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Millennials Don't Exist! Adam Conover at Deep Shift

Millennials Don't Exist! Adam Conover at Deep Shift

Adam Conover
5 HN recommenders · discussed 2016–2023
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About this video

Adam Conover's talk at a millennial marketing conference argues that generations are an unscientific, condescending idea and that millennials do not exist as a real category. The description notes that researcher Jean Twenge later said he misrepresented some of her work.

Why it appears in the archive

HN commenters cite it when arguing that generational labels are marketing inventions used to belittle groups.

AI-generated summary and labels from the source dataset; verify important details against the video. Source & credits.

From the Hacker News discussion

fattire · 2016-07 · rec

Agreed. My favorite quote was "In some ways I love being a millennial, because it’s so much easier to be better than the rest of our generation" I can't tell if this statement supports or contradicts the rest of the article, but regardless, this bears watching again... [VIDEO] The generational pile-on goes back and is pretty meaningless.

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zerognowl · 2016-11 · rec

Millennials don't exist, according to Adam Conover: [VIDEO] I'm careful using the word "Millennial" these days and increasingly skeptical of online articles with the word "Millennial" in the title. Thanks to shows like Adam Ruins Everything[1], I am more informed on a variety of topics. (I learn visually and prefer to watch his videos instead of read an article). [1]: [LINK]

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sr2 · 2017-06 · rec

I still see the term 'millennial fashion' and 'the noughties' been thrown around, but these are meaningless terms. Here's an interesting talk by Adam Conover debunking the term millennial: [VIDEO]

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djsumdog · 2017-07 · rec

It kinda makes me thing of the "Millennials Don't Exist" talk by Adam Conover. He talks about how generational terms are just made up by authors who want to get rich and they're almost always condescending (those entitled baby boomers, those lazy millennials, those gen x-ers) and how people don't liked to be talked down to: [VIDEO] Are millennials attached do their cellphones? Yes .. so are mothers, fathers, grandparents and some dogs. It's literally the most compact and powerful communication and computational device we've ever had. When you break down all the labels, all you really have is people. Talk to them like people.

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djsumdog · 2017-12 · rec

Adam (from Adam Ruins Everything) does a really good talk at a marketing conference on why Millennials don't exist. Generational titles are never used to bring people up, but always tear a group of people down. Time magazine covers about Baby Boomers from decades ago are almost identical to those calling Millennials entitled today: [VIDEO]

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djsumdog · 2018-05 · rec

I like to refer to Adam ruins everything on Millennials: [VIDEO] TL;DW Generational titles (Boomers, Gen X, Y, whatever) are invented by authors to sell books. They never bring people up and are always used to tear people down. Everything said about Millennials has been said about every generation ever. You can take a Time magazine cover from the 50s about the entitled generation and slap a modern photo on it and it's the same damn thing. It's lazy. Millennials are the most diverse of any generation. That's about all you can really say, other than we're the most in debt and most likely to take unpaid internships compared to any previous generation. It's a straw man and it needs to die.

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justin_oaks · 2023-10 · rec

Adam Conover did a great talk about this [0]. It was entitled "Millenials Don't Exist". In it he humorously but also seriously asserts that lumping people together as generations is useless at best and harmful at worst. [0] [VIDEO]

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djsumdog · 2017-06 · reference

There's a lot wrong with this article. Do people actually use their phones for transit? I have transit cards from like 10 cities, and transit cards don't run out of batteries. Cards/cash don't run out of batteries either, and you can use them to refill your transit card, and I don't see those getting replaced any time soon. (Germans still use cash for like everything, which feels weird in an EU country). And we still have plenty of phone booths ... if you need to take a piss. I'm pretty sure that's the only thing they're used for in London. Seriously don't touch those; they're disgusting. Do people actually meet legit partners and friends from apps? I've never met anyone off Tinder (I'm not all that cute really), dating websites are a wasteland and all the people I've had meaningful relationships I've met at things I like to do. Sure we have meetups, but they really just facilitate what we use to do with flyers/posters before. Meeting people still takes work. No one meets of Internet chat rooms like in the AOL/Seinfeld era. The Facebook generation of social networks wants you to only connect with people you already know. Smart phones, cell phones, affordable laptops, the Internet, television, radio, magazines, news and print media ... Every advancement is huge. Every advancement initially supplied free and open speech. Printing presses pre-civil war were less than $10k USD to setup (in today's money). Papers crossed the country and spread news and opinions. Large media, adver

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