It seems that the battle between the older generations and the younger ones will never end. Older people are disappointed that the youth don’t do things as they used to do and don’t have the same values. On the other hand, the younger people feel misunderstood, mistreated and hopeless to explain that the times have changed and they are just adapting to them.
Twitter often becomes the battlefield of these kinds of conversations and the most recent one that went quite viral was about Gen Z and Millennials being entitled because they go to work just for the money.
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A couple of Twitter users ranted about Millennials and Gen Z being entitled, but the rest of the internet completely disagreed
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It all started with Twitter user ARou06 posting her observation that Millennials and Gen Zs are entitled because they think they don’t need to do tasks they don’t want to do. In her eyes young people want to be praised but don’t want to put in the effort. She thinks that their problem is that they just don’t have a strong work ethic.
ARou06 got a reply from a like-minded Rebel Scum who added that young people not only have a poor work ethic, they also are clock-watchers. Instead of doing work in that one minute that remains until their break, they'd rather just sit and do nothing. It seems that Rebel feels disgusted that Millennials and Gen Z work only because they want to get that paycheck and don’t have any other motivation.
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Not only did they call young employees entitled, but also were disgusted by them watching the clock all the time and working only because they get paid
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The interaction between two women was screenshotted by rax ‘sandra lee enthusiast’ king with her own sarcastic twist and the tweet went viral with 95k likes. It went so viral that it possibly had an impact on the authors of the original tweets, because ARou06’s tweet is nowhere to be found and Rebel Scum’s account has been made private.
Although ARou06 and Rebel Scum were on the same wavelength, people who saw their interaction in the screenshot mostly argued that Millennials and Gen Zs are not lazy but just overworked and underpaid.
The internet had its own perspective on this issue
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Many people pointed out very valid points. For example, David Thompson turned the tables around saying that Millennials and Gen Zs had to learn such behavior from someone, like their parents or their grandparents who now complain about them being the way they are.
Another Twitter user, enjoy car soccer, thinks that the problem might be partly caused by the older generations who are very bad at managing people, because the employees can only be as good at their job as their managers are, seeing that they give orders and show the example of work ethic.
They thought the two women needed a reality check because they somehow weren't aware that jobs are needed to earn money to be able to survive
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Older generations call the younger ones snowflakes for complaining about everything and being too sensitive. It could very well be that Millennials and Gen Z are more sensitive, but Jennifer Robison, a senior editor at US analytics and polling company Gallup, thinks that “what appears to be needy or ‘snowflake-y’ in the young may actually just be the social norm of transparency.”
Older generations look down on young people, who like no other generation, are diagnosed with depression and anxiety so often. For them it proves the lack of resilience young people have, because they had it harder and they pushed through, but what they fail to recognize is that every generation has its own challenges.
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They pointed out that the younger generations had these bad habits instilled in them by someone, possibly the older people who raised them
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Twitter users didn't like the degrading tone the tweets were written in and they aren't looking forward to hearing it in real life
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The Lost Generation went through World War One, which was so traumatic that nobody could ever imagine, except for the Greatest Generation, who had to go through the same during World War Two. The Silent Generation grew up witnessing the financial collapse as a result of World War Two and some of them might have fought in the Korean or Vietnam wars.
The infamous Baby Boomers had their own issues. While Gen Z might accuse them of not having fought enough for climate change or financial inequality, they forget that they had to deal with racism and sexism first. Did you know that in the US, women couldn’t apply for credit cards separate from their husbands until the 1970s? And interracial marriage was illegal in some states until 1967?
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People shared some of their own experiences that even if they try to comply to what is expected for them, it is never good enough
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All of these experiences are incomparable and people are products of their time’s economy, education accessibility, technology, politics and societal norms. It’s easy to tell Millennials not to buy avocados and to save for a house when you don’t need to worry about it anymore. But estate prices go up disproportionally faster than average wages, which is what older people don’t take into account.
Accusing Gen Z of being weak is also unproductive because older people might think that expressing one’s feelings and being open about your problems is a weakness as they themselves were taught to suppress them. However, young people see vulnerability as empowering and talking about your problems is considered a way to solve them.
They also pointed out the discrepancies in those Twitter users' arguments, suspecting they don't completely know what they are talking about
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And showed how them accusing Millennials and Gen Z of being entitled kind of reflected their own entitlement
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All it takes to understand one another is a little bit of compassion. Accusing one another just creates a vicious circle of deepening the generational gap and exaggerating the stereotypes related to a certain age group.
Maybe you think differently and you see just one generation in the wrong? What do you think of the remarks made by ARou06 and Rebel Scum? Do you agree with them or are the opinions in the thread more near to your heart? Let’s discuss it in the comments!