The Millennial Manifesto
Confessions from a millennial— you’ve got us all wrong.
Millennials are best described as people that reached adulthood around the turn of the century. With most pointing to those born from 1980–2000 generally, as part of this generational grouping.
In recent years, “Millennial” has become a pop culture buzzword of sorts. Everyone has obsessed with the term. But like most things, it’s interpolation seems to have included everyone but those it directly references. In other words: us.
It’s uses are ripe with preconceived notions, passive aggression, and a post-prime jadedness that comes when some forget they were once young and filled with the same zeal and expectation that drives us today.
And while these preconceived notions of today’s youth, taken at face value, seem just that, they can grow to represent much more. They can come to speak volumes about the unique intersection we find ourselves in today, eventually defining a time in history and generation as a result.
The GI (1901–1926), silent (1927–1945), baby boomer (1946- 1964), and “X” (1965–1980) generations before us, stand as examples of generational groups that had been defined by their time and place historically.
In our most recent generational instalment, so many seem eager to overlook the potential of their young people. But without them, where would we be?
I’d like to note: every substantial mode of social change has been created by our youth. And every expression of change has been articulated through the ever-changing and grandly misunderstood language of our rebellion. No matter in scale, size, orient or preference — we’ve shown time and time again to be the sole bearers of our world’s great potential for change.
And without a working stake in the same dominant structure that our parents so dearly depend, we have this unique luxury.
So no, we are not our parents. Just like they weren’t theirs. But we represent the change everyone says they want to see more of. Unfortunately, we just don’t have access to it in the same way those that came before us did — and in many ways, it’s ironically because of them.
As a group, Millennial’s are dominant in size. We’re larger than the baby boomer generation, and three times the size of generation X. We also know what the rest of the world thinks about us. We know people think we’re lazy and entitled — so much so that the term itself has become, at its worst, a sort of pop-culture slur. But what is this a function of?
It seems that most understand that the characteristics of a generation are a creation of social circumstance. So why is it that we’re posthumously blamed for the fact we’ve had the privilege of growing up in history’s most objectively “easy” time?
Well, for starters, we’d have to define “easy.” Because, yes, we have more access to clean and safe food, we don’t live with the constantly looming threat of international disaster, and on this side of the world we have plenty of access to most basic resources. Not to mention the introduction of things like the internet and social media. Our world has become invariably smaller, true.
But who’s to say this hasn’t just muddied the water?
Imagine a world where the internet was introduced a century ago — do we see a similar social affect? Are these changes in behaviour a function of innovation, or is it as simple as kids stunted by a pragmatic culture of coddling and participation medals. Or perhaps, maybe a little of both?
There’s no denying that life is not as rough, dirty, hands-on, or dangerous as it once was. But the world dominated today by millennials is a product of human history’s eternity. Centuries of war, decades of innovation; millions killed by disease, colonialism, the crusades, revolution; and every other stain on the face of humanity’s checkered history.
We are the bearers of the new-world. The generation that men and women for centuries hoped could by chance one day exist is here. But we’re now blamed for living in it.
Our current reality is a sort of post-internet, generational catch-22. You’re damned if you don’t, unable to succeed with a now unique wealth of resources, and damned if you do, as your success will be qualified almost exclusively as a function of the time you grew up in.
But, to what extent is what’s said about us true? Are we the drama seeking, celebrity induced, gluten intolerant, pussy-footing little humans that the world would have you believe?
It’s probably true to some extent that millennials have been coddled to a point of harm. So many I love you’s, you’re special’s, and you’re perfect’s, that children are socialized to halfway believe that this is the way the world works. We’re a generation showered in celebration for simply participating, where a spanking is capital punishment, and the Kardashians are the new Kennedy’s.
It’s a strange new world for those removed from it, and we can’t blame them for recognizing its sometimes laughable absurdity. Like anything else, it’s all relative to time.
