Millennials Do Not Want You Calling Them ‘Millennials’ — Here’s Why

Ever since the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk came bursting into every tech startup channel, the callouts for Generation Y, most commonly known as the millenials, have never been more negative.

As millennials started to enter the workforce at the beginning of 2000s the Baby Boomer generation has found it quite difficult to adapt to their “demanding,” “egotistical,” and “narcissistic” nature.

But, with so many successful Gen-Ys arising in today’s workforce, they are calling out to all the naysayers to stop branding them with the term “millennial.”

According to The Collectives, the “millennial” term has such a negative connotation that has become associated with arrogance, laziness, and stubbornness. Because of this, a majority of the people born in between these decades do not want to be associated with the word.

In fact, according to a report from the Pew Research Center, a surprising 60 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds don’t consider themselves part of the “millennial generation.” Being branded as a “pain in the a**” do not do well with the Generations Y, X and Z.

“I am not a millennial. I am simply a person born in between those tumultuous years that would brand me as one.”

Senior Researcher Alec Tyson says this detachment is understandable since the “millennial” generation has been categorized for a wide span of ages. There is a “confusion about where the line is.”

The Contradiction

Though millennials have been categorized as the lazy part of the spectrum, this generation actually is very environmentally and socially conscious. According to TIME, they are the generation who are generally more educated than any other generation in history, so they have a lot of input when it comes to environment, homosexuality, immigration, and other societal issues.

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The generation also has the fastest adaptation to technology and has the most awareness to its pros and cons. With this, millennials struggle to find the happy place when it comes to the workforce because of the massive gap of the trained courses they took years ago and the new in-demand career opportunities of the present decade.

The Collectives note that this generation has been trained to believe that their lives and their society would follow the ones their parents had (the Baby Boomers). However, after the recession and technological advances, everything changed.

The manufacturing industry is not the same as before. The competition for jobs in the workforce has become a lot more challenging because of the ratio of applicants to job openings.

The globalization of companies also led to outsourcing which left other millennials to find creative ways to compete.

However, this generation continues to thrive. Many millenials have found a way to disrupt the workforce by creating their own culture. Even enterprise companies like Google and Facebook have implemented a conscious effort to grow with the new generation.

No Term is Good Term

Patrick Hipp, the author of All The World Is Lost, says the new generation is the reverse of the Baby Boomers. The new generation has the capacity to create in the midst of the noise information overload, while they try to balance their careers with the demands of the society.

“We rally with time. We rally with race and sexuality. We rally with competition. And we lose ourselves in between. We forget what we want and who we are because living in this era is extremely noisy and if you are not strong enough you will get sucked in by the different currents that come from all over.”

To erase the confusion, the “millennials” want to divert people’s attention from the negative branding of the term to their own causes, accomplishments, and talents. Instead of looking at them like teenagers who would love nothing but beanbags in the office, the new generation would like to make their mark without being associated to a simple term that rarely ever defines who they are and what they do.

“So, for those of you out there who are still confused of what to call me… Just call me my name.”

[Feature Image by iStock/Steve Debenport]