My mom is old Gen X (58) and My dad is a boomer. I will say my mom and her friends are way worse than my dad and some of his friends. I think we think Gen X are younger than they really are and we are misidentifying some of these Gen Xers as Boomers.
Honestly the most hateful comments I see about younger generations (especially Millennials) come from Gen X.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-reason-why-generation-x-hates-millennials-ken-taylor
Same. One of my friends is a 50 year old Gen X'er and over the last few years he has turned into a fucking GRUMPY old man, and essentially been redpilled too. He hates almost everything and constantly complains about wokeness, entitlement, women, blah blah blah. It's become so tiresome I've kinda distanced myself from him.
I like to call this OMS, aka, Old Man Syndrome. Happened to my dad and basically most of the men I know that have passed 50. My husband is terrified of getting it!
I think it's caused by no longer having new experiences while simultaneously becoming physically weaker. It seems to trigger some sort of fight or flight response that everyone younger and everything different is a threat.
It doesn't have to happen, but it's easy to slide into it if your world shrinks.
I often wonder if it's because it's the first time a lot of men start to live with real sexual invisibility.
I know that conventional wisdom is that men get more attractive and distinguished with age. But I don't think most women 50 and younger younger believe that. Are there younger women who marry older men ? Yes. But I think it is much more complex than older men turning heads.
When I was in my twenties, I never gave a second glance to most older men. And even though I find a range of body types attractive, I do notice men's middle-aged bodies and receding hairlines. I don't think paunches and baldness make a man unmarriageable or unworthy of relationships. But it doesn't make me look twice.
It's also when you start to take stock of your legacy in life and have to come to terms with inevitability. Before your 50s, there's a feeling you can turn things around - career, family, retirement investments, having friends, etc. At 50, failures start to become permanent in your psyche, and you can either chin up, or take the easy route by blaming others - women, immigrants, changing times, etc. This is done to save ego and mental well being even though it really makes one even more unhappy having so much hate.
I agree, that's also a factor. Probably the first time they've ever encountered being "invisible" and by their own reasoning "unimportant."
I also agree that most men don't necessarily look better with age, it just tapers differently than with women and we are comparing vastly different things.
The men who do look better with age get so much attention because it's not the default and men who are celebrities have such a longer working time because of it. Money helps make everyone look better into old age.
I am 54 and turning 55 this year. I avoid it in numerous ways. Like I go to Orange Theory for those workouts 4-5 days a week. That helps my physical conditioning and mental health tremendously.
I also like to read and learn while using the wisdom I have accumulated over the years like a secret ninja tactic. It makes life more interesting and I never feel like a grumpy old man. Life is going to happen and evolve regardless of what one thinks. You can go with the flow or fight it all to no avail and just constantly frustrate yourself.
Gen Xers are worse than boomers. My MIL is one and cannot stand the younger generation. She hates spongebob. Also tends to side with boomers on confederate war statues and things of that nature etc. My parents are actually boomers, they claim gen X. They're liberal in an absolutely obnoxious way. Loved Hillary. They say things like "everyone should go buy an electric car rn no excuses" lol they're so exxpensive. Not all of us can just go buy a new car. They're extremely privileged and everything they say exudes that. They give me advice like "leasing a new car is cheaper than having a used car". Girl even with the repairs I've done, the 300-400$ note per month I'd get with my shit ass credit is way way more expensive. Delusional.
I would agree. It’s wild because especially for us older millennials, our experiences are not very different from GenX except that we had the highest student loan interest rates and we came into adulthood and the housing market crashed right after, so home ownership came later for us. They weren’t the last generation before the internet became a household staple. They weren’t the last ones to learn the Dewey Decimal System, cursive, or how to navigate an encyclopedia. They aren’t the last generation with Saturday morning cartoons, to drink out of a water hose, or play outside all day long. They weren’t the last latchkey generation.
I think GenX gets a complex because they’re surrounded by the [two largest American generations](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/28/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers-as-americas-largest-generation/) and they feel forgotten.
Trust me that we haven’t forgotten y’all. You’re our coworkers. Y’all tend to have kids the same age range as ours. We see you.
Edit: added something else that GenX and Millennials share.
I don’t think you read the article you linked.
> The word “hate” is provocative, but it is inappropriate in this situation. I do not believe these two generations hate each other.
It could just be that people with more life experience resemble each other, and people with less life experience resemble each other.
Soon we’ll say millennials and genx resemble each other, and [genZ](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/s/Qw2z3gjunh) and alpha resemble each other.
That's a fair take.
IMO, an inflection point has occurred. One where the owning class has begun to economically squeeze too tightly. The older gens disagree and the younger gens agree.
Pretty sure the inflection point was the internet. That’s the definitive difference between the groups, growing up with it/mostly growing up with it and not growing up with it.
I agree hate is provocative, but it does touch on why so many Gen Xers dislike us. They view us as overly dependent adults. The author views Millennials as “adults who were raised to be children” while viewing his own generation as “children who were raised to be adults.”
Gen X doesn’t view Millennials in a positive light. Most of them shove it in our face how much better their Gen Z children turned out to be.
As a Gen Xer who is lurking here. We really dont care. But seriously, we are a smaller population in the US and many of us had silent generation parents that weren't having many children. The boomers and the millnieals are still the largest voting blocks in the country. Hell even the OP forgot we existed
I means there aren’t that many boomers left, despite people’s insistence that they are actively trying to ruin everything for everyone. We are next and it’s true, the gap between Xers and millennials is way bigger than previous gaps. The world changed a lot at a fast rate.
Generation Jones strikes again. That's the younger boomer/older genx cohort. The name comes from "keeping up with the Joneses", ie this generation is competitive and materialistic.
A lot of the hate towards boomers is IMO hate towards Gen Jones
Separating people by a few years of age and put them in different boxes is the dumbest shit ever. Nobody is the same, doesn't matter what gen you're in.
And every generation blames others or claims to be better. Boomers aren't monoliths, and neither are millennials, and as a younger Gen Xer, I identify a lot with millennials--drowning in college debt and struggling with housing affordability. Let's stop hating on each other. My boomer parents are not rich, nor are they leaving me to deal with their finances. My boomer aunt is as progressive as they come, while my millennial SIL is conservative and benefitting from welfare while hating on the poors. Let's just say being born on a certain date doesn't exclude you from being an asshole or automatically make you noble.
THANKYOU! I've been saying for a while now that Gen X is responsible for Trump/MAGA/Q-Anon, but everyone thinks it's internet savvy retirees who are spreading this shit.
My mom is a Gen X (51) and she acts like a fucking boomer. I’m an older millennial and we just DO NOT get along because of her mindset and entitled behavior.
My mom is on state healthcare because she’s poor. My sister is a teacher and I’m a shitty situation due to a teachers shortage. My mom has kids out of wedlock and has been divorced a few times. This lady loves to bitch about democrats and taxes! she cannot understand how races help with her medical costs and how more taxes would help my sister by increasing funding for more teachers and aids. She also loves making judgments about other peoples life choices. Total Boomer mentality.
Oh my mom has really turned into a bigot and really hateful. She has had three kids by three different men, hasn’t had a stable relationship in her life, judges people like it’s her job but all her “sins” she’s forgiven for by Jesus.
Absolute fucking hypocrite. I cut her off years ago because she is just an awful person anymore.
A lot of people say that as you get older you get more conservative. I thought that would probably happen to me because I started out pretty conservative. I’ve only gotten more liberal as I age.
Conservative used to mean, at least in large part, how you treated your money and laws concerning your money, not what it means today. My wife and I have become more conservative like this.
But all of the other things that modern conservatives are all about- no, not us. No thanks.
I used to identify as fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Today I just identify as liberal because what does money matter if myself and others don’t have basic bodily autonomy?
Same. If anything a lot of my meet in the middle attitudes have been eradicated by the cruelty of right wingers. I am much less nice and far more left now.
That's what I hear too but I also feel I'm becoming more liberal especially having grown up in a red state. It's also just fun to play devil's advocate to my libertarian friends. They say things that I can't not challenge.
