General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Baby boomers Ruined America: Why Blaming Millennials is Misguided — and Annoying [View all]Ampersand Unicode
(503 posts)I was talking more about culture rather than the economy or even politics. From what I see, my fellow college students are pretty apolitical and don't know anyone in Washington other than Obama (I was in a poli-sci class and nobody even knew the name of the First Lady, just "Mrs. Obama" -- some didn't even know the Obamas had children). I remember the Jaywalking skit from Leno (I can't abide Fallon, he drives me nuts) and it was mostly college kids who didn't know Columbus, didn't know who the Vice President was, didn't know any of the 2012 POTUS candidates or news broadcasters... but could easily identify Kim Kardashian, Jerry Springer and Justin Bieber.
The fact that Facebook even exists is a major flaw of this generation. Mark Zuckerberg is a millennial. The Twitter guy, Jack Dorsey, is very late Gen-X (born in 1976). I don't know about the other social media sites because I don't know even what their names are (the sites themselves or the CEOs). I think the Tumbler guy is still in high school or something? Regardless, even if you can't blame the economy or the rise of conservative politics on Facebook and Miley Cyrus, what can you blame Facebook, texting, and Miley Cyrus on besides Millennials' bad taste and the pride they seem to take in abject stupidity?
Not to mention slacktivism, aka clicktivism or even "Mactivism" (because Millennials ♥ their iGadgets and only your dad uses Windows at work). I was surprised nobody picked up on that. Why weren't these supposedly social-campaign-savvy Millennials "crowdfunding" a bus trip down to Ferguson to take part in the civil-rights protests? Because they'd rather be comfy and "protest" with hashtags and cat memes is what it sounds like to me. You're right, the millennials are still young and haven't really done much of anything yet. But we'll see if they ever do much of anything besides get a high score of superficial "friends" on their Facebook page or aspire to any other career ambitions besides "app builder." Right now, at least from my perspective, they're batting zero -- especially on the culture front.
And the Beatles are still infinitely better than Wrong Direction.