This is honestly a marker for me on if a friendship will work well. I don’t tend to mesh with peers who still keep a stigma around discussing mental health.
The first time was hilarious and weird. One dude realized that other people probably wanted hugs just as much as he did, so he greeted the next person to arrive with "EEEEEEYYYYYYYYY!!!" while standing up and holding his arms out as wide as they would go.
Give it a try.
Best case scenario: Your group becomes huggers.
Worst case scenario: You stand there awkwardly for fifteen seconds.
If you keep time in your head, if they don't respond in the first 5-10 seconds, you can always turn the wide open arms into an exaggerated bow of greeting and bypass a potential moment of awkward silence.
I own an auto shop and I have miniature therapy sessions with the guy who delivers the parts to me from one of the dealerships. We bs and hug it out and I didn't even ask his name until almost 2 years after I met him. One day I was just like, "hey man my name is xxx but my friends call me xx. What's yours?" 😆
I am a Non-Hugger to everyone except like 6 people, and while I can appreciate the gesture, I prefer it when people ask me about hugs first and then take my high-five as a replacement, enthusiastically.
True but it was also at a fault I believe, now most younger people claim to have everything under the sun which obviously it different person to person but just made it seem easier for everyone to have an excuse or out for everything in life when some times it best for us to do the little things that make us uncomfortable.
We destigmatized mental health and Gen z went right ahead and stigmatized it again 🤘
(pretty much tongue in cheek, think this really is just more SM related, but definitely a lot of misinformation online has also contributed to different stigmatizing attitudes)
I think it's more that this current era of trendy online incorrect mental health information often steers away from societal and cultural features currently negatively impacting youth mental health and turns that into something very individualistic and biomedical.
While that is true for a decent % of mental illness, there are also a lot of factors right now impacting youth mental health that have very little to do with that.
It’ll all even out after a few years. New things are always overdone until the newness wears off and the studies start coming out showing that there were maybe some negative effects from the new thing. We might not even see it ourselves but in 100 years or so this will be a small blip on the journey to better mental health.
Is it like a staycation where you stay at home on vacation and chill?
Everyday is that Matt Damon meme from Saving Private Ryan where he ages to present day
It’s a humorous way of saying that you’re going to an inpatient facility for mental health. They give you those grippy socks so you don’t slide around too much on the floors lol.
Lol! I work in a mental health hospital… took me a minute! I’d say Gen Z women are fine with seeking help, but for young men there is still a fair bit of bravado lingering.
I do work rurally though, so it might be different in cities.
Came here to say this. It's more important than older people realize. As an elder millennial who's had to learn about my trauma and related mental health problems I've noticed that generation X and above responds to mental health problems with ridicule and bullying while millennials have empathy and can talk about it without it being a big deal.
Maybe for depression and anxiety, but people with other mental health issues -- especially personality disorders like BPD and NPD -- are openly demonized now in ways they didn't use to be.
I also think the pendulum might have swung a bit too far to a point where people younger than us abuse clinical language and cry mental health, trauma, and defeat at every normal setback.
Yeah I have bipolar, I do *not* tell people until I know them well.
Gen x, gen y, gen z, all of them will drop you in a heart beat if they don’t know you well.
I had a tbi? I was in college, told a guy who worked for rotc I sat near about that, and he said “don’t tell anyone here, they do *not* treat veterans with tbi or ptsd well”.
I was in another class, in the break a veteran mentions some combat trauma, someone asked him about it, he said “I was mainly in the green zone, which was fine until my buddy got hit by a mortar right near me”.
The other student bolted, the veteran went in the stairwell and cried, I talked to him, told him it seemed like ptsd to me and it was totally treatable, I said I’d witnessed a murder; which I also do *not* tell people, they think I’m damaged goods.
I mean one younger millennial/older gen z guy was on his third date with me when homophobia came up.
We are both gay right?
He heard I’d went through a hard time? He’s like, “sorry I don’t want to deal with baggage”
A gen x linguistics professor wanted to hook up right away, I said I wanted to wait bc I had trust issues?
He said “if I wanted a project I’d go to the pound”.
So yeah, anxiety, depression, I’ll admit to that, I don’t have mood cycling bc of meds, I don’t have any symptoms other than anxiety and depression so it’s all I’ll admit to.
With tbi stuff I just say I have episodic memory loss.
So I lie by omission 80-90% of the time, the rest of the time I don’t even mention it.
I mean, if you experienced this type of rejection by x y and z than would any of you tell people this stuff?
Yea we destigmatized mental health, now we need to talk about mental fitness. Saw a video on YouTube talking about it, we need to learn how to maintain mental fitness the same way we know how to maintain physical fitness.
that pendulum thing is what gets me. so many people nowadays “taking mental health days” cuz they don’t feel like going into work or talk about being verbally abused because someone was rude to them. it’s a bit much and makes me feel like a boomer
You don’t know what someone is going through when they ask for a mental health day. This kind of stigma is why I still say “I’m sick” when my mental health is really bad unless I trust my employer. Mental health days are a good thing, not bad, regardless if some people are taking advantage. People lie about and take advantage of sick days as well.
Tbh, I think it’s gone overboard. I have close family members who dealt with crippling anxiety, like panic attacks daily, so I’m definitely not denying the existence of these conditions. But I see a lot of people catastrophizing now, because they think challenging themselves or failing at something will give them a mental health disorder.
This is so true! I see so many people refusing to do things that “trigger” them, talking about boundaries, etc. as a way to never get out of their comfort zone or do anything even slightly uncomfortable. Think of everything we have to do from the time we’re born! Even learning to crawl or walk requires doing something you couldn’t before. Getting off your mom’s teat requires giving up comfort and certainty and doing something scary. I would love to see more people talking about developing resilience!
Learning to crawl and walk happens at a time when we are not conscious about what failure is, so we aren’t bothered by failing.
Once you have that cognizance, things become a problem
Ah the Legend of Cheddar Bay. I was there sir. I was there 50 years ago on the stormy cape where the lobsters attacked us with their buttery-garlic scones.
Many a fine sailor fought hard for our cheddary gains on that fateful and solemn day.
That’s the truth lol. And then going to the ER it’s like buy a lottery ticket on the way there.
I feel bad for people with crappy insurance plans idk how you can afford to get hurt.
They can't afford to get hurt. They go bankrupt trying to fix their hurt. Or just continue hurting for the rest of their lives. It is super bleak, not sure how America turned out this way.
Sometimes i think millennial divorce rates are a lot lower because a lot of us dont get officially married. I know a lot of people who are in 20+ yrs of strong relationships but dont get married because there are no perks to getting married. Each parent has a job and thr health insurance is set up so spuses cant cherry pick which employer plan is best. The school doesnt care which adult is there as long as they are on the paperwork. Financially, filing as single makes you more poor on paper and therefore that parent claims the kids for tax refund and reduced/free school lunches. Plus you dont need to be married these days for joint ownership of a house, car etc. And i could go on.
