change.

Imma

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I'm not really sure that spending on a big fancy house or car is that much better than spending on travel or food. Sure, you're left with nothing but the experience at the end of the day, but while buying a clown asset gives you that asset, that asset can be massively overpriced and/or lead to many other costs. A big house might be an asset but there are also the interest payments on the mortgage, property taxes, cleaners, gardeners, big energy bills and the possibility of endless upgrades that never really increase the value of the home.

In my social circle going out for breakfast/lunch isn't really a thing and I didn't notice avocado toast on the menu when I was on vacation a while back and eating out quite a bit, but maybe I just didn't notice or go to a different type of place. i'm not really that active on social media but in my social circle going to music festivals is the big "thing". I know people who go to 5+ every year and all in all you're often at least €500 out of pocket. I totally understand the fun but it's a lot of money for a weekend.

StarBright

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I don't think she is a millennial. She stated that at 23 Facebook wasn't around yet. I'm a millennial and I had Facebook at 16. It's also an excerpt from her book, so she isn't 30 now, she probably turned 30 quite a few years ago. Ignoring those indicators and stating she is a millennial is simply buying into stereotypes.

I believe the current accepted first year of birth for millennials is 1981 . There are some that argue that the late 70s-84 is its own micro-generation (which I believe is a valid point) - but as of right now, a 38 year old is a millennial.

I'm an oldest millennial and I've had FB since like 2004 (We had it senior year at our U). So maybe she just wasn't aware of it? Because I think I'm older than the author. On the other hand, I remember FB being pretty local (like Northeastern corridor and Ivies) when it first started.

ETA- Here's a nice little Mental Floss piece about Pew's re-categorization of generations and why they might have grouped the generation as they did:
https://mentalfloss.com/article/533632/new-guidelines-redefine-birth-years-millennials-gen-x-and-post-millennials
« Last Edit: August 26, 2019, 07:32:50 AM by StarBright »

OtherJen

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I don't think she is a millennial. She stated that at 23 Facebook wasn't around yet. I'm a millennial and I had Facebook at 16. It's also an excerpt from her book, so she isn't 30 now, she probably turned 30 quite a few years ago. Ignoring those indicators and stating she is a millennial is simply buying into stereotypes.

I believe the current accepted first year of birth for millennials is 1981 . There are some that argue that the late 70s-84 is its own micro-generation (which I believe is a valid point) - but as of right now, a 38 year old is a millennial.

I'm an oldest millennial and I've had FB since like 2004 (We had it senior year at our U). So maybe she just wasn't aware of it? Because I think I'm older than the author. On the other hand, I remember FB being pretty local (like Northeastern corridor and Ivies) when it first started.

ETA- Here's a nice little Mental Floss piece about Pew's re-categorization of generations and why they might have grouped the generation as they did:
https://mentalfloss.com/article/533632/new-guidelines-redefine-birth-years-millennials-gen-x-and-post-millennials

Apparently yes, FB was only available at a handful of universities in the northeast USA at first, and wasn’t made available to the general public until 2006.

Imma

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I don't think she is a millennial. She stated that at 23 Facebook wasn't around yet. I'm a millennial and I had Facebook at 16. It's also an excerpt from her book, so she isn't 30 now, she probably turned 30 quite a few years ago. Ignoring those indicators and stating she is a millennial is simply buying into stereotypes.

I believe the current accepted first year of birth for millennials is 1981 . There are some that argue that the late 70s-84 is its own micro-generation (which I believe is a valid point) - but as of right now, a 38 year old is a millennial.

I'm an oldest millennial and I've had FB since like 2004 (We had it senior year at our U). So maybe she just wasn't aware of it? Because I think I'm older than the author. On the other hand, I remember FB being pretty local (like Northeastern corridor and Ivies) when it first started.

ETA- Here's a nice little Mental Floss piece about Pew's re-categorization of generations and why they might have grouped the generation as they did:
https://mentalfloss.com/article/533632/new-guidelines-redefine-birth-years-millennials-gen-x-and-post-millennials

I like this cutoff -  I grew up in the 90s without internet or mobile phones, was in high school when 9/11 happened and a young adult when the Great Recession hit. I clearly remember the transition to the Euro.

