What Millennials Stole from the Zoomers

Carl has some thoughts about what has been done to the Zoomers.

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[harbl]

"Back when I was your age, the internet used to howl and scream when you accessed it. In retrospect, that's what we call foreshadowing."

[TheMancMod]

I'm 48 and I explained to my teenage son what life was like growing up in the 80s and being a young adult in the 90s. The answer I got wasn't the one I expected. He said "I'm so jealous because you didn't have all this madness".

[EtherFox]

I agree with most of what was said but Carl is lying to himself when he insists this is the sole fault of millennials. Gen X had infinitely more input as to how children were raised in the early 2000s, and they were the middle managers and bosses to the millenials that scraped together the hellscape of social network technology. It's a shared failure, and one that needs to be corrected together.

[eloquentsarcasm]

I'm 10 years older than Carl, and the shift in culture, technology, and values is staggering. It was common especially during summer to be kicked out of the house in the morning and told not to come back til the streetlights came on. As long as we didn't return bloody, or in the back of a police car, we were on our own. We rode our bikes 10 even 20 miles going to the comic shop, the mall, or just tooling around town exploring. 4 channels on the TV, and only the rich kids had one in their room, the one phone in the house was on the wall with a cord and if you wanted privacy you had to get a 30 foot cord that stretched to the bathroom. Everyone had 15 moms, because everyone knew each other in the neighborhood and if one mom saw you acting a fool, you could be sure she'd be on the phone telling YOUR mom all about it. If you wanted money to buy something, you mowed lawns or delivered the paper, or had to suffer the pains of doing chores around the house.

Getting in fights, and the fine art of "roasting" each other were skills learned early, as were the simple skills of human interaction and learning how the pecking order worked. We were constantly banged up and bruised doing stupid stunts that somehow didn't end up killing us, but it taught us our limits and toughened us to the realities we'd face in the "adult world". Men were men, women were women, and everything just sort of flowed. People didn't use disorders for clout or attention, being a "weirdo" was a fate worse than death, you just wanted to be normal and fit in. Everyone knew who the "easy" girls were and unless you wanted that sort of thing, you avoided them. Our heroes did heroic things, saving people and making the world a better place, not mindless "influencers" who make idiotic videos.

I often saw my grandfather shaking his head sadly and shuffling off when he saw or heard something moronic, and the older I get the more I find myself doing the same.

[wintersking]

As someone who's basically the oldest zoomer, it's incredibly hard to explain to older adults what it's like now days. Trying to find meaning really reminds me of the scene from Fahrenheit 451 where Guy is trying to memorize/remember the Bible verse he read on a subway whilst blaring noise and garish advertising constantly disrupt his thoughts and focus.
There are so, so many insincere people who just want to use others, who fear connection since they've never had it. There are still a number of good people actually trying to find meaning and gain satisfaction. It's just that the opposite is so loudly preached by our culture. Literally it's not just that you're surrounded by nihilism, it's actively preached as a good thing by celebrities, entertainment, social causes, charities, and even religion now to an extent is being corrupted. Which makes it very hard to hear through all the noise.

[TheStephenation]

Well, I'm glad that millennials are finally no longer "those damn kids these days that are ruining everything" and have finally graduated to "those damn adults ruining everything for kids these days."

[wojak-sensei]

Carl: *deconstructs modern generations*
Me, an intellectual: DAD SAID THE FUCK WORD!

[josephleishman]

I mean this existentially. I really needed to see that video.
As time goes on and you mature as a voice and as a thinker, your work has become more and more influential to me.
Thank you.

[bug______]

as someone born in 1999 i truly feel like i was a part of the last generation in history that actually grew up as normal kids (going outside, having to knock on your friends door to see if they could come out)

. it felt so weird watching technology eventually take over everyones lives around the early 2010s

[slypork]

I'm the same age as Carl and always hear "I'm so glad I'm not growing up in this era", I never hear the opposite.

[Rekaert]

That's unironically one of the best bits you've done.

[gg_ingy]

"Generation X are usually the parents of Generation Z and sometimes millennials. Jason Dorsey, who works for the Center of Generational Kinetics, observed that like their parents from Generation X, members of Generation Z tend to be autonomous and pessimistic".

Millennials aren't the parents these troubled zoomers.

[ricardomilos]

Incredible speech Carl

As a psychologist trying to specialize in new technology addiction, I wholeheartedly agree

[moody]

I was born in 91 and my coworkers, born around the mid 80s, talk about this all the time. If we had any idea as to what was coming we would have enjoyed the 90s, and early 2000s even, so much more. The internet has given society incredible opportunities but the price tag for them is sickening.

[ickerolig]

As a millennial. My experience with modern society can be summed up with one expression, "disgust" or "fed up". But I'm not alone, I don't know about the state of affairs in the US etc. where most of the trending BS comes from. But almost everyone in my generation (I'm 28) have abandoned social media except for like instagram and snapchat, because they're used as communication tools. I guess we kind of instinctively noticed (growing up with analog technology like VHS, no cellphones and being outside in friend groups) that the digital world eats away at everything that connects us or drags us back together by giving us an inferior experience except for the fact that it's instantaneously.

[Ciderpunk-jjes]

The 90s was the time colour-blindness was actually possible, in a way I feel it never will be again.

[leliablackwell]

My 14 year old and I talk about this. The lack of humanity. Luckily she has a small group of friends that she can interact with a few times a week. We are all guilty of the internet addiction though. We all fall into it. I’m 50 and had to deal with human interaction face to face. It’s a big difference.

[captainobvious]

Go eat one, sargon. As a millennial, I was deprived of exactly all of this as well, and played no role in causing it whatsoever.

[bleachman]

I'm a zoomer guy, 20 years old, .
I think I am fairly "normal" as things go.

But my experiences are so different to those around me.
I've met young men my age who have never even used a screwdriver in their lives. A SCREDRIVER!?!

One of the big things, avoid social media. It definitely rots your brain, I've seen it happen to everyone around me where they cant even handle a slow scene in a movie without going on their phones.

Zoomers are also told to never stand up for yourself and rely on the authoritry figures to do it for you. I learned myself when I was 9, this doesnt work and I only stopped being bullied once I got into a fight and stood up for my younger sister. We all became friends after that.
It does make me wonder if this mindset makes so many young people remain so childish, constantly relying on handholding to solve their problems.

Its like almost all young people are told to never be self-sufficient in any way, both from family and from the state.

[murdoch]

Even being born in ‘94 I’ve noticed such a decline. When I was young, we were excited about going out and starting our lives, buying a car, meeting partners, earning a good job, etc. None us us were deluded into believing we were going to make it as rappers or social media stars (whatever that meant back in 2008 or so), none corrupted into thinking surgeries and hormone treatments would transform them into the opposite sex. I’m sorry for this generation.