Sit back and prepare yourself for an hours worth of rambling by a madman. I hope this comes out intelligible and my points are made. As per usual, I will answer or elaborate on anything I wrote, just ask. Nobody does, but not many people actually read there. Thanks in advance to the few people what actually do.
Generation Y, Generation Me, Echo Boomers, Peter Pan Generation, or more commonly, Millennials is the generation I’m a part of. My generation is known by a lot of titles and they are almost always discussed in a negative context. Millennials are typically viewed as lazy hipster Starbucks addicts who went to school for a useless Liberal Arts degree and now lives as a financial burden on their parents because they can’t find a job in the field they choose to “waste” time studying.
But why are Millennials so unemployable? What drives so many of my generation to get degrees in fields that won’t hire them? And why are we viewed so negatively?
The average Class of 2016 graduate has $37,172 in student loan debt, which up six percent from the Class of 2015. The average entry level position has a pay rate of $42,000. So, that means that the Average graduate will be making about $5000 more per year than they owe for student loan debt, or $417/ month if they invested all the gross into repayment. Not bad, except the tax rate on that income is 25% if they’re not married so the capital they have to repay with is $31,500 or $2625/month, which is almost $6000 less than their loan amount. Not such a great start. Factoring average apartments in the top 50 US cities is about $1200 a month for a 1 bedroom, dropping your capital down to just over $1400/month. I’m going to skip all the other expenses, like utilities, car payments (if you’re even lucky enough to get approved for one), insurance, etc. For my argument’s purpose, we’ll look at that $1400/month, let’s remove $200/month for food as that is a basic necessity, and see how long it’ll take, ignoring interest, to pay off. So, we’re paying $1200/month on a $37,000 debt. Ignoring interest, it’ll be 31 payments or just over 2.5 years. And that is investing basically every penny we have and saving nothing.
And those are just the averages. Some have much higher debt like the family who inherited a $200,000 debt from their child who passed away, it started as a $100,000 but late penalties and interest rates as high as 12% doubled its value. My personal student loan debt is about $20,500, so lower than the average. I always bring home a modest $24,000/year gross. At the time of penning this, I’m a cook and we don’t make a lot. I’m one of the highest paid cooks I know, and that says something.
So, what does this matter? Well, we discussed the financial burden my generation lives with, but the part that almost nobody mentions to the kids in High School and College about the “Real World” is that getting a job, while you are in school, and especially after you finish, is very difficult. I studied Aerospace Engineering at Arizona State, and I’m currently studying Computer Science elsewhere, and I can’t find an entry level IT job anywhere. I can’t even find a basic 9-5 cubicle Hell job. Every entry level job is see wants a Bachelor’s and 5 years’ experience. And that is the crux of the issue my generation has, the Catch-22. I can’t get a job without experience because I can’t get a job to give me experience, so that I can get a job that requires that I have experience. FUCK!
So, back to the point, what is the point?
Oh, yeah! My generation isn’t nearly as lazy as we’re portrayed to be. Do we spend too much time online? Yeah, but that’s because everything Is online nowadays. Hell, I can’t even get an apartment or job without going online to fill out the application. So, we have no choice but to live online. There are companies out there that look people up on Facebook to see what kind of person the applicant is. In one my computer science classes, we were informed about how we need an online presence to be able to get certain opportunities. I know regular people who get to travel the world solely because of Cosplay. 26-Year-old adults who travel for a living to meet people at conventions while dressed up as Fictional Characters. They get paid to play dress up. Of course, these CosFamous people aren’t making millions off of playing dress up, most don’t even make enough to cover bills. And this is where they become a “burden” on their parents. I know a chick who travels a lot and still lives with her parents. They don’t care, but other not related people see her as a burden on them.
On to the next question, what drives so many of my generation to get degrees in fields that won’t hire them? Well that’s simple, it’s our parents and grandparents fault. Generation X and the Baby Boomers told us that we could do anything we dreamed of. Follow your dreams. You'll be much more successful if you follow your dreams and follow your passion. You can do anything you set your mind to. If you have a goal, and you want to achieve it, then work hard and do everything you can to get there, and one day it will come true.
That generic bullshit. And ultimately that’s what it’s become, bullshit lies. People always asked me when I was in high school what I would tell a younger version of myself and I never had an answer. I do now though. And it’s a quote from Ready Player One:
“I wish someone had just told me the truth right up front, as soon as I was old enough to understand it. I wish someone had just said: “Here’s the deal, Wade. You’re something called a ‘human being.’ That’s a really smart kind of animal. Like every other animal on this planet, we’re descended from a single-celled organism that lived millions of years ago. This happened by a process called evolution, and you’ll learn more about it but trust me, that’s really how we all got here. There’s proof of it everywhere, buried in the rocks. That story you heard? About how we were all created by a super-powerful dude named God who lives up in the sky? Total bullshit. The whole God thing is actually an ancient fairy tale that people have been telling one another for thousands of years. We made it all up. Like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. “Oh, and by the way … there’s no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. Also bullshit. Sorry, kid Deal with it.”
And:
“You were born at a pretty crappy time in history. And it looks like things are only gonna get worse from here on out.”
These are what us Millennials should have been taught. This is what we’re learning now.
Some people do get to leave a posh life without the crushing debt looming in the back of their minds, but not all of us.
So why are Millennials viewed so negatively though? Who do Boomers and Gen X seem so have so much distain towards us? I think it’s because they had opportunities we never will and they can’t understand that. I think it’s because Boomers didn’t have to go to College to get a job that would support a family, just graduate High School. Maybe all this advancing technology that we grew up with, and alongside, scares them because they can’t understand it and we use it so freely.
I think Millennials are so hated because we are a reflection of the previous generation’s failures. We didn’t allow the government to become so corrupt due to apathy and neglect. We didn’t destroy the Ozone by using Chlorofluorocarbon enriched products, or destroy the environment by driving gas guzzlers that spewed out tons of Carbon Monoxide. We didn’t start wars with no ends. We just tried to better our lives. We dream of having lives we seen on TV. We dream of going out to eat with family and friends and then paying the bill without even looking at the check. We dream of buying a house, or a car. We dream such simple dreams and we get hated for it. We were told to “Reach for the stars”, but we just wish we don’t have to stress about bills or live paycheck to paycheck.
We are a hated generation because we remind the previous two that we are stuck fixing everything they fucked up.
So, let them hate us. I revel in the idea that someone spends their time hating me.
We are a financial burden and we are hated because of the behavior of the those who hate us and limit our opportunities.
