This past Monday, Georgetown University hosted ‘Millennial Day’ at their soccer match against UCLA.
It’s 2017, and this is now a thing.
‘Millennial Day’ at #georgetownsoccer featured:
- Participation trophies for 500 fans
- A dabbing-friendly safe space
- A cable-cord-cutting station
- Stadium-wide naps during halftime
- A D.C. area Juice bar gift card raffle
- Pregame selfies with ‘Jack the Bulldog’
- Greetings with words of praise upon entry into the game
- A millennial communication section (verbal conversation prohibited - cell phone use only)
- Tickets available for just one half for those who did not want to commit to a whole game
- AND free admission if you held 3 different jobs over the last 3 years (upon showing LinkedIn profile)
Not only do I feel like this was a genius and bold marketing move to hit their target audience perfectly, but I also feel like I fit into every single one of those stereotypical categories that they were targeting… and I’m not sure how I feel about that because these marketing slogans assume at least four big things at the most basic level: Millennials are lazy, narcissistic, struggle with commitment and lack confidence. I don’t know about you (said one millennial to another), but I don’t really want to be assumed to be any of these things right off the bat.
It seems like more often than not, I hear the term ‘Millennial’ (in reference to Generation Y) in a negative connotation. Millennials are lazy, need words of affirmation constantly, can’t take losing without getting their heart broken, don’t know what they want in life, jump from job to job, only live off of their parents or off of loans, are too wrapped up in their phones and technology, etc, etc. . . the list goes on. There’s a lot to say about the generation I’m a part of, and there’s been a lot written about the generation I’m a part of- both the problems and the strengths of the generation, and this is article may just be added noise; however, this is an article about me, and about how I am (narcissism?). Maybe you can relate.
Sometimes in the workplace, I’m introduced as ‘Austin, the typical millennial,’ and as much as I’m proud of my generation and who I am, sometimes I wonder what exactly that introduction is leading me to be and what it means. Yeah, criticism can be hard for me to take, I’ve easily had three jobs in three years, I’m not sure what I want in life a lot of the time, I blog and like to travel and words of affirmation are my love language, but does that really make me like every other person in my generation? Are we all fitting into this mold that’s becoming a marketing tool to pull people into college athletic events? Or are we more than that?
Personally, I know of a lot of millennials who are doing some super amazing things. I have friends living overseas in some of the most hostile nations on the globe trying to make a difference in the world they see, I know guys running one of the most successful and thriving businesses in the city I live in, and I’ve seen friends my age start and run their own businesses like well-oiled machines with the expertise of Henry Ford. I’m not claiming to be anywhere on this level, but still, there are some pretty incredible things that people from generation Y are doing.
It seems strange to me that an entire generation (not just ‘millennials,’ but any generation for that matter) can develop a negative stigma based on they way they are. After all, each generation was brought up by a previous generation, so it seems silly to demonize a generation for being one way and not another. If anything, I’d like to believe that generations learn from the generations before them and try to do the right things they were taught and try not to make the same mistakes that were previously made. I’m not so sure that America has had its ‘Greatest Generation,’ but rather that each generation in America is brings its own unique successes and struggles. That’s what makes not only the place we live so great, but also the people have the lived here before us.
Maybe this article is millennial of me to write because it’s on a blog and because it’s about the millennial stigma, but at this point, who cares because I was born in 1991, and that’s just the way it is right now, right, wrong or just different. When I told my friend I was writing about being a millennial, I asked her if it made me a millennial. She responded with ‘L O L O L what doesn’t make us millennials?”
I agree with her. It’s who we are, and we’ll continue to write in all caps acronyms with spaces in between each letter. *Inserts ✌️ emoji*
-Cliff
Cliff’s Note: Don’t confuse millennial with hipster- no matter how easy it is to do sometimes.