I have suddenly grown tired of the term millennial. It’s as overused as the Kardashian’s love of the word “like”. I loathed the terms Generations X and Y and never liked Baby Boomer
I was born in 1959, which places me at the end of boomerdom. I had no war to protest, burnt bras had stopped smoldering. Disco reared its ugly head. There.was inflation but I wasn’t a real consumer in my teens. You could be have been referencing putting air in a volleyball, for all I knew. If it didn’t affect my pubescent world. Then in 1977, I took a nap and when I woke up, it was 2016.
And I woke up to thevrealization that I had become irrelevant.
The business world of goods and services must appease the millennials. If you’re 32 and older, you don’t matter, because by that time you know you like Coors and Oreos and Ford Sedans. You’ve lived long enough to establish your tastes, likes, dislikes and brand loyaltIes. Doesn’t matter that a millennial is just starting out and broke. Consequently,it doesn’t matter if you’re 60 and worth two million.. The millennials are determining what they like and don’t like…..from gum to politics. They try different things on their way to becoming part of ye olde establishment.
Advertisers, media buyers, etc, love this. They focus almost myopically on this consumer sojourn of millennials. But in ten years, it’ll be a whole new crop of young consumers who’ll have a moniker….I’m hoping it’ll be something as simple as consumers.
Youth. I remember it well. I was 20 once myself, with a killer metabolism—like a blast furnace, I tell ya. I could take a One A Day vitamin with iron and fart nails 20 minutes later. But time marches on. And it starts marching faster every day.
So enjoy it all you, young,cool, hipsters: Revel in your taught skin and lovely full manes of hair, because I have news for you—- hot flashes, arthritis, sagging, never ending foreheads and erectile dysfunction are in your future, along with sweating in places you never knew had sweat glands. Don’t even get me started on the smells!! But yes, it’s true…it all lies in wait. Aging isn’t for the weak. And you’ll be amazed at what no longer matters and suddenly, what does.
Trust me, its tough being hip when yours is made of titanium
