That’s big talk from the generation that unironically said “RAWR :3” to each other.
I was there.
Livejournal? Emo? “Lol I’m so Random”? Leet speak?? And we took it SO seriously. Peak “No mom it’s not a phase”.
We were criiiiiiinge.
I just remembered that brief trend where teenage boys were wetting their pants in order to look more vulnerable and soft, took selfies of themselves looking vaguely ashamed with a giant wet spot, and a lot of girls really seemed to like it??
And even if you weren’t peak emo, Elder Millennials were wearing flannel and pretending to be just as jaded as Kurt Cobain because they were sad no one was playing POGs anymore, while Younger Millennials had skunk hair and that “greasy sk8r” look.
So what if Zoomers are embracing “Coastal Grandma” looks and TikTok dances? We can’t really point fingers.
See but that’s the point: I, an elder millennial, somewhat embarrassed by shopping for a nose hair trimmer, am finally not just over my cringe phase but also over even pretending to attempt to understand how in the everloving fuck what whippersnappers are up to could in any way be cool.
It’s been greatly amusing reading this thread seeing people assume that I’m trying to start a generational war, or dunk on zoomers, or whatnot. BRB going to rock out unironically to the Guano Apes.
Also, we were were cringeworthy than they are now. I was there in the late '90s and the early 2000s. I remember the forum posts, the livejournal drama, the unfunny memes, the rise of MySpace. The Xanga sites alone were far more cringeworthy than Tumblr ever was, even if you ignore the underage nudes AND early 2000s fanfiction that people posted on their Xanga pages it was still worse. At least zoomers don’t have emo hair and post about their angst in the form of shitty poetry with handles like xXx_darkbl4de_st0rmwind_xXx, and those of us born in the mid '80s through the early '90s cannot always say the same.
Oh god I forgot about xanga. I got in so much trouble because I posted stupid shit my friends and I were doing there. Fortunately I didn’t implicate them.
Same here, it’s probably because I stay off TikTok like it’s the plague. I’ve even modded my YouTube app to disable shorts. (YouTube ReVanced my beloved)
This is the nature of aging. As an older millennial I wish more millennials would get with it. We spent our 20s and 30s wanting to be treated as adults. Well, this is how young people treat adults.
You have to remember that gen Z’ers are early twenties. It’s not usually the early 20s ones that are cringe, it’s the younger teenagers who, almost as a rule, are always pretty cringe. They don’t have the sense and forethought to not do really, really embarrassing stuff. They’re just full of emotions and hormones and those impulses aren’t tampered by fully developed brains thinking better than to…do really weird stuff. It’s not out of the ordinary. Millennials are late twenties to late thirties/early 40s.
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