Just look at all of these autopsy reports from various media sources:
— Logan Trent (@TheLoganTrent) August 23, 2016To get serious for a quick second, most of these are complete horseshit. So I'm going to do some deep dives to figure out why the Old People in media are blaming us for these problems that they can't explain (or don't want to admit).
The Golf Industry
You know what pisses me off? I'll tell you: it's when a kid in their mid-twenties can't afford to pay $800 for a decent set of irons, $300 for a decent driver, and $200 for some fairway woods and then also pay $60 for an afternoon round of golf plus $25 for a box of balls that are inevitably going to get sliced into the woods and/or lake.
This is going to be a common theme among these industries that we're "killing," I'm sure, but there's a reason that golf is generally an older man's game. It's really fucking goddamn expensive.
Retailers
I would like to solve this one by just pointing out that online retailers are still retailers. It's just cheaper and easier, so that's why we do it. That seems pretty simple, no?
The Movie Business
Movies are all shitty nowadays, and they cost (quite literally) more than ever to see. I honestly can't even tell you the last time I saw a commercial or trailer and thought to myself, "Oh I really want to see that movie!"
And, even if I was easily enticed by trailers, there's just too much content for anyone to reasonably consume. If I lowered my standards for Movies That I Want To See, then I would spend every Friday night and all day Saturday wasting money on overpriced tickets and snacks.
I checked Wikipedia because I wanted to see how many "major" movie studios there are today. There are six: Universal, Disney, Warner Bros, Fox, Sony, and Paramount. They all have at least one animation branch (Disney has five), and they all have at least two other divisions/brands (Universal has five).
I have problems consuming all of the TV shows and Barstool podcasts that I try to listen to every week, and those are all free. The podcasts, in particular, I consume while I'm multitasking or driving to work or something. Now you're telling me you want me to leave everything else in my life alone and consume the content from like thirty different studios?
Oh, and instead of being free like podcasts they cost $14 plus $20 more for popcorn and a soda. I'm so mad about this one that I may never see another movie in theaters again.
Home Depot
Like golf, Home Depot is an old man's industry. We rent instead of owning, you know, because none of us have any money yet, and we have maintenance guys to fix our shit. We also don't have any lawns or yards or any way to really utilize anything that they sell at Home Depot.
And, honestly, it's right there in the fucking name. You don't need Home Depot if you have an apartment instead of a home - you need Apartment Depot, also known as Ikea.
The Running Trend
I'm not totally sure what "the running trend" is but I'm going to assume that it just means running or jogging? Why does anybody care whether or not people run?
Athletic apparel? Yeah I wear that because it's comfortable, who the hell cares if I'm actually sweating in it?
Gatorade? I drink more for hangovers than Michael Phelps drinks while he's working out.
What else do runners even do? Who the fuck cares if this trend dies? Is Big Running one of the titans of industry that I just have never heard about?
Wine
First of all, if you include the words "millennial" and "exposé" in your headline you should kill yourself before you type anything into the body of your post.
As far as actual wine, it's like golf or Home Depot, for women. Drinking nice wine is fucking expensive, and you have to drink a lot of wine before you can even appreciate the expensive stuff.
Let's talk cheap wine. I'm going to plug the best winery in the world:
— Duplin Winery (@duplinwinery) August 19, 2016Go to Myrtle Beach, fill up your nalgene with a bottle of Duplin, and you're all set to have the best day ever. Quick Mount Rushmore of their wines:
- Magnolia
- Scuppernong
- Red Sangria
- White Sangria
I don't really know how Millennials could possibly be killing wine, because everyone I know loves wine. Maybe we're just "killing" it in the college sense of the word, like how you used to kill a handle of Admiral Nelson with your boys as a pregame? If that's what you mean, then yes, I am killing wine.
McDonalds
This one, to me at least, is laugh-out-loud funny. I actually took the (click)bait and went to Gothamist to read this whole article.
Here is a quote from Ronald McDonald (just kidding it's Global Brand Chief Officer Steve Easterbrook):
"The millennial generation has a wider range of choices than any generation before them. They're promiscuous in their brand loyalty. It makes it harder work for all of us to earn the loyalty of the millennial generation."I mean I'm not a graduate of an English boys' school or an English university like Mr. Easterbrook, but it sounds like he's blaming his target market because he can't get them to eat more of his shitty food. I tend to be a very brand-loyal consumer, but even I will only eat McDonalds maybe once a week.
"Promiscuous in their brand loyalty" is a Hall Of Fame corporate executive line. Before this Gothamist article, I would have considered myself loyal to the McDonalds brand. But I also like to eat Cheesy Gordita Crunches and Chipotle burrito bowls and Wendy's spicy chicken nuggets. So maybe I'm not "loyal" as much as I am "unhealthy."
If Mr. Easterbrook's goal is to get me to just commit to eating McDonalds and not eating at any other fast food or fast-casual chains, if that's what it takes to be "loyal" to his brand, then he's in for a rough go of it. Because that shit will never happen for anyone under 30 - and if you happen to know someone who eats strictly McDonalds (or Chipotle), you probably think that person is a goddamn lunatic.
Lack Of Manners
The biggest problem that most millennials have with the "participation trophy" stigma is we weren't in charge of buying the goddamn trophies. I think, looking back on it, most of us would have preferred our baseball and soccer and hockey leagues to not give out those trophies.
It's maybe a little mean to say, but whatever we were kids - making fun of losers is the best feeling in the world, and being one of those losers is the worst feeling in the world.
When everyone's trophy is the same size, it diminishes both of those feelings and skews everything toward the blah/boring medium. That medium softened this generation of kids, and that's the stigma about participation trophies. That's not wrong. But you can't blame a second grader for the choices his dad made.
Similarly, who was supposed to teach "manners" and "class" to the millennials? Ourselves? Nope. it was our classless parents (apparently).
The theme of this exercise, it seems, is older generations blaming us for the way we turned out under their watch.
Paper Napkins
Just shut the fuck up right now. Napkins? Really?
The Car Industry
You know what? I actually feel bad for all of these things I've said. Us God Damn Millennials have ruined industries of all types. Sports, home improvement, restaurants, alcohol, exercise, motion pictures. All killed thanks to young people with their noses buried in their cell phones.
So, to make it up to Big Industry, I'm going to buy a car right now. To pay tribute to the generation that came before me, I'm going to take out a loan for something extravagant that I can't really afford, but my loan is ultimately going to get packaged into a mortgage-backed security (somehow, just let that one slide) and then it's going to ruin the whole country's economy. Behold, my new car, which I have named Generation X:
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