Millennials: A Retrospective
#1
[bad OP]
#2
The defining millennial experience is disappointment. For some reason millennials were raised with the mantra "you can be whatever you want when you grow up", which might have even been true if the world had stayed a preposterous land of plenty like it seemed it always would in the Clinton years. But instead millennials ended up graduating into a colossal economic recession where it was difficult to even find entry level jobs, much less decent ones. Millennials grew up in a world that would cease to exist after 9/11 and the 2007 financial crisis, never to return. If they particularly seem like cucks it's because they did get cucked spectacularly. Not that this is a comparable trauma to say growing up in an African slum, but there's studies on the long-term negative impact of entering the job market in a recession, which range from reduced income and career prospects to decreased life expectancy. The resentment towards boomers, which is perhaps strongest in the millennial generation, is likely due to a promised future which evaporated completely, and being called lazy and entitled for being ill-equipped (through no real fault of their own) to meet the challenges of this new economic reality. This collective trauma is at the core of the millennial outlook.
#3
[Image: E3-C85705-574-D-433-D-8-D7-B-5-A5530172-AC9.jpg]
image hoster

I have never been in one, but I imagine barcades are huge with millennials. When I think of a typical millenial man, I think of this scenario.
#4
> exposed brick walls
remembered this blog from 2015.
https://web.archive.org/web/201504110527...conformist
https://web.archive.org/web/201504140429...conformity
#5
(05-12-2022, 03:35 PM)Exile Wrote: [Image: E3-C85705-574-D-433-D-8-D7-B-5-A5530172-AC9.jpg]
image hoster

I have never been in one, but I imagine barcades are huge with millennials. When I think of a typical millenial man, I think of this scenario.
The clientele consists of exactly who you think it does, and they're exactly the kind of exposed red brick establishments this post describes except they happen to have a few arcade cabinets lining the walls. There's no attempt made to replicate the arcade aesthetics of yesteryear. These people don't know what an "SNK" is. They're not really there to play the games, the games are just a set-piece so you can have a quirky experience drinking IPAs with other soybearded men and their overweight girlfriends. It's a clear vestige of hipster culture and I'm not entirely sure why this was the one to survive.

(05-12-2022, 04:06 PM)Heil Wrote: I have seen two "dave n busters" (one such "barcade" chain). At both the parking lot was a sea of cars and they were full of what I could only imagine to be the most soy millennials possible. This was pre-covid, no idea if it's still popular. My millennial brother also wanted to go to a craft brewery for his birthday one time (exactly what you are imagining: exposed brick walls, etc) and I noticed there was one of those "axe-throwing" places on the other side of the street. I have no idea what caused this type of behavior/archetype for millennials, but I'll be damned if all of the memes aren't accurate portrayals.
"DnB" is a different but still very Millennial phenomenon. It's not a hipster hangout but rather a "Chuck-E-Cheese for adults". Alcohol is still the main product being sold but the target demographic is the normie and they do actually go there to play the games. Rather than being the "Mundane activity/venue with a wacky twist" described above, these businesses opt for the "Dude, we're doing kid things but as adults and with alcohol!" aspect of Millennial culture. It might be worth mentioning that these businesses are found in the suburbs while barcades are purely urban establishments.
#6
(05-13-2022, 02:10 PM)Edge Wrote:
(05-12-2022, 03:35 PM)Exile Wrote: [Image: E3-C85705-574-D-433-D-8-D7-B-5-A5530172-AC9.jpg]
image hoster

I have never been in one, but I imagine barcades are huge with millennials. When I think of a typical millenial man, I think of this scenario.
The clientele consists of exactly who you think it does, and they're exactly the kind of exposed red brick establishments this post describes except they happen to have a few arcade cabinets lining the walls. There's no attempt made to replicate the arcade aesthetics of yesteryear. These people don't know what an "SNK" is. They're not really there to play the games, the games are just a set-piece so you can have a quirky experience drinking IPAs with other soybearded men and their overweight girlfriends. It's a clear vestige of hipster culture and I'm not entirely sure why this was the one to survive.