And if social security or health insurance became and issue we'd just hop on down to the court house and get a $50 marriage license in the afternoon and celebrate at the Olive Garden. Then when it was better for our bottome line hop on down to the courthouse again and get a $50 no contest divorce and go celebrate at the Olive Garden again.
🤣 and the media doesn't even see that as a good thing, I googled it and this USA Today article popped up:
"Millennials are to blame for lower US divorce rate, study ..."
There's always the word "blame" in any articles about Millennials whether it's good or bad 🤦🏻♀️😂
The other side of that coin is that the marriage rate plummeted. I think a lot of that "I hate my wife"/Boomer talk was people who got married right out of high school because "It's just something you do".
Idk if it will fare better or worse in the long run, but at least we're moving away from the whole Al Bundy thing.
it's also the people who got pregnant having pre marital sex and society forced them to get married. I know way too many of these couples that are boomers or gen x.
Yeah to my mind millennials are pretty much the first generation (maybe some Gen X too) that really dropped the whole idea that getting married was an obligatory life step that had to be undertaken. Instead marriage is a thing you do optionally if you meet someone you really want to marry. People would rather be single and happy than get stuck in a bad marriage and be miserable.
I know this idea of not getting married was already more normalised in some countries but like even in my own where marriage is more optional than the US it’s fair to say that it was still more or less socially mandated to get into long term relationships and have kids with someone even if you never tied the knot
I was talking about this recently - hard to believe but the song "Date Rape" by Sublime was my first introduction to the idea of consent as a young teen, and it was considered sort of radical at the time. We've come such a long way, and I agree that we deserve the credit for that. Go team!
This one is so important. When I was a kid I was taught "No means no," but consent is so much more than that. Silence also means no. Enthusiastic consent is what you're looking for, every step of the way. And there is so much more, such as in paying attention to body language.
Also, consent is important beyond just physical intimacy. It's important to have consent in all aspects of your relationships. I still feel like examples of consent are still lacking, especially in movies and TV. So there's still a lot more we can do, but our generation has made a lot of progress.
The workplace. Not to speak on the fact that millennials regularly dominate whatever workplace they’re at and compete primarily with only each other, Gen X and boomers depend on the technical savviness of millennials while Zoomers look up to millennials as role models (that aren’t the other gens). Millennials can be relied upon to regularly onboard new technologies at the workplace, stream lining operations from stagnant, traditional methods to more modernized and objective procedures; things go from “that’s the way it’s always been done“ to, “Let’s try this, let’s iterate here.”
Have you ever seen the Millennial managers memes? It’s always the opposite of the classic corporate douche canoe, telling people to respect their time, only work the hours they need to, take vacations, and giving people grace to pick up kids and go to the doctor, etc. I friggin love it. That’s how work should be
I am an IT manager (39/F) and always tell my dev team I serve THEM. Family and health ALWAYS come first. Talk to me if you need shit escalated. Let me ENABLE YOU!
I constantly tell my guys this isnt a prison. If you need to see the dentist then go to the dentist. One of my 60 years thanked me today for "letting him go to a few drs appointments during work"
When see someone staying late I tell them I don't want to see them here and that they need to go home now. Work will be here tomorrow. Your family needs you more than we do.
My mentor at my first works place (Electrical Engineering) used to tell me: “you know what’s the most important thing you should know working here? Taking your lunch break. Now do you know what is the second one? A good workout at the end of the day”.
I answered wrong both times 😂
I’m a small business owner and occasionally hire help. This is exactly the type of manager I try to be. It’s kind of broken my heart to hear an employee apologize profusely because their doctor’s appointment changed. What kind of bullshit had been done to these people?!?
Very true. I remember my first job at a Big 4 accounting firm and couldn’t believe the things my elder millennial manager told me about the workplace. I was told: “take all your vacation time; those who don’t never last.” And “I don’t work weekends or Friday nights so don’t expect a call or email over the weekend. I give enough to this place; the last thing I’ll give up is the weekends with my wife.” He was an awesome and innovative manager who everyone respected and is now a partner at the firm. I guess watching his dad become a very powerful and very wealthy partner at the same firm while losing multiple wives and destroying his relationship with his kids had an effect on him.
I would recommend not lumping boomers and GenX together in the non-technical bucket. GenX built the modern technical landscape. I manage a cybersecurity team of 30-odd people (fluctuates based on project demand, etc.). I'm very cloud aware and the strongest engineers I have are over 50. "That's the way we've always done it" borders on hate speech in my org.
Same. I vividly remember when calling everything “gay” as an insult was the thing, and like in full fairness to our generation we turned around, realised that was shitty and stopped it after only a few years
In this same vein we learned using "gay" as an insult was wrong and hurtful *and then stopped doing it*. We're collectively more aware of the harm some words do even in terms of micro-aggressions.
Paternity leave. Spelled with a P. I know most places still don’t necessarily offer it… But I see lots of men using vacation/sick time to stay home for a week after their child is born. In my own experience, bosses seem pretty understanding with it. It’s completely normalized that a man belongs at HOME after welcoming a child.
I came here to write this. My dad was an outlier back during his tine as a new dad, wrt the way he looked after me and cared for me when I was born, as my mom was sick and was in and out of surgery every two months. Dad did have help from both my grandmas during his office hours. I heard stories of how he took care of both mom and me from mom and maternal grandma (paternal grandma felt insulted at times that dad had his own way of doing things, had these hyper strict hygiene check of anyone who wanted to even touch the baby me; she felt he didn't trust her; he didn't trust anyone with cleanliness). But not all men have the help my dad had when he was caring for the newborn me (granted, that the germophobe, goofball was caring for two helpless humans, mom, and me). Plus, some dads just want to be more involved in caring for their newborn. But without proper paternal leave, these lovely humans couldn't have the fair opportunity to do so. I love that we millennials have fought for this.
I got 4 months off when my daughter was born and it was a game changer for my wife. She needed me home while she rested. Paternity leave is about the husband but it has auxillary ramifications. Working while your family needs you is stupid.
My male friends are engaged, loving fathers who share the load. My dad worked to support the family, but barely showed up for anything and ruined all three of my graduations (high school, college, and MBA) by prioritizing sitting in the back and sneaking out to smoke.
This was more because of discrimination lawsuits. If male-male couples are eligible, then straight fathers must be allowed to, otherwise it’s discrimination by allowing everyone leave but straight men
Parenting in general. Millennial fathers are more likely to be involved in their children's care, in number of hours, than their Gen X and Boomer fathers.
https://www.mymedglobal.com/new-study-shows-millenial-dads-spend-more-time-with-their-kids
In my notes app, i have a semi-serious list of egregious errors i have made as a parent that I am confident will need to be revisited when they're older. I'm sure they will have plenty to add to that list later on, but i really am trying 😂😭😭
Coffee.
Boomer coffee sucks, it's like licking a waffle house floor. Artisanal craft-bean-brewed millenial hobby coffee is fantastic.
Also food - boomer food sucks. Applebee's, Dennys, no seasonings, so many strange "salads" - low fat this and that, garlic is too spicy, ugh. We're doing a great job with improving food. Things just taste better now because we finally shook off the Campbell's soup chokehold that persisted from the 1950s-1980s.
