The Millenials, Are We The Trapped Generation?

Marketing experts like to coin new terms for their convenient of segmenting market demographics. Thus, the terms like Generation X, Generation Y, and the Millennials are created. The exact definition of each generation are vague, but let’s just use the following definition from Wikipedia for the convenient of understanding the point in this article:

• The baby boomers are the generation that was born following World War II, generally from 1943–1960
• Generation X, commonly abbreviated to Gen X, is the generation following the baby boomers. Demographers and researchers typically use starting birth years ranging from the early-to-mid 1960s and ending birth years ranging from the late 1970s to early 1980s. 
• Millennials, also known as the Millennial Generation or Generation Y, are the demographic cohort following Generation X. Demographers and researchers typically use the early to mid-1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years.
• Generation Z, also known as the Post-Millennials or "the Information Generation"or the iGeneration or Homeland Generation or "The founders" or "Plurals" or 9/11 Generation, is the cohort of people born after the Millennials. Demographers and researchers typically use starting birth years ranging from the mid-1990s to early 2000s, while there is little consensus yet regarding ending birth years. Generation Z is known as the first generation not to have experienced life without technology or social media.

Each generation is born in different eras and tends to follow the same characteristics. These characteristics include their world view and work ethics as the product of the surrounding environment they lived in. These different and discrete economics and social environment also help shaping the definition of success that’s widely accepted by the society. Gen X, for example is born in the 60s. In Indonesia and most Asian countries this is the early period of independency from foreign power. They were raised by parents who struggle or even fight during the WW II. Hard work is etched in their mind as the natural key for success. These period is also the period of national reconstruction, consequently infrastructure projects and business ventures were flourishing. Finding the perfect ‘gap’ (essential things that the people need but not yet fulfilled) and become the first to fill the ‘gap’ is the second key of success. It doesn’t really matter whether you enjoy working to fill the gap or not, or do you even understand about the goods. You just have to sell the products and learning by doing. What if you don’t enjoy it? Well, remember the first key of success is hard work, not enjoyable work.

Following the generation X is the Millenials. I was born in 1995, so I fall into this category. We live in an awkward position. We’re the generation who popularise internet and invent most of the modern technologies. We’re the one who brought the second most important revolution in the history of media, the birth of Internet or the Information Revolution, as I like to call it. Internet became a common thing at first by the work of the Millenials, however, we’re not the digital native. We’re still raised by Gen-X parents who believes in hard work, we still played the traditional games and watched TV before shifting into playing online games and watching Youtube. Shouldn’t it give us more advantages as we lived in the world we somehow actively creating? It should, but wait a minute the clock is still ticking, new generation is arising.

It’s the Gen Z! Those who we can call the digital native. They don’t live the childhood without internet, they are used to type rather than writing, they believe in innovation and passion. Work should be enjoyable and fulfilling. It’s not all about generating wealth anymore, it’s about making meaning with their work. They have the advantage of understanding modern technology and internet earlier than the Millenials. Internet has enabled this generation to access much more information during the early years of their life. During the golden age of absorbing knowledge, the Gen Z are equipped with Internet as their powerful tool in learning more and more things. If put to the right use, a lot of Gen Z could be more knowledgable and skilled than its predecessor generation.

These advantages of the Gen Z leave us (the Millenials) in a pretty awkward position. The Gen Z are better prepared facing the era of information technology (IT), while we as the creator of the IT can compete on the same level as them. On the other hand, we have to face the pressure or at the very least the need to explain to our parents (the Gen X) how things work in our era. These factors make us - the Millenials -, the trapped generation. As the trapped generation we face a lot of challenges in competing with the more modern Gen Z. Fortunately, it’s not all that bad.  As we’re not only the trapped generation, we’re the transition generation. We could benefit from synthesising values from our predecessor and successor generations.   

The Gen Z might seem perfect. But, it also has its own problems. Generally, they are not used to hard work and big struggle as most of them live in peaceful and comfortable time. We could really benefit from the values of hard work ethics and sacrifice our mom and dad incessantly ‘brainwash’ us. The Gen Z is also prone to boredom, leaving them inconsistent on the things they do. The options are just too abundant, they could easily switch from one to another. The value of patience that were passed to us by our Gen X-parents could really give us the upper hand here. 

Certainly, I’m not suggesting that one generation is better than the other, and the different generations should fight in a battle royale till we got the winner. Every single generation has its own values that are respectable and undoubtedly useful in facing the challenges in each period of time. The Millenials, though I refer as the trapped generation is not completely sans-advantages-generation. We could capitalise from our position and instead use it as the added value in competing in the modern world we’re not natively prepared to fight on. 

Old thought from weeks ago, put into article by the power of caffeine in the 

Starbucks' Caramel Coffe Jelly. 

*) Not a product endorsement, but it's true

May 30, 2017

2:14 AM