The Student Room Group

Article: Why are millenials so boring & when did it become cool to be so dull?

They say youth is wasted on the young, we seem to be proving them right.

What will our generation be remembered for? Every generation has a thing. The Pre War Generation had, well, the war and a very stoic attitude as a result of it. Baby Boomers had the sexual revolution, free love and Woodstock; they lived through the Cold War and saw the fall of the Berlin Wall. Generation X, too young to have fought in a war but old enough to benefit from a free education, they had the boom of the 1980s, they were yuppies and post-industrial ravers enjoying New Order, Underworld and The Stone Roses.

If this millennial generation are going to be remembered for our music, then we’ll be remembered for being pretty boring. In 2011 the Guardian’s Peter Robinson hailed the arrival of a new era in British music: he called it β€˜The New Boring, a ballad-friendly tedial wave destroying everything in its path.’ Robinson saw the popularity of the likes of Adele and Ed Sheeran as proof that a somnambulant tsunami had swept over mainstream pop culture. Adele, he wrote, β€˜must, sadly, accept and wear the Queen Of Boring Crown. It is a crown made of SOLID BEIGE.’ The generation before us had raucous BritPop, we’ve got manicured and manufactured pop.

Ours is not a cohort defined by lads and ladettes having it large, drinking larger and getting into fights with one another. If our generation will be remembered for our past times then perhaps we will be characterised by the rise of wellness, clean eating and athleisure. Middle class millennial life is the space where exercise and hanging out with mates intersect, where green juice and vodka come together, where seemingly oxymoronic concepts like almond milk thrive.

Youth culture once calcified around the image of a young women sitting on a bench, her ankles weak over her stilettoes, her head in her hands as she dealt with the effects of too many Apple Sourz. But the β€˜Booze Britain’ everyone was so worried about is, apparently, no more. In 2013, the average person over 15 consumed 9.4 litres of alcohol. That’s 19 per cent less than 2004. According to the most recent research from NatCen drug use is also down, as is smoking .

Nightclubs, the hub of youth culture British youth culture from Disco to Punk, New Wave to Drum and Bass, are also closing. In 2005 the UK had 3,144 clubs. In 2015 there were only 1,733. The number of places where you can lose, find and lose yourself again is dwindling, meanwhile Netflix subscriptions and home delivery food services seem to be multiplying.

The films about this generation are also boring. Don’t get me wrong, they’re good but they contain none of the drama, high jinx or adventuring that characterises films about other eras. Take Greta Gerwig and Noa Baumbach’s Frances Ha or more recent film.

Mistress America. The most contentious thing that happens in Frances Ha is when her best friend gets engaged to a guy she doesn’t like because he’s β€˜too corporate’, in Mistress America getting too drunk on red wine (probably organic) at a dinner party is the film’s depiction of youthful rebellion. Compare that to films of eras gone by: Trainspotting or Cruel Intentions.

Sex, traditionally young people’s favourite past time, one they loved so much that entire curriculums were devised to stop them from doing it, has also been put on the endangered list. Millennials are having less sex than our parents did at our age. One study found that almost half of twentysomethings have not had sex at all in the last year . What happened to sex? Did we replace it with PokΓ©mon Go? Are we all too busy working multiple jobs to pay the rent? With potential sexual partners being, quite literally at our finger tips thanks to technical innovations like Tinder, you’d think we’d be getting off with one another more than ever. Did we get bored of sex or are we too boring to do it?

We have been called the Ab Fab Generation, the real life Saffies to our boozing, smoking, splif-wielding parents. Depressing as it is to admit this: I too have become boring. I stay in on Friday nights, I have replaced booze binges with camomile tea and Stranger Things, all-nighters with early morning gardening sessions (not that I technically have a garden. I have potted plants), dancing in clubs to music with no words to live streamlining DJs on the Internet and Sunday pub sessions with long walks which I monitor via the health app on my iPhone. My mother goes out more than I do.
Why? In part the explanation is a financial one. My rent demands the majority of my income, everything else feels like an extravagance. Having fun feels wasteful. Perhaps this is understandable, regardless of whether it’s anti-Brexit spin or not the future had never looked less bright for the under 35s than it does now.

Not a day goes by without an article about how we're being completely screwed over economically.

However, that’s only part of the story. The second half of this incredibly boring tale is all about fatigue. All day we are bombarded by culture, flashing images on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Do this, watch that, go there, eat that, did you hear it? Who can keep up. Rather than feeling the FOMO that is supposedly plaguing millennials I find myself feeling like I’m being bombarded, checking my phone is like being forced to stand in the centre of Times Square for hours on end. The last thing I want to do on a Friday night after spending the week staring at multiple screens is stand in a dark club, where flashing lights flood my retina and bass rattles through my brain. It’s exhausting, whereas staying in is restorative.

