The other day, I was telling my 28-year-old friend about my blog. He told me if I needed any advice from an older generation he would be glad to help (insert grandpa emoji here). He had no idea that we were in the same generation.
Then, I had a conversation with my mom. She was born on the cusp of being a Baby Boomer and Generation X. In that awkward in-between area. She expressed how she felt like she did not match the stereotypes of either generation, possessing traits from both but not leaning too far to one side. This got me thinking.
In my previous blog post, I explained how Generation Y had been stereotyped as being one of the laziest, most self-centered, overconfident generations yet. However, as the generation has begun to mature into its place in society, these stereotypes have transformed into more defining characteristics such as hopeful, meaningful work, diversity and change valued, and technology savvy. Just ask Google.
Why?
Did millennials have some big revelation after they realized how difficult it was to find a job after graduating college? Or after not graduating college? Or was the generation originally pegged with negative stereotypes because older generations were afraid of what millennials might become with all of these technological advancements?
I have this idea that within the span of a generation, there are multiple waves. Let’s say there are three waves. So, people born in 1980s possess different characteristics than those born in the 1990s and early 2000s. OK.
I have a few theories of my own. And I am sure this is partial because of the few older millennials that I personally knew (and know) that influenced this idea. I believe most people born in the 80s did possess the original negative stereotypes such as lazy, self-centered, and overconfident. The older millennials I know, goofed off in college and either did not finish, never did anything too significant with their careers, or they took their sweet time getting serious about their careers.
With the 90s babies, it seems like there has been a rebirth of drive to succeed. Maybe I am partial because I just surround myself with highly motivated people these days. But 90s kids were born in the heart of the generation, in between the oldest members and youngest members. After I witnessed how lazy the older generation seemed to be, I have been determined to do more with my life. Perhaps this second wave of millennials (90s children) all have felt the same way and it fueled the fire for all of us.
Of course, this is all a personal generalization and I couldn’t possibly say that all the older millennials were unsuccessful and that younger millennials will all be successful. This is just some observations I have collected over the years.
Either way, I decided to start some shallow digging by briefly interviewing a few older millennials. The purpose of the interview was to get an idea of how they felt about their high school graduating classmates. Here’s a bit of one interview.
Q: How would you describe the people you graduated with from high school?
A: A select few were very interesting and intelligent people, but the majority I found very complacent with where they were at… Super lame.
Q: What do you mean by complacent?
A: Happy with where they were at and didn’t make any moves towards making moves.
But as this interview proceeded, I uncovered something interesting.
Q: So you would say the majority were lazy?
A: Yes, there were some lazy ones but I feel like it’s only getting worse with the younger generations. Maybe not yourself.
Q: So you said your graduating class was lazy, but you think younger generations will be lazier. What qualifies them as lazy?
A: Just don’t seem to be as motivated. Things are easier to get. More money now maybe, things seem more developed at a young age.
A: Kids don’t work as hard it seems to me, maybe I’m just acting dick-ish and thinking of the stereotypical young rich kid.
This actually surprised me. I am now curious to see if this opinion about younger members of the generation is common among older millennials. BUT, I would like to point something out. After the interviewee said, “…I feel like it’s only getting worse with the younger generations.” He continued to say, “Maybe not yourself.” I was born in 1994 and he was born in 1989 (not even the oldest member of Generation Y), yet he thought I was in a separate generation.
If you thought I had a lot of questions before, imagine the amount of questions I have about the generation now. This is why I have decided to further pursue this research by interviewing all ages of millennials… Even the youngsters. It will be a process that I will work on over the next few months. So, we will see what happens.
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