Silent Millennials

I feel like our generation, my generation, MILLENNIALS, I wanna say KHEMIKUL X like the Power Puff Girls but we’re not generation X. We’re Generation Y aka Millennials, is really a lost cause. And it’s not our fault. It’s kind of like how things aligned and made Earth happen, that was cool, that was rad, but it was a perfect storm that gave us Earth. Millennials are almost like that same perfect storm, except with a lot of bad things causing us to be living in this purgatory between *Current Events* and *Life Before*

See, I like researching and diving down wormholes on wikipedia and on the internet about whatever my brain decides for today’s elective class. And I find generational discussions fascinating, because people think that they’re a certain way because “that’s how things were back then”, but there were so many other factors that added to how they became part of society’s building blocks. I like seeing all the correlated data, and taking into consideration what was going on in the world at that time, paying attention to what major events happened in said generations’ formative years, or what their parents were teaching them, or what they were learning that they felt they should pass onto their own kids. Now the biggest thing people like to lead with when discussing millennials is that we think we’re ******Special******(Spongebob rainbow effect). And because we think we’re special, everything is so hard and icky when we don’t get our way, and it’s poor us. But if you think about it, our parents felt so strongly about our generation - you know, our parents were hip to new things, technologies, new ideas, they weren’t going to enforce the working-class, “old country” ideals on their kids, they were going to let us think and dream and wish and hope and be anything we wanted to be. And that’s a really beautiful thing. Because I think for the first time in history, parents wanted their kids to aspire to be whatever they wanted to be. Not just turn out ok. Or find a good husband. Or not be talked about by other people in town. You know, not be...one of those people…(insert stench)...

Our parents believed in us in a way that parents hadn’t believed in children before. Because kids were no longer farm hands, or extras in case someone died or didn’t turn out so good. Kids were blessings, and our parents wanted to see us crush it. And as unfortunate as it is, to have mainstream journalism (which is so hot garbage right now, in my opinion) make us out to be these egotistical, self-centered pieces of shit because we were taught that we mattered, I’m really thankful for that. And I wish all generations treated their kids with that grace. That they could change the world, and do anything they wanted. Because all kids should believe in that. Yet we’re being made fun of for that....by some shithole journalist who has pulled every sophmore-year-English-classmake-the-period-24-point-font trick to draw out a four second clip of an opposing media’s political candidate faux pas of the week.

Some things to think about though, while that paragraph above simmers - the unspoken and subconscious thought of our parents, that our generation, being that we’ll be reaching the new millenia as teens or pre-teens, will immediately have a grasp on technology and will therefore be successful. And even more so, that any route we take in college, will get us to a good paying job, now that parents are letting their kids explore their options and strive for what they want. Now this is where it gets interesting. Because we were brought up learning the technology with our parents. We were just younger and had more time to fuck around with it, so we seemed to grasp it better. But realistically, even though I taught myself how to reboot and factory reset my family’s Gateway computer, so did my stepdad. It was just kind of neat for our parents to see us learn to do these things at such a young age. But really we were no different then our parents. Meaning that we were figuring out technology at the same rate they were, with the only difference being that A. we had more free time to fuck around and B. we were younger so it seemed much greater when we did something with this technology that is going to drive us into the future and let us be anything we can be. 

Another thing to think about, is that even while our parents were telling us to be anything we could be, so were companies via TV ads. We were really the first generation that companies started to seek out and market their content to. Advertisers realized that kids now have the buying power to sway their parents’ shopping decisions. And this is part of what makes being a late 80’s - mid ‘90’s kid so magical. Because everything was catered to us and it was awesome. There were so many cool toys, and WOW a whole channel dedicated to cartoons - Nicktoons! - and who were you going to dress up to be for Halloween, and who did you want to pretend to be today, and what prize did you get in your cereal, and waiting for that Toys R Us big ass Christmas book, or maybe even winning the Stick Stickly Super Toy Run and grabbing all the really expensive, highly advertised toys that fit the Disney movie of the year. Toy companies and candy companies and TV companies and anything companies spent all their time and attention on getting our attention. And that’s why there were so many nostalgic things that we think about today. Companies weren’t trying to reach more users, or figure out which way they want their social media to go. They were trying to create products that grabbed us. And there were a lot of cool ones.

See, our parents were coming up with Stephen King and Steven Speilburg (no relation). And these were guys that did what they wanted so well that major companies bought into their creativity and wanted more of it. Our parents assumed that with all this technology at our fingertips, we too could King or Spielberg ourselves to success. And I totally get the logic there, because it makes sense to me. Like grasping this new, life-changing entity of the future, especially early on, oh man, well, it’ll make us rockstars. Unfortunately what they didn’t factor in, was the realization that we were learning with them. They were so enamored that their kids figured out this new groundbreaking movement that they assumed everything was going to work out great. They didn’t realize or factor in that by the time we’re old enough to be Kings or Speilburgs, someone from Gen Z will have been able to do it better than us with a free app while they’re still in middle school. You know, while we’re in high school and college trying to play catch up with academia that isn’t teaching us the right programs or tools to compete, so we would be downloading cracked versions on the internet and pressing buttons trying to figure out how things worked, only it wasn’t so cute anymore now that you had acne and needed to know what you wanted to be when you grew up. 