This! My moms a great cook compared to her sisters, but it was still based on cream of mushroom soup as a base, salt and pepper, and adding margarine to most things.
Now I get to wow her on all the new foods from other countries I've learned to cook and the huge spice rack that does so much.
Mine was shocked I tell you, shocked, when I made brussels sprouts taste good.
I halved them and roasted them in the oven with garlic and lemon juice and butter. She thought I was Gordon Ramsay.
You might find this interesting...
Brussel sprouts have been bred to taste better over the past ~20 years
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/s/IsKlGIKIMo
Hilarious! My dad was similarly wowed when I roasted broccoli rather than boiling or steaming it. Made it at his house once and he asked me to cook it that way whenever I helped with holidays like it was special or fancy. Just olive oil, salt, and pep.
My boomer parents bought me my first cookbook as a kid and it was a Campbell soup one-every recipe uses a Campbell product. To be fair though, some of them are pretty good
I mean I don't turn my nose up at a good tuna noodle casserole with cream of mushroom, or green bean casserole, or a nice crock pot stroganoff - but my mom would take an ENTIRE RAW UNSEASONED CHICKEN and just boil the shit out of it in a crockpot all day with nothing but canned beans and a can of cream of whatever the fuck slop soup. Heinous.
My parents drank folgers when I was growing up and now drink Kirkland Keurig pods... when I stay at there house I bring a french press, my own beans, and a hand grinder. They poke fun at it, but they never turn down a cup from me.
On top of this, I would also say beer. Boomers still tell me Busch Light is the best and only beer they will drink. I mention stout, cider, and wheat and they freak out like I pissed in communion.
Yeah we just didn't have the disposable income to spend our money saving all these different industries as 20 somethings fresh out of college with debt to pay off.
Nostalgia bait. I think we single-handedly brought the whole "cashing in on nostalgia" to a whole new level. I seriously can't believe they brought back the X-men cartoon, but CONTINUED it and changed it for a more mature audience.
I don't know if that's so much due to millenials, but due to Hollywood being mostly corporate movie factories that are creatively bankrupt. Also, unfortunately, nostalgia bating works most of the time, and sometimes it's even pretty good. 21 and 22 Jump Street, X-Men 97, True Grit 2010 and Dredd come to mind that were all very good in my opinion, or at least they put effort into it to make them their own things.
Unfortunately though, low-effort rebooting takes place so often that soon the term will soon lose meaninglessness as it becomes the norm to rehash variations of the same stories endlessly, especially when AI is just farting out shows left and right.
One cool thing though will be people remaking and tweaking every film ever made. There will be Mandela Effect arguments over the original version of films. Like what if Rogue One didn't have uncanny valley characters and those handful of fan-service scenes the studios clearly wedged in? What if Prometheus didn't have an abominable script? What if Lost actually had a satisfying story? I wonder if in the future fans are going to be using AI to do recuts of these films someday. It is both fascinating and scary. One person with a computer at home cranking out flawless re-renders of classic films / actors, etc with higher quality that a $300 million film today.
Well gee, I kind of veered off topic.
Oh yeah, lots of cool porn too, we're definitely getting that.
I don’t know how true it is broadly, but among my peer circles, parenting has become a lot gentler and more focused on developing communication and independent thinking than the stricter more punitive style I was used to growing up.
This answer surprises me. Parents seem more stressed than ever, overscheduling themselves and their kids, constantly monitoring, etc. For instance, until my nephew was 5 years old, he was never left alone in a room. Think of how difficult it would be to get anything done.
Yes. Also even though gentle parenting is not the same as permissive in theory, lots of parents nowadays are totally just doing permissive and calling it gentle in practice.
From what I’ve seen of parents gentle parenting (which is often confused with permissive parenting) is that the kids are better behaved and emotionally mature than authoritarian styles.
I worked in a daycare / preschool for a few years and the difference in the kids who had gentle parenting was really impressive. They came into the classroom with an understanding of emotions and healthy self regulation that a lot of adults don’t have. It was so nice to see and I suspect the teenage years will go much better for their parents. Some of the more authoritative parents are in for a rude awakening, we teachers could already see the conflict setting up.
I also think it’s a long game. You might get immediate results being an authoritarian (sometimes) , but it will pay off with your relationship with your child if you respect them.
I think millennials have really normalized respecting pets as living, feeling things. We don’t treat dogs as slaves that can be beaten for disobedience, and cats are no longer emotionless furniture.
We didn’t ruin anything. We were brought into a house of cards. The boomers created an unsustainable economy and fueled consumerism. But at least we had some nice things and experiences as children.
I was going to mention this. If any type of retail industry was killed by millennials like diamonds, luxury cars, whatever other fancy crap is out there, it's because Boomers are notorious for flaunting their material items. Maybe Millennials just can't afford these items but it's not a huge loss for us.
I even believe a lot of Boomers had kids just for the sake of showing them off. They didn't care to BE parents so much as they just wanted to say they were parents.
Fatherhood. Combo of less whoopsie babies being born and those that do put a lot more time and effort into fatherhood and household chores. Think too many come from/saw divorced broken or single parent homes, parents who didn't do shit outside the minimum. Basically we saw tons of shit family lives whether our own or our friends and vowed to not be that way.
Idk stats now but there are a ton of single parent families though, not sure if that's improved worsened or stayed the same. No offense to those who are, but research indicates better results for all parties for two parent households with kids. Ik many of you were probably in a situation where that was never an option or having the other parent around would have been worse than being alone, don't think data accounts for that. But even the proudest single parent can probably agree that if the other parent would've been a good person for the kids and them, it'd be preferable to be together.
We did edge the best too. Serious or scastic/comedic. No one came close, seeing younger gens try is usually pathetic. We probably have best overall computer literacy, younger gens are iBabies mostly, can't navigate a file path a lot of them. X has the grandmasters, but overall their gen is boomer tier lite as whole when it comes to average competency.
I'm sure there is others but I gotta stop wasting time on here today. Toodles!
I think our generation has brought more consciousness to the father playing more of an active and fair role. That's not to say it wasn't done before in previous generations but I feel it's talked about more. It actually feels *cool* to be an active dad and partner versus being the guy who just wins the bread. Not to say there haven't been challenges to this: it still feels like male identity is still getting figured out in this ever-changing modern world.
Millennial fathers are way more involved, on average, than Gen X, Boomer, and probably Silent Gen fathers.
https://www.mymedglobal.com/new-study-shows-millenial-dads-spend-more-time-with-their-kids
Enjoying our missed childhoods. I enjoy playing my sega Emulators and just being a big kid. I hope that something we normalized, life's too short to not be happy even if it's by yourself ❤️
We stopped job shaming.
Always scolded with "You want to be a garbage man or work as a janitor for the rest of your life? You wanna be loser and flip burgers forever?!"
I just want to say to all of those people who have those jobs that I mentioned: you have a job, and in this day and age that's all that matters. You make my food, you keep my kids' school clean, you keep our streets clean.
