Don't Call Me a Millennial
I do not like being called a millennial.
There. I said it.
The term millennial gets thrown around as carelessly as any other overly used buzz word of the day - selfie, hashtag, fleek to name just a few. It is used to delineate a cohort of people within a span of approximately 15 to 20 years. The exact year range is out for debate, but the common understanding is that millennials were born around 1980 and as late as 1995 or even 2000. To be honest, I think that range is entirely too large. Personally, as one of the older “millennials” born in the early 80s, I often feel I have very little in common with the 20-something counterparts of my “intended” generation. Indeed, I find my fondest childhood memories are foreign concepts to those only five to six years younger than myself. I highly doubt someone nearly a decade or more my junior could even begin to comprehend my words, let alone remember anything from it.
The fact is I am an 80s baby and a 90s kid, and I grew up at an odd stage during the technology evolution. Unlike the younger millennials, I can distinctly recall a time when the internet was not an everyday, household resource. I have very clear memories of the monochromatic, green pixelated screens of the first class computers when the most exciting thing it did was to calculate my math problems for me – without going through all the steps. When the most customizable thing you could do with your cell phones was change out the face plates, because Nokia, who remembers them, added that feature. Or when printers were loud, garish contraptions that announced every, single letter they printed with a shrill that echoed down hallways as it fed printing paper, with perforated edges, line by line. I learned to write in cursive in third grade. I cannot recall if that is even taught in schools anymore. However, then it was considered a necessary skill, and having legible penmanship and a signature was still a thing. This is the world in which I grew up, and no 20-year-old can share that with me.
Not that being a millennial is a bad thing, because it's not. For those, I feel, who truly embody the spirit of the millennial, there are times that I am actually quite envious of their privileged and optimistic ways. I look at the 20 to 29 year olds of today, and the majority of them seem to be doing pretty well – all things considered. They are smart, go-getters, and calling them “tech savvy” is putting it mildly. They are practically one with technology, and have mastered it in ways previous generations could not have conceived. It this mastery that puts them at the forefront as the next leaders of our nation, and this is the part that makes me envious. Because technology in all its forms is synonymous with their lives, working with technology and preparing for careers in those fields, puts them at an advantage my generation missed out on.
Again, I come from a group who was raised for life essentially without the convenience of technology at every turn. I can remember learning by writing copies of problem sets as math homework, and having to show, step-by-step, how I came to my answer. The argument was that knowing how to work out these math problems and formulas by hand was necessary because who carries a calculator in their back pocket at all time? Well, looks like we showed them. Now, everyone has a mini computer in their back pocket that can not only calculate the tip to that dinner bill, but will also remind you of your next five social events, play your favorite albums with a voice command, and answer your questions with a female voice that boarders between mechanical, intelligent, and slightly annoyed with humanity – I’m talking about you Siri. So yeah, they came out on top just by being raised with technology as their partner, and not as this new object to our daily lives.
However, millennials have pit falls, too. It is the down side that makes me want to disassociate myself from the label as a whole. This access to technology leads to easy access to information. The key word being “easy” access. For millennials, instant gratification is a regular part of life. If you cannot find the answer within the first few minutes, then the project is for naught. Patience is not a virtue, unless you're racking up likes on Instagram. While in elementary school, I still recall being taught the importance of understanding the Dewey Decimal System in the school library when looking up resources for an essay. It was not as easy as typing a few keywords and skimming through the results populated on a Google search. And while this access has made the world a more informed place, it has also created a group of very impatient young people, who would rather forego the search than take pains to dig a little deeper. Which leads me to my next point.
Surface dwellers. In the age of social media and instant gratification, people are learning to concise their lives into a few well-styled pictures and 140 characters or less. The result is only a snapshot of the ideal they are all trying to peddle. Depth is not needed nor is it sought out, when the pretty picture is so much more amusing. Yet, as a result, the young men and women of the present day have only come to understand one another on a shallow, surface level. Impatience, instant gratification, and constantly keeping their eyes open for the next best thing, many millennials have lost the ability to take the time to understand concepts or each other in depth – apps being one of the few exceptions. What’s more, those in the audience to the endless social media streams are just as impatient, and do not want to read anything that goes beyond 30 seconds. Hailing from a generation who can remember when social media, online profiles, chatting, and message boards were all new – and literally any one could moderate one, I moderated three – we came from a perspective that recognized that what happened online was just that online. It was the minimum, the surface, and it was in the “real” world that you forged connections, and to do that one had to go in depth to understand the other.
There are differences in the way we were raised, the things we used, our relationship to technology, among other things. We were raised with a lot of “old school” ideas, and then suddenly thrust into a futuristic age, where we found ourselves racing to catch-up with the new, with only the old to go on. It was – and sometimes still is – a trying and confusing time, and I find that I just do not relate to those coming after me. . We are the result of uncertainty, change at an alarmingly fast pace, and a transition marked by a progression in technology, a shift in morality, and a change in values. Our is a generation not distinguished by any notable trends in fashion, causes fought with protests, or any other sort of dramatic uprising against the establishment. We are a relatively docile and well-behaved bunch, who really just wanted things to work out. We wanted to go to school, get jobs, work, and believed that if we followed our parents’ advice, then it would work out that way.
Then we came of age during a recession, which, again, the younger millennials had no hand in nor were they aware of it, as they were barely freshmen in high school. This was a time of ambiguity, and we saw the fruits of our labor were not as plentiful as we had once hoped. Furthermore, it is because we grew up with such constant change that we also live with lackluster amounts of confidence. In a world where everything is changing and the climate is unstable, it is hard to feel secure and confident. So, at times, we can be a little pessimistic – though I prefer to think of myself of as realist.
So, where does that leave us? Those born between 1980 to 1990? Well, a lot of us went back to school – myself included. A number of us are still in the workforce trying our best to make do with the education and skills we were given. And, yes, while we could be called “tech savvy,” there is still a number of us who know how to live outside the parameters of a technological based society. There are many of us who still have an appreciation for a book – not a tablet – a book with actual pages in it, and are saddened by the idea of yet another bookstore being lost to a digital screen – may Borders forever rest in peace.
We are also aware of our own ambiguity, and society’s inability to place us. We grew up with the popular culture, music, and television shows of generation X, the technology of Millennials, with the moral foundations of the Baby Boomers. We are an amalgam, a chimera of many ideals in one. Perhaps our greatest rebellion is our inability to be wholly defined by one blanket term.
However, if I had to give us one, I would call us the Transitionals… but do not call me a Millennial.
Photo credit:
jeffdjevdet - Millennial Scrabble via photopin (license)
Glyn Lowe Photoworks. - Library of Congress Classification - Reading Room via photopin (license)
