Millennials Don't Exist! Adam Conover at Deep Shift
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters cite it when arguing that generational labels are marketing inventions used to belittle groups.
What it is
Adam Conover's talk at a millennial marketing conference argues that generations are an unscientific, condescending idea and that millennials do not exist as a real category. The description notes that researcher Jean Twenge later said he misrepresented some of her work.
Recommended by 5 HN commenters across 7 different months, 2016 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Recommends fattire · 2016-07 · on “I’m a millennial and my generation sucks”
Agreed. My favorite quote was "In some ways I love being a millennial, because it’s so much easier to be better than the rest of our generation" I can't tell if this statement supports or contradicts the rest of the article, but regardless, this bears watching again... [this video] The generational pile-on goes back and is pretty meaningless.
Recommends zerognowl · 2016-11 · on “3 Out of 4 Millennials Have Received Financial Help from Parents After College”
Millennials don't exist, according to Adam Conover: [this video] I'm careful using the word "Millennial" these days and increasingly skeptical of online articles with the word "Millennial" in the title. Thanks to shows like Adam Ruins Everything[1], I am more informed on a variety of topics. (I learn visually and prefer to watch his videos instead of read an article). [1]: [LINK]
Recommends sr2 · 2017-06 · on “Decades”
I still see the term 'millennial fashion' and 'the noughties' been thrown around, but these are meaningless terms. Here's an interesting talk by Adam Conover debunking the term millennial: [this video]
Recommends djsumdog · 2017-07 · on “I'm not a Woman in Tech”
It kinda makes me thing of the "Millennials Don't Exist" talk by Adam Conover. He talks about how generational terms are just made up by authors who want to get rich and they're almost always condescending (those entitled baby boomers, those lazy millennials, those gen x-ers) and how people don't liked to be talked down to: [this video] Are millennials attached do their cellphones? Yes .. so are mothers, fathers, grandparents and some dogs. It's literally the most compact and powerful communication and computational device we've ever had. When you break down all the labels, all you really have is people. Talk to them like people.
Recommends djsumdog · 2017-12 · on “Why We Blame Millennials for Everything”
Adam (from Adam Ruins Everything) does a really good talk at a marketing conference on why Millennials don't exist. Generational titles are never used to bring people up, but always tear a group of people down. Time magazine covers about Baby Boomers from decades ago are almost identical to those calling Millennials entitled today: [this video]
Recommends djsumdog · 2018-05 · on “Americans Are a Lonely Lot, and Young People Bear the Heaviest Burden”
I like to refer to Adam ruins everything on Millennials: [this video] TL;DW Generational titles (Boomers, Gen X, Y, whatever) are invented by authors to sell books. They never bring people up and are always used to tear people down. Everything said about Millennials has been said about every generation ever. You can take a Time magazine cover from the 50s about the entitled generation and slap a modern photo on it and it's the same damn thing. It's lazy. Millennials are the most diverse of any generation. That's about all you can really say, other than we're the most in debt and most likely to take unpaid internships compared to any previous generation. It's a straw man and it needs to die.
Recommends justin_oaks · 2023-10 · on “Gen Z wants less sex in TV and movies”
Adam Conover did a great talk about this [0]. It was entitled "Millenials Don't Exist". In it he humorously but also seriously asserts that lumping people together as generations is useless at best and harmful at worst. [0] [this video]
Cites djsumdog · 2017-06 · on “A Sociology of the Smartphone”
There's a lot wrong with this article. Do people actually use their phones for transit? I have transit cards from like 10 cities, and transit cards don't run out of batteries. Cards/cash don't run out of batteries either, and you can use them to refill your transit card, and I don't see those getting replaced any time soon. (Germans still use cash for like everything, which feels weird in an EU country). And we still have plenty of phone booths ... if you need to take a piss. I'm pretty sure that's the only thing they're used for in London. Seriously don't touch those; they're disgusting. Do people actually meet legit partners and friends from apps? I've never met anyone off Tinder (I'm not