OPEN LETTERS

An Open Letter to Millennials From a Gen Xer

Believe it or not, you’re doing fine. And we’re with you.

Dear Millenials,

First things first, I want you to know I love and admire you. Seriously. You’re on the cusp of greatness. And you just may save the rest of our asses one of these days.

I know that’s not what you hear from older generations, who accuse you of being lazy and entitled. You can categorically dismiss them, and here’s why:

They did the exact same thing to my generation!

The kids are alright

Watch the movie Reality Bites, which came out in 1994. There’s a scene in which the dad condescends to Winona Ryder’s character, who just got fired from her job.

DAD
I'll tell you the problem with your generation. You don't have any work ethic. Now, you take your friend Troy, for example. I went out of my way to set up an interview for him... and he didn't even bother to show up.

LELAINA
That wasn't his fault. He asked me to call and cancel. And everything was going on. And it slipped my mind. And I'm... sorry, but, you know, I have a work ethic, dad. I have a very strong work ethic, you know. Ask anyone.

DAD
Then all you got to do is show some ingenuity, hmm? Darling, I love you, and I hate to break your plate... but you got to grow up sometime. Now, I want you to go out there and show me some ingenuity.

Sound familiar?

Let’s go back even further — with this song, written by David Bowie in 1971.

And these children that you spit on As they try to change their worlds Are immune to your consultations They’re quite aware of what they’re goin’ through -DAVID BOWIE Changes

Are you seeing a pattern here? Older generations always look down on the younger generation. Always.

I want you to know that not all of us feel that way about you. In every generation, there’s a portion that fears irrelevance. They hold onto a sense of nostalgia of their golden years, fearing it will all be wiped away. And who is to blame?

You, of course!

So don’t take it personally. They’re threatened, and they’re lashing out. But here’s the messed-up part: The reason they’re threatened isn’t that they know they’re full of shit. It’s because they don’t know they’re full of shit.

It wasn’t better then

Driving this sentiment is a false sense of nostalgia, a belief that things were somehow better back then.

The truth is, things weren’t better back then. At all.

Look, I’m a Gen Xer. I was born in the early 70s and my teen years were in the 80s. You hear all about the glorious 80s, and the big hair, and bright crazy fashions, and MTV and Madonna and Michael Jackson.

But this is what life was really like back then…

• Computers were over $1,000 and didn’t do much. It was a luxury buy. You could store information on large floppy disks. Getting information was kind of another challenge. There was no internet. There were a couple of BBS services out there — if you knew where to look for them. But on a slow modem, you’d have to let the 3 MB file download all night.
• But if you didn’t have a computer with a word processor, how did you write your school essays? With a typewriter! Imagine what happens when you make a mistake (answer: we had this stuff called “White Out”, which basically painted over the mistake, so you could type over it. It never worked very well.)
• Video games SUCKED. Our first console was an Atari 2600. You want to talk about bad? Look that up. It’s not even cool from a retro perspective.
• Phones were attached to the wall with a cord. Which meant you could only roam around as far as the cord would let you. Answering machines didn’t come out until the mid-80s, which meant if you were waiting for a call, you needed to be near the phone, or you’d miss it. Oh, and don’t forget long-distance charges.
• TV shows played at a set time. There was no DVR. No play on demand. And you had to sit through commercials. Couldn’t be there? You missed it forever. VCRs didn’t come out until the early 80s. If your parents weren’t cheap asses, maybe they invested in cable so you can watch movies on Showtime or HBO. But again, those were on a set schedule.
• Need to do research for a book report? Go to the library. Research was done at that time, not when an idea struck. Got another idea? Go back to the library.
• Want to take a picture? Buy film and flashbulbs for your crappy camera. Take all the exposures on the roll. Then wind the film back into the canister. And be careful, because if you do it wrong, you could ruin the entire batch. Take the film to the photo-mat, and only when they were ready days later would you know if any of your pictures even came out.
• How do you know if a restaurant is any good? Trial and error. Or get recommendations from people you know.

That’s just the beginning. But sit in that for a moment and think about how inconvenient everything was. Imagine what was involved in something as simple as inviting some friends out to dinner at a new restaurant in town.

And just think — the solution to every single one of those problems is now sitting in our pockets.

But technology aside, surely there must have been some better qualities to the past, right?

Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be

The image of an idyllic nuclear family in the suburbs in the 1950s in which the 2.3 children are seen and not heard — is the idea people hold on to when they think about “the good old days”. Images of Leave It To Beaver and Andy Griffith are what we are left to believe the world looked like back then.

We all know, even at the surface, this image was far from reality. Married couples slept in separate beds. There are no toilets in the bathrooms…

The truth is, the reality wasn't that rosy, especially if you weren’t a white middle or upper-class male. People had affairs back then, too. There were domestic disturbances. Spousal abuse. Bullying. Abortions. Incest. Rape. Prostitution. Lynchings. Alcoholism. Suicides.

The difference is, those things weren’t talked about the way we talk about them today.

So what could it be then? Could it be a fear of losing dominance and control?

Future shock

No matter what, time is moving forward, and life is changing.

There are two ways of looking at the passage of time. Either we can lament an era that is no longer and resent what comes next, or we can recognize and take advantage of the benefits that come with the changes.

Older generations are lost and have trouble adapting. “Why is this necessary?” they ask. They thought everything worked just fine before.

They don’t get concepts like virtual and metaverse. They don’t understand the framework, or the power of social media, or decentralization. They fear the unknown, and yet they fall prey to even the simplest phishing scams. So of course they have anxiety over the thought of losing their entire bank account to a hacker or being canceled over “telling it like it is” in a world of “over-sensitive social justice warriors.”

All they see is that you have access to all this technology they never had, and you choose to take pictures of your food — and they don’t know why.

Earning it

To them, it looks like you have it so easy. With the world’s knowledge at your fingertips, it looks like you have life handed to you on a silver platter. What do you possibly have to complain about?

They had to struggle to accomplish even the most basic tasks, and they feel you should, too. To them, the struggle built character and should account for something. They put in their time. Why do you get everything so easily?

I don’t even need to tell you how backward that is.

There is certainly virtue in hard work, but I prefer smart work.

The great copywriter Gary Halbert famously said:

Walking On The Beach And Coming Up With One Good Idea Is Worth More Than A Lifetime Of Hard Work!

And that’s where you excel. Look, you recognize that problems cannot be solved by doing things the way we’ve always done and failed. So you work differently. No longer can you be contained by corporate culture. People see that as entitled. I see that as innovative.

It doesn’t matter if it’s different from the way it’s been done. What matters is if it gets results.

And you guys ARE getting results. The book 3 Billion Under 30 details the stories of many Millenials who have successfully redefined the status quo, built billion-dollar companies, and have been a massive force of change.

So keep doing what you’re doing. The world is yours.

Just one thing. Could you at least try a little bit to work on some of your communication skills? Because that shit matters.

Sincerely,

A Gen X ally

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you can always stay up to date and in the know!