I looked at the local barcade in my town (not a d&b or chain one) on Instagram and it looks exactly like you said. It looks like it has about 4 pinball machines and 4 Pac-Man type games on a wall and in none of the pictures is anyone playing them. It looks like they get by having sports nights and live dj sets, the most recent one being a “90s vs 2000s” set. Pictures mainly show people at the bar and the people look exactly as you described.
#7
I've noticed that millennials have a fixation on levelling culture, in the sense that they're taken with low re-interpretations of "high" culture or, inversely, "high" interpretations of low culture, i.e 8-bit remixes of classical music and Lindsay Stirling style "classical pop", respectively. Of course they have no idea what high culture is, so their actual effect is a continual submergence in garbage while convinced that they're connoisseurs of an ironic sophistication. They can never say how highly they think of something, but its evident in their ironic love of "their time".

Someone else mentioned that the primary millennial hangup is disappointment, which is very true. I believe this is the origin of what I observed. They feel an intense disappointment that promises, feelings, expectations, etc. weren't fulfilled in their lives and that the prosperous high-imperial stage they grew up in began to meaningfully collapse just in time for their adulthood. As a result they feel an intense, insecure desire to reflexively denigrate/deconstruct what they feel unable to participate in, for whatever reason.
#8
The defining political moment of any millennial was the 2008 financial crash. The information was passed onto them at an age where their brain had the beginning of knowledge without application and mythologized the evil forces of "capital". 

Mommy and daddy started fighting. They just lost the house. Divorced. 

For millennials there was a pre 2008 where everything was fine and the post 2008 world. You can observe this with the infantilized attachment to early cartoon and kids tv shows they grew up watching. Harry Potter, South park, Pokemon DBZ etc... go on youtube and you can find insanely weird 30minute video where someone in their early 30s is talking about the "philosophy of Hogwarts" "why x character really matters" it's just this weird phenomenon of trying to find deep philosophy in their kidshows. 


Another observation - millennials are just not funny whatsoever. The humor is this crude fart butt dick joke amalgamation college party movies that are about as humorous as an orphanage on fire. Go watch "American Pie" or "Scary Movie III" excerpts on youtube and you will be stonefaced the entire duration of the clip.
#9
FUCK
This thread is an accurate and searing indictment of the final generation with the opportunity to turn things around. The financial crisis of 2008, and 9/11 to a lesser extent, has been noted as a seminal event, but I propose Obama as another piece of the failure puzzle.

The 90s and 2000s promise of colour blindness (we ended racism!!11!!) cumulated with the election of a black man to the highest office. Amongst the ongoing chaos, a significant portion of white millennials got to feel successful and included in a big win that was attached to race. Despite the fact Obama was a garbage war mongering neoliberal, he was re-elected in 2012. At that point race relations went off a cliff.

Attempting to recapture that feeling of success in 2008 has played a part in creating the large group of "anti racist" white people that are intent on fucking up society while being completely oblivious to the consequences. They try to recreate the same conditions to feel a sense of fulfillment which inevitably fails. Resulting in this group constantly doubling down and making things worse.

Hate em.
#10
(05-17-2022, 02:48 AM)Millennial Wrote: FUCK
This thread is an accurate and searing indictment of the final generation with the opportunity to turn things around. The financial crisis of 2008, and 9/11 to a lesser extent, has been noted as a seminal event, but I propose Obama as another piece of the failure puzzle.
This thread largely describes various caricatures of the (comparatively) affluent redditor-yuppie (who still makes half as much money as his dad did at the same age), which is a millennial species but is hardly universal. Millennials are failures for the same reason zoomers will be failures, "trends and forces". But then again maybe if millennials didn't buy iphones, and avocado toast and funko pops things would be different. Previous generations may have been motivated to take part in the rat race, millennials are resigned to the rat utopia.
#11
"Craft beer is good thoughever."
#12
(05-12-2022, 03:35 PM)Exile Wrote: [Image: E3-C85705-574-D-433-D-8-D7-B-5-A5530172-AC9.jpg]
image hoster

I have never been in one, but I imagine barcades are huge with millennials. When I think of a typical millenial man, I think of this scenario.

