Privileged, techy hipsters? It’s time to retire the Millennial caricature

Editor’s note: Madison Cuneo is an analyst at Portland-based market research firm Market Strategies International. This is an edited version of a post that originally appeared here under the title, “A researcher’s perspective on what ‘Millennial’ really means.”

The term “Millennials,” describing today’s youngest generation to reach adulthood, is thrown around a lot. When you think of Millennials, do you think of privileged hipsters with a knack for tech? If so, let’s take a step back. It’s time to admit that the Millennial has become a caricature. This might produce some great entertainment (like this SNL skit), but it’s not helpful to those trying to glean real information about generational groups. We’ve got to understand that Millennials are not a clique of hip, white 20-somethings with rich parents; they’re America’s largest and most diverse generation, and when it comes to analyzing them or any other age cohort they deserve a fair shake.

Why has the Millennial become such a cartoonish character? A big part of it is a human need to organize, contain and make sense of the complexity in any group as large as a generation. Perhaps another element is juvenoia, a fear for the well-being of youths that can taint the way we interpret their actions and forecast their future. We’re desperate to classify and fix the youngest generation that has come of age; the generation we’re hanging our hats on to fix a lot of things: government, renewable energy, climate change, ethics in public and private sectors, as well all the “isms” (sexism and racism, to name a couple). We demean them, and at the same time announce that they can solve our problems. But this caricature of Millennials, and indeed a flat view of any generation, points to an incomplete understanding of how and why researchers look through the generational lens at all.

It seems journalists have been fascinated by Millennials for years, as they often are by the youngest adult generation. Many readers will remember that Time magazine cover story in 2013, the “Me me me generation,” but you’ll have to think a little further back to recall Time’s 1990 “twentysomething” cover story on Generation X. It’s an entertaining exercise to hypothesize about “kids these days,” but articles on the topic often don’t paint a complete picture. Millennials are not the only example, but they are the most recent and the easiest thanks to their prevalence in online media.

Most articles have characterized Millennials as college-educated, upper-middle class young people, but that doesn’t describe many of the more than 75 million people born since 1980. One in five Millennials are poor. Roughly three quarters have not earned a bachelor’s degree or higher. Still, this personality is perpetuated because people often prefer melodramatic claims to more complex explanations. Further fueling the fire, marketers try to pin down the characteristics and desires of a generation to court its buying power. Business interests often fuel a shared desire to understand generational cohorts, but do not necessarily drive enlightened research.

Examining generations can be an interesting exercise, though it is often conducted poorly in mainstream media. When approached thoughtfully, grouping by generations allows researchers to employ an approach called cohort analysis, tracking a group of people born at a similar time over the course of their lives. When looking through the generational lens, a researcher must be extremely cautious to qualify her terms, set careful parameters and examine her assumptions. Aside from focusing on an easy slice of the Millennial population (the aforementioned privileged college students), some journalists attribute key features of Millennials as unique to their cohort, when in reality these features apply to other generations as well.

A thorough researcher may tease out three possible effects on a generation: cohort, life cycle and period. Pew Research provides a great overview of these, but here’s a synopsis:

• Cohort effects. Generally, when journalists write about what makes a given generation unique, they point out cohorteffects – differences that are the byproduct of the “unique historical circumstances that members of an age cohort experience, particularly during a time when they are in the process of forming opinions.” However, characteristics of a generation are often misidentified as a result of cohort effects when, in actuality, they represent other influences that are not unique to the generation in question.
• Life cycle effects. Also known as age effects, these are simply differences that occur because of the relative age of two groups or their relative positions in the life cycle. For instance, younger individuals are much less likely than older people to vote and be politically engaged. According to Pew, “This may be because they are less informed about politics or feel they have less at stake in political or policy debates. As people age, they vote at higher rates and their level of political engagement rises.”
• Period effects. These have an impact on all generations at the same time, when events, circumstances and broader social forces “simultaneously impact everyone, regardless of age.” A striking example occurred directly after 9/11 when, for a limited time, there was an immediate rise in patriotism across all generations.

Those interested in analyzing generations should also keep in mind that generations are subjective age cohorts. While these categories are roughly delineated by historical events and are frequently used, this does not make them the best lens for all applications. Firstly, there can be considerable variance within generations. We’re used to the established generations that can span 15 or 20 years, but breaking these up into smaller age spans, or age spans gauged on specific events, can yield more meaningful insights. Secondly, if points of difference are driven by life cycle rather than cohort, then using simple age groups rather than cohorts may provide a more meaningful view. Thirdly – as cool as the groups Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X sound – consider whether other demographics are more applicable. Don’t fall into the trap of using generation as a proxy when key differences are really driven by other factors such as diversity (ethnicity), education, income level or other factors.

Generations are big and nuanced. They are complex enough that distilling them into sound bites is attractive but ultimately unproductive. This is why many individuals chafe at their generational label. Millennials are an easy example. I can’t forget the reaction of a friend, born on the cusp of the Millennial generation, when I pointed out that she belonged to my cohort. She heaved a long sigh that sounded a lot like “ugghhh.” I winced at her resistance to being grouped with me and my peers but couldn’t blame her. We can take solace that in time this identity will be less of a pain point – as soon as the next generation comes of age, and the media locates its new target (good luck, Generation Z). After all, George Orwell had a point: “Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.”