Legacy News Media: We literally have no idea why Gen Z has given up on literally everything, has decided to not save for the future, and instead is trying to live and enjoy their life now.
Real World: Dearth of opportunities to make a life for yourself, every industry has reached is maximum zenith and now makes money by wringing pennies out of consumers, you need money to exist anywhere, there are no more places to just be, and the government is clearly corrupt and about to be taken over by a literal fucking fascist party because the other party is full of pussies who don't want to "upset the status quo" and keep letting the fucking fascists get away with shit, because "we have to follow the laws, even the ones that clearly benefit the fascists, passed by fascists. It's the law and if we don't take it seriously, everything falls apart. Sorry that means the fascists will win." Oh, and climate change is about to destroy our ability to even have a functional society.
As a millennial, I'm ready for a fucking dirt nap. Things just keep getting worse and fuck nobody is coming to save me or anyone else. Everyone is so caught up in their own lives and problems no one has the time or effort to give anyone else, meaning we're all suffering alone.
Literally what is even the fucking point of struggling to the natural end of my life? There isn't one.
It didn't have to be this way, but a lot of old selfish pieces of shit decided that it was more important to trash the planet and live the high life during their hayday, and then give all their children and grandchildren a swift kick in the ass and says "Children are our future! I just made that up! Now go fix the fucking messes we made for you! We're not concerned with mass extinction, because we'll be dead and it won't be our problem! Good luck, or not!"
Fuckin preach. I'm 33 and have spent the last 8 years in near total isolation because I simply do not have time for anything other than work, chores, feed and bathe myself (if I have time), sleep. That's it. It's deepening my depression and sense of total desperation in ways that I'd never imagined. But hey, at least my company is making billions because that's the truly important part. I'm ready to just say fuck it and go the way of Gen Z. I've saved and saved and worked my ass off, played by the rules, got my degree and it's all been for nothing. I still have nothing. In fact I literally have less than when I was in my 20s. There's nothing I can do to stop another economic crisis and I'm no where near having enough to survive one so fuck it. I'm ready to just do what I want and if that gets me fired or Im in debt because I finally decided to just take the hit and travel wherever I want then so be it. There's nothing we can do, we're on the ride, the clicking of the chains has already started and we are buckled in. Time to just enjoy what we can I guess, even if it sucks the entire time.
40 here. Yep.
I had an existential crisis in my early 20's based entirely around how futile existence is. We live, and work and make babies, so that the next generation can live and work and make babies.... Etc. What's the point? There's no long term plot line of humans that I know enough about or care enough about that I'd willingly subject myself, or my offspring to a life of existence in this, just to further.
Nearly decided to off myself right then and there.
Last year, finally purchased a house, with help from the resulting life savings of my father (may he rest in peace) and with my brother and his wife. Four fully grown adults in one house, just to afford to live. The only cherry from the whole thing is that interest rates skyrocketed immediately after we signed our fixed mortgage, so we dodged that bullet and we have two more years (as of now) for them to come down before we need to arrange for renewal or something.
But we all eat, sleep, work, repeat. That's it. The only nice thing I have going for me in all this is that we now have a definite timeframe for when our housing will be ours and costs will finally taper off. In another 24 years. I'll be 64. If I manage to get underpaid little enough, who knows, I might have some retirement savings by then. Freedom 75.
The corporations have turned multiple generations of people into wage slaves, jacking up the prices for consumer goods while keeping wages stagnant or even reducing wages. It's fucking disgusting, on top of that, they've not so slowly destroyed the planet with pollution. The entire time acting as though they're the victims and getting bailed out with our tax dollars for mismanaging their respective organizations, prioritizing CEO pay and dividends and stock prices over employee health (especially mental health), employee pay and livable wages. They get all the benefits from automation, computerization and mechanisation and what did we get? Nothing. This fancy machine does the work of 20 workers and will do so forever, and only needs 2 people to run, and only costs 10 people's salary for one year to pay for, and one person's salary to maintain, where did the extra money go? Well, the CEOs third yacht isn't going to pay for itself.
Eat the rich.
I'm just glad that millennials and Gen Z are educated enough to be killing off organized religion.
A big component of earlier generations accepting how bad things are is expecting them to get better in the afterlife.
"It will be fine as long as I'm forgiven of my sins and go to Heaven! Why would I worry about Earth?"
Thank fucking goodness there's enough education for people to see through that absolute horseshit, a lie fed to the working populace to keep them compliant until the day they die.
(To be clear, nothing against general spirituality. Mostly issues with organized religion and promising eternal life after death, which not all of them do.)
That's been the last 25 years for me. Just work... Gotta pay the bills so I can live, so I can... go back to work.
