Anti-Millennial Bigotry

***ANTI-MILLENNIAL BIGOTRY***

I’m not a confrontational person by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t talk about politics on a frequent basis and I dread getting in debates with people. However, as someone who was born in 1985, I feel like if I don’t write this blog entry, it’ll be a missed opportunity to put myself out there. This is a sensitive topic for me, so bear with me for a minute. I’m talking of course about ageism, particularly against people born in the 80’s and 90’s a.k.a. Millennials.

Being a Generation Y member should never be associated with laziness or selfishness. Those are stereotypes based on limited information. Some Millennials fit the stereotypes, some don’t, just like with any other group of people. It’s like saying all black people love fried chicken or all gay people think about sex 24/7. Again, those are stereotypes and they don’t apply to everyone. Yet ageism against young adults seems to slip through the cracks and is widely accepted by both liberals and conservatives of older generations. They see some of us texting on our phones and think the entire population is suddenly doomed.

No generation is without their own set of stereotypes. For example, I could easily label Generation X members as whiny drug addicts or Prozac chugging slackers, but I’m not going to say any of those things, because I’m not an asshole. I could also say Baby Boomers and Great Generation members are a bunch of boring storytellers who can’t shut up about walking 100 miles in the snow, but again, that would make me an asshole and that’s not who I am. So why would it be okay to say that every millennial on this planet is a self-important text-messaging queen? Every last one of them? Not just some? Not just a few? All of them?

As a millennial myself, I do admit to fitting in with at least SOME of the stereotypes against us, but not because my birth year was magically selected to be 1985. I’m open about the fact that I’m unemployed and live with my parents.

I’m not unemployed because I’m lazy and therefore don’t want a job. I’m unemployed because after sending my resume to a bunch of different work sites and doing countless interviews, the bosses still said no. It happens a lot, especially since millennials hit their pique during the Bush-era recession. Older people love to blame laziness, but that’s simply not true. Truth is, you can dress in your nicest clothes, you can work your hardest, you can give the most agreeable answers, and give 100% of yourself during an interview, but in the end, you, the Generation Y member, are not the one who makes the decisions in the workplace. Otherwise, unemployment wouldn’t be a major stereotype for my generation. If we could work, we would. We know full well that money isn’t everything, but it is something.

I don’t live with my parents because of financial worries. I live with them for two main reasons. One, I love being in their company. Two, we have a symbiotic relationship where we help each other. As Baby Boomers, my mom and step-dad can’t do as much physical labor as they could in their younger years. My mother has hip and knee problems that she can only find relief from on a temporary basis. My step-dad Dale has been battling a kidney stone since the last month. While I don’t enjoy heavy lifting or any other kind of strenuous labor, I do it because I love my parents and I don’t want them to get hurt. If you can’t take care of each other, who can you take care of? It’s natural to want to surround yourself with people who make you feel good and that’s something that spans all generations.

While I’ll always condemn people who unfairly criticize young adults for laziness and entitlement, there is one thing I will share common ground with them on: smart phones. I agree with the idea that being in real world company should trump text messaging or playing videogames on a smart phone. It’s a basic form of respect. Corey Taylor from Slipknot once smacked a phone out of someone’s hands during a performance because that audience member was texting instead of watching the show. I grinned from ear to ear at Mr. Taylor’s display.

I myself don’t need a smart phone for anything that my desktop computer can do better. I have a generic cell phone that I only use for emergencies, whether it’s bumming a ride or needing to know where a family member is. And before you criticize me for not having my own car and therefore being a lazy millennial, I should let you know that crashing on the highway and spreading one’s guts all over the tarmac isn’t a pleasant experience for any age group.

Millennials are just like any other group of people in this world. Some are good, some are evil. Some are smart, some are dumb. Some are happy, some are sad. There will always be standouts who defy stereotypes no matter what group of people you’re talking about. George Carlin, a member of the Great Generation, is definitely not a droning storyteller; he’s one of the funniest comedians of all time. The main cast of the new Ghostbusters movie are not a bunch of bikini-wearing sex machines; they’re normal women who do extraordinary things in their movie. Q-Tip, a born-again Muslim rapper, is not secretly plotting to blow up buildings with a suicide vest; he’s putting out kick-ass music and helping younger rappers get noticed.

While ageism should be recognized as being like any other form of bigotry, it somehow became normal along the way. Bill Maher, a liberal-libertarian pundit, once called ageism “The last acceptable prejudice” and then turned around and referred to Millennials as “Generation Ass” because he saw a picture on Twitter of a woman with a giant posterior. Ageism has become one of those things that spans many belief systems and cultures while no real progress is being made against it. There are even members of Generation Y who criticize their own age group.

I don’t know how young people ageism became acceptable, but I can assure you that it has nothing to do with all of this sweet technology and “free shit” we have. No generation wants to pass the torch to the next. I even had a hard time passing the torch to Generation Z because of all the Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez songs that were being published. Reina, my Generation Z niece, doesn’t fit those stereotypes because she’d rather listen to bands like Breaking Benjamin and 3 Doors Down. That’s right, folks. I used to be just another ignorant ageist myself. And then I posted a 2009 essay where I joked about ruling over teenagers with an iron fist if I ever became an English teacher. That didn’t go over too well with the Deviant Art community, because surprise, surprise, ageism is just as bad as any other form of prejudice. As we all know, prejudice isn’t just insulting, but it can hurt us on an even deeper level whether it’s with employment, police treatment, or social status.

I’m going to ask something that’s been asked many times before, but nobody gave a definitive answer to. Can’t we all just get along?

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

Q: What do you call it when a McDonald’s employee goes berserk?

A: Minimum rage.