Ah, millennials. The media’s scapegoat du jour. They’re the ones lambasted for having less sex, taking fewer vacations, and splashing out mad cash for artisanal booze and bucket-list dining. And sometimes, they’re the ones who are fun to mock on Twitter for not being familiar with certain people or things.
HashtagRoundup must have thought they were getting into the millennial-bashing fun when they started the hashtag #HowToConfuseAMillennial on Sunday. At first, people were tweeting jokes about rotary phones and the Sony Walkman, because kids these days aren’t familiar with obsolete technology, which is totally not true of every generation.
But it didn’t take long for the millennials themselves to realize there are good reasons to be confused, and even angry, as confused and angry as Charlie Day if you tell him to just get a job.
And so #HowToConfuseAMillennial quickly turned into a collection of fantastic clapbacks from sarcastic millennials. From pointing out the hypocrisy of Baby Boomers calling anyone else selfish, to lamenting unpaid internships and student loans, to kvetching about wages that have been stagnating as productivity and the cost of education and housing have outpaced inflation, millennials weren’t pulling punches about the good reasons they could be confused with the way things are. We’ve collected our favorite salty tweets below.
Destroy the housing market
Replace grad jobs with unpaid internships
Tell them to buy a house— Carl Kinsella (@TVsCarlKinsella) September 4, 2016
#HowToConfuseAMillennial Rant about how "everyone gets a trophy these days" while sipping from your World's Greatest Dad coffee mug
— John Wolfe (@JohnWolfeYT) September 5, 2016
https://twitter.com/BlackAutonomist/status/772527305243713536
https://twitter.com/MiettaEleni/status/772637548531191808
Tell them mental health is important while they run between three part-time jobs. #HowToConfuseAMillennial
— Asher Wolf (@Asher_Wolf) September 5, 2016
https://twitter.com/NoMayoTears/status/772514525916438528
#HowToConfuseAMillennial Crash their economy and then condescendingly ask why so many of them are living with their parents.
— Plexiglass Money Toilet (@Notintheface1) September 4, 2016
#HowToConfuseAMillennial Hike up the prices of everything, stagnate wages, then insist it's their fault for not buying and spending
— JH (@IsAlrreadyTaken) September 5, 2016
https://twitter.com/vibills/status/772640308349710337
https://twitter.com/ellliotaIderson/status/772437133579677697
https://twitter.com/thelindsayellis/status/772454574036750336
https://twitter.com/imkxren/status/772436462725918720
https://twitter.com/gregmcintyre/status/772642582987874304
https://twitter.com/AndyKirn/status/772558784933744641
#HowToConfuseAMillennial bring back the high-paying jobs with benefits that corporations have been offshoring for 40 years
— adam wilson (@theleanover) September 4, 2016
https://twitter.com/EthanTarr/status/772421140807581696
https://twitter.com/RicheyCollazo/status/772518667514806273
Criticize them for being on their phones 24/7 then run to them when you don't know how to operate the remote. #HowToConfuseAMillennial
— VEBS ABI (@isayness) September 5, 2016
https://twitter.com/jimmysharpe_/status/772640506010476545
#HowToConfuseAMillennial re-enact the contempt for the younger generation that your parents infuriated you by expressing
— thomas violence (@thomas_violence) September 5, 2016
Everyone in the #HowToConfuseAMillennial tag pic.twitter.com/RyBIgqKIsr
— Scout Black (@scoutblack13) September 4, 2016