Rachel, 27, agrees. 'Increasingly I find myself thinking at social gatherings how much I'd rather be at home watching TV, on my own. I left my best friend's birthday last Friday to go home and read a book. I didn't even like the book that much, it wasn't a very good book.’ The book may not have lived up to expectations but, nonetheless, she says β€˜lying in bed with the book, I felt ****ing incredible. Like Jo from Little Women* or Rory Gilmore before she dropped out of Yale. Like a mixture of zen and really ****ing smug about all the money I wasn't spending and all the drugs I wasn't snorting and all the conversations I didn't have to force myself to have. It was awesome.’
It seems that staying really has become the new going out. Sarah, 29, is in a book club, β€˜I actually founded it’ she tells me. β€˜I think we all value investing in ourselves today – having hobbies and being healthy. Plus, we are all knackered. All of my friends work a lot, I also think we just feel less inspired by going out – there’s nothing new happening, not that I know of anyway.’ She adds that she mainly fills her time with exercise, reading, Netflix, dinner parties and, of course, the book club. She does get out and get on it sometimes but it’s rare, β€˜I prefer nights out if they are rare and I guess if I feel like I deserve them. I would rather have one really wicked night out every three or four weeks and keep it mellow the rest of the time.’

Maybe this really is the new boring? As much as I want to decimate it, to condemn our generation for not trying hard enough to push things forward by hacking away at the coal face of culture in the corner of dark clubs in the early hours or lament the loss of youth as we know it. β€˜We are all so lame!’, I want to shout before (reluctantly) dragging myself to some sort of dance music night which will go onto 4am. Instead, I find myself heaving a sigh of relief. I’m not sure I have the energy to fight that fight. I need to chill out this weekend.

They say youth is wasted on the young, we seem to be proving them right. But, at least we have a sense of humour: a young generation living as though we’re retired, despite the fact that we might never be able to. Maybe that's how we'll be remembered: the premature pensioners, minus the pensions.

Scroll to see replies

k.
Reply 2
tl;dr
Good read, and I think you're right.

I'm a University student, I know what renting is like. I know the poor conditions. I know not being able to put up a shelf, I know having my deposit taken for chipping the skirting board's paint, I know the mouldy walls and the dodgy landlords - Most of all I know how bloody expensive it is. I feel guilty when I indulge too much, as me and my partner are saving as much as we can (even of Student finance money) to put towards a deposit. We want security and know that even a basic flat is such a pipe dream for our generation.

Anything not scrimped and saved and stashed away into an overly-optimistic Help-To-Buy ISA is squandered and directly threatens our financial security.

Going on nights out is incredibly expensive, me and my friends base our nights out on where has the cheapest pint - or what place is doing a special on the current day. Just look at the price of drinks in nightclubs, it's mad. I'd much rather go to the pub.
Reply 4
I think we see it as boring because it’s the current reality. The past is exciting because it’s different and all of the stories have endings. Things that seem legendary now seemed trivial back then. Older generations would have shook their head and tutted about a wasted youth just as they do now.

Millennials have the most advanced technology, and the freedom to express who we are in ways that were met with much more hostility in the past (LGBT+). Social media which has revolutionised how we communicate. The change in the music industry from the introduction of streaming. Dating apps transforming how we meet people.

We see this all as β€˜boring’ now, but once the world has changed and progressed, they’ll look back on this with the interest we have for the generations before us.
We should be known as the generation of BAD*SSES. Not as the generation of Boring. The only thing boring is the BORING company. We as a generation should go out and do stuff and live life in the moment rather than watching bs and doing factor theorem on a sunday night....

U know like us guys shd be like Marty Mcfly or somethin
(edited 6 years ago)
Good article. :five: Yes, we are boring. I prefer a nice cup of cocoa to a drug-fuelled rave and I would rather snuggle under my duvet and watch the Crown than run off with a rock band as a roadie. I think I must be normal for my age group. :cookie:

The big driving force behind all this is the economic situation. It is about five times harder for our generation to get a well paid job at 25 as for the previous generation and everything in school and university is filled with this knowledge and geared to trying to gain sufficient edge to be one of the lucky ones. :sad:
Yeah I think I was born in the wrong generation, I want out.

