Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Millenials vs the economy

I love me some Generation Y bashing......
Variously dubbed "Generation Me," "Generation Y" or the "Everyone Gets an Award Generation," today's twentysomethings are to the boomers what the Japanese are to electronics. If the baby boomers invented me-first hyper-individualism, then the millennials have perfected it. Indeed, millennials are the children of the boomers, the product of family planing and the cult of self-esteem. They are hellbent on making it by their own rules.

A lot of those who are studying millennials have identified this "we'll do it our way" tendency as a sign of entitlement and weakness; by this logic, this won't be the greatest generation, just the whiniest and the neediest. But in my experience -- I'm Generation X with the Ys on my heels -- and in the studies of another set of observers, all that confidence instills in them just what their folks hoped it would: resilience. OK, arrogance and resilience.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Resilience? I don't think so.

Arrogance? Oh, yes.


Kath

Wek said...

My opinion is shaped from the many Millenials I know at work. Arrogant? Yep. Resiliant? About half.