A post asking for “millennial complaints” harkens back to a simpler era of social media

It started when Erica McLee, a 34-year-old art director from Detroit, starred in the questions for users on X: “I don’t want to hear your biggest complaints. What’s your biggest millennial complaint?”

The “boomer complaint” is a concept that has been around for a while. Typical ones might include people who don’t work as hard anymore, or who all use their phones too much. Ms McLealy’s post this week aimed at the younger generation has drawn a mix of boos and jokes, with reports of the return of the heels to the club, the golden age of comedy films (think Horrible Bosses and Step Brothers) and wanting to return to TV shows with 24-episode seasons.

“Everyone’s ringtone should still be a 30-second fragment of their favorite song of terrible quality.” wrote Dom Pappagallo, 27, is an actor from Boston.

As fellow millennials flooded Ms. McLea’s answers, it became clear that members of her generation were nostalgic for a relatively recent past that already seemed distant, when big social problems like misinformation, fragmentation and artificial intelligence seemed less prevalent. And for an era when social media was a place for harmless jokes and fun.

Most of the answers — which were hardly limited to actual millennials — weren’t about the 1990s, but rather about a pre-pandemic society when technology seemed more user-friendly and personal finances seemed more manageable.

Some mentioned inflation, and one user commented on wanting both avocado toast and housereferencing a nearly decade-old trope that said millennials will never be able to afford the latter if they continued to buy the former. Others longed for the days of cheaper Ubers, Chipotle cups and concert tickets.

Many of the complaints were about technology and digital media, drawing attention to how much the world of social media has changed since millennials came of age.

The publication appeared during a period of upheaval in the world of social networks. Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, the platform, now called X, has been in turmoil seismic changes. Facebook has removed fact-checking as Mark Zuckerberg promotes the concept “male energy”. AI has changed the way people consume content online. And on Friday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a federal law that effectively bans TikTok in the United States starting next week.

But Ms. McLea’s answers looked back not only at current problems.

36-year-old Tristan T. AND. Hill, a Los Angeles-based filmmaker, joked, “The downfall of BuzzFeed and the downfall of society really do go hand in hand.”

He recalled how between 2016 and 2018, BuzzFeed was his main source of funny content and sometimes news, all framed in a millennial voice. Now, he said, “everyone has their own social media and everyone is influencing their own content, it’s just created a lot more noise.”

“And with AI, you don’t even know who to trust anymore,” Mr Hill added. “Disinformation is going crazy.”

Shaelyn Avalon, a 28-year-old singer from Los Angeles, whose millennial complaint was about QR codes in restaurantscommented on the increased segmentation of social networks.

“In the last few years, groupthink has been much stronger on social media,” she said, which she feels is different than when she first started the YouTube channel in 2013.

According to X metrics, Ms McLea’s post about the complaints has been viewed more than 50 million times.

“Our generation has pulled the plug a little bit,” she said in a phone interview. “I’m over 30. We’re getting older and it seems like we’re not where we should be compared to our parents. A lot of the responses I saw were, “We’ll probably never own our own home” and “We work these crazy hours.”

“The millennial complaint,” she said, “is the inability to come forward” with a touch of humor. “Millennials seem to process things through memes.”

Inflation and rising costs have eroded morale, and perhaps a post like this gets so many responses because people longing for a time when everything was easier and calmer. Every generation is wary of change, and now that most millennials are over 30, it’s their turn to voice their grievances, Ms. McLee said.

Ms McLee said she felt nostalgic reading the responses, including one comment about the decline of flash games. “I remember going to the Nickelodeon website and turning on ‘Hello Arnold!’ a growing game,” she said.

“People were reliving their youth and their pre-30s,” Mr Hill said of the responses, adding that he often recalls a time when people danced more at parties and when it was cheaper to go out.

“I just can’t do what I thought was so much fun back then because there are more restrictions and it’s more expensive to be out now,” he said. “I always have friends who joke that it costs $100 to leave the house.”

Ms McLealy said that while she feels “everything is going downhill”, she wonders: “Is it just because I’m getting older?”

“The older generation always feels that way, doesn’t it?” said Kathy Carr, 63, a writer from Montclair, New Jersey, whose “millennial complaint” involved halos. “I mean, that’s how my father treated us.”