Akage wrote:I disagree with thinking that Gen Y got the short end of the stick. How many Millennials have you spoken with lately? Those that I know are frustrated that they are loaded with tuition debt due to their inability to get a good paying job in their field. They feel utterly deceived - Their entire lives were spent being told how 'special' they are and how they can be anything they want to be, only to get out into the real world and discover that they needed 10 years job experience for an entry level job that can barely cover rent.
I don't really think that the Millennials are any more savvy than Gen X or Y. Gen X & Y embraced technology as well, readily buying Apple IIes, Atari/Nintendo/Sega, the first iPods and whatever else came their way. The only difference is that technology has made everything so much more visible now than it ever was. You can tweet what you ate for breakfast today and the rest of the world will instantly know. Millennials are being catered to by companies because they're the ones spending money now. Gen X and Y were, as a whole, a much more thrifty generation, concerned with saving for homes, children and retirement because that's what their Boomer parents taught them to do. 10 years ago, companies like Toyota released cars catering to Gen X and Gen Y. Now that this generation is using their money on mortgages and their offspring, the companies are moving on to the next generation. My experience with Millennials has been that they have very strange priorities, often putting off saving for a house or a car in lieu of buying the latest Android or iPhone. My own cousins are perfect examples of this. One is in law school funded by her mother while the other works on a ranch yet they both have an iPhone 6S.
Haha, somehow I knew someone here would defend our generation (I'm assuming most here are Gen X or Y). I don't really see how Millennials with their obsession with iphones and laptops and whatnot is any different from Boomers who were obsessed with getting the latest car or TV back in the day, or Gen X and Y the latest computers. In fact, Gen X and Y's compulsion for always pushing the latest computer models is one of the reasons why having a computer is not a luxury but rather a *necessity* now. We enabled that added complication to our lives (and subsequent fees associated with a dependence on computers). The Millennials are only picking up the ball on that, and companies like Apple now are producing new tech items SO MUCH QUICKER than they did in the past.
And it's not just Millennials who are dependent on their parents for money--you hear MANY reports now that people in their 30s now--that's most of us--who are STILL largely dependent on the Boomers for finance.
The thing you have to understand, though, is that Boomers weren't necessarily "wiser" than we are, or Millennials, it's just that their financial mistakes in their youth were much less costly and easier to rebound from. There were more jobs--this is a fact as we know many jobs 30-40 years ago have become automated now--and they paid better, relative to lifestyle costs. Look at how many families in the 50s, 60s and 70s which had stay-at-home-moms. Forget feminism spurring more women to the workplace--it simply is difficult to support a middle class (does this even really exist anymore?) family now with only 1 parent getting income.
The fact is, there really is far less room for financial error now in your 20s than it was for the Boomer era. Even accounting for inflation, living expenses are higher, car insurance, property taxes, mortgages, gas, food, utility, clothing, school, INTERNET, phone bills...the concept of a "normal" standard of living costs more now than it was for Boomers, and a with far less rewards to show for it.
But you know, life in the online era--that IS being shaped by Millennials. Say what you will about them, but they are shaping a new era in a completely different way than Gen X and Y were. Gen X and Y, we were just living in the world the Boomers set up for us. Millennials are charting a different path. It could lead to disaster--certainly the financial signs seem troubling--but you know, I have to say they wield a certain amount of power that Gen X and Y do not. I think it's arrogant for us Gen Y/Gen X types to underestimate Millennials. As much as I want to play the crotchety old man card at times, I really believe they will play a much bigger part in shaping the next 20 years than Gen X or Y ever will (for better or for worse)--or have done so far in the last 10-15 years. I don't put much stock in "Well I KNOW a 20 year old and if he/she is any indication, I think the future is screwed..." type stories, because those have been around for hundreds of years.
And that's what I mean by Gen Y largely being irrelevant. If we don't have as much financial power as the Boomers and aren't shaping the future as much as the Millennials, I really don't see how much actual power our generation really has. I realize I'm speaking almost in political terms here, but we're like a country that is neither a superpower (Boomers) nor an up and coming belligerent country which holds a certain amount of international sway because they do one thing MUCH better than everyone else (Millennials). If Gen X is more like the UK (more of a strong follower than a superpower) then Gen Y is kinda like...Sweden or something. A nice country and all but completely irrelevant on the world stage. Sort of self-sufficient in some ways, but also completely dependent on stronger nations in others. I mean, no offense to Sweden. It's probably a nicer place to live than many countries. But it's just kinda there. If shit ever goes down internationally, don't expect a country like Sweden to have any kind of political power. That's Gen Y, imo.
At any rate, this is all just mumbo jumbo ruminating. We take care of ourselves on an individual level and let the social theorists sort out the results. I was just a little stymied trying to square people born in the early 80s to those born after 1990, when I looked up the term "Millennials." It just seems like, because of the internet, there is a significant generational schism during the late 80s between people who have now grown up to practically "live" online to those who only "use" the internet. And to me that signals a very different set of lifestyles and priorities, enough to categorize a generational divide sometime around 1990.
EDIT: Some people might have saw a significantly different post earlier here. Yes, I have rewritten this post several times. I may even rewrite it again. I've changed my mind a couple of times about some things over the past hour.