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Millenials Get Their Feelings Hurt
The Biscuits baseball team, the Tampa Bay Rays’ Double-A affiliate, sponsored a clever satire of millennials last week. The team offered a Millennials Night with avocado burgers, napping and selfie stations, and participation ribbons for everyone who came. Naturally, the agenda caused a backlash, with coverage on Twitter and several news outlets.
Mind you, most of the team is manned with millenials, and they thought the theme was funny. The reaction by millennials in the area was mixed, to say the least, which only demonstrates the perception that they have no sense of humor. Melissa Warnke, vice president of the Public Relations Council of Alabama had this to say:
From a PR professional’s perspective, they’re kind of accomplishing what all of us want to accomplish, and that is people talking about your organization, not only here locally, but it’s got a lot of reach outside of our own community, outside of our state as well.
The millennials who reacted defensively are probably the same ones who don’t see the opportunities that the world offers to them and instead see themselves as victims. Even America’s favorite pastime doesn’t offer a safe space. In fact, it’s possible that the satire hit too close to home.
So I’m curious: if you’re a millennial, are you offended? If you’re not a millennial, what is your reaction? Maybe, just maybe, a few millennials will realize there is some truth to the stereotype presented. Then again, maybe not.
Published in Culture
Another factor, and many of us have brought it up before, is the lack of religion. It is there that many of us would have learned about hard work, about serving, about humility and gratitude. We would have learned about a different kind of riches besides the material ones, and that would have been beneficial I don’t know how I turned out the way I did, because my folks weren’t religious. But I did see them work hard.
A baby bomber is what you get when your Android keyboard guesses wrong. What I didn’t like was the way boomers thought their world was the center of the universe, their sense of entitlement, and their self- absorption. Now many of them are retired or gone, so no longer so dominant. Some are old fogies. That has made them less of an annoyance.
I agree. A friend in Tucson who, with his wife, raised three great sons. The oldest got a BS in Civil Engineering and is a Marine Corps pilot, like his father and grandfather. The second son has an MS in Chemical Engineering and plays piano at the concert level. The third is a college student now. The parents did not have TV as the boys were growing up. They had a big screen set for video games but no cable or network TV.
The mother took each boy to homeschool for one year. The Catholic school they attended allowed this. Each year, she would take another of the boys to home school.
They are great boys.
I can’t blame his generation for wanting to spare mine the hardship, insecurity, and precariousness of his own.
I think this is the mentality of the baby boomers but my parents were Depression people and did not give me anything but what I did for myself. My father never had a credit card and bought our home for cash in 1944.
It was the Boomers that ruined a generation. Then it spread as they infected education.
Oops! Are you sure you’re talking about baby boomers, @thereticulator? That’s my generation, and the people I’ve known don’t fit that picture. I guess by now I’m an old fogey, although I think I’m more annoying than ever. Go figure.
Edit: Wait a sec. I assume that you it the definition, too. So many things I didn’t realize about you!
Hot dogs? Biscuits go with gravy! Or butter and honey. Nice, warm, flaky biscuits… Hmmmm. [Mentally inventories kitchen to see if scratch biscuits might be for dinner, or breakfast.]
I’ll take any leftovers! Now I’m hungry all over again. <grumble, grumble>
And I forgot to mention that the term “baby bomber” should remind one of the protest chant, “LBJ, LBJ, How many kids did you kill today?”
My reaction is that the Tampa Bay MLB franchise should revert to their original name: the Devil Rays.
As for the aggrieved millennials…
Ah, Montgomery, Ala., my hometown! I think the promotion is hilarious, but then I’m a Boomer. If they had Baby Boomer night, with applesauce and coupons for Depends I might be a little…nah, it would be hilarious.
BTW, I recall when the team was named the Biscuits. It rather offended the Greatest Generation. Or rather, they thought it was silly and embarrassing. I thought it was wonderful. Boomers, FTW!