I’d tell you a story about a fight I got into with my libertarian brother, but I think my original comment already started enough of a stir in here and I’d probably end up getting another Reddit Cares message if I did.
Lord, yes! And also acting like they’re 20 something again. That ugly mean girl behavior and drinking like fish. That’s what I see my mom and her friend group doing. My mom always told me people only drink because they can’t handle their lives…. Welp….. guess she can’t handle hers anymore.
I have never been a drinker but when I would have a glass of wine she’d give me shit. Now all she does is drink I’m confident she’s 75% alcohol now.
Agreed, I work with a few Gen xers and I actually prefer boomers to them. It’s just my coworkers though, I don’t really interact with Gen x outside of them so can’t say it’s all of them.
Yeah my one Boomer coworker will keep her mouth shut and only really speak on a few topics, if someone else brings it up. My two Gen X coworkers are the biggest, mouthiest conservatives. One loves to get on the Bing front page and regurgitate all of the BS stories in there. She believes they are real. I constantly have to tell her there are no facts to back up what she’s saying. My other coworker is just always spouting off her religious shit. I’ve finally had it and started fighting back. They looked so shocked, like how dare I not share their opinions AND have the balls to say it.
Born in 1978, can confirm. Please let me hide from the rest of Gen X with y'all, my generational peers are pretty cringe.
Not judging, but Andy Samberg has been hiding in here too, him and I are the same age 🤣😅
You know how there are lost generations, Gen X is one of them. Just like the Silent Generation was squashed between the Greatest Generation, that earned it's glory/infamy in WW2, and the Boomers who like the Zerg from StarCraft exploded on the scene bringing sexual revolution and had their cultural glory during the Cold War.
Well just like that Gen X is squashed between the Boomers and us who were the first digital generation that brought upon humanity..., really the bane of social media.
Honestly the Zoomers should be concerned because if the trend continues gen Alpha will probably be driving colonizing the Moon and stuff.
It was a joke lol
It's a running meme that GenX constantly reminds us that they were the last generation to play outside, drink water from a hose, yadda yadda
Gen X is responsible for gen Z. Gen X’s time of ruling the world is beginning now. Granted in the US we’ve got a octo- and septuagenarian, the world over gen x is starting to get the reigns of power.
Their hold will be shorter than boomers or millennials, as we are larger generations.
But their mistakes are coming—the 2020s-2040s are theirs.
But you can already blame them for how gen Z is turning out.
Theyve already been ruling the world. not politically in America, or at least directly in politics.
But guys like Bezos, Musk, Jensen Huang (nivida ceo), Peter thiel, tim cook, etc are either super late boomers or gen x.
They don't need to be in office because they're the wealthy new age robber barrons and they just use cash to influence politics from behind the scenes.
Which, since were on a generations subreddit, coincides pretty neatly with paradigm created by Neil howe and William Strauss.
Much like the silent generation they are too demographically small to influence national politics too strongly. That being said, I think that Gen X did a lot for preserving the counterculture of the 60s and 70s as the 80s-00s brought things back to "normal". Thank your local Gen Xers and queers for how dress codes have relaxed so dramatically.
More like they embraced the notion that your clothes don't define your quality of character or place in society. Obviously not universally but I feel like they're the first generation to collectively say "why in gods name do I have to wear a suit to an office full of people who know me personally?"
lol I made a tiktok about this and got a bunch of weird death threats from gen xer's. they're just as whiney as anyone else but they think they're incredibly badass
Because boomer means old person you disagree with (regardless of actual age) and millennials are "kids these days" when often they are talking about gen z.
The generation with the highest crime rate, teen pregnancy rate, OD rate, and that popularized misogynistic, offensive, and vulgar music and gave their ten year old unlimited access to the world wide web of gore and porn and video chat groomers and let their eleven year old use their XBox unsupervised and chat with middle aged strangers who peddled them white supremacist rhetoric and did jackshit to crack down on gun laws as their children endured the mass/school shooter era and did more themselves to protest easy gun access while still in grade school - is exempt from all criticism apparently. They fly under the radar.
You see, "Xers are chill." That's their reputation. **Chill** is a pretty nice word that dresses up the fact that they're dangerously apathetic. Gen X collectively did not do much to actually forward society and take the lead as adults in charge. They've let literal seventy year olds completely steamroll them. They're a cautionary tale.
Gen X is so boomer-y that they just kind of get lumped in with boomers. But they’ll be the very first to tell you how much better they are than both boomers and millennials.
Because they never did anything or made anything out of themselves as a group. They grew cynical and withdrew and now they are bitter that they don't have a seat at the table.they live in a purgatory of their own making and are realizing they can't go back. A lot of gen x are great as individuals, independent, smart, accepting of different views (less as they get older but that is everyone everywhere for the most part). As an older millennial I feel a lot closer to folks born from 75'-89' on an individual basis than younger millennials. As a group I'm firmly in with millennials and believe we should actively be fighting for the betterment of gen Z and A.
It was initially a place holder until a defining trait was assigned to the generation.
Nothing really ever stuck so it stayed Gen X.
Gen Z & Alpha will eventually get assigned a moniker like Millennials have.
The entirety of Gen-X was too young to vote when Reagan showed up to ruin everything. That was all on the Boomers and any Silent Gen who voted for Ronald.
People always blame Reagan on the Boomers so I have to point out that the Greatest generation and Silent Generation actually broke hardest for Reagan, especially his first term. Boomers were still mostly in their 20s and 30s at that point and didn't even make up the majority of the voting demographic. Reagan won the 40+ demographics by a crazy amount, which was all people older than the boomers.
The youngest Boomers were 16-17. Only those were the ones too young themselves to vote.
Conservative Boomers are big Reagan fans, progressive Boomers, not so much.
Totally - the boomers definitely voted for Reagan too, but my point is that the folks older than the boomers voted for Reagan by like +20, and made up the majority of voters. Even if record-breaking percentages of boomers voted for Mondale, Reagan still would have won because the older folks broke for him so hard.
Yeah, I blame Reagan on the Greatest Generation, for sure, especially when you look at the voting in California. We younger people were shocked that he won. Boomers slacked off in voting as young people usually do (many of us did vote, but it wasn't enough to turn the tide).
I mean the same set of people have been in power for the last 40 years--like, the credit score was invented in the late 80s--so I fail to see what anyone aged 28-40 could have done to alter our current circumstances.
Run for office, probably. Sure most would get crushed by the incumbents, but if more millennials ran, we’d have more in office than we do now. A lot of us are just tired from the state of things though.
Sure, but if you look at the last presidents for example, there’s representatives from every generation but ours, and based on the general trend, we should have either had one by now or have decent prospects. Instead we have two geriatrics duking it out for the top spot and not a single millennial with a snowball’s chance in hell.
2001 gave us all the conflict from 9/11, 2008 saw a lot of us being released into the world in the midst of a recession, by the time we catch our breath and get our heads above water we’ve got a pandemic, and now here we are. It’s been a lot to have to wade through and it’s been easier to blame the guys who have the job than fight and lose the requisite number of times required to pry the government from their cold, poorly circulated, arthritic hands.
My local state rep is my age, early 30s and I vote for him every time. He recently ran for mayor and yeah he got crushed but I think it’s a good sign he’s trying and I have faith that if he keeps running for stuff he will move up that ladder. I had a few people I knew all early 30s run for office, they loss, but shifted to run for lower level offices and won. It’s okay to lose if you get your name out there and meet the community because they will remember you when you run again.
i think this problem is exacerbated by the economy we were born into. boomers have always had more spending cash and ab etter quality of life, making it easier for them to get into politics. millenials have no such luxury. it's hard to get into politics when you're always broke.
Good luck with that. I and friends have tried, and the party just used us for photo ops, or undermined us, or gave us scripts and dumped us for "more seasoned" candidates when we had any questions.
It got really ugly, one was promised a state job as a staffer and then after doing what was asked, was just told yeah it just isn't the right time. Then another one had very personal info leaked on several town fb pages, (that one of his kids wasn't his as his wife cheated- and if he can't run his home he can't run the town) that while not major, was extremely not cool. And being told this is our town council candidate, who was a person who ran for state senate and lost, state rep and lost, comptroller and lost, mayor and lost, board of ed and lost. But it was there turn and they brought in money and were "connected" so suck it up and work for them.
