“What do you know? You’re just a liberal millennial!”
Yep, I’ve had that sentence thrown my way a few times in recent years. Unfortunately, it was always by strangers who didn’t even take a minute to get to know me. They simply looked at my young appearance, read my opinion on a hot topic (at the time) and made an assumption.
That, to me, is the biggest problem with the term millennial. However, the way I see it, it isn’t the only problem with that term either.
I’m now 29. I avoid politics like the plague because to be completely honest I rarely trust any politician anymore. You just can’t discuss them without being offensive anymore. What I crave is humanity. I think that’s what most who are part of my generation want as well. It’s misconceptions like the one previously mentioned that are incredibly harmfully divisive, and terms like that need to die.
Don’t believe me? As someone who has been on the receiving end of these unfair assumptions based on a term, here are some specific reasons why I think that “milennial” needs to go away.
- It’s divisive. As I mentioned before.
- It confuses the hell out of us. How many times have you Google’d what a millennial even is? Doesn’t it seem that the age range constantly changes?
- We’ve made it political. The term “millennial” somehow evolved into representing your political stance – even if you’re not the “stereotypical” young liberal or “socialist”. That’s not fair to someone who believes differently when it comes to politics.
- It’s ageist. It’s an easy term to used by other age groups to discriminate.
- It’s too close to a narcissistic Will Smith song. Who am I kidding? It’s my jam, but damn I hate that “millennial” reminds me of this song.
Those are my reasons that I’d like to see “millennial” die. Do you agree? Would any term be better?