You can be positive at end because you have save something with your work. I have your age, never work a single day of my life, I don't have a bank account, I'm just living with my 70yo parent and keep going with his money that is the wage of essential worker. Where I am going? Enjoy what? What ride? I only see that probably I have to work like a slave in future, and that's it.
I feel you. Just got my letter what kind of pension I can expect. If it ever happens. Let's just say it's not looking good. It does make you wonder why you didn't just chose a much easier job when the stress and additional hours net you ~100 € more that won't save you from being meh financially at best anyway.
One friend of mine was lucky enough to get a real good job. He was able to buy property and have a family. The rest of my friend group, we all worked just as hard. But we weren't lucky so no family or peace of mind for us I guess. It's demotivating.
Maybe eventually when time marches on and we become the majority (I’m 23) we can make good positive social change. In some ways, while living through it is bad; the hardship and unfairness of the system is preventing the usual trend of people becoming more conservative as they age; so perhaps there is hope for things getting better in the future. We just have to keep trying; we can’t give in to cynicism.
The problem is it is not a generational issue. It's a class issue. Rich millennials, and Gen Z will be no better than the rich Boomers. They will die believing they are just more special than everyone else and that is why they deserve so much more.
Generations won't change shit about who is in charge, sadly.
I dunno man, I've met some of my peers. The vast majority of them are just normal people, right, living their lives, totally nice, but then some of them are really fucking stupid or mean, and I kind of wonder if this narrative that gen Z will save the world is true at all, or if it's just that same sort of nonsense, that all we'll have to do is wait and things will somehow get better.
Truth.
You know all this is worst in America, and I think it's the systems.
The rest of the British colonies used highly conservative parliaments, where parliament is diverse and consensus is needed
America's system was different, giving veto rather than encouraging consensus, focusing all power into two parties, removing the diversity
My country gets green policy by the green party gaining enough seats in parliament to makes it worth the bigger parties negotiating with them, that can't happen in a two party system
You can't have a bold party on the left because you have no room for a new, different party (that's why the conservative side changed rather that a brand new party forming)
We are protected by the more stupid ideas the greens have, as the greens must negotiate to get any of their ideas up
Doomer
Look I was alive and paying attention when carbon dioxide passed a threshold that is impossible to go back to. (Over 400ppm in the atmosphere.)
That was ten years ago.
Every climate scientist on the planet predicts society will collapse in the face of climate change.
But sure, keep your head buried in the sand by calling other people "doomers" because you can't be fucked to look up publicly available scientific research.
I hope you are young so you get to see exactly how bad it gets and to question if maybe you were a dumb fuck to ignore it.
Because yes. Yes you were.
Alternate viewpoint: We're forged in the fires of adversity. No longer are things easy or handed to us, we make our own road. We learn, teach ourselves, work our passions and figure things out against all odds. We're stronger, wiser and ultimately happier for it, despite outward appearances
Stronger? Sure. Wiser? Definitely. Happier? Hell to the no lol
Yeah thats cool. But I'd rather be a white dude growing up in the 60s. 🤷♂️
Life on easy difficulty.
Good take, but I think it ignores a lot.
We're stronger, wiser and ultimately happier for it, despite outward appearances
Mainly here. Yes everything people are getting is from their own actions, but it completely ignores the people that haven't gotten anything from the struggle, which is a growing number of people. It also disregards people that don't have the opportunity to carve their own way at all.
There is still a bar that needs to be met to get anywhere, and it is just getting higher in may places. Sure once you hit the bar, you're in a better spot and can see that the struggle paid off, but if you never get to the bar, if you never get to the point of "keeping your head at the water", there is no payoff. These people just get to struggle. That's all there is, and there is only so much of that before the struggle isn't worth the payoff anymore.
Thank you for that speech (sincerely). Tho it feels like the sort of words a commander gives to the troops to rally them & face a battle they will not survive with some dignity and a sense of pride.
Are we not just a buffer for the next gens to get a chance at inheriting any freedom, to get a chance to lead at the right age & change things?
sort of, but we (at least the older millenials) experienced some of the good times before everything went to shit. the younger gens cannot have the experiences we had as children and in some cases young adults. we mourn what we lost, but probably look like "old man yells at clouds" to those who don't know what they never had
And if things get any better, millenials need to remember to not fuck it up.
That face shows otherwise. But yeah glass half full.
Unironicaly fantastic take.
My philosophy is that you can either bitch and whine and moan about how hard and unfair life is, while wallowing in self pitying victim complex forever.
Or you can stop crying yourself a river, roll up your sleeves, and get to work on doing something about it. To make the best of you've got and work on improving the parts of life you aren't satisfied with one step at a time with a relatively clear and focused end goal in mind.
