Everything in our world today is part of a story and part of an even larger marketing scheme. How we got to the Millennial naming is very significant because the term has been coined in and eventually has been used in business, social sciences and humanities. Almost immediately, you feel there is a sense of allure to it like we are the chosen generation. This is where our “entitled mindset” has spurred from, because this is exactly how marketing science works. Before going into more paramount issues, it’s important to start with the building blocks and in this case the naming is the start.
I will not go in-depth on the entitled topic because I think it has been immensely discussed in the media by people such as Simon Sinek and the such. I will though disagree with who should be included in this “golden” category as several sources would site it to be “children born between 1980s up to the first couple of years of the 2000s (sometimes up to 1994).” My disagreement sprouts here due to the fact that there is an evident cultural gap between 1980 children and 1990 children. Also, 1980 children lived for a much longer time in what I think is the “true golden age” before all this social media nonsense. So, it is fair to say that their neurons are a little bit more fresh than those of actual millennials. I therefore think they should be merged with the Gen X (Generation X) a group that ranges from 1965 up to 1979 (even though it should have started from 1970 to 1979, making Baby boomers the range from 1955 to 1969, but I wont go into that either as there is a much bigger complexity and interralation between Baby boomers & Gen X that needs to be taken into consideration and because the present and future are what we really need to be focused on.)
Consequently, I think that for us to properly categorize this term, it is important to add one mutually inclusive incident that has affected 1980s, 1990s and 2000s children at different stages in their maturity spectrum and that is the 2008 crisis. We have all seen wars, we have all seen instability but this instability conquers all.
To finally narrate my opinionated definition, millennials are all children born between 1990 and 1999. There is no cultural gap amongst this category, yet even this classification is cut into two halves based on the 2008 enigma. Let me further elaborate, someone born in 1990 was 18 during the dark loophole of the financial crisis versus someone born in 1999 who was 9 years old. The cut off point here is 1995 as everybody born post 1995 had their childhood altered, and by altered I mean haven’t had what the previous generations had in terms of emotional stability, emotional reinforcement, and even tangibles such as toys, clothes, etc.. Where as anyone prior to 1995 had their teen hood years altered (still a shitty thing but not as shitty), excuse my language but we all remember those years and we can all agree to one thing, it was shit in the most beautiful and horrific of ways, in the sense that I’m glad I had all that fun but I’ll make sure my kids are saved from all the crazy things we’ve done.
This was something I identified in the last couple of years as I became a little bit more involved with training people for job interviews, creating CVs, building confidence for career procurement and through my social networks. Everyone born post 1995 that I worked with had a confidence complication / muddle. Yes, it is a plague that has affected all millennials but, it is over-evident in the post 1995 classification. Still, with some emotional reinforcement and cheering all goes well. I’d like to coin my first term here, “with cookies all goes well,” says a Millennial.
Another bigger problem that is being overlooked on the other hand is the labeling of post generations known as generation Z or Post-millennials. As has been seen, millennials and all the generations that follow are much more affected by the branding effect (this will be discussed further later in my blog). I had to bring this up now though because I remember as a kid that my parents, as all parents, gave some of the things, the good quality ones, that I had in terms of toys & clothes to my little brother instead of throwing them away. Sometime this bothered him specifically in his teen years. I would worry that the generation that already has everyone worried with addictive games like Fornite, mobile phones & Ipads at the tender ages of 2-5 and social media addiction at a much younger age would find themselves branded as the “post’ generation (as the much lesser version) or “Z” generation, the last letter in the alphabet. Looking at all the shit they have done already, (please YouTube “parents smash video games of addicted kids”, something I found rather amusing), they deserve it, almost as much as we deserve being called entitled.
Nevertheless, we should act as their big brothers & sisters and just as Baby Boomers & Generation X took the responsibility of labeling us, giving us the awesome, unprecedented, sensational, entitled name “MILLENNIALS” (Generation Y), it is our responsibility to name the generation after us and I take my responsibilities seriously. I hereby call the generation after us the Mega generation also known as the Alpha generation, a group not entitled, but hopefully the generation that is tech savviest due to their “born into the internet & technology” notion.
(Special thanks to Tobias Tullius on the spectacular image, please follow his great work on Unsplash @Tobiastu)
themillennialstage.net 