 I've always felt like I was born in a different generation than my younger cousins, who were born in the late 90s and who never wrote and received hand written letters, who don't remember going to the library to look something up in an encyclopedia, who don't remember a time that no one had ever heard of terrorism. I think those are a few era-defining events that happened in a fairly short period of time.

Philociraptor

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Having a hard time reconciling the linked article with the thread title. Just another human spending beyond their means on things they later learn are unimportant. Tale as old as time.

MilesTeg

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You do realize a huge chunk of the people on this board are "millenials", right? That is, people who are currently ~20-40 years old

WhiteTrashCash

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I don't think she is a millennial. She stated that at 23 Facebook wasn't around yet. I'm a millennial and I had Facebook at 16. It's also an excerpt from her book, so she isn't 30 now, she probably turned 30 quite a few years ago. Ignoring those indicators and stating she is a millennial is simply buying into stereotypes.

In another article she mentions being 35, so born around 84. She was 23 in 2007 and in my country Facebook wasn't used much around that time - not until 2010 or something.

Spendypants people are a thing of all generations, not specifically a Milennial problem, but the object of spending is different. In the previous generation people were very obsessed about homeownership and usually owned by their early 20s. Spendypants in those days spent on home improvement or fancy cars or other markers of adulthood. That's not better or worse than avocado toast or international travel.

As a Milennial I'm kind of bored with the avocado toast cliché - I don't know anyone who eats it or even any place that serves it.

Most brunch places in my area serve it. My Instagram feed is full of that sort of brunch stuff.

I would say avocado toast and international travel are worse than, say, home improvement or fancy cars or home deposits (to use the examples you mentioned), because at least in the case of the latter, you get some sort of asset base out of it. Avocado toast and travel lead to continuing penury, if you're bad with finances like the author. Also, whereas if you really like avocado toast or travel (fair enough, as one is delicious and the other is amazing) by all means spend responsibly, but the article suggests that the author did it out of a sense of "keeping up with the Joneses".

That's what I don't like about my generation - there's this pervasive sense that you need not only to be successful, but that you have to be visibly successful. I would say it is debatable whether being successful (in any sense of the word) should even be your primary life goal, but certainly being seen to be successful is a completely fatuous aim.

Self-actualisation costs nothing.

I loved the video that youTuber Jenna Marbles made about how to "trick people into thinking you are rich": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_JgqPl52hA It's satirical, of course, but it touches on stuff like traveling to exotic places to do the same things you always do but in tropical locations so you can post it online and desperately try to win people's admiration. Travel is generally such a joke. I've been all over the place and there really isn't that much that's special between one place and another. (And Jenna Marbles is very funny, btw.)

FIPurpose

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You do realize a huge chunk of the people on this board are "millenials", right? That is, people who are currently ~20-40 years old

Even better, the whole tag of 'millennials' is a completely made up thing. A better way of putting it would be 'humans'. It's not as if, if people born in 1940 were instead born in 1990, they would act any differently from anyone else born in 1990. Perhaps there is some latent regret as to how 80-90's parents raised their children, so many instead dissociate their parenting/ political beliefs from how people act today in order to rationalize that "my parenting/ personal choices aren't what created this."

Of course an individual parent isn't responsible for all macro events that form a child, but it seems to me that all parents should be so humble as to recognize that they are no different from any other generation and that we all more or less behave the same given similar environments.

Metalcat

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Having a hard time reconciling the linked article with the thread title. Just another human spending beyond their means on things they later learn are unimportant. Tale as old as time.

So is Keeping Up With The Joneses and immense social pressure to be perceived a certain way.
Brunch and travel just happen to be the social currency of young people, older millenials are mostly posting pics of their kids.

That said, having a social media feed full of brunch and travel is a choice made by the person who owns that social media feed who is deciding to consume social media posts about brunch and travel.

My feed has none of those things, it's curated not to include them.

