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Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996, meaning that today, they are between the ages of 25 and 40. Let’s talk quickly about some things that happened at a pivotal time in life for those born between 1981 and 1996. For starters, we saw the first smartphone in 1992, at which point some millennials were entering those formative middle school years, and some were not yet even born. We saw the Y2K hysteria – remember that when we thought the Internet would essentially destroy us? On a very dark note, some millennials witnessed the 911 attacks. Some millennials were barely pre-teens when it occurred, and some were in high school. They were old enough to have adults tell them what happened and young enough for it to play a large role in their emotional development. There are some experiences like these that most millennials of all ages connect to. But, there is still a pretty big gap – in terms of time, and cultural shifts – between old and young millennials.
Today an older millennial is closer to a mid-life crisis than not. While a younger one may just be wrapping up college, since taking some gap years to “find one’s self” has become so popular. Older millennials may have a few kids, while younger ones might reject any old philosophies that say having kids is “what we’re here to do.” In some ways we’re the same, but in others, from another planet. Here are major differences between old and young millennials.
Young millennials always had a smartphone
I’m right there in the middle. I’m 32. I got a cell phone in high school, but not a smartphone until college. Young millennials don’t remember an age without smartphones. The moment they became curious about the world – like about sex and drugs and just about everything – they also had every way possible to learn about it. Those curious teen years came along for young millennials, and they had plenty of resources at their fingertips to look things up, whether their parents wanted them to, or not. On the flip side, their parents could keep track of them through the GPS trackers in their smartphones, so that was a security plus. Young millennials never had to stop talking to their friends. They had text and FB message and all of that.
Old millennials were lucky to have any phone
When I was a teenager, all of the conventional “blocks” were still in the way of me chatting with my friends or boys I liked. I still dealt with dial-up internet. Young millennials don’t know what that is. And we could run out of Internet, you know, floppy disk style. Again, young millennials don’t know what that means. The Internet has always been limitless to them. For the most part, as a kid and teen, if I wanted to flirt with a boy or gossip with a friend, I had to wait until I saw them, in person, at school. And I even had to wait until lunch break. I couldn’t text them from class. With what? I didn’t have a cell phone.
Young millennials saw “The Last Blockbuster” this way
If you’ve seen the documentary “The Last Blockbuster” you may have noticed the moment in which the manager of the true last Blockbuster walks the camera crew through the process of renting the movie. How to open the box. How the DVD was scanned. What the Blockbuster member card looked like. That moment was in there for young millennials who never had the experience of renting a physical movie. To them, that was actually novel information. That was stuff of the past. The physical DVD and even the store itself seemed odd and foreign to them.
Old millennials saw “The Last Blockbuster” this way
My husband and I cocked our heads sideways, like confused puppies, when they explained what it meant to rent a movie in “The Last Blockbuster.” We didn’t know why they felt the need to explain that. And then we realized: ooooh. People younger than us do need this explained. And we immediately realized we fell into the one of two types of people on this earth today: those who have checked out a physical DVD that needed to be dropped off by a deadline, and those who have not. We could also almost smell the Blockbuster location when they showed it on the screen, and we had our stories about spending hours at the store, shooting the sh*t with friends. We’d spend more time picking out a movie than it took to watch one.
Young millennials understand TikTok
Young millennials are killing it at TikTok. The largest group of TikTok users are between the ages of 10 and 19. Let’s review that again: 10 and 19. Some of these kids haven’t yet gone through puberty, and they know just how to set the perfect song to the perfect meaningless dance to get 10,000,0000 views and a sponsorship deal. They might make millions on the Internet before they’re old enough to be in charge of their own finances. Way before. They understand that in order for a video to go viral, it needs to be under 15 seconds long. They know how to communicate a message or make a person laugh in a quarter of a minute.
Old millennials remember MySpace
Old millennials were around for the OG of social media: MySpace. On MySpace, it was encouraged to craft novel-length posts about revelations about life and love and politics. The concept of the influencer did not yet exist. You didn’t have followers: you had friends. Social media was used just for that: to be social. Not to “build a brand.” Not to get involved in paid partnerships. It was just a place to ask your old middle school buddy who you haven’t spoken to in years how he’s doing since his divorce. There were no articles out about how to be successful on MySpace because there was no such thing as a social media manager at that time.
Young millennials are woke
Young millennials are typically at the forefront of identifying what mascot or phrase or slogan has been around for decades but is actually so not okay. There is now an entire job dedicated to making sure everything that a brand or network puts out is politically correct. My friend has been hired by one TV network to re-watch every old episode of shows they made before the year 2015 and flag any moments that don’t hold up to today’s standards for political correctness. If you’re an old millennial, you can be certain that someone will come down on you for not being progressive. And you can be certain that person will be a young millennial.
Old millennials get lectured on being woke
Back to the last point, older millennials are young enough to understand there are many ways we’ve done things for many years that aren’t right, but a little too old to know just what those things are. They aren’t ahead of the curve on identifying a new way we must eliminate oppressing and sexist and racist and inappropriate traditions. They’re always just behind it, frantically scrambling to delete Tweets and emails after learning they may have said or done something they weren’t supposed to. I can’t count the number of 40-something men who’ve said they wonder when the ax will drop on them in the #MeToo movement. Meanwhile, young millennial men know just what to do to make sure that never happens.
Young millennials call out bad adults
The idea that adults can be predators to children has really only entered the ether in a real way in the last decade or so. There have been many celebrities exposed for sexually preying in minors, and now, (hopefully) young millennials know how to spot a situation like that, and feel fully empowered to call it out. It’s very normal that classes and workshops for both children and adults exist to inform the students on the appropriate ways to behave and how to protect themselves from either being victims, or being accused of being perpetrators. It’s a part of the conversation.
Old millennials had that creepy teacher
When I was 15, I took driving lessons with a 50-something-year-old man who my parents didn’t know at all. He was just the guy sent by the driving school that day. I remember he told me several times that my eyes were pretty. We were alone, in a car, that I didn’t know how to drive, and that he had full control over. None of this struck anyone as problematic back then, and yet it would never happen today. I only realize, now that these conversations are happening, how inappropriate that was back then. And, that I may have even been in danger.