Doesn’t it go like this. 48-68 is boomers then 69-79 is Gen X and 80-1999 are Millennial. I don’t know what the post 2000 people are called yet. Not very consistent since Gen X only get a decade for some reason while boomers and millennial both get the normal 20 years for a generation. But I guess the Silent Generation only gets a decade too from 1935 to 1947.
Love your comment, @suspira! Why didn’t they like the name? Undignified?
I dislike broad generalizations about large groups of people. I’m well aware that there are some younger adults who are lazy, whiny and entitled. I’m not trying to justify that and I hope the world gives them a good kick.
But there are millions of them and some of them are busting their you know whats getting through medical school or designing buildings right now.
And you know what? When I was their age, I knew a lot of people who were lazy, whiny and entitled. So I think the lazy, whiny and entitled immature person will always be with us. Most of them will grow out of it, to be replaced by the lazy, whiny and entitled in the generation behind them.
I think every once in a while, we just develop this stereotype that we all find humorous and we target a demographic with it. Yes, it’s kind of funny. But like all stereotypes, it’s got no more than a kernel of truth in it.
Something like that. I remember my mother and my aunt shaking their heads in bewilderment. They thought teams should be named for animals (Tigers, Sharks, etc.) or some admirable category of human (Braves, Knights, etc.). But a biscuit? They just didn’t get it.
The minor-league team of my youth was the Montgomery Rebels. That obviously had to go.
I hope you’re right, @catorand. Did they demand safe spaces, ban speakers they didn’t like from campuses, demand special treatment on the jobs? Yes, these kinds of people will always exist, but I’m not certain the current generation will grow out of it. I hope you’re right.
Definitely not. No sane definition ever extends boomers past 64. Some cut it off as early as 60. At the other end, it almost always starts in 46:
Yep.
Mike, though it pains me to agree with you on something — because, libertarian — I have to admit that I do. The videos poking fun at millennials are amusing, but I avoid them because it doesn’t seem fair to tar a bunch of whiny and non-whiny kids with the same brush.
Having said that, I do think things are worse now than in the past, largely because adults have ceded the field. We are becoming a nation of fearful people.
It’s gone beyond ‘malaise’ to quivering paralysis…
When I was in elementary school and first heard the term baby boomers, it referred to the babies conceived just after their fathers returned from the war. I was born in 1948, so was too young to be a baby boomer. But later the definition was expanded to include me, too.
But it definitely has that kernel! My mild complaint about Millennials is their ignorance, which is the fault of the education system, I suppose. I’m frequently gob-smacked about what the poor dears don’t know.
I am keeping count of the number of Millennials who don’t seem to know that “couple” means two. Ask for a couple of cookies, as I did at a bakery last week, and the reply is likely to be “how many do you want?” Argh. The count is more than a couple.
Eh, I remember when I was about twenty-three running into someone close to my age who had no idea what I was talking about when I made reference to a certain war in the 1860’s involving Lincoln.
“They let you out of high school not knowing about the War?” I asked. She was a total blank on the whole war. She may have been a late Boomer or early Gen-Xer.
This is why I’m reluctant to join any rah-rah get-out-the-vote parade. Some folks should just stay home.
Now a bar got in trouble because people go out of their way to claim to be offended. Someone at the bar (which is near a college campus) posted a sign that said, “If you’re looking for a safe space this ain’t it Cupcake.”
http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2018/07/23/ohio-bar-in-trouble-with-brewery-over-offensive-sign-about-safe-space.html
Any normal person would recognize that as an indication that discussions could get freewheeling. But people were “offended” because they read the sign as condoning physical assault, and sexual assault in particular. Huh?
How many brewers cut off the bar that banned Trump supporters, or the Red Hen, etc.?
Good grief.
Works for me, @josephstanko!
I’ve seen ’46-’64 for Boomers, ’65-’80 for Gen X, and ’81-’99 for Millennials. But there’s no one official definition AFAIK, the cut-off dates are fuzzy.
Generational stereotypes are stupid and useless. That said, a lot of the jokes trafficking in them are hilarious. It’s a paradox!