Millennials ( c. 1982-2100), also known as Generation Y, are those Americans born between 1982 and 2001, give or take a few years on either side depending on who you ask. Currently they are those in their teens and twenties. Most are children of the Baby Boom and Generation X. There are about 80 million Millennials, making up a fourth of the country. They will become increasingly important over the next 50 years or so.
American generations that are still alive, going by Time magazine’s names and dates:
- 1901-1924: The Greatest Generation
- 1925-1942: The Silent Generation
- 1943-1960: Baby Boomers
- 1961-1980: Generation X
- 1980-2000: The Millennials
Some famous Millennials: Mark Zuckerberg, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Lady Gaga, Lindsay Lohan, Malia Obama.
Millennial demographics:
- 60% White
- 20% Hispanic
- 14% Black
- 5% Asian
- 1% Other
Note: Most studies are done on white, middle-class Millennials at university by white male professors of the Baby Boom.
Millennials are on average, compared to older generations at the same age:
- poorer and more likely to be out of work or underemployed for their level of education;
- live with their parents longer, get married and have children later;
- less in debt, despite the student loan horror stories;
- more concerned with getting rich;
- more narcissistic;
- less able to put themselves in other people’s shoes or understand their point of view;
- less racist, sexist and homophobic;
- less creative, less rebellious, more pro-business, more accepting of society the way it is;
- more likely to ask their parents for advice, more likely to listen to the same music and watch the same television shows as their parents;
- less likely to belong to a religion (30% do not, a record), less concerned with developing a meaningful philosophy of life.
Most are digital natives: they grew up with computers, mobile phones and the Internet. They are not “new” things to them like they are to older Americans. They seem to be looking at a screen much of the time. In fact, much of their society has moved from meatspace into cyberspace. Facebook is their invention. So is Tumblr.
Uncommon experiences: Writing a letter with pen and paper, using a dial telephone, seeing a television station go off the air, playing a phonograph, being completely lost.
Ancient history: Nixon, the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, Jim Crow, the 1950s.
Timeline:
- 2010s to 2020s: sing most of the new American pop music.
- 2030s: write about how terrible Generation Z is.
- 2050s: Millennial presidents.
- 2070s: Listen to Lady Gaga on cruise ships.
Two things that has surprised me about them so far:
- Multigenerational music: They listen to rap even when their parents do. The only new forms of music they have invented so far are metalcore and dubstep. Admittedly, it probably sounds as unmusical to me as rap did in the 1980s to older people or rock did in the 1950s.
- They did not protest the Iraq War, not in huge numbers, even though it was every bit as nakedly imperialistic as the Vietnam War.
– Abagond, 2013.
See also:
- YouTube: Vsauce: Juvenoia – the whole “kids these day” phenomenon and the nature of generations
- narcissistic personality disorder
- Living a year without the Internet
- My adventures in porn
- Tumblr: yet more Internet crack
- Millennials I have done posts on:
- born in 1982:
- born in 1983:
- born in 1984:
- born in 1985:
- born in 1986:
- born in 1987:
- born in 1988:
- born in 1989:
- born in 1990:
- born in 1991:
- born in 1992:
- born in 1993:
- born in 1994:
- born in 1995:
- born in 1996:
- born in 1997:
- born in 1998:
- born in 1999:
- born in 2000:
- born in 2001:
- video:
- songs (by Millennials that appeal to me, a non-Millennial):
- B.o.B. & Bruno Mars: Nothin’ on You
- Chris Brown: With You
- Chrisette Michele: A Couple Of Forevers
- Ciara: Never Ever
- Dorrough: Ice Cream Paint Job
- Esperanza Spalding ft Algebra Blessett – Black Gold
- Janelle Monae: Tightrope
- Janelle Monáe ft Erykah Badu: Q.U.E.E.N.
- Juelz Santana: Oh Yes
- Keke Wyatt: If Only You Knew
- Solange: F*ck The Industry
- Solange Knowles: Losing You
- Solange: I Decided
- Solange: Sandcastle Disco
- Trey Songz: Neighbors Know My Name
Where do you fall, Abagond? I am a millenial through and through. I say Gen X.