There is nothing wrong with any of these things besides the obviously slapped on vasectomy and furbaby stuff. There is nothing wrong with living in a city, drinking, joking around, and/or playing video games. Take your meds.
#13
(05-17-2022, 09:41 PM)BillyONare Wrote:
(05-12-2022, 03:35 PM)Exile Wrote: [Image: E3-C85705-574-D-433-D-8-D7-B-5-A5530172-AC9.jpg]
image hoster

I have never been in one, but I imagine barcades are huge with millennials. When I think of a typical millenial man, I think of this scenario.

There is nothing wrong with any of these things besides the obviously slapped on vasectomy and furbaby stuff. There is nothing wrong with living in a city, drinking, joking around, and/or playing video games. Take your meds.

While some of the things I don’t think are wrong on their own, like drinking a beer, it’s the soyjak speech pattern, attitude and total story that builds this character. Also I would imagine that type of guy watching something like Aqua Teen Hunger Force or Rick and Morty on adult swim. Along with this, video games in a barcade are not like playing video games at home.
#14
When I think of the average millennial woman, I have in my mind an image of this fat fucking landwhale.

[Image: CCE5-A5-E5-AB8-F-4711-AD38-D56-ED16-DFAAB.jpg]

[Image: 17-D734-BC-3098-4-BEC-B66-A-4-D5-D321-B351-A.jpg]

If she marries, she will marry in her mid to late 30s or later and will never have a kid. She’ll never be a woman. She will be an obese tub-o-lard “dog mom” until she plops over dead gasping for air from a heart attack (preferably as soon as possible). She’ll never be a rebel. She’ll never resist the system although she think she is. In truth she is in lock step with the system that she’ll never refer to as zog. She’ll never say nigger, she’ll never post a troonjak, she’ll never like a post of a troonjak. She will report it, but acab, right? Cops are pigs, but she’ll report a fat joke to HR. Let’s police jokes! No fat shaming! All bodies are beautiful! Fat liberation!

I think you see things that started with a small percentage of younger millennials such as pronouns, trans, “mental health”, blm/nigger worship that expanded under zoomers and now more millennials have grasped onto them to seem relevant and stay up with the current thought.
#15
I associate frequently with too many middle class millennial “artist” types. They create “work” but it’s mostly just nigger tier pop trap shlock or avant-garde too deep 4 u bullshit. There’s this trend I see that as long as one is aimlessly grinding, gigging, creating the “art” that’s commendable as opposed to actual craft and work. They mostly just want to be entertainers and thereby famous, successful but are stuck in their pseudo bohemian hipster ghetto of pretentious dickheads that think they’re artists. They thought life was a big party and like being 20 forever. They think being broke but having a “creative” side gig is noble as opposed to just being a bum. It’d be one thing if they made innovative and wonderful things that were merely unrecognized. It’s an affectation brought about by deep disappointment in their life choices in the early 2010s.

Millennials don’t do anything and do not have ambitious independent pursuits. They’re consumeristic and a very referential cohort. They refer endlessly to things they have a surface level knowledge of in a variety of areas but they cannot do anything in particular. Millennials are about right opinions, right tastes, and affecting an aloof superiority and being in the know. they’re pseuds, dilettantes, and pretentious about very base consumeristic entertainment products.

Some millennials I know are engaged in writing projects for different medium as a side independent pursuit but one thing I’ve noticed is a tendency of them to be impressed by mere form rather than content. They’ll write a narrative but the content is just derivative and puerile. “Society maaaan” tier. They have no inner vision, turmoil, controversial ideas they’re willing to explore or entertain. It’s all very shallow and captured by liberal nothingness.
#16
(05-20-2022, 11:15 PM)jacques Wrote:
(05-15-2022, 01:43 PM)FruitVendor Wrote: Another observation - millennials are just not funny whatsoever. The humor is this crude fart butt dick joke amalgamation college party movies that are about as humorous as an orphanage on fire. Go watch "American Pie" or "Scary Movie III" excerpts on youtube and you will be stonefaced the entire duration of the clip.

You weren't kidding. I watched a ten minute "funniest moments" from Scary Movie III and even the rare laugh was in spite of the toilet humor it was layered in.

