People Are Sharing The Millennial Trends, Experiences, And Memories They Don't Think Will Last Beyond Their Generation
Though the harsh lines dividing generations may be for the most part fuzzier than we might imagine, there are certain collective memories and experiences that are unique to folks from a certain age group, and most likely won't survive their own era. And for millennials, the entries on that list can range from as inconsequential as Ugg boots to as impactful as, you know, the whole Internet situation.
So there were a lot of responses when Redditor u/Substantial-Young-85 asked, "What will die with millennials?" Here are 23 things that folks believe won't survive past the final millennial.
Responses may have been edited for length and/or clarity.
1."Memory of life without internet."
"Or at least the memory of being told, 'Get off the computer, I gotta call grandma!'"
2."For office workers, my hope is the traditional expectation of being in an office, at a desk, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., five days a week. With our ability to be connected from almost everywhere, the whole idea of driving back and forth between an office to sit at a desk for 8ish hours a day, just to drive back home at stare at one’s possessions, seems very antiquated. Pre-pandemic, I commuted between a suburb and a major city five days a week, often spending between an hour to an hour and a half each way in my car. Now that I am set up with a remote office from home, I don’t think I can ever go back to that way of doing things."
3."Calling someone’s home and not knowing who would pick up, and as a result, having unexpected conversations."
4."How about all of those solid oak 'entertainment center' cabinets, with fixed shelving spaced out to accommodate a two-foot-deep 4:3 aspect-ratio CRT television? No one's going to want those. A larger 16:9 flatscreen isn't going to fit in that square space, and a smaller one that does is going to look awkward and weird in it. Same deal with all the china cabinets. Who is going to want all the old china cabinets the boomers have, or for that matter, all of their expensive china? Millennials seem less likely to see the point of owning a bunch of dishware that only gets used about twice a year."
5."Not knowing the answer to something and saying, 'I guess we’ll never know.'"
6."Cursive."
7."I remember a time when long-distance communication was more expensive than local communication. These days, WhatsApp and Discord make it free. We also had family in another country and could go years without seeing their face, and now video calls are easy. Social media isn’t all bad."
8."Dubbing cassettes and burning your own mix on a CD."
9."Playing multi-player video games with split screens in one room."
10."Being able to go into the cockpit mid-flight on a commercial aircraft is something people younger than me will not experience. I remember going in there, and not being able to see anything over the dashboard. I wondered how they could fly the plane if they couldn't see in front of them. But I now realize that I was just little."
11."A time when the internet was in its golden era. More genuine content, no clickbait, no hidden agenda, and no fake news or hate speech. It was a better and smaller community."
12."Going to Blockbuster and trying to find a film to watch, or a one new and one old combo."
13."I think the 'bootstrap' mentality. It’s already declining in millennials, but there are still plenty on the front end of the generation that still believes in working themselves to death and grinding 24/7. Most on the younger side of the generation see right through it and have taken a 'my job is just to support my lifestyle' perspective. Our parents still think we need to go in with our resume and demand an interview. Our kids constantly show us kids that have made it on YouTube or TikTok or whatever. We’ve seen both sides of it, and we’re just not impressed."
14."Declaring your Harry Potter house to others in normal conversation."
15."At this rate, an ecosystem that is inhabitable for humans, probably."
16."Apparently, using a Haynes or a Chiltons manual to work on your car. I hate using YouTube videos for car maintenance, but it looks like that’s all I have left."
17."Please let it be people who wear Ugg boots in the snow. Goddamn, is that ever impractical."
18."Remembering someone’s phone number."
19."Burials. Most people I hear from want to be cremated. Plus, do you know how fucking expensive dying is? We'll probably have to pay rent on the plots by the time we all die, too, for fuck's sake."
20."Watching 'whatever was on.' Everything is always on now, and you don’t stumble into an interesting (or awful) show because it’s the only thing mildly interesting on TV."
21."Knowing what the save icon actually is..."
22."I once tried to explain to my niece that phones used to be attached to walls. She's ten, and was six at the time, and cell phones are all she's ever known. Among the reasons she guessed as to why they were 'tied' to walls: To stop people from stealing them."
23.And finally: "Articles about how millennials ruin everything."