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Another interesting fact about these Gen-Y’ers. They lack the ability to effectively communicate face to face. They seem more comfortable texting than having a real dialogue looking into someone’s eyes.
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FYI, in your first sentence you have the Millennial generation extending until 2100 instead of 2001.
I’m a Millennial. I have never used a dial telephone (though my grandparents used to have one), seen a television station go off air (except in movies), played a phonograph (though I have seen my parents do it), or thankfully, been completely lost (though when I was little we “lost” my grandparents on outings a few times since no one had cell phones). I did write many letters and thank-you notes in pen and ink when I was little.
The Berlin Wall and apartheid are not ancient history in my mind – in fact, I remember being kind of surprised when I found out how recently they actually happened. Reagan and the Crack Era also do not seem especially ancient to me. The rest pretty much do though. I was watching public service announcements and junior high health class movies from the ’50s the other day. Their customs, manners, and speech almost seemed like a totally different culture: white girls washing their hair “about once every two weeks,” daily after-school visits to the soda shop, a kid going to college being treated like an uncommon event, teenage boys automatically taking girls’ jackets and hanging them up at a party, people using expressions like “golly” and “nifty.”
I listen to rap music, but my parents mostly don’t like it. My dad thinks Eminem is okay because he can actually understand what he’s saying. My mom likes that song “Angel” by Shaggy.
We did have the Occupy protests, but unlike the Boomers and Vietnam, we weren’t drafted into the Iraq war and we could vote as soon as we were old enough to be drafted anyway.
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My own theory is that a main motivator behind Baby Boom protests of Vietnam was the draft. If you face a real prospect of being yanked out of college and sent to southeast Asia to be killed, for a nakedly imperialistic and patently unwinnable war, you’re gonna be pissed. In contrast, Iraq was fought using a volunteer army.
There are other distinctions, of course. For example, in the 1960’s many intellectuals, perhaps most, at least sympathized with communism, and many openly espoused it. Thus, disposing of lives and dollars to fight communism was wrong in the eyes of many.
In contrast, our mass media has been complicit in the process of demonizing “Muslims”, to the point where large segments of American society share that viewpoint to some extent. Thus, even though Iraq made no logical sense even for the most dyed-in-the-wool Muslim hater, in the vapid world of American public opinion, we were “taking the fight to the enemy” and that was okay.
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The babyboomers gave rise to the Gen Xers (myself). And most of us gave rise to the Millenials. And let’s be honest, the boomers still think that the world revolves and devolves around them… TWO generations later. I see boomers as the oops -dropped -the -ball generation. To punish us all they will live past 100 and complain about EVERYTHING. My parents are gone (RIP) but that very large group is going to be a healthcare headache.
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“more concerned with getting rich”- the one thing that scares the life out of me with this generation. the rest is sadly accurate too.
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I feel so old…
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when i was a tween the height of home technology was the commodore 64 computer
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my apple ][e was the ish, i learned BASIC on a CP/M machine, it wasn’t even DOS yet back then in ca. 1982, and the Atari 2600 wasn’t no MMORPG, we went outside and rode bikes and blew up firecrackers or went to the arcade to play video games, sheesh i started working when i was in 5th grade, paper route and mowing lawns.
my kids are going to have a very rough road, i can tell, especially because their mothers are going out of their way to exclude me from their life, no accounting for taste i suppose. I may have a overly small or skewed sample to query but that’s one thing my black female friends who have children don’t seem to do is to go out of their way to exclude the biological father from the children’s life, even if the dude is in and out of jail or whatnot.
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The baby boomers are a mess but they don’t even know it.The sorry thing is there is a generational rift brewing between the boomers and EVERYONE else. They will suck up resources due to sheer numbers. And most of them are white but little in the way of savings. So they will be in the job market during retirement age…. ugh… No jobs for the younger ones. .We will still be supporting these folks a long time. The AARP is busy now.
