Millennial – Generation Wuss

As someone in their late 30s, it's very hard for me to tell if my loathing of Millennials is justified or is the typical "damn kids these days, get off my lawn" attitude everyone has when they get older. When I was a teenager, SSRI anti-depressants like Prozac and acne medication had just come out. We didn't have access to that stuff. I suffered through crippling depression and anxiety in high school. I'm not sure I'd want to go through that again, but I have to wonder if the biggest difference in generations is all the medications.

I agree with much of the article. I think social media really damaged my view on Millennials. I learned that when it came to social media people didn’t want discuss their ideas. They don’t want a connection. They want to shout out their beliefs and get a pat on the back. Criticism, even the least caustic, is generally rolled into trolling. Don’t get me wrong there’s actual trolling and real hate. I think there are people who can’t really discern between them well enough.

He’s right about shoddy work presented as a final product. I’ve seen terrible ‘art’ pawned off as brilliance. I see people making themselves into authorities without any exceptional works. There are people that want to be gatekeepers/authorities to ideas and properties without ever paying their dues. I remember growing up and thinking “How fortunate are we to live in a time in which credentials could become meaningless?” Information is free. You can learn to do anything. The problem is that there are people that bypass the learning phase and somehow gain an army of support based on very little knowledge of a subject (the food babe).

The thing that bothers me the most is that these people are surprised that they are being criticized so much. They are wildly popular; they say something that contradicts reality (often dangerously); they think that should go unpunished. Honestly I’m not sure if it’s really a trait of this generation or if it’s so apparent because social media is a huge part of our lives.

Bret Easton Ellis also has an excellent podcast: http://podcastone.com/Bret-Easton-Ellis-Podcast