For better or worse, I'm an older Millennial. My childhood was filled with bright colours, wild 80's hair, awesome music, weird and sometimes dangerous toys (for example, I knew someone who broke her ankle using a Skip-It, and I myself incurred a number of minor injuries on my childhood best friend's Pogo Ball), and technology that was considerably less advanced than what we have today. I could never have imagined that touching a spot on a screen would allow me to issue voice commands to my car, telling it what phone number to call or giving it an address for the GPS (on the rare occasion when I have Location Services enabled on my phone, anyway). Being able to take a small-ish rectangular device out of my pocket to look up practically any bit of useful (or uselesss) information was unthinkable. Portable computers technically existed—my father had one for work—but there is no way on Earth I'd ever have wanted that thing to be on my lap, because it was really, really heavy; I honestly think that it weighed more than my dog at the time, a big, goofy black Labrador Retriever. Meanwhile, I'm fairly certain that my current laptop computer weighs only a little more than my violin in its case. Times have changed.
Life, as they say, seemed simpler then. But then, it always does to a child. I'm sure today's kids will be saying much the same thing about our current world as I'm saying about the world as I experienced it in the 80's and 90's.
People love to roast my generation for being nostalgic, but I have to admit, I understand the urge to be nostalgic, even the urge to feel a bit smug about the things that we knew and remember, and the skills that we have, that young people today don't understand or have no reference for. (I recently saw a post on Tumblr about a fanfic in which there was a DVD-style menu repeating on a VHS tape, which is impossible unless, for some unfathomable and/or trolling-related reason, somebody actually recorded a DVD menu onto a VHS tape.) Because frankly, we've lived through a lot, and it's natural that many members of my generation—perhaps especially my segment of it, the older ones who are sometimes called "Xennials" or "the Oregon Trail generation"—should be looking back at that time in our lives with a certain amount of longing.
We weren't expected to be available to anyone and everyone at all hours of the day or night. Most of us were cared for reasonably well by our parents or other caregivers. The predominant message about us was that we could change the world, our lives had worth and meaning, and if we worked hard enough, we would be rewarded for it. And as anyone who hasn't been living as a hermit for the past quarter century or so would know, it hasn't exactly worked out that way.
My generation has gone from being told that we were the hopeful builders of a bright future to being convenient scapegoats for many of the ills of the present. We're told now that we're the entitled and self-centred destroyers of multiple industries, too lazy to work hard enough to afford a basic home (including apartment rentals), too old to be worth a hand up when we have trouble finding work (many of the most helpful job-finding services and entry-level positions with even half-decent compensation are only available to recent college or university graduates under the age of 30), and overall, just a giant disappointment to the world. Mental health issues run rampant among Millennials, and have done so since we were in our 20s or so at least. Small wonder that so many of us try to find joy where we can, including in silly slang and the memory of a time when we were told that we had value, that our dreams were worth having and chasing, and that if we worked hard enough, we could change the world for the better.
Life isn't easy for most people. And the 80's and 90's weren't exactly a cakewalk either, but it's easier to get sentimental about those decades because they're so temporally far away now. And frankly, I find that it's nice to remember a time when I, and people like me, weren't being blamed for everything that's wrong with the world. It's nice to remember hope. Sometimes I'm foolish enough to still feel it.
So, yeah. Cringe at Millennials for being nostalgic if you must. (Given our general fondness for self-roasting humour, we may well be cringing right along with you.) But don't be an asshole about it. If nothing else, someday there'll be somebody poking fun at you for ridiculous generational stereotypes and nostalgia for the world as it was when you were young.
