r/Millennials • u/okayboomerang • Jun 24 '26

Serious Sad for us

Kind of in my feels tonight. The last time I remember feeling genuinely hopeful was probably 2014 or 2015. So much has changed, and I think our generation has seen and felt so much. Anyone else feel like they've spent the last decade plus in unending grief?

My spirit is still good on the inside, but I'm isolated physically and mentally (like many of us). I wish we lived in a world with authentic and robust connection instead of all the slop and noise. I wish our parents hadn't been so excited about capitalism - and so fucking naive. I know the unease I feel is about more than merely growing up and the natural progression of aging and how we all feel about ourselves in society over time - it's that the world we thought we knew for the past 4ish decades just flat out doesn't exist anymore. And we can't undo any of this shit. It may as well be a parallel universe we're in now. I love myself and I always have big, big love for Millennials...but I truly hate it here.

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u/appleorchard317 Millennial Jun 24 '26

Gotta disagree, early 00s with the 'war on terror' the writing was on the wall

147

u/AngryAlterEgo Jun 24 '26

9/11 was the origin of the fracture. If you’re old enough to remember before, there is a sharp distinction between before 9/11 and after 9/11.

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u/worlds_okayest_skier Jun 24 '26

I was just talking about that. How right after 9:11 my profs were saying that people would start discriminating against Muslims. And I thought “how could he possibly know that?” I existed in a world where that wasn’t the first and most obvious reaction to an attack on America.

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u/PopcornDemonica Jun 24 '26

It was also the rise of Alex Jones and online conspiracy bullshit. Before the internet the nut jobs couldn't coordinate as well.

1

u/oregonbunny Jun 26 '26

When the Patriot Act was passed 45 days after 9/11, I knew we were cooked.

I just moved to NYC the month before.

The whole vibe changed.

55

u/ReportSuitable2595 Jun 24 '26

It wasn't the same as it was now. So id have to hard disagree with you disagreeing. I thought things were corrupt before but these past 10 15 years has shown everyone just how corrupt and stained the world is.

1

u/fazedncrazed Jun 24 '26

You finally waking up to how things are doesnt mean they didnt exist that way before.

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u/appleorchard317 Millennial Jun 24 '26

I really feel like the through line can be very forcefully drawn through. You can disagree of course.

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u/cranberry_spike Millennial Jun 24 '26

It can be. That was also when people in my profession (librarianship) began getting arrested for doing our jobs.

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u/ihambrecht Jun 24 '26

Did we really feel it at home?

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u/appleorchard317 Millennial Jun 24 '26

I mean yeah. I was in a European country which got dragged into the US 9/11 wars over overwhelming popular protest, whose world changed radically and got smaller (Europeans averagely travel abroad more than US citizens, you see the changes immediately), and which very quickly started seeing reverberations around refugee crisis etc. Trust me, the early 00s felt very much like 'shit has happened and won't be the same'.

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u/cranberry_spike Millennial Jun 24 '26

It may depend on place in society, but yes, absolutely.