Members of Generation X would be overjoyed at this point to be acknowledged at all, especially after years of getting cruelly mislabeled as slackers, even while most of them were being diligently coke-fueled, overachieving students and workaholics. They also had the now nostalgic advantage of real-time Johnny Depp when he was still at the height of his prettiness and almost even out-prettied then-girlfriend Winona Ryder before everything fell apart into a pile of empty wine bottles, hipster scarves, and glittery teeth.
After that brief and controversial acknowledgment of The Forgotten, Generic, Latchkey Filler That Glues These Other Attention-Sucking Bitches Together Generation, we’re back to society’s happy-place default of ignoring Gen X, as God and nature intended. Today’s generational focus is Millennials as usual, and specifically, the ones now referred to as “geriatric.”
Geriatric Millennials are those born between 1980-1985. The actual start of Millennial-hood is a topic of debate, but it’s generally accepted that the whole wave of future-avocado-toast fuckery started during that window of time. What we do know is that the Millennials in question are not pleased about their new adjective. via HuffPo:
A new generational label is causing some people on Twitter to feel as old as the wagons used in the once-popular PC game Oregon Trail.
On Friday, a Medium article titled “Why the Hybrid Workforce of the Future Depends on the ‘Geriatric Millennial’” went viral on Twitter. It deemed people born between 1980 and 1985 as, well, “geriatric millennials.”
The article is complementary to the fringe generation — which came of age before the tech boom but adjusted to it well— and stresses that members’ comfort “with both analog and digital forms of communication” makes them ideal leaders in the workforce.
Yet, the seemingly troll-like phrase “geriatric millennials” left some totally buggin’, especially because people in their late 30s and early 40s are by no means old.
The Medium article (linked via Twitter below) is an interesting read, whether you agree with it or not. But we’re here today to relish and celebrate the “you’re, like, so old” gut punches to Millennials in that subgroup and not to engage in any mature discourse, because where’s the fun in that? Here’s where the dread begins:
We understand some are having *feelings* about this title.
Taking votes for a new one:
— Medium (@Medium) May 14, 2021
The responses range from “E. Fire your social media manager” to suggesting that we call “Geriatric Millennials” the “Oregon Trail Generation.”
And here is Gen X having the last word, before receding into nothingness once again:
Gen X watching millennials getting upset over being called geriatric pic.twitter.com/JPRGjd1p7J
— Indie Stacks (she/her) (@IndieStacks) May 14, 2021
Pic: Wikimedia Commons