Millennial-bashing

Before I felt the need to write about the eclipse, I was going to start the week by deconstructing an article on a certain topic, and then exploring other aspects of it. The focus would be working on disinformation, and trying to understand things better.

I am going to bump that into next week, but I have something else available for deconstruction here:

http://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-are-killing-list-2017-8/

One reason the article struck me is that I had already seen another article on the second item, beer, and had some thoughts on that.

If you'll notice, beer penetration fell 1%. "Killing" seemed a little overdramatic for that small a percentage.

This article recognizes that, and explains how small consumption shifts can have a huge financial impact, though it mentions that specifically for "beer industry giants". I suspect if we took a closer look, we would find that millennials are more into microbrews than beer from the giants, but we know what they are really into is wine and hard liquor, to whom beer has lost 10% of its market share.

I am not that interested in what types of alcohol are being consumed, but I do question the phrasing. It could have been about millennials boosting wine sales, or liquor sales. Instead the millennials are billed as killers, a practice so common that there was a predictive text thing going around on Twitter: type in "Millennials are killing" and see what comes up!

Another thing that drew me to this article was the addition of "Psychologically scarred" to the title. It's nice that they put it in quotes, but it still seemed a little prejudicial. The worst part is that the explanation isn't really part of this article. There is a blurb before the main body that links to another article, and now apparently it is just an assumption that we are going to go with. Millennials were at an impressionable age when the Great Recession hit, and that has scarred them into being more cautious.

http://www.businessinsider.com/baby-boomers-caused-millennials-destructive-spending-habits-2017-6

Honestly, exercising some caution in purchasing would not be a terrible lesson to take from the Recession. Yes, the president at the time told assured us that everything could be fixed with conspicuous consumption, but that was never true and ignored a lot of things that were important.

That doesn't necessarily explain all of the dying industries. Golf in as expensive habit, but boutique yoga classes are too. You can spend a lot more on wine and spirits than if you only drink beer.

Also, in an age when so many people barely take in anything other than headlines, "killing 19 industries" remains overly prejudicial. A lot of the companies that make napkins also make paper towels, isn't it enough that they are still selling something? Are fewer Applebees really a tragedy? Is it a terrible thing that "brestaurants" (may I never type that word again) are declining?

Studies also indicate that millennials are less likely to cheat, and average fewer sexual partners than the generation before them. I mean, they're still young, there's still time, but if they do see more value in fidelity and sexual restraint, and one aspect of that is that they don't want to go to Hooters, this is not something I wish to criticize them for.

I also can't help but be aware that when they are interviewing millennials - many of whom sound terrible -- they tend to focus on white millennials with affluent parents; that is one type of experience, but not the only one. Talking about job loyalty with people who are well-connected and have always been kind of sheltered is different than talking to people who do not have that experience.

Millennials are waiting to settle down, and it could be that they are thinking about things like climate change and frighteningly authoritarian leaders, but marriage and especially birth rates have been falling for many countries, and for longer than millennials have been around. Maybe there is more to the story.

There is a often a failure to understand context and get the broader picture in articles on millennials, and I think there are two trends that make that worse.

One is the desire for dramatic headlines. That makes "killing beer" much more exciting than "boosting spirits" or even "drinking less beer". It's odd how it conveys a sense that these businesses have a right to sales, rather than capitalism and the free market being the ultimate good.

That leads to the other thing, which is a desire to blame everything on someone else. Millennials are not buying the right things, and not buying enough of the right things, and it's because of all the stupid trophies they got! They're bad!

It is never that simple. A news media that focuses on the easy sell is not helpful, but we don't need to fall for it.