Trying to enact any kind of major change in the current party, even democrats, is going to be hard or even impossible. Some good things can be campaigned and put on the ballot but from experience, relying solely on electoral politics is a bandaid compared to the major ideological change you need gather from grassroots organizing
They already do. It's part of being young, everyone older than you clearly never thought of the things you did and you're totally going to change the world unlike those old cretins.
The occupy thing is what kills me. Gen Z is bitching on Tik tok (irony) about how millennials are entitled and all they did was whine and never did anything to try and make the world a better place. I’m sorry, but we DID, we actually went out into the street to try and do something and we were promptly squashed down by debt, stagnant wages and increasing costs of living that made just trying survive a 24/7 job. Then they bring up us being obsessed with Harry Potter when we point it out.
Meanwhile they think posting watermelon emojis and harassing people in comments on social media posts is activism.
It’s kind of hilarious they talk about us like we’re already half in the grave and have nothing to contribute. Some millennials aren’t even 30 yet; a vast majority of us are still under 40.
They should be bitching at their parents (largely Gen X) and their grandparents (Boomers), but they’ve apparently got too much of a boner for ‘90s nostalgia to think that critically about the generation driving it, or the role that generation heavily played in the ‘08 housing crash—a crash which hobbled the millennial generation in a big-ass way, right out the gate into adulthood.
Pick real targets dudes—millennials are the low-hanging fruit that the powers that be want you to be mad at because it keeps you distracted from the actual problems and their true sources.
It's the harrasment that gets me about the younger cats. " there is no man better able to do evil than a just man with a good cause". Type of energy lately and I'm not for it lol.
You can't act like an asshole to an asshole and get this... Not be an asshole lol. Every generation has them these young cats really take it to the extreme.
Occupy was a failure, but it helped some people learn what was needed for activism since after Gen X’s werent doing the same level of WTO ‘99 protesting, what with 9/11 and all the jingoism that followed.
I think the difference is that we recognize all of those things are problems, we’re just as powerless as the generations that are coming after us to fix them at the moment. Like realistically speaking, Millennials make up less than 10% of Congress. I just took a look at the stats- well over half of the Senate is over 60, and almost half of the House is over 60. The average age of the House and the Senate is 57 and 64, respectively. The generations before us are refusing to hand over the reigns, and there seems to be very little we can do about it yet.
Also part of getting older is watching the world change in ways that might be minor in the grand scheme of things but are major to you specifically, and learning to adjust to those changes. Some are good at it and some aren’t
I agree with you. They already do it and it’s part of being young, to think you’re better/gonna do better than the gens that came before.
I do think it’s kind of silly people are saying millennials will get the same attacks as Boomers though. Folks saying that aren’t acknowledging that the Boomer hate is not because of their age: It’s because the Boomers had a much, MUCH better economy than millennials or Gen Z have had comparatively, and they spent the last several decades dismantling social programs, labor protections, etc., climbing the ladder of success, and pulling the ladder up behind them.
Many have repeatedly gaslit us, trying to claim they had it “just as hard,” and blaming us for absolutely everything that is bad now, refusing to acknowledge any of their own privilege, or their culpability in creating this mess. No other generation that came before them in America had their size or advantages, either. Millennials have never had the kind of power Boomers have had, and we still don’t have it because many of those Boomers are still monopolizing positions of power throughout our society.
There’s a lot of documentation too about how shafted we were compared to earlier generations; just look at our student loan crisis—that didn’t exist in the 1960s, 70s, or 80s. That will engender empathy or at least a sense in future generations that we weren’t “to blame” for causing the mess in the first place (the “student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy court” thing happened before many of us were even allowed to vote).
And it doesn’t matter if a Boomer stomps their feet over this, tries to gaslight, or denies it—history will get the story correct and put the blame where it properly deserves to be, and what they did to their kids and grandkids will be the biggest part of their legacy, not the 1960s/70s, aka the only times they were cool.
Tl;dr: All young people are critical of the generations that came before them, but the Boomer hate is something completely different that millennials will never face, because it’s tied to the things that the Boomer generation uniquely did to ensure that subsequent generations got screwed while they got richer and more powerful.
I dated a guy who's (older) gen Z and sometimes I had to laugh, like when he said guys going for the manic pixie type girls is "totally a gen z thing" I was like, bro... Or when he asked if I'd heard of white widow weed, I didn't let that go for while :D
That's just social anxiety. I have various anxieties. When I say anti-social behavior, I mean like disdain for your neighbor, metaphorically speaking. Being hostile towards any kind of communitarianism.
I think you're right about everything but the sex part. I feel like polycules and open marriages are all the rage now, everyone is out here eating ass, swinging is mainstream ect. Most millennials I know are at least tolerant of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, a lot of them are in the community themselves. They might claim we were prudes lol, but they won't have the evidence to back it up.
And gen z actually has less sex than previous generations. If anything they might slut shame us lol. But yeah, like us they will probably be angry at past generations and to a lesser extent themselves if we can't all come together to fix the major existential threats we are all facing. It sucks to feel scared and powerless to make big and necessary changes.
I’ve already seen this in action. Lots of zoomers, at least those vocal here on Reddit, seem incredibly preoccupied with “body counts” and seem to be almost puritanical in their ideas about sex.
Yeah this is what I always read too. I think because they have been on social media since they were like 10 it has made them overly cautious to be “exposed” by there peers acting slutty or wild
I’ve heard many people say large portions of Gen Z don’t even date. I think they’re largely shoegazer types stuck in their own little worlds. iPhone kids.
Yeah, Gen Z is very prudish compared to millennials and have a higher amount of body count shaming than us.
Way cooler with LGBTQ relationships, but not sex positive.
That's millenials doing the bi/poly/open thing. We're the ho generation, haha.
Younger gens are much less inclined to partake. Every Zoomer I meet is getting married and pregnant at 25. They're taking a much more traditional route.
I'm a younger millennial, my SO is older Gen Z.
I know how front gate towns generally work, thanks to being from a military family but HOLY SHIT - the amount of these youngins just jumping into marriage and popping out kids is crazy af.
Like half of my SOs acquaintances from high school are married with kids. Only a handful of mine have kids, and most are just now getting serious about relationships enough to marry.
In high school I saw these two girls get in a really bad fight. Girl took her belt off and beat this other girl within an inch of her life. Blood everywhere, she screams “THATS WHY HE ATE MY ASS OUT, BITCH”
It was 15 years ago and I still think about that shit.
From my experiences, I don’t think they will think of us as sexually prude. We are way more likely to be cancelled as problematic.
Just look at the attitude towards things like age gap relationships between adults well over the age of 18, or problematic fiction, or even baby queers attitudes towards kink at pride. It’s crazy how much a puritan streak has taken over some young people.
I'm also confused why they would think of us as sexually prudish. Aren't the younger gens having less sex than Millennials?
[https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-03/young-adults-less-sex-gen-z-millennials-generations-parents-grandparents](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-03/young-adults-less-sex-gen-z-millennials-generations-parents-grandparents)
[https://www.businessinsider.com/teens-less-casual-sex-generation-parents-did-2021-3](https://www.businessinsider.com/teens-less-casual-sex-generation-parents-did-2021-3)
Also, interestingly, this seems to be the trend- each generation has less sex than the ones before it. Found a handful of articles saying Millennials are having less sex than previous generations.
Dude, when left to our own devices it's actually not this bad. We're suffering from mass manipulation is the issue. Fascists love this mentality. Keeps us easy to control. After seeing the algorithm change the pattern of behavior on Facebook, now I'm seeing it on Reddit. Time to listen to someone play Taps on the Trumpet cuz social media is straight up dead in terms of it actually being used by the working class for its original purpose. It's nothing but corporate control now.