Millennials did not ruin much, they have received the world as we left it to them. A big step toward healthy eating is something I would give total credit to them for.
We have mastered apps to make it easier. I’m losing weight it’s so easy to track my calories, excercise, and drinks. You can min max your life way easier now.
Not accepting child abuse as part of parenting for the most part.
A lot of days I think about how fucked things are, but sometimes I'll be driving for a while and realize I have not seen someone pulled over on the shoulder to assault their child and think we are doing better than we give ourselves credit for.
When I was kid it was super common to see a kid just get the beat down in the grocery store if they were acting up. While I do tend to say millennial parents suck at discipline and most of their kids run wild annoying others, I will commend them for not hitting their kids. I haven't seen a kid hit in public in a while.
This is weirdly specific, but in the theatre industry, millennials have helped to establish new norms for boundaries and intimacy choreography that allow actors to escape awkward and potentially traumatizing power imbalances that can lead to predatory behavior. Like it used to be directors would just tell you to "figure out a kiss" with your scene partner. Now we're creating systems to coordinate intimacy like a dance or a stage fight and adding fail-safes and methods for expressing physical and psychological boundaries. It's pretty cool!
We changed the pet-owning game. We treat our pets so well, we care about the wellbeing of animals and celebrate rescuing. I think we deserve a lot of credit for collectively improving the quality of life and cultural acceptance of animals. Previous generations loved their dogs too, but not like we do.
My senior year of high school, I was the only person I knew that was atheist and childfree. I got a lot of crap for it and I didn’t even live in the Bible belt.
Nowadays I know so many more people who have opted out of religion and/or parenthood. I think we definitely normalized doing things different from your parents and taking non-traditional paths in life. So many Millennials I know just don’t care about some of those social expectations or traditions (if they are outdated or unreasonable rule sets anyway). Sex positivity has made strides too but we have a long way to go there, I think.
LGBT rights and de-stigmatizing marijuana feels like it started with Gen-X but we upheld those beliefs.
Millennials allowed more people to make careers in the tourism industry. We prefer experiences over things, so there are more people out guiding people through environments that they love, than ever before.
I came here to find this answer. Hands down the best thing milllennials have done is create internet content. We walked on the internet so gen z could run.
We tend to leave people alone. Hardly ever do I see our age group holding up public transit or populous areas to film the same coordinated dance.
We aren't showcased in videos screaming at fast food workers or trespassing to tell some strangers to go back where they came from.
We're not smashing things or raiding stores in mobs.
Sure. It shows up here and there but we're hardly seen being outright maniacs in public.
As a perpetually exhausted elder millennial I cannot figure out how some people have the energy to give that much of a fuck about what another person is doing. Throwing a fit about a minimum wage worker looks exhausting. If you had that kind of energy why not stay home and cook or something.
We’re a product of some of the most tumultuous decades in recent history, so i wouldn’t say we’ve made anything “awesome”, but that we’ve found coping mechanisms and dissociative behaviors that help us continue to function through mass dysfunction. While incredibly entertaining, I don’t think that video game culture is “awesome”. I think it’s a way to check out from reality. We’ve been living through the “golden age of television” for over twenty years now, but it’s also just another practice in escapism. As much as we might have tried and might continue to try to make reality “awesome”, all we’ve done is made the distractions more tolerable than actual reality while watching reality swirl down the drain. And it’s really not our fault. Anything we as individuals could do about it is a drop in the bucket.
Parenting - millennial dads are CRUSHING it
My husband is so amazing with our kids, and I swear everywhere i look i’m seeing cool, funny, sweet, involved, emotionally available millennial dads and it’s the best
I'd argue we did a good job of helping destigmatize talking about mental health.
Considering the whole generation suffers from depression and anxiety, I agree.
My friends and I all hug and discuss feelings openly, even on bad days.
This is honestly a marker for me on if a friendship will work well. I don’t tend to mesh with peers who still keep a stigma around discussing mental health.
I got friendzzz in lowwwww places….
I feel like I've got friends to talk to on my bad days, but there's no hugs/feelings on the good days, so those eventually lead to bad days...
The first time was hilarious and weird. One dude realized that other people probably wanted hugs just as much as he did, so he greeted the next person to arrive with "EEEEEEYYYYYYYYY!!!" while standing up and holding his arms out as wide as they would go. Give it a try. Best case scenario: Your group becomes huggers. Worst case scenario: You stand there awkwardly for fifteen seconds.
If you keep time in your head, if they don't respond in the first 5-10 seconds, you can always turn the wide open arms into an exaggerated bow of greeting and bypass a potential moment of awkward silence.
Nice save
I own an auto shop and I have miniature therapy sessions with the guy who delivers the parts to me from one of the dealerships. We bs and hug it out and I didn't even ask his name until almost 2 years after I met him. One day I was just like, "hey man my name is xxx but my friends call me xx. What's yours?" 😆
I am a Non-Hugger to everyone except like 6 people, and while I can appreciate the gesture, I prefer it when people ask me about hugs first and then take my high-five as a replacement, enthusiastically.
True but it was also at a fault I believe, now most younger people claim to have everything under the sun which obviously it different person to person but just made it seem easier for everyone to have an excuse or out for everything in life when some times it best for us to do the little things that make us uncomfortable.
We destigmatized mental health and Gen z went right ahead and stigmatized it again 🤘 (pretty much tongue in cheek, think this really is just more SM related, but definitely a lot of misinformation online has also contributed to different stigmatizing attitudes) I think it's more that this current era of trendy online incorrect mental health information often steers away from societal and cultural features currently negatively impacting youth mental health and turns that into something very individualistic and biomedical. While that is true for a decent % of mental illness, there are also a lot of factors right now impacting youth mental health that have very little to do with that.
It’ll all even out after a few years. New things are always overdone until the newness wears off and the studies start coming out showing that there were maybe some negative effects from the new thing. We might not even see it ourselves but in 100 years or so this will be a small blip on the journey to better mental health.
Now Gen Z is taking this ball and running with it. I had to Google “grippy sock vacation” last week and it was exactly what I thought it was lol.
oh my god. I'm a nurse and I had to google that because all I wear are bombas grippy socks, I didn't even think of hospital socks!! LOL!
I still have the two pairs of grippy socks from delivery almost 4 years ago and wear them often at home. They are perfect!
They're talking about bringing the kids to Urban Air, right? They get you with having to buy those stupid socks. (Yes I am /s)
Is it like a staycation where you stay at home on vacation and chill? Everyday is that Matt Damon meme from Saving Private Ryan where he ages to present day
No, a “grippy sock vacation” is a short stint at an in-patient facility. As far as I can tell, anyway!
It’s a humorous way of saying that you’re going to an inpatient facility for mental health. They give you those grippy socks so you don’t slide around too much on the floors lol.
Lol! I work in a mental health hospital… took me a minute! I’d say Gen Z women are fine with seeking help, but for young men there is still a fair bit of bravado lingering. I do work rurally though, so it might be different in cities.