A part of this though is that Millennials now wrestle with things that we could never hope to ask our parents about. The world has changed a lot, and much of our lives are now foreign to them as a result.
Nowadays, interaction has no expiry date. For kids, this means bullying is now a 24/h bogeyman that follows you well after you leave the classroom. It means that even with a “well-earning” degree, a job is still far from promised, and coming to terms with the fact that owning a home may be more fiction than fact. This is the world we were left with.
One where everything seems to come quickly: love, friends, money, food, fame, answers — but speed has taken precedent over quality — and finding anything to scratch beneath that surface has become something of an anomaly.
We exist in bubbles, where we only look to explore things that affirm everything else we’ve already come to terms with. A time where a tweet can ruin your life, and access to information is greater than ever, but the cheques and balances that verify it all have been nullified.
Millennials of today live in a world that doesn’t turn off, over-inundated by images and ideas that veer from either extreme. We’re forced into socio-corners, and trapped into false understandings of self. Content with wherever we end up: as long as everyone else likes it too.
The 21st century has completely changed the ways we date, socialize, educate, dream, and all else. But these changes are a product of centuries of change, so naturally — shouldn’t the standard to which our expectations rest change as well?
We are the generation to force the conversation. Our world is a winding well of subcultures, bound by a similar distaste of outright power, and all-knowing institutions. And we, with our candour, and sometimes false sense of optimism, have broken the matrix wide open.
Making jokes about those that are younger than you is a completely normal part of the way we interact, but it becomes a problem when this sort of social exchange starts to become defined. Basically: when people actually start believing this stuff, it becomes dangerous.
We are the product of a world so many put everything they had into — centuries of innovation, change, and revelation. Ideas fought and sparked by all, and we are the end product.
If things hadn’t changed, and drastically, where would we find the fruits of our labour?
We should also recognize that the idea of “millennial” is less about us, and more about a seismic social shift that many adults hate to see themselves reflected in. Everyone from grandparents to parents participates in most of the same things we do, and in many ways they’re falling into the same “traps” that we are. Spending more time on their phones, less eye-contact at dinner, staying at work late, higher rates of depression, and a thirst for fast results.
So, here’s a message to the youth: when you hear the unhinged attacks on what it means to be young today, be patient. It’s very likely they’re just mad they’re changing in the same way we are — they may just not have the time we do to adjust to it.
Identify the notion that we don’t work, study, or love as hard as older generations as myth, reconcile with it, and keep pushing. Continue partying with reckless abandon, being brash, and breaking every quo in the book. While you’re at it, understand the prehistoric notion of “perfectness” as being dead.
Every generation that’s come before us as well had their parents tell them that they were ruining the world. It’s a weird generational game of broken telephone, or “who’s gonna wreck the planet first?”
Moving forward, we should view our space in today’s society as an ultimate sign of accomplishment. In every eye-roll, subtweet, rude look, or *sigh*, there is evidence of how far our species has come. It’s a sort of evolution that’s been heightened by innovation and exaggerated by tech — in it, we’ve created a world spinning on its axis at speeds it was never prepared for.
Objectively speaking, it’s not controversial to say we were never meant to live this way. Massively expanding enterprise-like cities with millions of people, genetically modified foods, a self-initiated bubble of friends and ideas, and unlimited access to nearly anything you heart desires. It’s unnatural to say the least.
But today, our youth is more free-thinking than any that’ve come before. We’re largely politically and religiously unaffiliated, and make up the largest voting group. We’re the last generation of the 20th century, and mark the beginnings of a new age and literal new millennia. Our world moves at such fast speeds, we’ve spent most of our time just trying to keep up with its often torrent change of pace.
The Facebook generation is soon to be at society’s proverbial driver’s seat, and if that makes you nauseous, deal with it. But understand: you’ve probably played a larger role in creating this beautiful monster than you’d ever imagined, and anyway — chances are, you’re more like us than you’d like to admit.