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I am apart of this generation at age 17 and many of the characteristics of this generation fits me.
@Peanut
I agree with you. I hate how Black women are treated by American society these days. Race relations still need some improving but not not as bad as the 1950s. I am glad that things improved since the 1950s and 1960s though.
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And I do wish that I was born in Generation X or Baby Boomers because at least the music was good in those days. My favorite artists are Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson, Queen, Bee Gees, Beatles, Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Whitney Houston etc. I can’t stand Nicki Minaj and I find her so annoying and I hate her music. I really hope no one remembers her in 30 years time. Or Justin Bieber either. I can’t stand Bieber either or Lil Wayne. I really can’t stand the music of my generation except Bruno Mars, Adele, BOB, Beyoncé, Jennifer Hudson, Pink and Alicia Keys or popular culture. I hate reality TV shows. Most of the shows back in the 1970s and 1980s(my mother is a Generation X person) had better quality and were much more interesting than today’s stupid reality TV shows.
Seriously what has my generation accomplished?
Yes I do want to be a famous writer one day and I do want to make a mark on this hopeless generation. After all, we ARE THE ONES who have to pay for the Baby Boomers screwing this country over financially.
Sorry for my rant but that is how I really feel. I can’t stand my generation at all.
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ah man sometimes, on tv, there would literally be dr. who, godzilla movies, or abbott and costello, maybe some baseball, that’s it
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Indeed, this is the generation connected to their digital devices. They do not remember a time before mobile phones and the internet, before cable or broadband TV, etc.
All of the civil rights stuff is so ancient history.
It is shocking about their apparent apathy to the Iraq War. After all, they are the ones on the frontlines fighting it. Such a contrast to what happened during the Vietnam War from the early baby boomer cohort (born about 1945 – 1954).
@Blanc2
That is probably at least part of the explanation.
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According to Noam Chomsky there was more protesting against the Iraq War than the Vietnam War – although it petered off a bit after the beginning. But the Iraq War was protested before it even began, whereas it was difficult to find anyone willing to say much negative about the Vietnam War until about six or seven years after it started.
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Just shows how jive Chomsky can be, I mean people died at Kent State, I guarentee you there was more protest and violence breaking out back then..you just cant trust Chomsky,he has an agenda, plus there was no 9/11 and near 3000 people slaughtered
Im just perplexed with what is happening now, people go out and watch a DJ and cant dance, or at least only do a two step…and they create music off the computor so lots of “musicians” today cant play instruments…mostly rock bands play live and they suk…some of the computor stuff is actualy powerful, they are hooking up modern technology and electronic sounds on the back of ancient African rhythm concepts
Of course back in my day, I was plugged into the jazz players from the 40’s to the mid 60’s, the older generation before me, but, my generation was into weak rock and troll, because the jazz players I idolised absolutly mop the floor with any rock band alive, I mean seriously, they play them under the table…of course James Brown invented funk, and that stands on its own two legs compared to jazz, but, I mean, cmon, they are going to be studying these jazz artists a lot longer into the future, because of the depth they left us
But, this mondern generation has at their fingertips all the information they need, I can find filmed jazz youtubes and African drumming youtubes I would have died for in my day, but, these young people have no idea what culture is or how to apreciete it and seek it out…its amazing
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@BR
You are right. No one in my generation is protesting the Iraq War because they are so tied to their own technological devices that they forget what is around them. Like the Vietnam War, the Iraq War was a war America shouldn’t have gotten themselves into(IN MY OPINION). I, personally, as a member of the Millennial Generation don’t like to music from my generation because the music sucks compared to music from the 1960s and 1970s. I use Youtube as a way to find old artists such as the Supremes and Led Zeppelin to listen to.
”these young people have no idea what culture is or how to apreciete it and seek it out…its amazing”
Very true, I wish my generation knew more about the music from back then. Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj and most these singers out today suck.
