The Secret's Out -- I'm A Millennial
- Nov 3, 2015
- 3 min read
Vanity Fair blogger James Wolcott wrote an article titled “The #Me Generation” and I had never felt more conflicted after reading something.
This article started out by offending me but by the end I couldn’t help but think, “holy smokes, this is the definition of me”. The writer, James Wolcott, brings in three separate opinions on the Millennials. He goes from an opinion that completely bashes them to an opinion at the end that defends them.
“They are them most clueless, duh generation when it comes to the news,” Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post Wonkblog contributor wrote.
I’m sorry but that right there set me off. He is making a generalization that every single person who is considered part of the “Millies” is too focused on themselves and the technology around them to care about what is going on in the world. Granted, we aren’t the most news conscious generation but look at what’s going on in the world lately. Donald Trump is running for President, that right there is a big enough joke for me to change the channel. Also, every other day it seems like there is a new mass shooting or cops dying or something terrible happening. I know it’s not just me when I say that I hate turning on the news and seeing more awful, tragic things happening in the world.
The article ends with an entry from Derek Thompson at The Atlantic defending the Millennials because of what we are facing after we graduate college.
“…the number of young adults making less that $25,000 has increased by six million; the number of young adults making more than $25,000 has declined by almost two million”.
In today’s generation, we are forced to pay an arm and leg for years of school and then expected to start paying off loans six months after graduation. Yet the odds of college grads getting hired right away with a good pay job are dropping drastically. We are being thrown into the world and being forced to pay back all this money, when chances are we will be making under $25,000.
Alright, the secret’s out.
I fall into the category of what you would call “Millies”. I have an iPhone and at one point I even had an iPod. You could say I grew up with all the latest and greatest technology.
What you don’t know is that I didn’t have an iPhone until my freshman year of college, which makes me 18-years-old. Instead, I spent all my time texting and calling on an old school flip phone and using T9 Word to send a text (and let me tell ya, I was a straight champ when it came to texting with T9). My first form of listening to music was with a giant boom box that I got for my 8th birthday. Shortly after I received my first Walkman. It wasn’t until I was 15-years-old that I got my first iPod.
Yes, I fall into the category that most seem to despise but I also grew up having to earn everything I have today. I have a work ethic, I know everything isn’t going to be handed to me and I know that I must be self-less at times. Sometimes all’s it takes is to sit down and take the time get to know someone to understand that we aren’t all the same.
Comments