WhiteTrashCash

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You do realize a huge chunk of the people on this board are "millenials", right? That is, people who are currently ~20-40 years old

Even better, the whole tag of 'millennials' is a completely made up thing. A better way of putting it would be 'humans'. It's not as if, if people born in 1940 were instead born in 1990, they would act any differently from anyone else born in 1990. Perhaps there is some latent regret as to how 80-90's parents raised their children, so many instead dissociate their parenting/ political beliefs from how people act today in order to rationalize that "my parenting/ personal choices aren't what created this."

Of course an individual parent isn't responsible for all macro events that form a child, but it seems to me that all parents should be so humble as to recognize that they are no different from any other generation and that we all more or less behave the same given similar environments.

To be completely fair to the people complaining about Millennials, there is a certain cohort of young people who are crying far more about ordinary life experiences than people have in the recent past. It's obnoxious and annoying.

PDXTabs

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To be completely fair to the people complaining about Millennials, there is a certain cohort of young people who are crying far more about ordinary life experiences than people have in the recent past. It's obnoxious and annoying.

Keeping in mind that the millennial generation ended in 1996, I haven't met any IRL. I have seen some of that in gen Z, but they are so young that they have time to learn.

PoutineLover

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#notallmillenials
It's boring to read the same old articles painting people of a certain generation with the same broad brush. I'm under thirty with over 50k saved, and no debt. I have friends who spend very responsibly and yet still have a bunch of student loan debt because the price of university and rent has increased a lot more than wages. There will always be people who spend way more than they earn, that article is an example of someone who never bothered to learn the smallest thing about debt and spending within your means, and she's not representative of an entire generation.

WhiteTrashCash

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To be completely fair to the people complaining about Millennials, there is a certain cohort of young people who are crying far more about ordinary life experiences than people have in the recent past. It's obnoxious and annoying.

Keeping in mind that the millennial generation ended in 1996, I haven't met any IRL. I have seen some of that in gen Z, but they are so young that they have time to learn.

I have encountered a whole lot of them complaining on social media about the Great Recession... which ended in 2009. Even if someone decided not to add anything to their financial situation for the past decade -- which has been characterized by the longest period of market growth in American history, markets were completely recovered to pre-crash levels by 2016 anyway. So, when they are crying about it, it's really just because they are angry they don't get free money for sending "woke" tweets on Twitter.

FIPurpose

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You do realize a huge chunk of the people on this board are "millenials", right? That is, people who are currently ~20-40 years old

Even better, the whole tag of 'millennials' is a completely made up thing. A better way of putting it would be 'humans'. It's not as if, if people born in 1940 were instead born in 1990, they would act any differently from anyone else born in 1990. Perhaps there is some latent regret as to how 80-90's parents raised their children, so many instead dissociate their parenting/ political beliefs from how people act today in order to rationalize that "my parenting/ personal choices aren't what created this."

Of course an individual parent isn't responsible for all macro events that form a child, but it seems to me that all parents should be so humble as to recognize that they are no different from any other generation and that we all more or less behave the same given similar environments.

To be completely fair to the people complaining about Millennials, there is a certain cohort of young people who are crying far more about ordinary life experiences than people have in the recent past. It's obnoxious and annoying.

Yes, but you have to think why that is. It's not that humans magically changed and that millennials are somehow genetically radically different from their parents.

Big macro changes such as social media are causing people to behave differently. As such, humans have to come to a new understanding about the psychological and emotional damage that these products have done and how humans are behaving differently because of it. We are slowly realizing that algorithms such as Facebook/Youtube are doing major psychological damage to children. We as a society need to have a serious conversation about social media and children. (and adults too, but that is less damaging)

Separating generations is useful to understand how the world is changing around us. Using generational boundaries to prop up one's own superiority is pointless and incorrect.

Plus you can't separate the way people behave today and the politics of the 70-90's. The way people voted and politicians behaved in those eras directly effect what's happening today, both good and ill.

PDXTabs

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I have encountered a whole lot of them complaining on social media about the Great Recession... which ended in 2009.