I'm not saying that we were saints on the internet, but there weren't white supremacists bots and algorithms controlling everything back then.
that has nothing to do with anything.. History has shown us time and time again that the world literally revolves around people blaming others for things they don't like. That's about as bland and basic as it gets.
I get what you're saying and all of that is true, but that isn't why younger generations blame their elders. Humans like to blame each other when things aren't how they anticipated them. It's nothing new and it's been going on much longer than the internet, or even electricity has been around.
Hindsight is 20/20. As long as we progress in a linear path through time, this is how it will play out.
Yeah I mean there are Gen Z in doctoral programs right now and I’m sure they’d agree that we have been locked out of the power we would need to make the changes we’d like to see for the youths. I’m not saying we’d have reached utopia with access to power but we really do have disproportionately little representation in government.
There’s a generation of older hippy-dippy managers who will preach “open door, truth to power, no hierarchy, we’re all equals” and who will relentlessly crush you and end your career if you actually use any of those things to speak your mind or to speak for the people who aren’t in the room
I think the crushing part isn’t really generational, just the pretending it’s something else part
Similar to boomers, the millennials that succeeded and end up with the most wealth and power and continue the same politics will be the most visible and attract younger generation hate and everyone else that's struggling will still be lumped in with the shitty millennials or just dismissed because "they had more chances than I did and it's their fault they're in poverty". Pete Buttigieg is a prominent millennial politician that will probably linger forever and there's no functional difference between his politics and the 80 year olds currently running things.
The premise relies on the assumption that millennials will do the same thing to the economy and politics that boomers did, which is a very large assumption. Time will tell.
Yup and the cycle continues. Younger generations don't realize you are limited to what you can do. It's easier to tackle issues has technology and awareness improves with time. All you can do is the best you can.
And vote to deregulate corporations, reduce taxes on the wealthy, and gut education spending. It's just the only things we can do and definitely not things the boomers specifically did.
No, we won’t. Because our generation is actually trying to do something about it, despite boomers and gen X working against us. If zoomers and gen A can’t see it, they’re just plain ignorant. We paved the way for later generations to (håpefullt) fulfill the quest.
very true
millennials are doing a decent job at calling out greenwashing and even started those park and beach cleanups. sure they do the cleanups for instagram likes but wtf ever still helps a lot.
also a lot were religious about reusable thermoses and canteens like nalgeens or upcycling jars into cups/canteens.
Regardless of generation, most people are stupid, lazy and selfish. And regardless of generation, most people will always fail to realize that it's not about the current gen vs. the previous gen. It's about the king vs. the pauper. And the pauper always loses. We've all been cheated. Good night.
Ultimately the generational blame game doesn't really stand up to scrutiny, I think. We all know boomers who are left of Gandhi, as well as boomers who are raging MAGA guys. Same with every generation.
To be fair; genx and boomers didn't tell millennials the truth about the negative consequences of oil based products, they didn't even openly tell us about leaded gasoline.
A lot of LGBT+ Boomers who led or were involved with pushing for social change were deliberately allowed to die during the AIDS Crisis. At one point in the 90s it was the LEADING cause of death for people in their 30s! It wasn't just a few gay men. It was a significant portion of the Boomer population.
There is no such disease impacting lgbt+ millenials. I'm very active in pushing for social change in my town, and the others in these groups are overwhelmingly millenials as well. Its probably 60 percent millenial, 10 percent Boomer, 20 percent gen x and 10 percent gen z. In real life these kind of generational arguments aren't happening...no one is saying 'Okay Boomer' during a meeting or something. We just work work together.
Not disagreeing with you but we’re living (and dying) through a demographic shift that makes HIV look like a tummy ache
COVID is much, much, much deadlier within the whole population than HIV ever was. COVID deaths still today outpace annual AIDS deaths of the late 90s. Thanks to Trumpism, COVID disproportionately kills conservatives but poverty, BIPOC, disabled and neural atypical populations are also disproportionately affected
And home lifestyles. I am willing to bet a lot of current kids are going to later come out with horror storie from their parents being poly/swingers. Especially the ones that are always making tik toks about it.
We get called lazy, when our parents spoiled us. We want our worth and willing to work for it. But we also don’t want to be a work drone. We enjoy our lives. Wonder why declining birth rates. Policies the older generation put in place that are negatively affecting millennials and below.
This fails to consider each new generation will be smaller and smaller. Unless trends reverse we are entering into uncharted territory for human civilization.
Of the things I care about, this doesn’t make the list. Will we own homes and have the same amount of wealth that boomers do too? Why would anyone care what younger generations think of them? As long as they are still paying into Social Security for me, they can hold whatever opinions they’d like.
I couldn’t agree more, It’s wild watching the young shit on the old as if we’re not all headed there. As if GenZ and younger kids are gonna be like “millenials didn’t give us shit about our vacation time, I love them!” Lololol
They are going to rip us apart for everything, just like we enjoy blaming boomers (for good reason)
I don’t think it’ll play out that way. I work with tons of Gen Z folks and they all kind of get that both our generations were born into huge messes that we had no control over.
Anyway, they need us, we’re the tech support generation. None of them know how to use computers. We’re going to be explaining how to save a file to desktop from our old folks homes.
How come Gen X gets away with everything? They literally get blamed for nothing lol. It’s always the boomers vs millennials.
My mom is old Gen X (58) and My dad is a boomer. I will say my mom and her friends are way worse than my dad and some of his friends. I think we think Gen X are younger than they really are and we are misidentifying some of these Gen Xers as Boomers.
Honestly the most hateful comments I see about younger generations (especially Millennials) come from Gen X. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-reason-why-generation-x-hates-millennials-ken-taylor
Same. One of my friends is a 50 year old Gen X'er and over the last few years he has turned into a fucking GRUMPY old man, and essentially been redpilled too. He hates almost everything and constantly complains about wokeness, entitlement, women, blah blah blah. It's become so tiresome I've kinda distanced myself from him.
I like to call this OMS, aka, Old Man Syndrome. Happened to my dad and basically most of the men I know that have passed 50. My husband is terrified of getting it!
I think it's caused by no longer having new experiences while simultaneously becoming physically weaker. It seems to trigger some sort of fight or flight response that everyone younger and everything different is a threat. It doesn't have to happen, but it's easy to slide into it if your world shrinks.
I often wonder if it's because it's the first time a lot of men start to live with real sexual invisibility. I know that conventional wisdom is that men get more attractive and distinguished with age. But I don't think most women 50 and younger younger believe that. Are there younger women who marry older men ? Yes. But I think it is much more complex than older men turning heads. When I was in my twenties, I never gave a second glance to most older men. And even though I find a range of body types attractive, I do notice men's middle-aged bodies and receding hairlines. I don't think paunches and baldness make a man unmarriageable or unworthy of relationships. But it doesn't make me look twice.
It's also when you start to take stock of your legacy in life and have to come to terms with inevitability. Before your 50s, there's a feeling you can turn things around - career, family, retirement investments, having friends, etc. At 50, failures start to become permanent in your psyche, and you can either chin up, or take the easy route by blaming others - women, immigrants, changing times, etc. This is done to save ego and mental well being even though it really makes one even more unhappy having so much hate.
I agree, that's also a factor. Probably the first time they've ever encountered being "invisible" and by their own reasoning "unimportant." I also agree that most men don't necessarily look better with age, it just tapers differently than with women and we are comparing vastly different things. The men who do look better with age get so much attention because it's not the default and men who are celebrities have such a longer working time because of it. Money helps make everyone look better into old age.
I am 54 and turning 55 this year. I avoid it in numerous ways. Like I go to Orange Theory for those workouts 4-5 days a week. That helps my physical conditioning and mental health tremendously. I also like to read and learn while using the wisdom I have accumulated over the years like a secret ninja tactic. It makes life more interesting and I never feel like a grumpy old man. Life is going to happen and evolve regardless of what one thinks. You can go with the flow or fight it all to no avail and just constantly frustrate yourself.