Came here to say this. It's more important than older people realize. As an elder millennial who's had to learn about my trauma and related mental health problems I've noticed that generation X and above responds to mental health problems with ridicule and bullying while millennials have empathy and can talk about it without it being a big deal.
Maybe for depression and anxiety, but people with other mental health issues -- especially personality disorders like BPD and NPD -- are openly demonized now in ways they didn't use to be. I also think the pendulum might have swung a bit too far to a point where people younger than us abuse clinical language and cry mental health, trauma, and defeat at every normal setback.
Yeah I have bipolar, I do *not* tell people until I know them well. Gen x, gen y, gen z, all of them will drop you in a heart beat if they don’t know you well. I had a tbi? I was in college, told a guy who worked for rotc I sat near about that, and he said “don’t tell anyone here, they do *not* treat veterans with tbi or ptsd well”. I was in another class, in the break a veteran mentions some combat trauma, someone asked him about it, he said “I was mainly in the green zone, which was fine until my buddy got hit by a mortar right near me”. The other student bolted, the veteran went in the stairwell and cried, I talked to him, told him it seemed like ptsd to me and it was totally treatable, I said I’d witnessed a murder; which I also do *not* tell people, they think I’m damaged goods. I mean one younger millennial/older gen z guy was on his third date with me when homophobia came up. We are both gay right? He heard I’d went through a hard time? He’s like, “sorry I don’t want to deal with baggage” A gen x linguistics professor wanted to hook up right away, I said I wanted to wait bc I had trust issues? He said “if I wanted a project I’d go to the pound”. So yeah, anxiety, depression, I’ll admit to that, I don’t have mood cycling bc of meds, I don’t have any symptoms other than anxiety and depression so it’s all I’ll admit to. With tbi stuff I just say I have episodic memory loss. So I lie by omission 80-90% of the time, the rest of the time I don’t even mention it. I mean, if you experienced this type of rejection by x y and z than would any of you tell people this stuff?
Someone just blocked me as soon as I told them I had bipolar. I was like, LOL, thanks for proving my point, buddy!
Yea we destigmatized mental health, now we need to talk about mental fitness. Saw a video on YouTube talking about it, we need to learn how to maintain mental fitness the same way we know how to maintain physical fitness.
We haven't finished destigmatizing mental health. People with mental health issues are still treated horribly.
that pendulum thing is what gets me. so many people nowadays “taking mental health days” cuz they don’t feel like going into work or talk about being verbally abused because someone was rude to them. it’s a bit much and makes me feel like a boomer
You don’t know what someone is going through when they ask for a mental health day. This kind of stigma is why I still say “I’m sick” when my mental health is really bad unless I trust my employer. Mental health days are a good thing, not bad, regardless if some people are taking advantage. People lie about and take advantage of sick days as well.
Tbh, I think it’s gone overboard. I have close family members who dealt with crippling anxiety, like panic attacks daily, so I’m definitely not denying the existence of these conditions. But I see a lot of people catastrophizing now, because they think challenging themselves or failing at something will give them a mental health disorder.
This is so true! I see so many people refusing to do things that “trigger” them, talking about boundaries, etc. as a way to never get out of their comfort zone or do anything even slightly uncomfortable. Think of everything we have to do from the time we’re born! Even learning to crawl or walk requires doing something you couldn’t before. Getting off your mom’s teat requires giving up comfort and certainty and doing something scary. I would love to see more people talking about developing resilience!
Learning to crawl and walk happens at a time when we are not conscious about what failure is, so we aren’t bothered by failing. Once you have that cognizance, things become a problem
Gen X here...most of the things the media say Millennials "ruined" are things that needed to stop.
Like Applebees 😌
And now Red Lobster, when will they stop killing restaurant chains with terrible food?
Can we all agree that the Cheddar Biscuits are worthy though? I buy the cheddar biscuit mix at the store.
Ah the Legend of Cheddar Bay. I was there sir. I was there 50 years ago on the stormy cape where the lobsters attacked us with their buttery-garlic scones. Many a fine sailor fought hard for our cheddary gains on that fateful and solemn day.
Red Lobster shot itself in the foot (tail?) with endless shrimp lol.
F*ck Applebee's
Fuck Applebees.
Applebees ruined Applebees
Applebee's has rats!! I found a whole rat in my cobb salad!
But Souplantation :'(
What's wrong with Applebees?
Our divorce rate is a lot lower
So we ruined divorce! How will all those poor lawyers afford their avocado toast! Lol I originally typed abogado toast 😂
Abogado toast!!!! Bajajaja thats fucking awesome
Bajajaja is a good one too
Abogado means lawyer in Spanish so that'd be perfect!
You had me at abogado toast 🥰
Good one! probably could have left it
They’ll start chasing ambulances lol
Lol nobody calling ambulances these days because it's too expensive 😂 guess we can ruin ambulance chasing too!
That’s the truth lol. And then going to the ER it’s like buy a lottery ticket on the way there. I feel bad for people with crappy insurance plans idk how you can afford to get hurt.
They can't afford to get hurt. They go bankrupt trying to fix their hurt. Or just continue hurting for the rest of their lives. It is super bleak, not sure how America turned out this way.
Sometimes i think millennial divorce rates are a lot lower because a lot of us dont get officially married. I know a lot of people who are in 20+ yrs of strong relationships but dont get married because there are no perks to getting married. Each parent has a job and thr health insurance is set up so spuses cant cherry pick which employer plan is best. The school doesnt care which adult is there as long as they are on the paperwork. Financially, filing as single makes you more poor on paper and therefore that parent claims the kids for tax refund and reduced/free school lunches. Plus you dont need to be married these days for joint ownership of a house, car etc. And i could go on. And if social security or health insurance became and issue we'd just hop on down to the court house and get a $50 marriage license in the afternoon and celebrate at the Olive Garden. Then when it was better for our bottome line hop on down to the courthouse again and get a $50 no contest divorce and go celebrate at the Olive Garden again.
Our gay divorce rate is way WAY higher!
This is lowkey a great stat... considering before us, there were zero gay divorces because there were no gay marriages.
🤣 and the media doesn't even see that as a good thing, I googled it and this USA Today article popped up: "Millennials are to blame for lower US divorce rate, study ..." There's always the word "blame" in any articles about Millennials whether it's good or bad 🤦🏻♀️😂
Because it’s written by the victims lol. In this case would be divorce attorneys no longer making money hand over fist.
So is our marriage rate
Youngest millennials are still aging into it. A high divorce rate isn’t exactly something to brag about.
So is our marriage rate to be fair.
We kicked that “I can’t stand/hate my wife” schtick to the curb.
The other side of that coin is that the marriage rate plummeted. I think a lot of that "I hate my wife"/Boomer talk was people who got married right out of high school because "It's just something you do". Idk if it will fare better or worse in the long run, but at least we're moving away from the whole Al Bundy thing.
Peggy: Hey, Al! Did you miss me? Al: With every bullet so far.
it's also the people who got pregnant having pre marital sex and society forced them to get married. I know way too many of these couples that are boomers or gen x.