Oh that. Probably because it was the worst job market to gradate into in four generations and your first job has a significant impact on your lifetime earnings. Fucking millennials.

WhiteTrashCash

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I have encountered a whole lot of them complaining on social media about the Great Recession... which ended in 2009.

Oh that. Probably because it was the worst job market to gradate into in four generations and your first job has a significant impact on your lifetime earnings. Fucking millennials.

Unfortunately, the markets never recovered and nobody ever made money ever again. This is why we need Che Guevara; Now more than ever.

PDXTabs

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Unfortunately, the markets never recovered and nobody ever made money ever again. This is why we need Che Guevara; Now more than ever.

I personally watched my company lay off early college graduates with engineering degrees who suddenly:
  • Weren't early college graduates (because they had been out of school for over six months).
  • Weren't experienced (because we laid them off three months after hiring them).
  • Didn't have enough experience to sit for the PE exam.
  • Didn't have any job prospects, because no one was hiring.
  • Didn't have access to my very good 401k, because we laid them off. So as I purchased discount index funds they struggled to pay rent.
  • Spent years getting back into the job market.
  • EDITed to add: Lost their 401k vest, because they didn't make it 36 months.
  • EDITed to add: Lost their health insurance, because this was 2007/8.

If I had to do a back of the napkin estimate the people that I know lost three years of good earnings in their early 20s. That could have been $60K in their 401Ks in their early 20s - which would be how much when they hit 62? That isn't even counting the lost salary negotiation over their lifetimes.

But sure, whatever, they're whiny about it.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2019, 10:51:30 AM by PDXTabs »

StarBright

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To be completely fair to the people complaining about Millennials, there is a certain cohort of young people who are crying far more about ordinary life experiences than people have in the recent past. It's obnoxious and annoying.

Keeping in mind that the millennial generation ended in 1996, I haven't met any IRL. I have seen some of that in gen Z, but they are so young that they have time to learn.

I have encountered a whole lot of them complaining on social media about the Great Recession... which ended in 2009. Even if someone decided not to add anything to their financial situation for the past decade -- which has been characterized by the longest period of market growth in American history, markets were completely recovered to pre-crash levels by 2016 anyway. So, when they are crying about it, it's really just because they are angry they don't get free money for sending "woke" tweets on Twitter.

To be fair, it is generally acknowledged that the Great Recession has set back an entire generation (particularly the older half of millennials) so that they may never catch up with previous generations.

I'm not going to lie - when my boomer parents and aunt and uncles complain about how we (and others our age) aren't having enough children, or coming to visit enough, or driving safer (ie. newer) cars, or buy their "for sale" houses, I just want to throw my hands up and scream "GREAT RECESSION!!". My DH and I both lost jobs and both ended up switching fields. We are self sufficient, and saving for retirement, and we are good parents and good citizens and I still get Sh*t for being a millennial.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2019, 11:52:34 AM by StarBright »

Metalcat

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To be completely fair to the people complaining about Millennials, there is a certain cohort of young people who are crying far more about ordinary life experiences than people have in the recent past. It's obnoxious and annoying.

Keeping in mind that the millennial generation ended in 1996, I haven't met any IRL. I have seen some of that in gen Z, but they are so young that they have time to learn.

I have encountered a whole lot of them complaining on social media about the Great Recession... which ended in 2009. Even if someone decided not to add anything to their financial situation for the past decade -- which has been characterized by the longest period of market growth in American history, markets were completely recovered to pre-crash levels by 2016 anyway. So, when they are crying about it, it's really just because they are angry they don't get free money for sending "woke" tweets on Twitter.

Again, I'll say that I literally don't see any of this on my social media. Your perception of Millenials is entirely based on the Millenials you choose to be networked with.

It could be that you see a lot of whiny posts because for some reason you network with a lot of whiny people.

The world is filled with whiny people of all ages and always has been. I work with a lot of seniors, and guess what, a lot of them whine ALL THE TIME. I wouldn't choose to have them on my social media either.