These two approaches are a choice of personal philosophy.
Unironically bullshit take.
8 hours of work, commute, getting ready, etc takes literally half the day. Sleep takes another 8 hours. So what the fuck am I going to do with my free 4 hours to "do something about it"? My sleeves can't be anymore rolled you sanctimonious piece of shit.
Oh sorry I guess it's my "choice" that gun violence is so prevalent, or that the government is becoming more fascist, or that my countrymen are rejecting science and spreading disease.
I make a six figure salary and I still need a roommate just to rent. My county is actively supporting a genocide. The second in line to the presidency is a religious freak. The supreme Court is stacked to the regressives.
But go on, please tell me again that this is all because I'm not doing something about it.
Go. Fuck. Yourself.
The parts of life I'm not satisfied with are the facts that my country is rapidly sliding into becoming a fascist ethnostate, our tax code is fucked six ways to Sunday, corporations are unaccountable to the law, I can barely afford food anymore because of corporations being unaccountable to the law and our tax code being fucked, my society is being actively destroyed by religious fanatics and schools can no longer be trusted to educate anyone.
So, yeah. Any ideas? I'm all ears.
Or you can stop crying yourself a river, roll up your sleeves, and get to work on doing something about it. To make the best of you've got and work on improving the parts of life you aren't satisfied with one step at a time with a relatively clear and focused end goal in mind.
Bold to assume everyone has the capability to do this. Maybe you got lucky with an area, maybe someone else got unlucky, but to pretend like any single person is in complete control of their life is an absolute joke. "Rolling up your sleeves and getting to work" stopped being a viable route a while ago, around the same time people started needing two or more jobs to afford basic necessities.
You can make the best of what you got, but if all you got is 0 left over time, <2% extra money in your pockets after living expenses, and a "give'r your best shot" mentality, all you have is... no extra time to commit that effort, and no money to improve your conditions, which would have helped with the time bit. That also doesn't even touch on the people with mental/physical disabilities, or mental health issues.
Sometimes even if you try, the only areas you can sacrifice are the only things keeping you afloat. That's just how it is. You can't win them all. And some, can't win the basics. That's where we're at now.
Or you can whine enough that a politician embraces your viewpoint and try to get things on a silver platter while they print more debt
Or you can stop crying yourself a river, roll up your sleeves, and get to work on doing something about it. To make the best of you’ve got and work on improving the parts of life you aren’t satisfied with one step at a time with a relatively clear and focused end goal in mind.
The internationale gradually fades in
All of the baby boomers will be dead within 20 years, maybe then we can make some improvements?
(Sorry mom & dad, nothing personal)
(Sorry mom & dad, nothing personal)
Retirement and a nursing home are no longer economically feasible and my landlord doesn't allow additional residents, so good luck out there mom & dad.
Damn, there’s a lot of angry, self-harm promoting people in this thread. Take care of yourself people. Take it one day at a time. The Earth is still here, for now.
You guys are just on 4th?
Jeez you made me think about how much fucked up shit I've been through.
- Publicized school shootings on TV 90s
- Watching the second plane crash on live TV on 9/11
- Medical trauma 1: had testicular torsion ,went in 12 hours after it started, they tried to untwist it by hand while I was conscious, morphine ain't shit
- Medical trauma 2: spontaneous pneumothorax, the ketamine they dosed me with didn't work so that chest tube insertion fucked me up
- PMTSD related anxiety and depression
- 2 more pneumothorax
- 2008 financial crisis
- college went well, but first job out of college after I got my computer engineering degree payed a fucking grand total of $51k.
- 2016 election
- Hit 250lbs
- 2019 my highschool sweetheart wife cheated on me
- COVID-19
- Hit 280 lbs
- Jan 6 insurrection
- Stagflation
- Lost 70lbs because of cutting back on food spending and weightloss medication
- discovered my wife sexting the guy she cheated on me with after being in marriage therapy for 4 years
- hit 250lbs again
Jesus christ, is this resilience, or are we all so burnt out that we just accept everything getting worse always.
Like I get the joke in Russia is "and then it got worse." But Jesus christ, it can't get worse if it's always bad can it?
Not trying to dismiss your sufferings but I still think our generation had it way better than our grandparents, and probably better than 90% of the people in the world if you live in an advanced economy. For instance my grandfather went through the bloodiest war in human history, a bloody civil war, and a famine that killed millions of people. The problem right now is getting all the negative information that you have no control over from the internet, that's why I stay away from tuning into any news these days.
In 20 years. We are working on the speed run.
