Millennials (an epistemology)

Long overdue - written with a smirk. :)

Three types.

1. A millennial walks into a hobbyist club (/or an online web forum - you decide), announces "Hey my sh*t is broke", smiles and waits for someone to do something about it.

Key components: Has no idea how to help the situation in any way. Has no deeper understanding about the issue (hasnt even googled it). Never is part of the solution. But has an extreme sense of self worth and an unfaltering believe that they are at the exact right point in time - and will be helped any minute now. Surely. Thanks.

Also - might "nice-bomb" others for as long as he/she thinks, they are on the verge of getting something for free. Also, might do it if they think that you are more famous than them. And be it even on a "youtube famous" level. ;) Is in awe of celebrity, not intellect.

2. Grew up in an environment, where the web already was commercialized to the bahookies, takes pictures of food, likes fake smiles, brands and safe spaces - because a barbie dreamworld default of social interaction is just the upper limit of life complexity he/she needs to gloss over the fact, that people demanding those defaults never are especially bright or socially engaged.

Labels any negative emotion/situation with the term "toxic", to signal to peers how much they will distance themselves from all stuff that isnt fake smiles, brands and free services - like soo much, they even will not think about those things in actual terms - pulling a reverse Voldemort and self censoring even the thought and all possible subsequent discussions on how to tackle actual issues.

An expert in character assassination, because thats the way everyone wins like 93% of their arguments online - thanks to everscrolling feeds, where arguments simply are gone in three, two, one... but the emotional notion sticks.

Wants a safe PC speech online environment, but will participate in any shitstorm at a moments notice.

3. Disconnectedly only doing their job, ("more conservative than their parents") - like censoring posts in a webforum under a general "offtopic label" excuse, while prolonging structures where people voluntarily are participating to get abused by a larger subset of peers - for the benefit of people only providing a loose structure (virtual reputation systems - look how many likes/votes/posts/clicks!) to profit from. Then being very engaged in social issues, that never ever would matter in their own lives - kind of "playing social activist" without having to change or do anything, really.

Also - as soon as someone plays the "maybe we should do something about it" card like - "raising awareness" or actually contemplate behaviors that might not be as destructive for a larger part of a specific community - censor, ban and defame them. So that no one gets any ideas - that things could actually be any different.
//

This is pretty much the "cliche" image of millennial I've come to carry around with me.

I would be interested in discarding it though, so heres a first attempt at also seeing the other perspective.

Lead in question into a discussion would be: Have you ever experienced an internet community, where most people werent in it for the "service request", a youtube subscription rank, a trendy social goal, or to "virtue signal optimize" their social media profile?

But you don't have to take the bait, you could write about entirely different perspectives and experiences as well. I promise I'll read them. I'm actually interested in how others see/react to this proclaimed image. :)

Also - as the initial topic is enough provocation for an entire threat, I vouch to stop all provocation in here from this point onward. As I'd actually be interested in a somewhat PC held discussion about those themes.
  • Like
Reactions: 3 people

Comments

@kuwanger, I appreciate your style of debate. I also agree that these stereotypes don't apply to everyone. A trend in a group should not be applied to individuals, but that does not mean that the trend does not exits. Sometimes there can be a benefit to understanding positive and negative trends so we can continue to reproduce the positive and prevent the negatives from happening or worsening.

"But there really hasn't been any specific life events--catastrophes, really--that have meaningfully effected people in the US as a whole or a subgroup in the last 30+ years."

Widespread adoption of internet has had a large effect on the population. And it compounded when everyone got access to the internet from within their pocket.
No generation has been able to so easily communicate with other people in such large groups and at such large distances. The internet has essentially granted us abilities that would previously be considered superhuman. I feel you might have overlooked that, or underplayed its importance.
It wouldn't even be crazy to say that instant access to the internet is more influential to the behavior of our society than 9/11.

All that being said, I can respect your point of view on this, and you raise a good point. (you could arbitrarily adjust the agreed upon length of a generation from to anything between 15-40 years and there would still be people searching for generalizations)
 
"Sometimes there can be a benefit to understanding positive and negative trends so we can continue to reproduce the positive and prevent the negatives from happening or worsening."

