millennials

In recent years, there's been a lot of consternation from older generations over Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Gen Z is said to be lazy, phone-addicted, apathetic, and rude. Gen Alpha, a young generation that not just adopted TikTok but was raised in a world firmly rooted in it, is said to be disrespectful, defiant, and suffering from "brainrot" from too much social media slang and constant memes (can you say 6-7?).

In short, a lot of adults think the kids are doomed. But while there are legitimate concerns about the world young people are growing up in and what kind of impact that may have on them, it's important for us all to remember that, at one point, the whole world thought we were doomed, too—no matter how old we are or which generation we're a part of.

History Hustle recently put together an incredible montage of adults moaning and groaning about "kids these days." You'll be shocked at how far back this phenomenon really goes.

According to the video, a Time Magazine quote from 2001 bemoaned that young adults (Gen Xers) were too enamored with travel and adventure and didn't want to work hard in the workplace.

An article in the Falkirk Herald in 1951 complained that the Silent Generation’s young people "were so pampered nowadays that they had forgotten that there was such a thing as walking…."

A history book from 1933 wrote, "women painted like prostitutes… throwing off every kind of social restraint… all of these go to prove that it is now the vulgar mob that gives the tone." That’s your Greatest Generation great-grandma the author is talking about, by the way.

A Japanese monk named Kenkō wrote in 1330 that "Modern fashions seem to keep growing more and more debased... The ordinary spoken language has also steadily coarsened."

Aristotle was even complaining about young people all the way back in the 4th century BC!

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Why does every generation seem to "hate" the next one? Experts say this contentious cycle is actually a feature of cultural evolution, not a bug. In other words, the conflict is necessary.

Pop culture historian Marie Nicola says each generation defines itself by "rupture."

"And what I mean by 'rupture' is that culture must detach from the inherited norms in order to create something new," Nicola says. "That something new isn't about destruction, it's about a generation making space for its worldview. For a generation to become itself it usually breaks the rules of the generation before it. But, the older generation looks at it as a collapse, not a rupture."

When we went through this process ourselves, we viewed it as progress. When younger generations do it, we see it as the breaking of something that’s good and essential. In other words, millennials fought for LOL and OMG, so it naturally stings to watch younger generations abandon those perfectly useful abbreviations for their own unique (and purposefully nonsensical) slang.

Kent Bausman, a sociology professor at Maryville University, agrees:

"Generations are shaped by the major cultural and historical forces they experience in their formative years (wars, economic downturns, political movements, demographic shifts). These events leave deep imprints, shaping how people interpret and engage with the world going forward. Music, art, fashion, and even language habits all flow from those shared experiences. When older generations take offense or express concern about younger ones, it’s often because their own cultural reference points, the sounds, styles, and values that once anchored their sense of meaning, no longer hold the same authority. It can feel as if the world has moved on without them."

Clinical psychologist Samantha Whiten puts it bluntly: "People are terrified of dying. Young people are seen as dangerous because their existence makes people aware of their own mortality. The more scared of aging you are, the more you hate young people who represent potential and the future that you won't be part of!"

The most contentious and obvious example of generations carving out their own identity can be seen in art. In the 1920s, jazz was considered "the Devil’s music" by many and was even banned in some places. Rock 'n' roll, punk rock, rap—same story.

It’s hard to imagine, but in the 18th century people really believed that fiction novels would corrupt the mind, especially in young people.

"Critics of the time worried that people were slipping into a fantasy realm and losing their grip on reality. Novels were blamed for basically just about everything, from increasing promiscuity in young women to encouraging suicide and self-harm in young men," writes 1000 Libraries Magazine.

And today, we lament that kids don't read enough. The moral panic literally never ends.

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Nicola says that the outrage and debate over new norms, however, are a crucial part of our culture's evolution:

"And again, this is important, because for the cultural evolution, the tension in that debate is how we transform. We analyze and debate these topics of tension, which creates a generation's shared narrative that is then argued over dinner tables, media desks, government, movies, music, influencers and through that we eventually normalize it, because it's been examined from every angle through this inter-generational debate. This inter-generational conflict is how we metabolize change."

The differences between generations can't always be chalked up to positive change, of course. For example, millennials were once found to be more narcissistic, while Gen Xers have typically been shown to be more pessimistic and apathetic than younger generations.

But again, these traits are responses to the world around us as we come into our most formative years. You can't separate Gen Alpha and Gen Z from the world they inherited (social media, affordability crises, political division) any more than you can separate the Greatest Generation from World War II.

So for now, we’ll just have to live with rizz and 6-7 and slay. But it’s also okay for us to hate it and get a little worked up by it. In fact, it's what we're supposed to do.