The few friends I do have are always up for a laugh though, it just comes down to how much time and money we all have.
(edited 6 years ago)
Of course we're boring. We're tired and poor.
You can't blame being dull and boring entirely on lack of money. It's more an attitude thing. Not everything in life costs money. Sex doesn't cost money, for example, yet millenials are having less of it than previous generations. I don"t understand why that is the case.
How can I have regualr sex when I still live with my parents? -___-

Improving my health is the only thing I have control over. I'm determined to live longer than all the fat middle aged people with thier regulr bottles of expensive wine and mortgages. Yeah sure I'm a prole, but I'm not on the verge of death.
Original post by Fullofsurprises
Good article. :five:


Indeed; shame OP didn't credit his source.
Reply 12
Original post by Fullofsurprises
The big driving force behind all this is the economic situation. It is about five times harder for our generation to get a well paid job at 25 as for the previous generation and everything in school and university is filled with this knowledge and geared to trying to gain sufficient edge to be one of the lucky ones. :sad:


Is it though? I often ponder this. I feel like a general pattern of art is that a lot of the really interesting stuff generally comes from the oppressed. I'm not sure of the exact mechanism, perhaps it comes from anger, or through a desire to change the world or speak out against its injustices. Obviously it could even be coincidence. Much of this is subjective, but I think if for example you look at parts of the 20th century, you see middle class white men hashing out the same tired guitar cliches whilst an oppressed black youth broke boundaries in jazz then funk then hip-hop etc. Furthermore I'd claim those boring guitar cliches I just moaned about arguably originated out of a working class musical movement in the same century anyway.

So I feel like its something more nuanced than the economic situation. Perhaps today's (popular) culture is so boring not because of the situation but the system as a whole. Social media might be one part of it - its largely a system to exploit us by turning us into living advertisements for the crappy products we are told to enjoy. Now its not the person on the TV telling me to buy the product, its the friend sharing or liking the song. It's glorification of advertisement-as-entertainment with people counting down the days to a trailer being released (I have done this many a time) Ads aren't a little break in the programming they are a fully-flown piece of our daily lives that we seemingly enjoy and celebrate.

Becoming a conduit for those powerful few in control of our creative industries must have taken its toll on our willingness to express resentment, challenge things creatively, and explore new ideas.
TLDR; technology is making us boring??
Original post by Fullofsurprises
Good article. :five: Yes, we are boring. I prefer a nice cup of cocoa to a drug-fuelled rave and I would rather snuggle under my duvet and watch the Crown than run off with a rock band as a roadie. I think I must be normal for my age group. :cookie:

The big driving force behind all this is the economic situation. It is about five times harder for our generation to get a well paid job at 25 as for the previous generation and everything in school and university is filled with this knowledge and geared to trying to gain sufficient edge to be one of the lucky ones. :sad:


Yeah starting from Year 6 exams at a young age it gets competitive. Then not even all A*s at GCSE and A level guarantees you will get into the most competitive universities or courses. Then a 2.1 degree isn't enough and you have to spend all your time gaining experience to "stand out of the crowd" and "build your CV" just to get a job.

It all seems fake to me and feels as if you are moulding yourself into a walking and talking CV rather than an actual individual.

I also think mental illness is probably greater now than other gnerations due to this continuous striving of having to be successful.
Well funnily enough we were brought up by the generation that is slating is, who constantly remind us of the dangers of alcohol, drugs and smoking, never to forget they also were the ones who played a key role in the development of technology. Slate us how much you like, it doesn’t change the fact you were the ones that raised us :dontknow:
Reply 16
Maybe if the drug addicts and sex obsessed people of the 60s-90s didnt ruin the economy we'd actually meet their silly expectations
Funny but I've spent the last four years at university and Gen Z certainly aren't sitting around studying. Maybe if there weren't so many people who went to uni, spent three years partying and were still handed a 2:1 on a plate because uni is all about making money now rather than actually giving people worthwhile qualifications; then there wouldn't be an over-saturation of the job market meaning that the people who actually care about their careers have to fight against morons to get a job. And yes I know I'm talking about Gen Z but most of the younger millennials went/are going through the same thing.
Reply 18
How you gonna generalise an entire generation
Original post by howitoughttobe
Funny but I've spent the last four years at university and Gen Z certainly aren't sitting around studying. Maybe if there weren't so many people who went to uni, spent three years partying and were still handed a 2:1 on a plate because uni is all about making money now rather than actually giving people worthwhile qualifications; then there wouldn't be an over-saturation of the job market meaning that the people who actually care about their careers have to fight against morons to get a job. And yes I know I'm talking about Gen Z but most of the younger millennials went/are going through the same thing.


Can you really blame them though?

All throughout school people were told to go and get a degree in whatever they like with the illusion it would help their employment prospects. They would either be at university studying a degree that won't enhance their mployment or unemployed leading the youth unemployment figures to rocket.

I think Blair should be blamed for making university a business leading to degrees being meaningless now.

Quick Reply

Latest