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Absolutly, Adeen , and, I didnt mean to sound like I support the Iraq war because of 9/11, we got hood winked by Bush,Chenney and co…its just that because of 9/11, the aspect of getting hit was differant than Viet Nam
For me, in the early and mid sixties, some of the most incredible jazz was being made, some of the greatest example of music in American culture, but, my generation barely knew it was going on. MIles Davis, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Mccoy Tyner, Herbie Hancocl etc were all making ground breaking music while the media was getting giddy about the Beatles, Dylon and the Stones
Please excuse me, Adeen, if it sounds like Im stepping on some music you might like, I just hope that one day, a young intelligent person like yourself might give a record like “A Love Supreme” a chance…because I know , you wont get any hint from the media that it could be a peice of music someone like you might like also
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Today’s rap is not the same as Hip Hop from the 70s and Early 80s and I’m not just talking about lyrical content. My parents don’t listen to hip hop and I don’t think most people over the age of 35 do.
The very nature of Hip Hop keeps it young and fresh. Rappers usually don’t last long. It is a young man’s game. People like Jay Z, 50 Cent, Missy Elliot and Kanye West are seen as legends of Rap to my generation not the early pioneers.
All rap isn’t bad. Even artists like Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj write positive music and produce good songs.
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I’m kind of iffy about millenials not being able to put themselves in others shoes.
The fact that they are less racist, sexist and homophobic would actually kind of indicate the opposite of that wouldn’t it?
And of course they are more concerned about getting rich than previous generations excepting depression age folks……their economy was screwed over by the guys before them, technology took away jobs, lots of jobs got sent to India and China by the baby boomers and they take advantage of desperate hispanic folk for cheap labor.
They look at their parents working their lives away because they don’t have any money and so they want to make sure they can take care of themselves and not have to work when they are 90 yrs old.
To put it this way; back in the day, one person with a job could support themselves, their wives and three children comfortably without even having a college education.
Now two people with jobs can barely do that in one household and thats with a college education.
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“Note: Most studies are done on white, middle-class Millennials at university by white male professors of the Baby Boom. “
The sociological and biological bias inherent in most scientific research done for the last 100 years.
Will scientific research ever be equally and fairly distributed amongst our species – maybe maybe not.
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That does not mean that it was done by mostly millenials, I suspect that there were more baby boomers doing the protesting than the millenials.
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@MBeti’
Great point but some of the characteristics posted do apply to me and many others in my generation. My mother keeps on complaining that I think about money too much but I am concerned about my financés and don’t want to struggle the way my mother did with her financés.
@Solesearch
Are you kidding me? Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne can’t even make one meaningful Rap song without cussing! I can’t stand them and they make my musical generation look bad. That is why I listen to MJ, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Whitney Houston, Doors=better quality music and no cussing.
@BR
Nice to hear from you and I will look up some jazz from the 1960s although I prefer the Beatles and the Bob Dylans of the 1960s though.
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@Adeen
Your response helped me realize two points related to my comment
One – shared humanity :white males may not be the only type of males or humans but they are human – and we all share most things in common – five fingers,aposable thumb,two eyes,walks on two legs etc etc
Two – shared culture
you don’t have to be the same phenotype or even gender to share language and other less obvious culture traits
therefore shared traits amongst generational groups seems reasonable.
On The musical note I must agree with wholeheartedly – I don’t know what happened after the late 1990’s
and actually it seem to start toward the late 80’s all music -I listen to RnB,Rock,Disco,Newwave and Rap – and they all just seem to slowly deminsh.
I can still listen to multiple generes of popular music from the 50’s 60’s 70’s and 80’s after that my white artist dwindle to nothing and the only black is rap.
I think american/western music reached its peak during the 60’s and 70’s
and it barely existed as a format a few decades prior.
Also your ,other and future generations have the opportunity to enjoy all the music of these era’s brand new to you as opposed to some of us being more familiar because we where there when some this music was being created.