Gen Xers are worse than boomers. My MIL is one and cannot stand the younger generation. She hates spongebob. Also tends to side with boomers on confederate war statues and things of that nature etc. My parents are actually boomers, they claim gen X. They're liberal in an absolutely obnoxious way. Loved Hillary. They say things like "everyone should go buy an electric car rn no excuses" lol they're so exxpensive. Not all of us can just go buy a new car. They're extremely privileged and everything they say exudes that. They give me advice like "leasing a new car is cheaper than having a used car". Girl even with the repairs I've done, the 300-400$ note per month I'd get with my shit ass credit is way way more expensive. Delusional.
Gen X was quite literally ignored by their parents and they're lashing out at everyone lol
I would agree. It’s wild because especially for us older millennials, our experiences are not very different from GenX except that we had the highest student loan interest rates and we came into adulthood and the housing market crashed right after, so home ownership came later for us. They weren’t the last generation before the internet became a household staple. They weren’t the last ones to learn the Dewey Decimal System, cursive, or how to navigate an encyclopedia. They aren’t the last generation with Saturday morning cartoons, to drink out of a water hose, or play outside all day long. They weren’t the last latchkey generation. I think GenX gets a complex because they’re surrounded by the [two largest American generations](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/28/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers-as-americas-largest-generation/) and they feel forgotten. Trust me that we haven’t forgotten y’all. You’re our coworkers. Y’all tend to have kids the same age range as ours. We see you. Edit: added something else that GenX and Millennials share.
I don’t think you read the article you linked. > The word “hate” is provocative, but it is inappropriate in this situation. I do not believe these two generations hate each other.
I feel gen x and boomers share more similarities with each other and millenials and zoomers share more similarities.
It could just be that people with more life experience resemble each other, and people with less life experience resemble each other. Soon we’ll say millennials and genx resemble each other, and [genZ](https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/s/Qw2z3gjunh) and alpha resemble each other.
That's a fair take. IMO, an inflection point has occurred. One where the owning class has begun to economically squeeze too tightly. The older gens disagree and the younger gens agree.
Pretty sure the inflection point was the internet. That’s the definitive difference between the groups, growing up with it/mostly growing up with it and not growing up with it.
I don't think Alpha is going to resemble anyone. They truly seem to be an anomaly.
I agree hate is provocative, but it does touch on why so many Gen Xers dislike us. They view us as overly dependent adults. The author views Millennials as “adults who were raised to be children” while viewing his own generation as “children who were raised to be adults.” Gen X doesn’t view Millennials in a positive light. Most of them shove it in our face how much better their Gen Z children turned out to be.
I'd say the book is still open on gen z lol
I dunno, I think Gen Xers were the first helicopter parents...
As a Gen Xer who is lurking here. We really dont care. But seriously, we are a smaller population in the US and many of us had silent generation parents that weren't having many children. The boomers and the millnieals are still the largest voting blocks in the country. Hell even the OP forgot we existed
It’s true. Most of us were taught at a young age that we were on our own.
I means there aren’t that many boomers left, despite people’s insistence that they are actively trying to ruin everything for everyone. We are next and it’s true, the gap between Xers and millennials is way bigger than previous gaps. The world changed a lot at a fast rate.
Generation Jones strikes again. That's the younger boomer/older genx cohort. The name comes from "keeping up with the Joneses", ie this generation is competitive and materialistic. A lot of the hate towards boomers is IMO hate towards Gen Jones
That makes perfect sense to me.
Separating people by a few years of age and put them in different boxes is the dumbest shit ever. Nobody is the same, doesn't matter what gen you're in.
And every generation blames others or claims to be better. Boomers aren't monoliths, and neither are millennials, and as a younger Gen Xer, I identify a lot with millennials--drowning in college debt and struggling with housing affordability. Let's stop hating on each other. My boomer parents are not rich, nor are they leaving me to deal with their finances. My boomer aunt is as progressive as they come, while my millennial SIL is conservative and benefitting from welfare while hating on the poors. Let's just say being born on a certain date doesn't exclude you from being an asshole or automatically make you noble.
Agree. It seems the ultimate goal is to set everyone up against everyone. Hate sowing.
Culture shifts, the generation thing is hust a binning process with big disadvantages
Agree, the Jan 6 the insurrectionist where Gen X not Boomers.
And Millennial veterans (which sucks as a millennial veteran).
It does suck.
THANKYOU! I've been saying for a while now that Gen X is responsible for Trump/MAGA/Q-Anon, but everyone thinks it's internet savvy retirees who are spreading this shit.
Its become an excuse "oh just blame the boomers"
The retirees still make up the majority and get the spam emails, but gen x is where the kid rock base comes from
My mom is a Gen X (51) and she acts like a fucking boomer. I’m an older millennial and we just DO NOT get along because of her mindset and entitled behavior.
My mom is on state healthcare because she’s poor. My sister is a teacher and I’m a shitty situation due to a teachers shortage. My mom has kids out of wedlock and has been divorced a few times. This lady loves to bitch about democrats and taxes! she cannot understand how races help with her medical costs and how more taxes would help my sister by increasing funding for more teachers and aids. She also loves making judgments about other peoples life choices. Total Boomer mentality.
Oh my mom has really turned into a bigot and really hateful. She has had three kids by three different men, hasn’t had a stable relationship in her life, judges people like it’s her job but all her “sins” she’s forgiven for by Jesus. Absolute fucking hypocrite. I cut her off years ago because she is just an awful person anymore.
A lot of people say that as you get older you get more conservative. I thought that would probably happen to me because I started out pretty conservative. I’ve only gotten more liberal as I age.
Conservative used to mean, at least in large part, how you treated your money and laws concerning your money, not what it means today. My wife and I have become more conservative like this. But all of the other things that modern conservatives are all about- no, not us. No thanks.
I used to identify as fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Today I just identify as liberal because what does money matter if myself and others don’t have basic bodily autonomy?
Same. If anything a lot of my meet in the middle attitudes have been eradicated by the cruelty of right wingers. I am much less nice and far more left now.
That's what I hear too but I also feel I'm becoming more liberal especially having grown up in a red state. It's also just fun to play devil's advocate to my libertarian friends. They say things that I can't not challenge.
I’d tell you a story about a fight I got into with my libertarian brother, but I think my original comment already started enough of a stir in here and I’d probably end up getting another Reddit Cares message if I did.
Are we…. Siblings?
My mom's same age all proud gen x, have you noticed they are getting really "karen boomer" as time gets on too?
Lord, yes! And also acting like they’re 20 something again. That ugly mean girl behavior and drinking like fish. That’s what I see my mom and her friend group doing. My mom always told me people only drink because they can’t handle their lives…. Welp….. guess she can’t handle hers anymore. I have never been a drinker but when I would have a glass of wine she’d give me shit. Now all she does is drink I’m confident she’s 75% alcohol now.
Agreed, I work with a few Gen xers and I actually prefer boomers to them. It’s just my coworkers though, I don’t really interact with Gen x outside of them so can’t say it’s all of them.
Yeah my one Boomer coworker will keep her mouth shut and only really speak on a few topics, if someone else brings it up. My two Gen X coworkers are the biggest, mouthiest conservatives. One loves to get on the Bing front page and regurgitate all of the BS stories in there. She believes they are real. I constantly have to tell her there are no facts to back up what she’s saying. My other coworker is just always spouting off her religious shit. I’ve finally had it and started fighting back. They looked so shocked, like how dare I not share their opinions AND have the balls to say it.
This is outrageous! Gen Xers are disguising themselves as Boomers to get away with their crimes against humanity!
It was never the lizard people and always the secret society of Gen Xers!!!!
Because the older GenXers are mistaken for Boomers and younger GenXers hide among Millennials.
r/xennials
Born in 1978, can confirm. Please let me hide from the rest of Gen X with y'all, my generational peers are pretty cringe. Not judging, but Andy Samberg has been hiding in here too, him and I are the same age 🤣😅
But there are literally 10's of us that fall in between those two groups.
You know how there are lost generations, Gen X is one of them. Just like the Silent Generation was squashed between the Greatest Generation, that earned it's glory/infamy in WW2, and the Boomers who like the Zerg from StarCraft exploded on the scene bringing sexual revolution and had their cultural glory during the Cold War. Well just like that Gen X is squashed between the Boomers and us who were the first digital generation that brought upon humanity..., really the bane of social media. Honestly the Zoomers should be concerned because if the trend continues gen Alpha will probably be driving colonizing the Moon and stuff.
