I agree with what the Time article says about millennials being “lazy, entitled, selfish, and shallow”, as author Joel Stein says it, as well as narcissistic. However, I disagree with how much of the blame for this is placed on the millennials themselves compared to their parents and the society they grew up around. People’s childhoods, and especially their parents, have an unsettlingly large effect on how people grow up and who they become, and as the article discussed, there are many hints as to why millennials turn out so narcissistic, such as their parents being apart of the “Me Generation”, the reality TV shows they grew up watching, and of course the rise of social media, which only took these negative traits and put them on blast for the whole world to see. I think the author puts it best, “They’re not a new species; they’ve just mutated to adapt to their new environment.” Millennials are just a product of the environment and society they grew up in and their characteristics are reflective of it. I could only hope that millennials can become aware of this and choose not to pass on such negative norms and values onto the next generations.

I also agree with the Buzzfeed article that the challenges faced by millennials are more systemic than they are personal. Our society has shifted to expect more of the individual, as the article states, “As American business became more efficient, better at turning a profit, the next generation needed to be positioned to compete. We couldn’t just show up with a diploma and expect to get and keep a job that would allow us to retire at 55.” With this in mind, I can agree that millennials have become “the Burntout Generation”. Additionally, I can agree with the idea of “intensive parenting” mentioned in the article. I personally see more parents who are over-protective of their children and instill their values strictly into their children. I think this is a product of parents being anxious and thus passing on this anxiety onto their children. As the article states, “They’d been guided closely all their lives, and they wanted me to guide them as well. They were, in a word, scared.”

I don’t consider myself a millennial mainly because I was born a few years too late to truly be considered a millennial. On top of this, I’m still young enough where I don’t face many of the major problems millennials are somewhat associated with, such as student loans and the financial crisis of 2008. However, I can associate with some of the other problems and traits commonly linked with millennials, such as the narcissism and the laziness, but I think that those traits are just as prominent in my generation. After reading these articles, I actually see a lot of similarities in the problems millennials had to deal with, (and still are), and the problems my generation is currently facing so I can identify with them.