As to cussing or use of profanity – while it can feel liberating ,its very limited and even dangerous – http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/jailhouse-roc-the-facts-about-hip-hop-and-prison-for-profit/
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I find it odd that people would be boxed together in groups according to generation. It almost seems to alienate them as if they were fundamentally different on a cellular level. The differences between generations are so slight that greater diversity exists between two individuals regardless of generation. Creating separate groups for each generation seems pointless and pedantic. The endless need to classify, categorize and marginalize each other does nothing to advance the human species.
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I don’t think people are boxed together (and they are certainly not alienated based on fundamental cellular differences), but people in a certain generation do share certain common experiences that are tied to a certain time frame. Of course there are other ways of grouping people that have common experiences that have nothing to do with their generational grouping.
For example, Imagine the generation that grew up under Jim Crow. They will have an experience that is not like the succeeding generations. The generation that grew up with the internet will have no clear idea or understanding of what it was like to grow up without it.
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@ jefe
My point wasn’t to define the phenomenon, but to chastise how it is expressed in society in subtle and not so subtle ways. People do, in fact, use generation as another excuse to marginalize their fellow Americans. While it’s not an out of control epidemic that destabilizes the country, it is a small, but significant factor in some social interactions.
Humans seem to always be in search of “sameness” and “otherness”. Having a shared experience is one thing. Using it as an excuse for bad behavior is another story.
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@MBeti
Amazing points and you are so intelligent!
”I think american/western music reached its peak during the 60′s and 70′s
and it barely existed as a format a few decades prior.”
I usually listen to music from the 1960s/1970s mainly because to me, it was the best era of music for American and Western culture and I also listen to 1980s music too. I don’t see why the quality of mainstream music deteriorated in the 1990s and into present day.
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i think it was 1/91 those smart bomb videos in gulf war i
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Adeen, if you get a relaxed moment in your day , can spare 7 calm minutes, check this out
race really should be irrelevant to whether music is good or not, but,this is high leval at the highest order, of black people taking music to an incredible place…it may not be your taste
I have to go with the jazz age as the most advanced period in American music
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@Bulanik
thank you 🙂
@Adeen
thank you very very much:-)
As to the use of profanity in lyrics of current rap music and to and extent standup comedy
My cursory research indicates it is a form of venting and venting is not healthy and tends to promote even more aggression.
It is the bane of my limited existence that I still continue to think and use words that I,we ,most of us here profoundly oppose but like religion its something given not chosen – and here at least I have the option and the power to express myself in accordance with my greatest ideals
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@bulanik
“I’d read and seen more of that history and seen as that: history. ”
Exactly. You see it as history, but not as something that you personally lived through or experienced.
I will have no idea what it is like to have no TV, and suddenly experience TV for the first time. I can only imagine. But for people born before 1950, they will remember this very clearly and nearly everyone of that generation experienced it.
I do remember getting our first colour TV. I remember seeing images of the Vietnam war on TV every night. I remember hearing disco constantly on the radio. I remember when the first ATM machine appeared at the corner bank. Everyone of my generation would remember these things.
I remember the milkman delivering milk. I remember when drinks did not come in plastic bottles. It is not just history for me. It is personal experience.
But anyone born after 1975 would not remember any of these things.
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I don’t like to take this generation stuff to seriously, it’s very interesting, but to me it’s just more ways to pit people against each other than work on the problems we all face.
Time moves on, things change. If you read some of the thing political figures from the 1800s wrote about the youngest generation of their time, you’d find many parallels. Technology progresses throughout time, therefore, we will see people become used to something else in due time.
In 20 years, I’m sure you’ll see articles about how Generation Z is so “weird” and 20 years after that the same. In the end, we need to cherish our history and let the young know how important it is for them, but at the same time we need to accept that time moves on and see how we can make a difference in ways we could have never imagined.
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Apparently I’m a Gen-X. I see that Time Magazine finally nailed the dates down. Now they’re going to run this Millennial thing into the ground like they did for the Boomers. For years that’s all you ever heard about. There was a quick mention of Gen-X as slackers, but not much attention was ever paid to that generation. My honest opinion is it’s all a marketing ploy.
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