I don't disagree with this, but this is not confined to a generation. Further, most trends tend to be cyclical and based upon patterns that are non-generational. In short, my major complaint is correlation is not causation and the plural of anecdotes is not data.

"Widespread adoption of internet has had a large effect on the population. And it compounded when everyone got access to the internet from within their pocket."

I'd at this point note that I don't have a cell phone of any kind. That's mostly by choice because I don't see "instant internet access" as a real necessity, although it definitely can have many useful properties--one not useful property is being "always available". Having said that, I do have family with cell phones and have on occasion asked to look something up while out.

"No generation has been able to so easily communicate with other people in such large groups and at such large distances."

Phones in general did this about 50-100 years before that. And mail in general did this centuries before that. The major changes have been the relative cost and speed have changed along with the amount/type of information. The other point is it's not "no generation" but "everyone past 20xx" just like phone and mail are more technological cutoff points.

Definitely, the internet and smartphones have made an impact. But grandparents not being fluent with a smartphone doesn't mean they don't use them or they don't have a massive impact on their life. There's simply no cutoff age point at which internet (more than smartphones per se) doesn't provide a benefit/impact.

"The internet has essentially granted us abilities that would previously be considered superhuman. I feel you might have overlooked that, or underplayed its importance."

No. Our definition of superhuman has changed over time as technology has progressed. We still portray in films unrealistic depicts of bulletproof vests, as one example. The point then is that progress that's real and impactful is often not the unreal superhuman but the real and daily. I don't mean to underplay this, but technological progression has been literally a centuries long process. This makes it different than cyclical or one-off events. It also makes it society wide, nominally.

"It wouldn't even be crazy to say that instant access to the internet is more influential to the behavior of our society than 9/11."

Of course. 9/11 was one event and as devastating as it was for those involved, I'd argue the wars that followed and the security theater that was created were more influential than 9/11 itself. "9/11" has merely entered into the politician's checklist, like "medicare" or "military spending", on what is acceptable to be elected. For the common person, the influence is the annoyance of the security theater. Daily instant internet, though, is daily instant expectations and demands. To that end, the common fork is more influential than 9/11.

"All that being said, I can respect your point of view on this, and you raise a good point. (you could arbitrarily adjust the agreed upon length of a generation from to anything between 15-40 years and there would still be people searching for generalizations)"

That's general the point. I think if you critically came in without expectations and studied a lot of trends, you could probably overlap them and get various age groups with high correlation. That's not at all what Millennial labeling or most generational labeling is about. It's about "us vs them" and "treating millions of people with baseless contempt" as grey72 notes. And even if you could find certain (possibly overlapping) "generations" with high correlation, it'd only be useful to understand possible motivations and circumstances of history. At the personal level, you're still left with a person.
 
M
So GBAtemp nerds asking for help on how to install RXtools are now "millennials".The premise that millennials have high self worth is extremely misleading.I would say more millenials are depressed/have low self worth compared to other times when it wasn't as easy to compare lifestyles.
 
"So GBAtemp nerds asking for help on how to install RXtools are now "millennials"
They can be, yes.

"I would say more millenials are depressed/have low self worth compared to other times when it wasn't as easy to compare lifestyles."
This is possible, hard to say or prove really.
 

Blog entry information

Author
notimp
Views
577
Comments
90
Last update

More entries in Personal Blogs

  • 4: Reddit
    Finally, number 4! Never thought this day would come, did you? Uhh...
  • books
    1. I am cool as hell, have one million dollars 2. I am banned from...
  • Syncthing is fun!
    Having been kinda active in an Android forum I quickly got sick about...
  • Feeling at home here
    Not much to say this time. I'm depressed. Like almost always. Trying to...
  • I'll start, rate mine 1-10
    It's a very mixed bag, some rock, some rap, some video game music, a...

Share this entry

General chit-chat
Help Users
    K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2: Stop opening pms from @Psionic Roshambo