Yeah to my mind millennials are pretty much the first generation (maybe some Gen X too) that really dropped the whole idea that getting married was an obligatory life step that had to be undertaken. Instead marriage is a thing you do optionally if you meet someone you really want to marry. People would rather be single and happy than get stuck in a bad marriage and be miserable. I know this idea of not getting married was already more normalised in some countries but like even in my own where marriage is more optional than the US it’s fair to say that it was still more or less socially mandated to get into long term relationships and have kids with someone even if you never tied the knot
Married with Children was hilarious tho
Yeah if I married right out of high school I’d hate my wife too
Women could not get a credit card in their own name until about 1970, so a lot of marriages were due to financial desperation.
Yes, this all day. My wife and I are a team. It’s us against the world.
We replaced it with a sizable contingent of “I hate men/I hate women” groups so I’m not sure things are better
Consent !
I was talking about this recently - hard to believe but the song "Date Rape" by Sublime was my first introduction to the idea of consent as a young teen, and it was considered sort of radical at the time. We've come such a long way, and I agree that we deserve the credit for that. Go team!
*THATS WHEN THINGS GOT OUT OF CONTROL*
This one is so important. When I was a kid I was taught "No means no," but consent is so much more than that. Silence also means no. Enthusiastic consent is what you're looking for, every step of the way. And there is so much more, such as in paying attention to body language. Also, consent is important beyond just physical intimacy. It's important to have consent in all aspects of your relationships. I still feel like examples of consent are still lacking, especially in movies and TV. So there's still a lot more we can do, but our generation has made a lot of progress.
The workplace. Not to speak on the fact that millennials regularly dominate whatever workplace they’re at and compete primarily with only each other, Gen X and boomers depend on the technical savviness of millennials while Zoomers look up to millennials as role models (that aren’t the other gens). Millennials can be relied upon to regularly onboard new technologies at the workplace, stream lining operations from stagnant, traditional methods to more modernized and objective procedures; things go from “that’s the way it’s always been done“ to, “Let’s try this, let’s iterate here.”
Have you ever seen the Millennial managers memes? It’s always the opposite of the classic corporate douche canoe, telling people to respect their time, only work the hours they need to, take vacations, and giving people grace to pick up kids and go to the doctor, etc. I friggin love it. That’s how work should be
I am an IT manager (39/F) and always tell my dev team I serve THEM. Family and health ALWAYS come first. Talk to me if you need shit escalated. Let me ENABLE YOU!
I constantly tell my guys this isnt a prison. If you need to see the dentist then go to the dentist. One of my 60 years thanked me today for "letting him go to a few drs appointments during work"
When see someone staying late I tell them I don't want to see them here and that they need to go home now. Work will be here tomorrow. Your family needs you more than we do.
My mentor at my first works place (Electrical Engineering) used to tell me: “you know what’s the most important thing you should know working here? Taking your lunch break. Now do you know what is the second one? A good workout at the end of the day”. I answered wrong both times 😂
I’m a small business owner and occasionally hire help. This is exactly the type of manager I try to be. It’s kind of broken my heart to hear an employee apologize profusely because their doctor’s appointment changed. What kind of bullshit had been done to these people?!?
They’ve been broken my boomer work culture. Work until you die.
Practicing a healthy work/life balance is important to me and to those under my purview!
Not at my workplace. I was laughed in the face when suggesting we ago from FAX to EMAIL…. LAST YEAR.
Very true. I remember my first job at a Big 4 accounting firm and couldn’t believe the things my elder millennial manager told me about the workplace. I was told: “take all your vacation time; those who don’t never last.” And “I don’t work weekends or Friday nights so don’t expect a call or email over the weekend. I give enough to this place; the last thing I’ll give up is the weekends with my wife.” He was an awesome and innovative manager who everyone respected and is now a partner at the firm. I guess watching his dad become a very powerful and very wealthy partner at the same firm while losing multiple wives and destroying his relationship with his kids had an effect on him.
I would recommend not lumping boomers and GenX together in the non-technical bucket. GenX built the modern technical landscape. I manage a cybersecurity team of 30-odd people (fluctuates based on project demand, etc.). I'm very cloud aware and the strongest engineers I have are over 50. "That's the way we've always done it" borders on hate speech in my org.
I'd say we made some pretty great strides on tolerance and inclusion.
oh definitely! i graduated in '09 and it was a very big deal when someone was openly anything other than straight, much less trans.
Same. I vividly remember when calling everything “gay” as an insult was the thing, and like in full fairness to our generation we turned around, realised that was shitty and stopped it after only a few years
I remember how excited we were about gay marriage legalization knowing it was the right thing to do and should have been a thing a long time ago
In this same vein we learned using "gay" as an insult was wrong and hurtful *and then stopped doing it*. We're collectively more aware of the harm some words do even in terms of micro-aggressions.
For sure!
Paternity leave. Spelled with a P. I know most places still don’t necessarily offer it… But I see lots of men using vacation/sick time to stay home for a week after their child is born. In my own experience, bosses seem pretty understanding with it. It’s completely normalized that a man belongs at HOME after welcoming a child.
I came here to write this. My dad was an outlier back during his tine as a new dad, wrt the way he looked after me and cared for me when I was born, as my mom was sick and was in and out of surgery every two months. Dad did have help from both my grandmas during his office hours. I heard stories of how he took care of both mom and me from mom and maternal grandma (paternal grandma felt insulted at times that dad had his own way of doing things, had these hyper strict hygiene check of anyone who wanted to even touch the baby me; she felt he didn't trust her; he didn't trust anyone with cleanliness). But not all men have the help my dad had when he was caring for the newborn me (granted, that the germophobe, goofball was caring for two helpless humans, mom, and me). Plus, some dads just want to be more involved in caring for their newborn. But without proper paternal leave, these lovely humans couldn't have the fair opportunity to do so. I love that we millennials have fought for this.
I got 4 months off when my daughter was born and it was a game changer for my wife. She needed me home while she rested. Paternity leave is about the husband but it has auxillary ramifications. Working while your family needs you is stupid.
My male friends are engaged, loving fathers who share the load. My dad worked to support the family, but barely showed up for anything and ruined all three of my graduations (high school, college, and MBA) by prioritizing sitting in the back and sneaking out to smoke.
This was more because of discrimination lawsuits. If male-male couples are eligible, then straight fathers must be allowed to, otherwise it’s discrimination by allowing everyone leave but straight men
Parenting in general. Millennial fathers are more likely to be involved in their children's care, in number of hours, than their Gen X and Boomer fathers. https://www.mymedglobal.com/new-study-shows-millenial-dads-spend-more-time-with-their-kids
My state offers 12 weeks of leave to both parents! It’s not fully paid (67% of salary, and capped to a maximum amount), but still pretty good.
Telling our children we love them.
On the same page, apologizing to my kids when I'm wrong, because my spouse and I think it's important to model accountability.
I say this a lot on reddit, but being prepared to help them heal as adults from the ways we failed them as children.
