Millennials Are Killing Relationships
Millennials Are Killing Parenting
Millennials Are Killing the Blame Game
Introduction
Or “Who the Hell Are You and Why Should I Read Your Book?”
Hello there! I’m Caitlin Fisher, you probably don’t know me, and I’m fed up with everyone saying Millennials are entitled brats. In 2016, I’d been kicking this idea of generational gaslighting around in my head for months, and it finally made it out of my brain and onto my blog. And it turned out that over a million people found that I had finally said the thing they couldn’t quite put their finger on. And now it’s a book!
Let’s be real: It is total bullshit that our generation was raised being told we could do anything but then blamed for everything wrong with society. We’re just doing our best, people. Sometimes with three jobs and no health insurance! In my early twenties, I was divorced, living with my parents, on food stamps, with a master’s degree and a resume that was getting no bites.
Master’s degree. Food stamps. Fifty grand in student debt. This is a real thing that happens. And when we say, “Whoa, you guys told me a master’s degree would help with my career and that this was ‘good debt!’” they say, “Um, sweetie, why’d you take out loans if you couldn’t afford it? This sounds like a you problem.”
This book is a new take on self-help. It’s not one of those “think positive to find money and true happiness” books. It’s more of a guide to untangling the mess in your head and realizing you’re not crazy for expecting more out of life or for being disappointed that you seem to be putting in a lot of work for no reward. Each chapter can be taken on its own or read in succession and will end with a recap section with actionable tips and advice you can browse at your leisure.
So that’s the short version of why this book is in your hand. Because so many of us are sick of being pointed at and called whiners, so many of us are tired of explaining to our parents that no, really, you can’t just go “pound the pavement” to get a job, and so many of us are just plain tired.
I promise you’re not crazy.
Also, there are eleven avocado references in this book that I hope you enjoy.
Preview
The Gaslighting of the Millennial Generation
At a graduate student conference, I first heard the term “Millennial.” As in, practices for faculty and staff to best handle this generation of students. I went in having never heard the term and came out feeling defensive against the notion that an entire generation of young adults had to be handled, with prevailing knowledge like “Millennials need participation trophies,” “Millennials are sheltered,” and “Millennials are hard to work with.”
Society loves to hate the Millennial Generation (those born between 1980 and 2000), calling us “special snowflakes” and sarcastically referring to us as “social justice warriors,” calling us out for being offended by everything and, everybody’s favorite, pointing out how very entitled we are.
Here’s the secret: We’re not.
The negative opinions directed at Millennials are a perfect example of gaslighting, on a societal scale.
A Primer on Gaslighting
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation, making someone question their own sanity or the validity of their experiences through a combination of outright lies, denial of things that have happened, and generally questioning the subject’s thought processes. This boils down to the end result of the victim thinking they’re wrong or crazy for feeling the way they do. At its core, it’s an emotional abuse tactic.
Have you ever gotten into an argument with a parent, boss, or romantic partner about something that upset you, but by the end of the argument, you’ve become the one apologizing for some wrongdoing? This is often a result of gaslighting. Gaslighters flip it around and become the victim, and your original feelings never get resolved because the conversation always descends into the other person’s victimization. Eventually you stop challenging them at all.
Imagine a similar scenario where you are applying for a job, but the job requires a college degree, and you can’t pay for a college degree without a job, so you end up taking out massive loans. When you graduate, you can’t get a job without experience. So you take a minimum wage job (or three) to make ends meet, often while working for free in a field related to your major to get a foot in the door. You dare to utter something like, “The minimum wage needs to be raised, people can’t live like this,” only to receive a barrage of crotchety elders yelling at you about how they got a college education working part-time and how it’s your fault for taking out the loans in the first place.
I call bullshit.
Busting the Millennial Myth
If Millennials aren’t a bunch of spoiled brats with an entitlement mentality who need a trophy just for putting on pants in the morning, what are they?
I’ve seen Millennials come together to form supportive communities, in ways that some from older generations may have only dreamed of. I know that the young people of years past partied at Woodstock and believed in love and flower power and bellbottoms. Where did they go when we needed them? What happened to the dreams and the love and the bellbottoms?
I see Millennials arranging charity auctions on social media sites, sending a few dollars via PayPal or Venmo to friends in need, donating and sharing fundraising accounts for funeral expenses, medical bills, emergency surgeries for beloved pets, and more.
Speaking of Venmo, it was created by Millennials (Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail). As were Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg), GoFundMe (Brad Damphousse), Tumblr (David Karp), Pinterest (Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharp), Mashable (Peter Cashmore), Instagram (Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom), AirBnB (Brian Chesky), Lyft (John Zimmer), Spotify (Daniel Ek), Snapchat (Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy), WordPress (Matthew Mullenweg), Tinder (Whitney Wolfe, Alexa Mateen, Sean Rad, Jonathan Badeen, Justin Mateen, Joe Munoz, and Dinesh Moorjani), and Groupon (Andrew Mason).
I see us trading services and goods to help each other out. I see us buying things from work-at-home moms and small businesses rather than supporting large corporate stores. That’s not to say that we’re the first to do so—indeed, many Gen X and Boomer individuals also shop small and local as a rule. But Millennials have taken the idea and run to the internet with it, making work from home accessible and lucrative across the globe. Millennials are driven by a need to empower each other and become independent from the status quo. And it’s pissing off the establishment something fierce.
Anecdotal evidence is great, but there’s also science to back up the whimsical empowerment driving the Millennial Generation. There are some eighty million Millennials, making us the largest cohort in history—and an easy generation to study. The following statistics are pulled from a 2012 report from the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation.1
Not only are Millennials the largest demographic, we’re also the most diverse. We are 60 percent non-Hispanic white (compared to 70