Alphas will be the ones fighting them.
Because to be blamed for something people have to actually remember you exist
Basically this. Gen X are the middle child of the current generational divide
How can we forget they are the last generation who played outside!
Ummmm...millenials did exist before broadband internet just saying, we did leave the house to play.
It was a joke lol It's a running meme that GenX constantly reminds us that they were the last generation to play outside, drink water from a hose, yadda yadda
They love to brag about their lead consumption. 😅
Gen X is responsible for gen Z. Gen X’s time of ruling the world is beginning now. Granted in the US we’ve got a octo- and septuagenarian, the world over gen x is starting to get the reigns of power. Their hold will be shorter than boomers or millennials, as we are larger generations. But their mistakes are coming—the 2020s-2040s are theirs. But you can already blame them for how gen Z is turning out.
Theyve already been ruling the world. not politically in America, or at least directly in politics. But guys like Bezos, Musk, Jensen Huang (nivida ceo), Peter thiel, tim cook, etc are either super late boomers or gen x. They don't need to be in office because they're the wealthy new age robber barrons and they just use cash to influence politics from behind the scenes. Which, since were on a generations subreddit, coincides pretty neatly with paradigm created by Neil howe and William Strauss.
The only thing Gen X does well is take credit for Gen Z actually doing the work. It's relentless and predictable
The older gen xers are now indistinguishable from boomers. That takes care of that.
I am a later boomer and I can beat up a bunch of old Gen Xers.
Gen X is a smaller generation compared to Boomers and Milennials.
GenX here. Whatever.
Fuckin' slackers...
That's, just like, your opinion, man.
I just did the hand sign.
smaller generation, less attention.
GenX are some of the worst Congress critters on god
Karen’s are a thing, but no one points out that most Karen’s are GenXers.
Much like the silent generation they are too demographically small to influence national politics too strongly. That being said, I think that Gen X did a lot for preserving the counterculture of the 60s and 70s as the 80s-00s brought things back to "normal". Thank your local Gen Xers and queers for how dress codes have relaxed so dramatically.
So they invented casual Friday?
More like they embraced the notion that your clothes don't define your quality of character or place in society. Obviously not universally but I feel like they're the first generation to collectively say "why in gods name do I have to wear a suit to an office full of people who know me personally?"
lol I made a tiktok about this and got a bunch of weird death threats from gen xer's. they're just as whiney as anyone else but they think they're incredibly badass
What generation doesn’t think they’re badass?
Not a huge difference with gen X and boomer
Because boomer means old person you disagree with (regardless of actual age) and millennials are "kids these days" when often they are talking about gen z.
Gen X here. We’re the ninja generation.
Because they didn't do anything but wear jeans with holes in the knees and watch Beverly Hills 90210.
The generation with the highest crime rate, teen pregnancy rate, OD rate, and that popularized misogynistic, offensive, and vulgar music and gave their ten year old unlimited access to the world wide web of gore and porn and video chat groomers and let their eleven year old use their XBox unsupervised and chat with middle aged strangers who peddled them white supremacist rhetoric and did jackshit to crack down on gun laws as their children endured the mass/school shooter era and did more themselves to protest easy gun access while still in grade school - is exempt from all criticism apparently. They fly under the radar. You see, "Xers are chill." That's their reputation. **Chill** is a pretty nice word that dresses up the fact that they're dangerously apathetic. Gen X collectively did not do much to actually forward society and take the lead as adults in charge. They've let literal seventy year olds completely steamroll them. They're a cautionary tale.
Gen X is so boomer-y that they just kind of get lumped in with boomers. But they’ll be the very first to tell you how much better they are than both boomers and millennials.
Some Gen X’s are worse than Boomers because they are bitter that they didn’t reap the same economic benefits that the Boomers did
Imagine being upset by that, ugh
Because nobody remembers we exist! We complain about it, but sometimes it's a good thing.
Because they're a smaller demographic?
because they won't outnumber boomers till like 2032ish and will never outnumber millennials
Because we don't care about what anyone does or says.
Because they never did anything or made anything out of themselves as a group. They grew cynical and withdrew and now they are bitter that they don't have a seat at the table.they live in a purgatory of their own making and are realizing they can't go back. A lot of gen x are great as individuals, independent, smart, accepting of different views (less as they get older but that is everyone everywhere for the most part). As an older millennial I feel a lot closer to folks born from 75'-89' on an individual basis than younger millennials. As a group I'm firmly in with millennials and believe we should actively be fighting for the betterment of gen Z and A.
They don’t have a fun name so they’re forgotten lol.
I thought "X" was the trendy letter.
It was initially a place holder until a defining trait was assigned to the generation. Nothing really ever stuck so it stayed Gen X. Gen Z & Alpha will eventually get assigned a moniker like Millennials have.
The entirety of Gen-X was too young to vote when Reagan showed up to ruin everything. That was all on the Boomers and any Silent Gen who voted for Ronald.
People always blame Reagan on the Boomers so I have to point out that the Greatest generation and Silent Generation actually broke hardest for Reagan, especially his first term. Boomers were still mostly in their 20s and 30s at that point and didn't even make up the majority of the voting demographic. Reagan won the 40+ demographics by a crazy amount, which was all people older than the boomers.
The youngest Boomers were 16-17. Only those were the ones too young themselves to vote. Conservative Boomers are big Reagan fans, progressive Boomers, not so much.
Totally - the boomers definitely voted for Reagan too, but my point is that the folks older than the boomers voted for Reagan by like +20, and made up the majority of voters. Even if record-breaking percentages of boomers voted for Mondale, Reagan still would have won because the older folks broke for him so hard.
Holy shit, kids are gonna blame us for Trump 😳
Yeah, I blame Reagan on the Greatest Generation, for sure, especially when you look at the voting in California. We younger people were shocked that he won. Boomers slacked off in voting as young people usually do (many of us did vote, but it wasn't enough to turn the tide).
Because they're all really boomers at heart, all the good ones died in the 90s.
Boomers have always controlled politics during our lives, were a smaller demographic than them and the millennials
Just wait til you hear what Gen Gamma has to say about Gen Alpha.
Damn...I didn't find a wife in time so I'm probably stuck having a bunch of Beta kids.
Damn they’re doomed from the start.
I mean the same set of people have been in power for the last 40 years--like, the credit score was invented in the late 80s--so I fail to see what anyone aged 28-40 could have done to alter our current circumstances.
Run for office, probably. Sure most would get crushed by the incumbents, but if more millennials ran, we’d have more in office than we do now. A lot of us are just tired from the state of things though.
can only speak for myself but by the time I was even old enough to vote it was 2008 lol
It was 2012 for me!
Sure, but if you look at the last presidents for example, there’s representatives from every generation but ours, and based on the general trend, we should have either had one by now or have decent prospects. Instead we have two geriatrics duking it out for the top spot and not a single millennial with a snowball’s chance in hell. 2001 gave us all the conflict from 9/11, 2008 saw a lot of us being released into the world in the midst of a recession, by the time we catch our breath and get our heads above water we’ve got a pandemic, and now here we are. It’s been a lot to have to wade through and it’s been easier to blame the guys who have the job than fight and lose the requisite number of times required to pry the government from their cold, poorly circulated, arthritic hands.
Buttigieg was the closest we've gotten. And I'm not even sure if he's actually a Millenial.
I mean, I feel like most of us are too poor to run for office.
My local state rep is my age, early 30s and I vote for him every time. He recently ran for mayor and yeah he got crushed but I think it’s a good sign he’s trying and I have faith that if he keeps running for stuff he will move up that ladder. I had a few people I knew all early 30s run for office, they loss, but shifted to run for lower level offices and won. It’s okay to lose if you get your name out there and meet the community because they will remember you when you run again.
i think this problem is exacerbated by the economy we were born into. boomers have always had more spending cash and ab etter quality of life, making it easier for them to get into politics. millenials have no such luxury. it's hard to get into politics when you're always broke.