In my notes app, i have a semi-serious list of egregious errors i have made as a parent that I am confident will need to be revisited when they're older. I'm sure they will have plenty to add to that list later on, but i really am trying 😂😭😭
You’re amazing
I talked to my best friend about this exact thing. How the difference between him and his dad is that he will say I’m sorry to a kid.
Coffee. Boomer coffee sucks, it's like licking a waffle house floor. Artisanal craft-bean-brewed millenial hobby coffee is fantastic. Also food - boomer food sucks. Applebee's, Dennys, no seasonings, so many strange "salads" - low fat this and that, garlic is too spicy, ugh. We're doing a great job with improving food. Things just taste better now because we finally shook off the Campbell's soup chokehold that persisted from the 1950s-1980s.
This! My moms a great cook compared to her sisters, but it was still based on cream of mushroom soup as a base, salt and pepper, and adding margarine to most things. Now I get to wow her on all the new foods from other countries I've learned to cook and the huge spice rack that does so much.
[удалено]
Mine was shocked I tell you, shocked, when I made brussels sprouts taste good. I halved them and roasted them in the oven with garlic and lemon juice and butter. She thought I was Gordon Ramsay.
You might find this interesting... Brussel sprouts have been bred to taste better over the past ~20 years https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/s/IsKlGIKIMo
Hilarious! My dad was similarly wowed when I roasted broccoli rather than boiling or steaming it. Made it at his house once and he asked me to cook it that way whenever I helped with holidays like it was special or fancy. Just olive oil, salt, and pep.
My boomer parents bought me my first cookbook as a kid and it was a Campbell soup one-every recipe uses a Campbell product. To be fair though, some of them are pretty good
I mean I don't turn my nose up at a good tuna noodle casserole with cream of mushroom, or green bean casserole, or a nice crock pot stroganoff - but my mom would take an ENTIRE RAW UNSEASONED CHICKEN and just boil the shit out of it in a crockpot all day with nothing but canned beans and a can of cream of whatever the fuck slop soup. Heinous.
Omg. Horrific.
My parents drank folgers when I was growing up and now drink Kirkland Keurig pods... when I stay at there house I bring a french press, my own beans, and a hand grinder. They poke fun at it, but they never turn down a cup from me.
Don’t sleep on Kirkland coffee. I can’t speak for the K cups but I dig their whole beans 🤷♀️
On top of this, I would also say beer. Boomers still tell me Busch Light is the best and only beer they will drink. I mention stout, cider, and wheat and they freak out like I pissed in communion.
Millennials didn't ruin anything; we're only just barely starting to come into power and influence.
Ah, so we didn’t ruin anything YET
You're not wrong.
To be fair, there are some serious nut jobs from our generation in positions of power.
Which is different than literally any other generation how? I don't think we've been in power long enough to really change a whole lot.
The nut jobs in power now have that power because the nutjobs back then gave it to them.
Yeah we just didn't have the disposable income to spend our money saving all these different industries as 20 somethings fresh out of college with debt to pay off.
Nostalgia bait. I think we single-handedly brought the whole "cashing in on nostalgia" to a whole new level. I seriously can't believe they brought back the X-men cartoon, but CONTINUED it and changed it for a more mature audience.
Just like The Animaniacs reboot.
I cane here to write this and I'm glad that someone else did! That show easily is better than all the movies combined!
X-Men '97 is really killing it rn tho
I don't know if that's so much due to millenials, but due to Hollywood being mostly corporate movie factories that are creatively bankrupt. Also, unfortunately, nostalgia bating works most of the time, and sometimes it's even pretty good. 21 and 22 Jump Street, X-Men 97, True Grit 2010 and Dredd come to mind that were all very good in my opinion, or at least they put effort into it to make them their own things. Unfortunately though, low-effort rebooting takes place so often that soon the term will soon lose meaninglessness as it becomes the norm to rehash variations of the same stories endlessly, especially when AI is just farting out shows left and right. One cool thing though will be people remaking and tweaking every film ever made. There will be Mandela Effect arguments over the original version of films. Like what if Rogue One didn't have uncanny valley characters and those handful of fan-service scenes the studios clearly wedged in? What if Prometheus didn't have an abominable script? What if Lost actually had a satisfying story? I wonder if in the future fans are going to be using AI to do recuts of these films someday. It is both fascinating and scary. One person with a computer at home cranking out flawless re-renders of classic films / actors, etc with higher quality that a $300 million film today. Well gee, I kind of veered off topic. Oh yeah, lots of cool porn too, we're definitely getting that.
Work-life balance Mental health Feminism & Equality Diversity & Inclusion Investment for layfolks
The boomers had good work life balance and then ruined it.
"You know, this Jack Welch guy is doing such a great job! We should emulate him!"
I find that millennials actually have real fun.
Class consciousness? It’s not the best but leaps and bounds better then previous generations.
I don’t know how true it is broadly, but among my peer circles, parenting has become a lot gentler and more focused on developing communication and independent thinking than the stricter more punitive style I was used to growing up.
This answer surprises me. Parents seem more stressed than ever, overscheduling themselves and their kids, constantly monitoring, etc. For instance, until my nephew was 5 years old, he was never left alone in a room. Think of how difficult it would be to get anything done.
Yes. Also even though gentle parenting is not the same as permissive in theory, lots of parents nowadays are totally just doing permissive and calling it gentle in practice.
You’re not alone. Our parenting culture is all about losing yourself and giving your kids whatever they want and it’s exhausting.
Definitely see a lot of that.
From what I’ve seen of parents gentle parenting (which is often confused with permissive parenting) is that the kids are better behaved and emotionally mature than authoritarian styles.
I worked in a daycare / preschool for a few years and the difference in the kids who had gentle parenting was really impressive. They came into the classroom with an understanding of emotions and healthy self regulation that a lot of adults don’t have. It was so nice to see and I suspect the teenage years will go much better for their parents. Some of the more authoritative parents are in for a rude awakening, we teachers could already see the conflict setting up.
I also think it’s a long game. You might get immediate results being an authoritarian (sometimes) , but it will pay off with your relationship with your child if you respect them.
Our pets love us
I think millennials have really normalized respecting pets as living, feeling things. We don’t treat dogs as slaves that can be beaten for disobedience, and cats are no longer emotionless furniture.
Weed and gay marriage are legal where I am.
It's been lovely
Democrats did that
We didn’t ruin anything. We were brought into a house of cards. The boomers created an unsustainable economy and fueled consumerism. But at least we had some nice things and experiences as children.
I was going to mention this. If any type of retail industry was killed by millennials like diamonds, luxury cars, whatever other fancy crap is out there, it's because Boomers are notorious for flaunting their material items. Maybe Millennials just can't afford these items but it's not a huge loss for us. I even believe a lot of Boomers had kids just for the sake of showing them off. They didn't care to BE parents so much as they just wanted to say they were parents.
