My name is Melanie, and I’m a Millennial.
Many people my age refuse to acknowledge their Millennial status. And who came blame them?
Millennials get a bad rap—in case you haven’t heard, we’re entitled, narcissistic job-hoppers. Instead of growing up, we play video games. We’re addicted to social media and participation trophies.
We haven’t moved out of parent’s basement because we believe work shouldn’t just be a paycheck, it should be fulfilling. We weren’t put on this earth to start at the bottom and work our way up. That’s so Baby Boomer.
We’re not like other generations. We’re special.
Most of this doesn’t describe me, and never did. But the facts don’t lie: Millennials are those born between 1980-1995. I was born in 1981.
No way around it, at age 36, I’m a grandma Millennial.
And if you’re in your early to mid-thirties, so are you.
Deal with it.
But, but but…I can already hear your excuses forming. We grand-Millennials aren’t like these spoiled, bratty, hipster Millennials. We didn’t grow up with technology, you see. And technology changes everything. We grew up when the cutting edge technology was the cordless phone. The smartest thing about that phone was you could hide from your parents while you talked in your bedroom, instead of in the bathroom, which was the only place the cord reached.
Forget social media, we barely had computers. We got our first computer when I was in junior high, and it was a glorified electric typewriter. I printed my school papers out and then tore the strips with holes in it off the sides. I didn’t have an Ethernet connection until I went to college, and then I could stay on AOL Instant Messenger all day without tying up the phone line.
You younger Millennials have no idea.
The one thing we did have was that glorious year or so of Napster, when you could download every song you ever heard and talk yourself into thinking that it wasn’t wrong because there was no law against it. Of course, there were no iPhones or iPods, so you could only listen to said songs from your desktop computer, but still.
To right this injustice of those who grew up without technology being lumped in with iPad Zombies, the grand-Millennials have come up with a new term to describe themselves. Have you heard it? It’s called a Xennial, and it describes those born between 1977-1983. In other words, the youngest Gen Xers and the oldest Millennials.
It’s defined as a microgeneration of people who had an analogue childhood and digital adulthood. More importantly, Xennials combine Gen X cynicism with Millennial optimism. Both cynical and optimistic, huh? That’s quite the trick.
Xennials are currently aged 22-37. But the important thing you need to remember is they are NOT Millennials.
But you know what, fellow Xennials?
Thinking we are so unique that we need a special sub-generation is about the most Millennial thing that a person can do.
Think about it.