The first skit is very funny because it uses the n word. Light up a joint and touch grass.
#17
One thing I’ve noticed among many millennials is a sort of hyper-nostalgia that almost borders on outright infantilization. This is something I saw today which sent my mind into a spiral; by itself it’s nothing but it’s just a single example of a larger phenomenon. Winnie the Pooh, but BLOODY and SCARY and FOR ADULTS. It truly amazes me that this sort of thing appeals to anyone, but it obviously does considering how often we see these ‘adult themed’ remakes occurring. Just a couple more examples to drive the point home: In a way that’s utterly different than our (or at least my) parents, Millennials seem to have this obsessive attachment with the Brands and IPs of their youth. My dad has certain movies he likes to watch during Christmastime because he watched them as a teen, or he showed me cartoons that he watched during his own youth growing up, but that’s it. If you asked him if he wanted to see an ‘adult-version’ or ‘raunchy remakes’ of the media he watched as a kid, he’d think you’re a fucking weirdo, which I think is the normal, healthy reaction to such a proposition. Why do people want to watch a Ned’s Declassified or Lizzie McGuire or iCarly that centers around FUCKING? What goes on in these people’s minds? I have to imagine it’s something like:
Quote:these characters helped me get through my (pre)teen problems, wouldn’t it be so great if they brought them back to talk about my adult problems, too?
It’s an entirely unhealthy relationship to have with any kind of media; the fact that it’s (mostly) shitty children’s media makes it so much worse. Another example of this phenomenon is the whole concept of the ‘Disney Adult.’ The article only discusses people who actually go out to the Disney theme parks, but there’s a much larger kind of ‘Disney Adult’ who, despite being in their 20s, 30s, and sometimes even 40s, obsessively continues to consume DISNEY products. And I’m not just talking about the new Star Wars movies and shows, I’m talking about the literal children’s Disney Princesses movies these same people used to watch as kids. I cannot tell you the amount of retarded women I’ve interacted with in the past 5 years who end up ranting to me about how they’re so happy that Disney+ is adding Mulan or Brave or the Kim Possible Movie. It’s like these people (mostly women) completely stopped maturing when they were teens, and the absolute height of Art and Creativity is the stupid sappy slop they watched when they were 12.

Previous generations obviously experienced nostalgia; we all do and always have. What’s unique about this Millennial form of nostalgia is that, instead of simply fondly remembering the media of their past, Millennials continue to obsess over said media, watching it over and over again well into adulthood. They then go on to demand that remakes occur or that there’s some form of adultified revival so that they can continue the journey with their favorite childhood characters. They’re people who refuse to grow up. And it’s not as if all this demand for revivals and remakes is from today’s kids themselves, why would it? They have no connection to the IPs; companies continue to make these movies because ADULTS want to see them. Note this passage from the article:
Quote:Beecher describes taking her young children to see Toy Story 4 recently. That the theater was filled with adult laughs throughout, but not many reactions from children. One of her daughters even described it as "trash" after leaving the theater. Don't get us wrong, there are new movies and creations for children. But honestly, which parent, millennial or not, is going to take their children to see The Queen's Corgi when Toy Story 4 is showing in the screen next door?
Zoomers are too young to be having kids, but I’ve also seen them participate in this form of Hyper-Nostalgia/Infantilization, I just think it’s something that largely started with Millennials. Finding a 20-30 woman who is like this is relatively easy, but 50+ it seems rather hard to find people like this with the same ease. I wonder if anyone has thoughts as to why this phenomenon arose...
#18
Millennials cling to childhood IPs because they never had children of their own.  Being Online selects for childless people, but the numbers are still clear that this is a larger portion of the population than ever before.  If they had kids they might at worse enjoy kiddie entertainment vicariously through their children; this is womanish but still better than being a direct consumer.  More likely they'd adopt an "adult" outlook just as a way to take a break from kidworld.  

