“Millennial” is about the dumbest name anyone could have come up with to describe a generational group, and now we know that Gen-Xers aren’t the only ones to find it loathsome. A new Pew Research Center study has revealed that millennials are not happy about being called millennials either, and in response, some disassociate themselves from the title entirely.
The study was conducted by surveying 3,147 adults over a one-month period this year, and participants (ranging from ages 18 to 87) were asked to respond to five generational labels and then self-identify with one. According to the results, only 40 percent of millennials actually identify with the label, while another 30 percent on the older end of the age group (18 to 34, but you already knew that) believed that they were actually part of Generation X. Give me a break!
Boomers, on the other hand, couldn’t be prouder to consider themselves boomers: 79 percent of the study’s participants between the ages of 70 and 87 identified as such. Boomers, as well, see themselves mostly in a positive light. The most self-hating generational group in the study ended up being — surprise — those Vine-ing, twerking millennials, who were “far more likely than older generations to say the terms ‘self-absorbed,’ ‘wasteful,’ and ‘greedy’ apply to people in their age cohort,” the study says. Millennials, man. Lighten up!
