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Time magazine Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation

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The last issue of Time magazine is devoted to the Millennials, but as the autor says. Instead of an old "back in my days" rant it includes graphics and data:
behold-a-millennial-in-its-element.jpg

I am about to do what old people have done throughout history: call those younger than me lazy, entitled, selfish and shallow. But I have studies! I have statistics! I have quotes from respected academics! Unlike my parents, my grandparents and my great-grandparents, I have proof.

Here's the cold, hard data: The incidence of narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that's now 65 or older, according to the National Institutes of Health; 58% more college students scored higher on a narcissism scale
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2143001,00.html#ixzz2T5DsksW5
As yes, because this's the internet the cover itself has been photoshoped several times, there's even a blog devoted to it.
http://timemillennials.tumblr.com/
 
Believe me when I say that this is our society and culture on the whole. Entitlement. I work in an ER and you would not believe the fucking entitlement that comes out of the mouths of patients and the family of patients. It's the entire of attitude of, "I want it. I want it now. It better be fantastic. And if it's not I'm going to complain, make myself the center of attention, and try to take as many people as I can down with me." That man came in after me and is deathly ill? Fuck you and this hospital. My child with an insect bite comes fucking first. I want to talk to your manager and where it the nearest tissue box?
 

Neo C.

Member
Some good shops.
Millennials are the fucked generation. There aren't enough jobs for the Y generation, and the millennials won't get them either.
 

Jarmel

Banned
I wonder do they talk about the reasons we still live with our parents? Mainly that the economy was wrecked by the older generations leaving scraps for us. Probably not.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Oh shit that makes me one, i thought it was 1990s

1980-2000 IIRC.

Believe me when I say that this is our society and culture on the whole. Entitlement. I work in an ER and you would not believe the fucking entitlement that comes out of the mouths of patients and the family of patients. It's the entire of attitude of, "I want it. I want it now. It better be fantastic. And if it's not I'm going to complain, make myself the center of attention, and try to take as many people as I can down with me." That man came in after me and is deathly ill? Fuck you and this hospital. My child with an insect bite comes fucking first. I want to talk to your manager and where it the nearest tissue box?


Both of these nail it.

Us who were born in the 1980s know what it was like before and after.

I remember a time before the internet, that sucked. You had to go outside.
 

Kabouter

Member
What's the "Obama's new boss" article about?

Oh, and on-topic, I think it's a good few decades to soon to judge this generation on its merits.
 

WedgeX

Banned
I thought it was 1990s as well.

Us who were born in the 1980s know what it was like before and after.

We've definitely seen the times change.

And Millennials = Generation Y. The years given are rarely specific, but in general are either 1980-2000 or 1982-2004.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Pretty sure early 80s people are Gen Y. Er, they are the same thing?

Gen Y is what the generation is technically called. "Millennials" is just a nick-name for it that got popular.
 

kswiston

Member
I remember a time before the internet, that sucked. You had to go outside.

Even if you had the internet in the early-mid 90s, it was pretty crap. I remember getting in trouble with my parents because I tied up the phone line for 55 minutes trying to download a 1.5mb Diablo 1 save file over our 14.4kbps modem.
 
Believe me when I say that this is our society and culture on the whole. Entitlement. I work in an ER and you would not believe the fucking entitlement that comes out of the mouths of patients and the family of patients. It's the entire of attitude of, "I want it. I want it now. It better be fantastic. And if it's not I'm going to complain, make myself the center of attention, and try to take as many people as I can down with me." That man came in after me and is deathly ill? Fuck you and this hospital. My child with an insect bite comes fucking first. I want to talk to your manager and where it the nearest tissue box?

At first I thought this was going to turn into a Mitt Romney-esque tirade about how people feel entitled to health-care...
 
Where are all the articles that talk about how selfish, stupid, and awful baby boomers are, and how they've basically fucked over the entire world?

Nah, let's keep bitching about these awful millenials and their cell phones and FaceSpace.
 

wenis

Registered for GAF on September 11, 2001.
The article itself is about how our persistence and need to do better than what we saw and grew up with all around us, from our parents to our governments mistakes is what drives us to bring it all down even at great cost and to rebuild it in an image better than what was handed down to us.