We think we’re so hip and current, yet struggle trying to communicate about technology with someone who’s a generation under us. Because we remember the before, and they don’t. So we feel old and pushed out. And we go to try and have a conversation with our parents and are made to feel like we’re space robots who don’t remember having to get up and change the channel on the TV knob manually. We’re such a forgotten afterthought. The Silent Generation were those people who had the Great Depression and World War II, but I truly feel as though we’re the most silent. Because we’re this cusp generation that is so distinctly split between the world of our parents and previous generations, and that of the new world, of the future. We literally only make sense to one another, yet everyone seems to focus on why we’re the problem, when in actuality, we’re trying our best to get by. 

And now I think we’ll add the nitty gritty. You know, the STUFF. What separates an icecream cone from a sundae. And “people” aka journalists will say ‘we’re whining because we were told we were special growing up’ when we bring this up, but September 11th happened, closely followed by The Great Recession. So now companies’ advertisements weren’t directing us to buy things, they were now instructing us to BE things. BE an army recruit. BE a college student. BE these things to help our country thrive. And I mean, this shit was shoved down our throats non-stop. Our parents obviously wanted us to be successful, yes, but anytime you’d go see a movie, or need to watch an ad online before a game started or you could download a mixtape, 85% of the time, it was something related to the military or education. And I mean, I guess that’s not a bad thing. Both of those things are good directions for people to go to make something of themselves. But what really did we get? 

A college education isn’t worth much now. Everyone goes. And once you get out, your piece of paper doesn’t mean anything compared to someone else’s piece of paper, even if you wasted your time at a fancy school. Everyone in high school put so much hype onto what fancy school so & so got into, but it honestly didn’t matter at all. When I was in sales, I found myself training someone who graduated from Boston College, and I went to a basic state school. All that’s out there for college graduates are sales jobs, and various other sit-at-a-desk-and-be-a-number-on-a-grander-scale-to-a-corporation jobs. But they don’t tell you that in high school, or in college. They hint at it in college and you kind of realize it’s all bullshit right before you graduate. But they don’t flat out tell you. And your parents are instructing you to go, because they’re thinking college still offers opportunity and advancement and the pride in being educated in your career of choice, which it did, when they were in college. And nobody clues you in really, until you see it for yourself because the colleges are money makers. And we live in America. And the banks own everything. So they want more kids crammed in every ghatdamn school you can think of. Hell, they’re making up schools that don’t even give you anything that an actual company can accept (I see you University of Phoenix)  just to get people to file financial aid and be in debt. 

The kids who went into the military? Yes, some learned the strength of brotherhood and discipline and got their GI bills and so on. But a lot of them came home, expecting some kind of grand welcome home, because that’s what the military ads told them, that they would come home and their lives would have meaning, especially because the ads were targeted to kids who maybe didn’t excel academically or financially or come from a town in the middle of nowhere that didn’t offer many options. But that wasn’t the case. They came home as veterans, and joined the vets of previous generations, who struggle with physical ailments due to fighting in a war, but mostly mental. There’s no grand parade for our war heroes like in the history books, or in the movies. You’re sent back here, where everyone is disenfranchised, wondering where the promises of childhood have gone. But don’t worry, they’ll offer you $20k to sign your life away again, for another round in the sandbox. And maybe that will change things for you, and make it better. Or maybe you won’t come home. Or worse, come home with more eating at you in your sleep. 

And the worst part is, while all this was going on, our government let pharmaceutical companies get stronger, and stronger. And now a lot of people come home addicted to opiates because of medical issues, or maybe just pain, pain they can’t explain. And they don’t know where to turn, but you’re constantly being shown ads about pills to help you feel better. And just like the banks who own the colleges, the pharmaceutical companies own the doctors, and everybody has a problem with a dollar sign on it, that can be fixed with a magic pill. 

I feel like this generation contains the greatest level of functioning addicts we’ve ever seen. A generation so desperately trying to find a sense of belonging, of relief, of meaning, in a world that has left them split between a world they’re considered not to be a part of, and a world they’re not invited to belong to. 

But we’re here, and we matter. We have things to offer. It’s just a shame that we’ll most likely be forgotten about on a dusty shelf, with Gen Z coming up with some plan to help pay for us when we age into retirement, because at the rate we’re going, we’ll be dead before any of us reach the place we’re “supposed to be”. Either because we can’t afford it, we’ve died of a drug overdose, or have comitted suicide. We really are the silent millenials.