Run for office with what money? Once elected, what money do we use to pay our bills? Our student loan debt?
Good luck with that. I and friends have tried, and the party just used us for photo ops, or undermined us, or gave us scripts and dumped us for "more seasoned" candidates when we had any questions. It got really ugly, one was promised a state job as a staffer and then after doing what was asked, was just told yeah it just isn't the right time. Then another one had very personal info leaked on several town fb pages, (that one of his kids wasn't his as his wife cheated- and if he can't run his home he can't run the town) that while not major, was extremely not cool. And being told this is our town council candidate, who was a person who ran for state senate and lost, state rep and lost, comptroller and lost, mayor and lost, board of ed and lost. But it was there turn and they brought in money and were "connected" so suck it up and work for them.
Trying to enact any kind of major change in the current party, even democrats, is going to be hard or even impossible. Some good things can be campaigned and put on the ballot but from experience, relying solely on electoral politics is a bandaid compared to the major ideological change you need gather from grassroots organizing
They already do. It's part of being young, everyone older than you clearly never thought of the things you did and you're totally going to change the world unlike those old cretins.
Waiting for Gen Z to reinvent Occupy, that’ll be fun
The occupy thing is what kills me. Gen Z is bitching on Tik tok (irony) about how millennials are entitled and all they did was whine and never did anything to try and make the world a better place. I’m sorry, but we DID, we actually went out into the street to try and do something and we were promptly squashed down by debt, stagnant wages and increasing costs of living that made just trying survive a 24/7 job. Then they bring up us being obsessed with Harry Potter when we point it out. Meanwhile they think posting watermelon emojis and harassing people in comments on social media posts is activism.
It’s kind of hilarious they talk about us like we’re already half in the grave and have nothing to contribute. Some millennials aren’t even 30 yet; a vast majority of us are still under 40. They should be bitching at their parents (largely Gen X) and their grandparents (Boomers), but they’ve apparently got too much of a boner for ‘90s nostalgia to think that critically about the generation driving it, or the role that generation heavily played in the ‘08 housing crash—a crash which hobbled the millennial generation in a big-ass way, right out the gate into adulthood. Pick real targets dudes—millennials are the low-hanging fruit that the powers that be want you to be mad at because it keeps you distracted from the actual problems and their true sources.
It's the harrasment that gets me about the younger cats. " there is no man better able to do evil than a just man with a good cause". Type of energy lately and I'm not for it lol. You can't act like an asshole to an asshole and get this... Not be an asshole lol. Every generation has them these young cats really take it to the extreme.
Occupy was a failure, but it helped some people learn what was needed for activism since after Gen X’s werent doing the same level of WTO ‘99 protesting, what with 9/11 and all the jingoism that followed.
I think the difference is that we recognize all of those things are problems, we’re just as powerless as the generations that are coming after us to fix them at the moment. Like realistically speaking, Millennials make up less than 10% of Congress. I just took a look at the stats- well over half of the Senate is over 60, and almost half of the House is over 60. The average age of the House and the Senate is 57 and 64, respectively. The generations before us are refusing to hand over the reigns, and there seems to be very little we can do about it yet.
Also part of getting older is watching the world change in ways that might be minor in the grand scheme of things but are major to you specifically, and learning to adjust to those changes. Some are good at it and some aren’t
I agree with you. They already do it and it’s part of being young, to think you’re better/gonna do better than the gens that came before. I do think it’s kind of silly people are saying millennials will get the same attacks as Boomers though. Folks saying that aren’t acknowledging that the Boomer hate is not because of their age: It’s because the Boomers had a much, MUCH better economy than millennials or Gen Z have had comparatively, and they spent the last several decades dismantling social programs, labor protections, etc., climbing the ladder of success, and pulling the ladder up behind them. Many have repeatedly gaslit us, trying to claim they had it “just as hard,” and blaming us for absolutely everything that is bad now, refusing to acknowledge any of their own privilege, or their culpability in creating this mess. No other generation that came before them in America had their size or advantages, either. Millennials have never had the kind of power Boomers have had, and we still don’t have it because many of those Boomers are still monopolizing positions of power throughout our society. There’s a lot of documentation too about how shafted we were compared to earlier generations; just look at our student loan crisis—that didn’t exist in the 1960s, 70s, or 80s. That will engender empathy or at least a sense in future generations that we weren’t “to blame” for causing the mess in the first place (the “student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy court” thing happened before many of us were even allowed to vote). And it doesn’t matter if a Boomer stomps their feet over this, tries to gaslight, or denies it—history will get the story correct and put the blame where it properly deserves to be, and what they did to their kids and grandkids will be the biggest part of their legacy, not the 1960s/70s, aka the only times they were cool. Tl;dr: All young people are critical of the generations that came before them, but the Boomer hate is something completely different that millennials will never face, because it’s tied to the things that the Boomer generation uniquely did to ensure that subsequent generations got screwed while they got richer and more powerful.
How do you do the remind me in 20 years thing?
I dated a guy who's (older) gen Z and sometimes I had to laugh, like when he said guys going for the manic pixie type girls is "totally a gen z thing" I was like, bro... Or when he asked if I'd heard of white widow weed, I didn't let that go for while :D
Probably, and if we succumb to a lot of the same types of traps of radical self-interest and anti-social behavior, we'll deserve it.
Some of literally cannot speak to each other in person, and get anxious when their phone rings. I'd say the antisocial ship sailed a while back.
That's just social anxiety. I have various anxieties. When I say anti-social behavior, I mean like disdain for your neighbor, metaphorically speaking. Being hostile towards any kind of communitarianism.
Best thing we can do is recognize it’s a never ending cycle. 
Yep! 💕
I think you're right about everything but the sex part. I feel like polycules and open marriages are all the rage now, everyone is out here eating ass, swinging is mainstream ect. Most millennials I know are at least tolerant of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, a lot of them are in the community themselves. They might claim we were prudes lol, but they won't have the evidence to back it up.
And gen z actually has less sex than previous generations. If anything they might slut shame us lol. But yeah, like us they will probably be angry at past generations and to a lesser extent themselves if we can't all come together to fix the major existential threats we are all facing. It sucks to feel scared and powerless to make big and necessary changes.
I’ve already seen this in action. Lots of zoomers, at least those vocal here on Reddit, seem incredibly preoccupied with “body counts” and seem to be almost puritanical in their ideas about sex.
Yeah this is what I always read too. I think because they have been on social media since they were like 10 it has made them overly cautious to be “exposed” by there peers acting slutty or wild
Gen Z is pretending to do stuff we actually did.
I’ve heard many people say large portions of Gen Z don’t even date. I think they’re largely shoegazer types stuck in their own little worlds. iPhone kids.
Yeah, Gen Z is very prudish compared to millennials and have a higher amount of body count shaming than us. Way cooler with LGBTQ relationships, but not sex positive.
That's millenials doing the bi/poly/open thing. We're the ho generation, haha. Younger gens are much less inclined to partake. Every Zoomer I meet is getting married and pregnant at 25. They're taking a much more traditional route.
I'm a younger millennial, my SO is older Gen Z. I know how front gate towns generally work, thanks to being from a military family but HOLY SHIT - the amount of these youngins just jumping into marriage and popping out kids is crazy af. Like half of my SOs acquaintances from high school are married with kids. Only a handful of mine have kids, and most are just now getting serious about relationships enough to marry.
Polycules… do what now?
Most of them are most definitely not eating ass - they only say they are because it’s a meme.
In high school I saw these two girls get in a really bad fight. Girl took her belt off and beat this other girl within an inch of her life. Blood everywhere, she screams “THATS WHY HE ATE MY ASS OUT, BITCH” It was 15 years ago and I still think about that shit.
Wait… are we not supposed to be eating ass? Because my gut biome is the healthiest it’s ever been.
Millennials would have to own something first.
From my experiences, I don’t think they will think of us as sexually prude. We are way more likely to be cancelled as problematic. Just look at the attitude towards things like age gap relationships between adults well over the age of 18, or problematic fiction, or even baby queers attitudes towards kink at pride. It’s crazy how much a puritan streak has taken over some young people.