I'm a millennial, just trying to not let the world's ills bother me now. Life is too short and what you make it.
Same here. Recently went to a doctor for some internal stuff, and she's like "well, we want to prevent x, y, and z from progressing too fast because..."
And part of me wants to just interrupt and be like "what's the fuckin' point? Have you seen outside?"
"I'm so sorry to hear your having these..."
Type type type
"Suicidal ideations. We're going to recommend..."
Type type type
"A Psychiatric evaluation. There is one psychiatrist in the tri county are and they are out of network. The evaluations are in 3 30 minute sessions. The psychiatrist will be 45 minutes late at a minimum. The first two are $1200 each, and the third is $1600. I can get you in on...march 29th, 2025? Does that date work for you?"
Unfortunately, they probably have seen outside exactly how you mean it, they're probably dealing with similar issues, and like you, they're just at work, going through the motions, trying to get through the day, hoping to have a slice of it left over for themselves at the end.
That's the most insidious part of it, it affects so many of us that none of us has the time, patience, or effort to give others anymore.
I recognize those dead, glazed over eyes! They look like mine. Oh...
Yeah, I feel this meme. Lot of "why bother" energy with my friend group. We all know we're fucked
The pizza as medicine makes it too real.
And in ongoing efforts to kill the economy for 5th time.
They'll do it again, I'm sure.
And the government will take our tax dollars and bail them out again, I'm sure of that too.
We'll get nothing except the right to continue to work for minimum wage, and we're expected to thank them for the "privilege" of having a job.
It's a wonderful life.
They can bail them out, but it won't work. The 2008 financial crisis is directly related to this one.
The difference? People might have jobs, but inflation (real inflation, not Fed reported inflation) is outpacing wage growth so much it's creating homeless employed people.
In my city, new development on the outer skirts of town is building around the new schools - 350k homes, 300k town homes, $1600/month 2 room apartment rental complexes. No stores in walking distance, so you need a car.
it's stupid. it's unsustainable. at some point it will be so bad that people will just sit where they live because they know there will be too many other people unable to pay mortgage or rent.
The economy won't stand a chance 💪
Me but green tartan skirt, also I'm a dude.
Nice
Kilts FTW
Is that makoto?
Yeah this is what happens when the phantom thieves fail to steal her heart.
I liked the anime version better
You can't just say that and not post it lol
Yeah, this also explains why we feel over 400 years old.
Which 4 specifically? The Pandemic is the obvious one. Russia-Ukraine + Israel-Hamas conflicts? Climate Change?
9/11, 2008 financial crisis, covid and now the Ukraine war and the inflation it has caused (and/or Brexit for those of us in the UK) would be my picks.
Go look at people in Syria or Venezuela who can barely find food. You're just a bunch of annoying spoiled brats. You need to struggle to find food, clear water and electricity to learn what struggle means. You need to try to rush your grandma to the hospital and see her die in your car in your arms, because of army gates blocking the way, to know the value of the luxury you're living at.
You'll never realize the blessing you're enjoying until you lose it. Grow up and learn to be thankful you have a full belly and warm water.
I mean, your argument basically boils down to "you can't complain, others have it worse", which is a toxic take. Should a person who lost a leg not be allowed to complain because someone in the world has lost two legs, and therefore is an annoyed spoiled brat who still has a leg? Should the only people allowed to complain be people on the verge of death, since they're the people who are the worst off? Does the argument work in reverse as in "you can't be happy, others have it better"?
which is a toxic take
You're using the word "toxic" to say that you don't like my opinion. Booho. Cry me a river. Your username says a lot about you and explains why your brain cannot comprehend a disagreement.
You haven't lost a leg. You haven't lost anything. You're amongst the richest people on the fucking planet with the most luxurious lifestyles with a smart phone that costs a month's income for a family in most of the world if not more. You never had to sleep hungry or lived in the dark because you can't pay for electricity, so give me a break. You're just a brat. That's all. Brat. Annoying, ignorant, spoiled brat who cannot appreciate the good stuff they have.
Does the argument work in reverse as in “you can’t be happy, others have it better”?
My argument works as: You're part of the richest people on earth. Shut up and enjoy it.
People have it worse than they should all over the world. That kinda seems like the point of the post to me. Should op have posted a meme saying "fuck the whole world because I don't have it as bad?"
No, OP should not post that they're miserable or whatever because they had "4 crises". This is an improvement even compared to 200 years ago. Only baby boomers were so lucky not to have so much problems. Almost every other generation before had it worse + almost every other country in the world has it worse. OP's complaint shows that they don't appreciate the good life they have, despite the "crises" that happened, compared to the majority of humanity, whether in this time or in history.
