It’s anyone’s guess, though, what road Generation M is going to choose. The generation born from 1981 to 1998 that was discouraged from ever growing up is now creeping towards age 35, and despite a lot of time peering at its own navel, it still hasn’t worked out exactly what’s in there. Millennials are an unusually self-contradictory bunch, according to number-crunching books such as the thoughtful and personal new offering “When Millennials Rule: The Reshaping of America” by 20-something twins David and Jack Cahn, and Paul Taylor’s 2014 summation of Pew Research Center data “The Next America.”
Millennials support more gun control but oppose an assault-weapons ban. They’re blazingly optimistic, but they’re also terrified about how they’re going to pay the bills. They love President Obama despite opposing his two main legislative achievements. They’re the narcissist humanitarians. They tell marketers they care about sustainability and cruelty to animals, and yet their meat consumption is on a par with previous generations. They love socialism, so long as it doesn’t mean government taking over the economy or anything weird like that. They’re going to change the world, but they’re in no hurry to move out of the room over Mom’s garage.
You could say the millennials are nuanced, multifaceted and open to many modes of thought. Or you could get real and say that intellectually speaking, they’re a freaking mess.
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