Also, companies like Disney market to them because subreplacement fertility means that the manchild market is larger and faster-growing than the child market.
#19
I have a feel the Winnie the Pooh thing is more like a joke project, but it does remind me - why do they always do this sorta shit with the most inane of things? There are IPs that are far more "universal" where you could do this sorta thing, like Avatar, because the show itself still tries to be relatively serious, and have it appear far less ridiculous
#20
To give my two cents:

My view of generations and their historical roles and characteristics is almost entirely informed by the generational cycle theory of William Strauss and Neil Howe. In their model, Millennials (and Zoomers as well; I will elaborate on this and why the generational rift exists) are a generation of the Civic/Hero archetype (cf. the GI/Greatest Generation, Thomas Jefferson's Patriot Generation). This means that they have the following general collective traits:
  • Born & raised in the prosperous & decadent Unraveling Era; Strauss & Howe give Millennial birth years as 1982-2004 (9/11 causes enough national trauma and cultural change to split the cohort into older Millennials and younger Zoomers based on who could remember a time before 9/11).
  • Raised with great expectations and lots of attention and nurture by now-responsible Prophets (Baby Boomers), in contrast to the last generation of neglected Nomads (Gen X), who were generally ignored while their then-younger Boomer parents partied.
  • Politically collectivist, civic-minded, conformist, group-oriented, naturally submits to authority (generally embodied in the Crisis era as a charismatic Prophet-generation "Gray Champion," e.g. Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Franklin D. Roosevelt).
  • Religiously materialistic, secular, strong believers in Science (cf. 1950s faith in science, Jefferson ripping references to miracles out of his Bible).
  • Serve as adored "Golden Children" in the Unraveling era, loyal and moral foot soldiers in service of their Prophet (Boomer) elder's ideals during the Crisis era, responsible middle-aged institution-builders and managers in the High era, and stodgy old establishmentarians in the Awakening era.

These traits are all very recognizably manifest in Millennials, with the various minor discrepancies between Strauss & Howe's Predictions and what we see in Millennials being explained by:
  1. The endlessly corrosive Influence of Leftism (i.e. Cthulhu never stops swimming left).
  2. The general degeneration of America and its Stock, owing to mass immigration; dysgenic social policies; poisoned food, air, and water supplies; and the acceleration of Boomer faggotry and irresponsibility.
  3. 9/11, a true black swan event that happened just on the cusp of the Crisis Era (Strauss and Howe predicted that it would begin between 2004 and 2010), but just barely too early to really get things going, and as a result we saw a "mixed crisis" of sorts, with the national response echoing elements of the hypothetical crisis responses of both the Unraveling and Crisis Eras that Strauss & Howe outlined, i.e. a Boomer president tries to rally nation to an idealistic war (Crisis Era instinct, cf. Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor), but his vision is hampered by an overly-cautious & negotiatory Silent generation Congress and a cynical Gen X soldiery and population (Unraveling Era instinct, cf. the relatively slow response to the sinking of the Lusitania, WWI cynicism in contrast to WWII idealism). This oddity created the Millennial/Zoomer split, and deeply impacted both generations. I feel like the Millennials would not have been so badly hit by the Recession (Millennials are in many ways defined by their poorfaggotry) had 9/11 not happened, but this is just a hunch.

In a sense, we can think of the Millennials as the Fake & Gay version of the GI Generation, the perfect Civic Heroes for a new, thoroughly Fake & Gay America. Civic-mindedness & cooperativeness becomes crushing, hyper-egalitarian, HR bureaucracy socialism. Rational materialism & confidence in science becomes contradictory "rationalism," unthinking atheism/agnosticism, and trusting the fuckin science, bro! National moral unity becomes effeminate and petty social shaming, competitive virtue signalling, vicious cancel culture - the aggressive conformism of Der Erwige Norwood. A number of Millennial particularities become far easier to understand when seen through this lens of "The GI Generation, but Gayer and Worse in every way."