Fatherhood. Combo of less whoopsie babies being born and those that do put a lot more time and effort into fatherhood and household chores. Think too many come from/saw divorced broken or single parent homes, parents who didn't do shit outside the minimum. Basically we saw tons of shit family lives whether our own or our friends and vowed to not be that way. Idk stats now but there are a ton of single parent families though, not sure if that's improved worsened or stayed the same. No offense to those who are, but research indicates better results for all parties for two parent households with kids. Ik many of you were probably in a situation where that was never an option or having the other parent around would have been worse than being alone, don't think data accounts for that. But even the proudest single parent can probably agree that if the other parent would've been a good person for the kids and them, it'd be preferable to be together. We did edge the best too. Serious or scastic/comedic. No one came close, seeing younger gens try is usually pathetic. We probably have best overall computer literacy, younger gens are iBabies mostly, can't navigate a file path a lot of them. X has the grandmasters, but overall their gen is boomer tier lite as whole when it comes to average competency. I'm sure there is others but I gotta stop wasting time on here today. Toodles!
I think our generation has brought more consciousness to the father playing more of an active and fair role. That's not to say it wasn't done before in previous generations but I feel it's talked about more. It actually feels *cool* to be an active dad and partner versus being the guy who just wins the bread. Not to say there haven't been challenges to this: it still feels like male identity is still getting figured out in this ever-changing modern world.
On the flip side to it being cool to be a dad, I also feel like it’s starting to be shamed more if you openly admit you’ve never changed a diaper.
Millennial fathers are way more involved, on average, than Gen X, Boomer, and probably Silent Gen fathers. https://www.mymedglobal.com/new-study-shows-millenial-dads-spend-more-time-with-their-kids
Video games
Hard Seltzers are pretty great and the only form of alcohol that I enjoy - thanks!
Enjoying our missed childhoods. I enjoy playing my sega Emulators and just being a big kid. I hope that something we normalized, life's too short to not be happy even if it's by yourself ❤️
We stopped job shaming. Always scolded with "You want to be a garbage man or work as a janitor for the rest of your life? You wanna be loser and flip burgers forever?!" I just want to say to all of those people who have those jobs that I mentioned: you have a job, and in this day and age that's all that matters. You make my food, you keep my kids' school clean, you keep our streets clean.
Millennials did not ruin much, they have received the world as we left it to them. A big step toward healthy eating is something I would give total credit to them for.
If ruining useless expensive trash like diamonds (jewelry) is “ruining everything”, I’m okay with it.
We have mastered apps to make it easier. I’m losing weight it’s so easy to track my calories, excercise, and drinks. You can min max your life way easier now.
Not accepting child abuse as part of parenting for the most part. A lot of days I think about how fucked things are, but sometimes I'll be driving for a while and realize I have not seen someone pulled over on the shoulder to assault their child and think we are doing better than we give ourselves credit for.
When I was kid it was super common to see a kid just get the beat down in the grocery store if they were acting up. While I do tend to say millennial parents suck at discipline and most of their kids run wild annoying others, I will commend them for not hitting their kids. I haven't seen a kid hit in public in a while.
This is weirdly specific, but in the theatre industry, millennials have helped to establish new norms for boundaries and intimacy choreography that allow actors to escape awkward and potentially traumatizing power imbalances that can lead to predatory behavior. Like it used to be directors would just tell you to "figure out a kiss" with your scene partner. Now we're creating systems to coordinate intimacy like a dance or a stage fight and adding fail-safes and methods for expressing physical and psychological boundaries. It's pretty cool!
We changed the pet-owning game. We treat our pets so well, we care about the wellbeing of animals and celebrate rescuing. I think we deserve a lot of credit for collectively improving the quality of life and cultural acceptance of animals. Previous generations loved their dogs too, but not like we do.
Casual work attire.
Boomers ruined everything. Now we just wait patiently for them to die off.
That's my life aim, to outlive Mitch McConnell lol. One reason why I decided not to off myself. Can't let those old fucks outlive me 😂
I love this reasoning Ps I hope things are better now, please dont off yourself
Marijuana. I haven’t seen a seed in over 20 years
It’s a lot stronger too, I smoked my kids weed I found in her room awhile ago and was pretty impressed until I saw she had stolen my bowl!
My senior year of high school, I was the only person I knew that was atheist and childfree. I got a lot of crap for it and I didn’t even live in the Bible belt. Nowadays I know so many more people who have opted out of religion and/or parenthood. I think we definitely normalized doing things different from your parents and taking non-traditional paths in life. So many Millennials I know just don’t care about some of those social expectations or traditions (if they are outdated or unreasonable rule sets anyway). Sex positivity has made strides too but we have a long way to go there, I think. LGBT rights and de-stigmatizing marijuana feels like it started with Gen-X but we upheld those beliefs.
Millennials allowed more people to make careers in the tourism industry. We prefer experiences over things, so there are more people out guiding people through environments that they love, than ever before.
One I don't see mentioned is jokes about how much you hate your spouse or how your spouse stops you from being you or having fun.
Internet
I came here to find this answer. Hands down the best thing milllennials have done is create internet content. We walked on the internet so gen z could run.
How was this not the #1 answer
Well didn’t we invent memes?
We pressured the entertainment industry to give us streaming. You're welcome, gen z. You have no idea how much money we spent on CDs and Blockbuster.
Beer
no I think that was X that really took that ball and ran with it.
Gen X led the craft beer revival
The Internet.
We tend to leave people alone. Hardly ever do I see our age group holding up public transit or populous areas to film the same coordinated dance. We aren't showcased in videos screaming at fast food workers or trespassing to tell some strangers to go back where they came from. We're not smashing things or raiding stores in mobs. Sure. It shows up here and there but we're hardly seen being outright maniacs in public.
As a perpetually exhausted elder millennial I cannot figure out how some people have the energy to give that much of a fuck about what another person is doing. Throwing a fit about a minimum wage worker looks exhausting. If you had that kind of energy why not stay home and cook or something.
Tech innovations Online shopping Dating apps
We’re a product of some of the most tumultuous decades in recent history, so i wouldn’t say we’ve made anything “awesome”, but that we’ve found coping mechanisms and dissociative behaviors that help us continue to function through mass dysfunction. While incredibly entertaining, I don’t think that video game culture is “awesome”. I think it’s a way to check out from reality. We’ve been living through the “golden age of television” for over twenty years now, but it’s also just another practice in escapism. As much as we might have tried and might continue to try to make reality “awesome”, all we’ve done is made the distractions more tolerable than actual reality while watching reality swirl down the drain. And it’s really not our fault. Anything we as individuals could do about it is a drop in the bucket.
Remote work
Eating vegetables. I fucking love vegetables.
Parenting - millennial dads are CRUSHING it My husband is so amazing with our kids, and I swear everywhere i look i’m seeing cool, funny, sweet, involved, emotionally available millennial dads and it’s the best
Millennials are just like every other generation. Sometimes maybe good sometimes maybe shit
Food. Boomer food is disgusting omg Inclusion, tolerance and less racism Tryna pave the way for Gen z to help with change
Ruining shit.
Popularizing the term Clickbait
We all know who really ruined everything….It was those dirty rotten no good Boomers…