Several weeks ago, self proclaimed “professional journalist” Alexis Bloomer posted a two-minute video to Facebook listing all the faults and failures she finds in millennials.
The video went viral and has been viewed more than 40 million times.
However, her rant was not supported by facts or evidence. It was a pure appeal to emotion that grouped every millennial into the same set of actions and behaviors.
Bloomer made several attacks against my generation and I wish I had the time to address them all, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll only address my personal favorites.
She began by claiming our generation lacks manners and respect for our elders, which is merely a stereotype perpetuated by observations of a small portion of millennials and do not represent our entire generation or even the majority of us.
I challenge her to support this claim with a research study or a statistic.
She said we listen to obscene music that degrades women and glorifies drugs and crime, which is interesting because she implies these songs have a negative affect on millenial behavior.
In reality, millennials, on average, have had fewer sexual partners than the past two generations and the crime rate and drug and alcohol use have all been sharply declining since the 1990s.
Bloomer called us lazy and entitled. She claims we want free education, but aren’t willing to work for it.
Again, this is interesting, because the high school dropout rate has been declining for the past decade, but so has the college enrollment rate. In reality, our generation is putting in the effort to get their diplomas without the expectation of going to college for free.
Yes, like the rest of the Western world, many of us think public collegiate education should be tuition-free, because education shouldn’t be a privilege. Everyone should have the right to learn and be able to see a doctor without worrying about how to pay for it.
That’s not entitlement. That’s being a decent human being.
She claimed millennials have more opportunities to succeed than any past generation, yet we don’t appreciate them.
Now, I would hate to validate her idea that millennials are disrespectful, but Bloomer must be living under a rock.
Since Clinton’s administration, American jobs have been outsourced at an exponential rate. Outsourcing to China alone has cost us 3.2 million jobs in the past 15 years.
Since Obama took office, 88 percent of jobs created have been part time. Since people like Bloomer refuse to raise the minimum wage, I fail to see how millennials are supposedly being handed all of these opportunities.
She also said, “Everything that used to be frowned upon is now celebrated.” And I hope older generations get used to that, because gay marriage — and whatever else we used to frown upon — isn’t going away.
Of course, she mentioned how addicted we are to social media, which she used to post her video, so “hypocrite” might be an applicable noun here.
She blamed us for dividing the country, disrespecting our soldiers, not valuing anything, cussing, idolizing Kim Kardashian, stepping on our flag and taking advantage of everything.
So thank you, Bloomer. Your video proves the hatred toward millennials is rooted in misguided emotions, anecdotes and stereotypes.
The facts reveal millennials are more well-behaved, loving, hard-working and struggle more to achieve the American Dream than any generation before them.
thshowal@indiana.edu
@TherinShowalter