9/11 is crucial to understanding Zoomers and why they differ from Millennials. The attacks ended the comfortable hegemonic decadence that defined the Millennial childhood experience and ushered in a new Era, a sort of bastard child of an Unraveling and a Crisis, decadence and nihilism meets global conflict and distrust of a poorly-defined enemy. Millennial childhood view of conflict was Captain Planet, Ferngully, Transformers cartoons, GI Joe (quite fittingly) - the heckin' good guys get together to stop the baddies and save the planet! Zoomer childhood view of conflict was, on the other hand, defined by Halo, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, Michael Bay Transformer movies, Star Wars prequels - the enemy is an insidious, ideological, terrorist force, they work using secrecy, fear, and subterfuge, but our own leaders are also incompetent at best and corrupt and evil at worst. I think that this shared cynicism + growing up in the shadow of a retardedly idealistic & notably left-wing generation immediately before them (Boomer hippies & Millennial hipsters) created a weird sort of camaraderie and similarity between Gen X and Gen Z, at least in the abstract.
So we see similar Hero generation traits in the Zoomers that we see in Millennials, but with a far more cynical, selfish, and pragmatist bent, and far more divorced from the ideals of their Boomer Elders. Millennial leftists share BuzzFeed articles about socialism, support Starbucks unionization, vociferously campaign for Obama and then Bernie Sanders, fantasize about living on a wholesome urban weed commune; Zoomer leftists retreat into transgender fetishism, eschew the DNC in favor of Mao, fantasize about putting their parents to the wall.
Millennial rightists - not entirely sure, but I guess I would define it with Ron Paul libertarianism, anti-war and anti-surveillance sentiments, although I may be lumping them in with Gen X-ers. Is there a specifically "Millennial right?" It feels to me like most notable Millennial rightists had less of their own identity and just became the vanguards of the coming Zoomer right - but I must admit that I have a very poor understanding of the online right 2007-2014, except for a few broad strokes of libertarianism. I guess there was GamerGate, but those in favor of it generally presented it as apolitical. I suppose Millennial rightists would include Sam Hyde, Mister Metokur, Sargon of Akkad, Owen Benjamin (kind of a weird case, but his cult seems to lean very strongly Millennial), Ben Shapiro, but many such prominent figures are sheepishly right-adjacent, but flee the label - think PewDiePie, JonTron, etc.
Apolitical Millennials, in as much as they existed, are mostly center-left manchildren, at least in major urban centers, whose outsized influence on culture leads to their population dominating their respective groups; cf. the Hippies dominating the image of the Boomer generation in spite of the vast majority of Boomers being normal; or just very normal, unremarkable people outside of said urban centers. They generally do seem to be goofy, idealistic, impoverished losers - entire Millennial culture built around coping with terrible circumstances. "Hey guys remember X 90s nostalgia?" "OMG I'm so depressed haha," thrifting, etc. Zoomers are far more X-ish, pragmatism, cynical, "look out for number one" attitude. Politics become very tribal, and even apolitical Zoomies are quite tribal (e.g. Andrew Tate's fanboys). Your average apolitical Zoomer, however, will generally just be a withdrawn, drugged-up loser consoomer.

(05-26-2022, 06:54 PM)Leverkühn Wrote: One thing I’ve noticed among many millennials is a sort of hyper-nostalgia that almost borders on outright infantilization. This is something I saw today which sent my mind into a spiral; by itself it’s nothing but it’s just a single example of a larger phenomenon. Winnie the Pooh, but BLOODY and SCARY and FOR ADULTS. It truly amazes me that this sort of thing appeals to anyone, but it obviously does considering how often we see these ‘adult themed’ remakes occurring.

A long-running trend. Check this out:
[Image: d527cnh-f54f1215-782b-4da4-a974-cc7d5995...P9gK-w0e8w]
Junk "epic" doodles of this sort were worth their weight in gold in the Millennial-dominated Silver Age Internet of 2007-2012. I agree with you and the other poasters that it is a sort of failed move to adulthood - instead of following Paul's example and "putting childish things aside" in favor of actual proper adult activities, you just make said childish things COOL and EPIC and FOR GROWN-UPS as a desperate cope. Now you get to have your cake and eat it too - you can keep all of your precious, beloved childhood brands and products, including their nostalgic association for your comfy, pre-9/11, pre-Recession, pre-paying bills, while getting the satisfaction of being a "grown-up." This can be seen in the brony phenomenon and the fan creations therein ("What if My Little Pony, but SEX and GORE!"), the obsession with horror movies for the GORE and KILL COUNTS alone, maybe even the whole Cumtown "What if children's cartoon character said fuck, but like ironically and with deft social commentary?" shtick. Millennials are, in many ways, how a middle-schooler imagines they would be as an adult. "Ice cream for breakfast, no bedtimes, and all the R-rated movies I want!" An entire generation of poor losers coping by LARPing as Kevin from Home Alone.



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