Master of None

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You do realize a huge chunk of the people on this board are "millenials", right? That is, people who are currently ~20-40 years old

Even better, the whole tag of 'millennials' is a completely made up thing. A better way of putting it would be 'humans'. It's not as if, if people born in 1940 were instead born in 1990, they would act any differently from anyone else born in 1990. Perhaps there is some latent regret as to how 80-90's parents raised their children, so many instead dissociate their parenting/ political beliefs from how people act today in order to rationalize that "my parenting/ personal choices aren't what created this."

Of course an individual parent isn't responsible for all macro events that form a child, but it seems to me that all parents should be so humble as to recognize that they are no different from any other generation and that we all more or less behave the same given similar environments.

To be completely fair to the people complaining about Millennials, there is a certain cohort of young people who are crying far more about ordinary life experiences than people have in the recent past. It's obnoxious and annoying.

Are more people complaining or do we just hear/see it more often as information is more readily available. In the past it was much easier to ignore these people. Now they just seem to be in your face as that is what gets the most "clicks".

jinga nation

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It's this one.

https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/behind-my-grin-and-designer-purchases-there-was-a-lie-20190822-p52jvz.html

By the way, the author is promoting some sort of book telling young people how to get into the property market. I will not name the author or the book as I don't want to give it oxygen. But the above excerpt shows how a person with a secure family, good health, and a steady job can nonetheless take all of it for granted and piss it up against the wall yet not even be ashamed of the goodwill, money and time wasted.
Except no, and you get a face punch.

Repeat after me: a story about one person is a story about one person. It doesn't not reflect a whole generation.
+1
Every generation shouldn't be painted with a broad brush stroke.

Just Joe

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Yeah if that was true we'd blame the whole "Greatest Generation" for the crimes of WWII and the Great Depression.

Bloop Bloop

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You do realize a huge chunk of the people on this board are "millenials", right? That is, people who are currently ~20-40 years old

Even better, the whole tag of 'millennials' is a completely made up thing. A better way of putting it would be 'humans'. It's not as if, if people born in 1940 were instead born in 1990, they would act any differently from anyone else born in 1990. Perhaps there is some latent regret as to how 80-90's parents raised their children, so many instead dissociate their parenting/ political beliefs from how people act today in order to rationalize that "my parenting/ personal choices aren't what created this."

Of course an individual parent isn't responsible for all macro events that form a child, but it seems to me that all parents should be so humble as to recognize that they are no different from any other generation and that we all more or less behave the same given similar environments.

To be completely fair to the people complaining about Millennials, there is a certain cohort of young people who are crying far more about ordinary life experiences than people have in the recent past. It's obnoxious and annoying.

Yes, as reflected in the article. The author felt she was entitled to travel, to curate some sort of happy persona, or indeed to even be happy full stop. None of those things is an entitlement.

You see it in all the articles now whinging about how millennials have a lower standard of living than their parents (on some metrics). They need to suck it up and create the world they want for themselves, rather than expecting it to be handed to them (and then Instagramming it).

To be clear, I am a millennial. I am trying to filter my Instagram feed so that most of it is wholesome content, like pets, and silly things, and non-consumerist rubbish. I could just drop off the platform altogether, but it serves some use for wholesome interactions.

I have no great issue with consuming, if you can afford it, but the self-serving vanity of millennial social media is really off-putting, even if it is not too hard to avoid.

MilesTeg

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You do realize a huge chunk of the people on this board are "millenials", right? That is, people who are currently ~20-40 years old

Even better, the whole tag of 'millennials' is a completely made up thing. A better way of putting it would be 'humans'. It's not as if, if people born in 1940 were instead born in 1990, they would act any differently from anyone else born in 1990. Perhaps there is some latent regret as to how 80-90's parents raised their children, so many instead dissociate their parenting/ political beliefs from how people act today in order to rationalize that "my parenting/ personal choices aren't what created this."

Of course an individual parent isn't responsible for all macro events that form a child, but it seems to me that all parents should be so humble as to recognize that they are no different from any other generation and that we all more or less behave the same given similar environments.

To be completely fair to the people complaining about Millennials, there is a certain cohort of young people who are crying far more about ordinary life experiences than people have in the recent past. It's obnoxious and annoying.