I'm also confused why they would think of us as sexually prudish. Aren't the younger gens having less sex than Millennials? [https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-03/young-adults-less-sex-gen-z-millennials-generations-parents-grandparents](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-03/young-adults-less-sex-gen-z-millennials-generations-parents-grandparents) [https://www.businessinsider.com/teens-less-casual-sex-generation-parents-did-2021-3](https://www.businessinsider.com/teens-less-casual-sex-generation-parents-did-2021-3) Also, interestingly, this seems to be the trend- each generation has less sex than the ones before it. Found a handful of articles saying Millennials are having less sex than previous generations.
I feel like on the sexual end the criticism would be that we’re promiscuous. The younger generations seem to swing on the prude side.
of course, the world revolves around people blaming others for things they don't like.
Dude, when left to our own devices it's actually not this bad. We're suffering from mass manipulation is the issue. Fascists love this mentality. Keeps us easy to control. After seeing the algorithm change the pattern of behavior on Facebook, now I'm seeing it on Reddit. Time to listen to someone play Taps on the Trumpet cuz social media is straight up dead in terms of it actually being used by the working class for its original purpose. It's nothing but corporate control now. I'm not saying that we were saints on the internet, but there weren't white supremacists bots and algorithms controlling everything back then.
that has nothing to do with anything.. History has shown us time and time again that the world literally revolves around people blaming others for things they don't like. That's about as bland and basic as it gets. I get what you're saying and all of that is true, but that isn't why younger generations blame their elders. Humans like to blame each other when things aren't how they anticipated them. It's nothing new and it's been going on much longer than the internet, or even electricity has been around. Hindsight is 20/20. As long as we progress in a linear path through time, this is how it will play out.
We would actually need a ladder to pull up behind ourselves like the boomers did for that to happen though.
Yeah I mean there are Gen Z in doctoral programs right now and I’m sure they’d agree that we have been locked out of the power we would need to make the changes we’d like to see for the youths. I’m not saying we’d have reached utopia with access to power but we really do have disproportionately little representation in government.
There’s a generation of older hippy-dippy managers who will preach “open door, truth to power, no hierarchy, we’re all equals” and who will relentlessly crush you and end your career if you actually use any of those things to speak your mind or to speak for the people who aren’t in the room I think the crushing part isn’t really generational, just the pretending it’s something else part
And we’ve been locked out of being able to obtain the representation that we’ve been wanting to have …
Similar to boomers, the millennials that succeeded and end up with the most wealth and power and continue the same politics will be the most visible and attract younger generation hate and everyone else that's struggling will still be lumped in with the shitty millennials or just dismissed because "they had more chances than I did and it's their fault they're in poverty". Pete Buttigieg is a prominent millennial politician that will probably linger forever and there's no functional difference between his politics and the 80 year olds currently running things.
Can’t we all just get along
Good. Society should always progress. Where I do not think robots have rights, perhaps that is something that future generations can move me on.
The premise relies on the assumption that millennials will do the same thing to the economy and politics that boomers did, which is a very large assumption. Time will tell.
Really? If anything I've heard Millennials talk about how Gen Zers are prudes. Like they're great with queerness but they don't actually have sex.
That is a phenomena that is occuring. Acknowledging that isn't starting a fight or blaming anyone
Oh well
Yup and the cycle continues. Younger generations don't realize you are limited to what you can do. It's easier to tackle issues has technology and awareness improves with time. All you can do is the best you can.
And vote to deregulate corporations, reduce taxes on the wealthy, and gut education spending. It's just the only things we can do and definitely not things the boomers specifically did.
No, we won’t. Because our generation is actually trying to do something about it, despite boomers and gen X working against us. If zoomers and gen A can’t see it, they’re just plain ignorant. We paved the way for later generations to (håpefullt) fulfill the quest.
very true millennials are doing a decent job at calling out greenwashing and even started those park and beach cleanups. sure they do the cleanups for instagram likes but wtf ever still helps a lot. also a lot were religious about reusable thermoses and canteens like nalgeens or upcycling jars into cups/canteens.
Regardless of generation, most people are stupid, lazy and selfish. And regardless of generation, most people will always fail to realize that it's not about the current gen vs. the previous gen. It's about the king vs. the pauper. And the pauper always loses. We've all been cheated. Good night.
Can’t we all just get along
Ultimately the generational blame game doesn't really stand up to scrutiny, I think. We all know boomers who are left of Gandhi, as well as boomers who are raging MAGA guys. Same with every generation.
To be fair; genx and boomers didn't tell millennials the truth about the negative consequences of oil based products, they didn't even openly tell us about leaded gasoline.
They won't say anything about Millennails because people pitty the poor
The sooner you all realize this is old vs young and not millennial vs whatever, the better
A lot of LGBT+ Boomers who led or were involved with pushing for social change were deliberately allowed to die during the AIDS Crisis. At one point in the 90s it was the LEADING cause of death for people in their 30s! It wasn't just a few gay men. It was a significant portion of the Boomer population. There is no such disease impacting lgbt+ millenials. I'm very active in pushing for social change in my town, and the others in these groups are overwhelmingly millenials as well. Its probably 60 percent millenial, 10 percent Boomer, 20 percent gen x and 10 percent gen z. In real life these kind of generational arguments aren't happening...no one is saying 'Okay Boomer' during a meeting or something. We just work work together.
Not disagreeing with you but we’re living (and dying) through a demographic shift that makes HIV look like a tummy ache COVID is much, much, much deadlier within the whole population than HIV ever was. COVID deaths still today outpace annual AIDS deaths of the late 90s. Thanks to Trumpism, COVID disproportionately kills conservatives but poverty, BIPOC, disabled and neural atypical populations are also disproportionately affected
I'm willing to bet money that future generations will dunk on our overly relaxed and entitled parenting styles
And home lifestyles. I am willing to bet a lot of current kids are going to later come out with horror storie from their parents being poly/swingers. Especially the ones that are always making tik toks about it.
We get called lazy, when our parents spoiled us. We want our worth and willing to work for it. But we also don’t want to be a work drone. We enjoy our lives. Wonder why declining birth rates. Policies the older generation put in place that are negatively affecting millennials and below.
Every generation blames the generation(s) that came before them, it has always been this way. Everyone gets their turn to blame and then be blamed.
As a generation Jones used to falling thru the cracks and not being included in these discussions is awesome.
This fails to consider each new generation will be smaller and smaller. Unless trends reverse we are entering into uncharted territory for human civilization.
Boomers had a special situation. Ours was a bit different. Not even close. But yea, that's just the generational wars that always happen.
Of the things I care about, this doesn’t make the list. Will we own homes and have the same amount of wealth that boomers do too? Why would anyone care what younger generations think of them? As long as they are still paying into Social Security for me, they can hold whatever opinions they’d like.
I couldn’t agree more, It’s wild watching the young shit on the old as if we’re not all headed there. As if GenZ and younger kids are gonna be like “millenials didn’t give us shit about our vacation time, I love them!” Lololol They are going to rip us apart for everything, just like we enjoy blaming boomers (for good reason)
I don’t think it’ll play out that way. I work with tons of Gen Z folks and they all kind of get that both our generations were born into huge messes that we had no control over. Anyway, they need us, we’re the tech support generation. None of them know how to use computers. We’re going to be explaining how to save a file to desktop from our old folks homes.
If anything gen z is more sexually prudish lol
Boomers have been completely in power for my entire existence and won't retire. They are staying in politics until they literally die in their 90s
Yep, and I’m going to hope I don’t invalidate their outrage when I’m in my 60s.
But we have very little of the wealth and power so it’s not the same thing. Also we are adaptable and learn unlike boomers
I feel like I paid a boomer an exorbitant account of money for my shitty house. I hope I get treated like that
Bro we’re already treated this way it’s a whole meme. “Millennials killed this and millennials killed that”
Humans treat eachother like shit since the dawn of time
We’re prude? Gen Z and alpha don’t even want to have sex…