Inflammatory title is inflammatory to sell those issues. durr.
 

zoukka

Member
I can admit it. Compared to my grandparents I've had it like a king from day0. I could live as a jobless bum and still buy iphones if I so chose. It's fucked up beyond measure.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
Even if you had the internet in the early-mid 90s, it was pretty crap. I remember getting in trouble with my parents because I tied up the phone line for 55 minutes trying to download a 1.5mb Diablo 1 save file over our 14.4kbps modem.

We got a separate phone-line specifically so I wasn't tying up the phone. I don't recall if the phone-company and ISP's overcharged because I wasn't the bill-payer for that. I don't think it was very much or at least breaking the bank since my parents never complained about it, but yeah... 1990-1993 was very different from 1994-on.
 
To be fair, I think my generation has the least ambition out of any demographic I can think of. I know people in their mid 30s that still live at home and they're completely content with it.
 

Patryn

Member
Someone wrote a great takedown of this piece basically pointing out how a similar article has been written for every generation since nearly the middle of the 20th century. In fact the science used to "prove" the conclusion isn't the whole picture. It's been well known that younger people are more narcissistic for a long time now, and that fades as you get older. This isn't a new phenomenon.

Really the who,e thing is just older people realizing that they're older and trying to convince themselves that they weren't that bad when they were younger, when actually they were.
 
Thanks internet.

I think it's a complete shift in attitude and I don't know if the Internet has played a part in that or not. The big thing now is for people to stay in higher education as long as possible so they can party their youth away. Their full time job is being a perpetual student and when they graduate it really doesn't benefit them as much as they'd think.
 

WedgeX

Banned
Someone wrote a great takedown of this piece basically pointing out how a similar article has been written for every generation since nearly the middle of the 20th century. In fact the science used to "prove" the conclusion isn't the whole picture. It's been well known that younger people are more narcissistic for a long time now, and that fades as you get older. This isn't a new phenomenon.

Really the who,e thing is just older people realizing that they're older and trying to convince themselves that they weren't that bad when they were younger, when actually they were.

Apparently it was the Atlantic Wire: Every Every Every Generation has been the Me Me Me Generation. Its pretty awesome.

edit: Which atomsk already posted!
 

zoukka

Member
I think it's a complete shift in attitude and I don't know if the Internet has played a part in that or not. The big thing now is for people to stay in higher education as long as possible so they can party their youth away. Their full time job is being a perpetual student and when they graduate it really doesn't benefit them as much as they'd think.

You are probably right. There's a very clear atmosphere in some industries that they get more highly educated people coming in who have absolutely no idea how to actually practice their craft. It's one reason why they are axing so many universities in my country now. The education quality is just stretched too thin between all the institutions. Then again this is europe so it's a different matter.

Can't wait to see how the education system reforms after the hammer comes down in EU soon.
 

Chumly

Member
Where are all the articles that talk about how selfish, stupid, and awful baby boomers are, and how they've basically fucked over the entire world?

Nah, let's keep bitching about these awful millenials and their cell phones and FaceSpace.
.

Baby boomers are the true me me me generation. Young people are somehow entitled because we have technology now. They think that absolves them of being entitled since they didn't have the same technology when they were young
 
The article essentially describes Americans on the whole. That's the huge issue. The youth of this country isn't carrying us to the brink of oblivion. I get the feeling that a lot of Americans are narcissistic, entitled, distracted, and completely apathetic. It's a shitty, boring consumer culture and we have incompetent leaders.
 

entremet

Member
This is funny coming from Baby Boomers, the ultimate fuck you got mine generation.

I've pretty much given up on full retirement, but that's fine, I don't mind working personally. Try making a living with only a high school diploma, which was common a few generations ago.
 

jtb

Banned
I don't really buy the entitlement generation stuff. Every generation gets fucked over by those that came before them, and every generation feels incredible sense of entitlement (even if they manifest themselves in different ways). Meh.
 
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