So are you a gen-x self involved aimless slacker that started out as a latchkey kid, or are you spoiled druggie dirty hippy/yuppie baby boomer?

WhiteTrashCash

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You do realize a huge chunk of the people on this board are "millenials", right? That is, people who are currently ~20-40 years old

Even better, the whole tag of 'millennials' is a completely made up thing. A better way of putting it would be 'humans'. It's not as if, if people born in 1940 were instead born in 1990, they would act any differently from anyone else born in 1990. Perhaps there is some latent regret as to how 80-90's parents raised their children, so many instead dissociate their parenting/ political beliefs from how people act today in order to rationalize that "my parenting/ personal choices aren't what created this."

Of course an individual parent isn't responsible for all macro events that form a child, but it seems to me that all parents should be so humble as to recognize that they are no different from any other generation and that we all more or less behave the same given similar environments.

To be completely fair to the people complaining about Millennials, there is a certain cohort of young people who are crying far more about ordinary life experiences than people have in the recent past. It's obnoxious and annoying.

So are you a gen-x self involved aimless slacker that started out as a latchkey kid, or are you spoiled druggie dirty hippy/yuppie baby boomer?

I'm Michael Grates, the hero of "Reality Bites". Or maybe Benny, the hero from "Rent".

nessness

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Are you even sure she's a millennial? It isn't clear how long ago she turned 30. Plus she describes being 23 "pre-facebook" - I'm 33 and joined Facebook at 18. I suspect she's a Gen-Xer, or on the cusp.

But regardless, I agree with PPs that one person does not define a generation.

Bloop Bloop

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Yes, as reflected in the article. The author felt she was entitled to travel, to curate some sort of happy persona, or indeed to even be happy full stop. None of those things is an entitlement.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Feel free to expand on this.

PDXTabs

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@Bloop Bloop,

I'm not sure what panda had in mind, but how about: at no point in the article did the author say that she deserved anything but what she got. She took on the debt, she publicly wrote about how painful it was, and AFAIK she paid the debt back. I don't know, I haven't read her book. Did you even read the article? You can continue to feel sorry for yourself, or you can start working towards a goal.

EDITed to add: being a dumb-ass does not equate to being entitled, or acting entitled. She was just a dumb-ass.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2019, 06:54:04 PM by PDXTabs »

Bloop Bloop

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Yeah, that's fair enough. The author (as she is now) clearly doesn't feel entitled, since the subject of her book, I think, is to teach millennials basic personal finance, or something along those lines. A laudable goal.

What I meant was that the author, at the time of the events which happened, and without the benefit of her authorial hindsight now, clearly felt entitled to a certain standard of living. Not entitled in the sense that she was going to steal from someone to get it, etc. But rather, entitled in the sense that achieving the standard of living came first, and financial considerations came later. Which is why she got into a lot of debt. The only reason she was able to clear that debt was because the sense of entitlement evaporated.

Philociraptor

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To be clear, I am a millennial. I am trying to filter my Instagram feed so that most of it is wholesome content, like pets, and silly things, and non-consumerist rubbish. I could just drop off the platform altogether, but it serves some use for wholesome interactions.

I have no great issue with consuming, if you can afford it, but the self-serving vanity of millennial social media is really off-putting, even if it is not too hard to avoid.

Sounds like you still have some curating to do. I certainly don't see this "self-serving vanity of millennial social media" at all, not even trying to avoid it. My IG feed is full of millennials hustling to better themselves, celebrating progress in careers, life milestones, gym personal records, etc. These just happen to be the people that I've met in my life (I don't follow people I don't know). It seems like your self-hatred is turned up to 1000% and you are projecting it on a whole generation for some reason. It doesn't add anything to the conversation to constantly castigate a single age cohort, there are irresponsible people at all ages.

Edit// Striking out my own rule-breaking. Apologies, just annoyed at all the millennial-bashing that goes on around here /shrug
« Last Edit: August 27, 2019, 07:11:11 AM by Philociraptor »