Merp. The millennial cringe epidemic is getting out of hand. Photo courtesy of Unsplash. 

ANA DOLLARD | STAFF REPORTER | adollard@butler.edu

Ermagherd, millennials have been criticized lately. While once known as digital pioneers, millennials are gaining a reputation for something new — making videos that Gen Z hates.

Online, some users have even gone so far as to create millennial cringe compilations, putting together a string of laughable videos and ranking them in order of least to most cringy. What is it about these nearly middle-aged individuals that make them so disliked by their adjacent generation? 

Junior middle-secondary education major Margaret Smith believed the cause of the dislike comes from millennials infantilizing themselves online. 

“A lot of cringe millennial videos come down to millennials acting like children,” Smith said. “While there’s nothing wrong with enjoying media targeted toward a younger audience, there is an air of cringe watching people who are older trying to pretend that they are younger.” 

From Jim Carrey-inspired facial expressions to talking in a quirky, babyish voice that heavily features slang such as doggo, millennials seem to be obsessed with mannerisms that have lost their internet charm. 

Gen Z seems simultaneously entranced yet disgusted with watching millennials embarrassing themselves on the internet. It has gotten to the point where some members of Gen Z can recognize which videos one is discussing just with a simple description.

Sloane MacArthur, a first-year middle secondary education major, said there is one video in particular she is very familiar with. 

“There’s this one where this woman is singing this song, I think it’s something by Benson Boone, and she has a tongue piercing,” MacArthur said. “She sticks her tongue out and people make fun of her, and they put a little fruit loop on their tongue, because the piercing is absolutely ginormous. I’m not hating on her looks, for the record, I’m just saying it’s not the way I would go.”

The trend of millennial cringe begs the question: How did millennials go from being the O.G. hipsters to the laughingstock of the internet? 

Ryan Daugherty, a millennial himself and a lecturer of political science, has a few theories on his generation’s current online reputation. 

“The oldest millennials now are in their 40s; they have a mortgage and a kid,” Daugherty said. “We are aging out of being the trend-setters, and so that is where I think some of this comes in.” 

Indeed, it seems millennials are growing too old to be seen as the hip youngsters they once were. Now that millennials are moving on with their lives, becoming parents, living in real houses and getting grown-up jobs, they’re not in the hipster age range. After all, it is not often that a cool online adolescent role model has to drop their kids off at daycare.  

However, it was not always this way. Millennials once ruled the internet and were seen as the pioneers of the digital world. They even have a nickname — digital natives. While millennials’ understanding of technology is a phenomenon that seems here to stay, the internet is not what it used to be. 

Daugherty has watched the evolution of millennials online from within the digital trenches of early social media.  

“I think a lot of our norms online and norms in language [were] being set by being on social media,” Daugherty said. “But [we were also] figuring out — what is social media going to be? How are you actually supposed to engage in social media? And then eventually, how do you actually start to make money on social media?” 

The internet is a form of communication that millennials were the first to harness. With the click of a camera and the power of their thumbs, millennials had complete reign of the digital world. They thrived on MySpace, Youtube and Facebook, and often ran their own blogs. However, social media has evolved. From MySpace to Facebook to Instagram and now TikTok, social media has consistently progressed to shorter-form content that tends to be more video-based. 

There is one thing that can help bridge the gap and end the internet war between Gen Z and millennials. Pressing issues such as political instability and climate change have the potential to unite people across age gaps. While who is in charge of the culture remains contested, the ability of both generations to unify against oppressive forces will always remain strong. 

Daugherty had an idea of what this unity would look like. 

“We can come together to make a livable planet or livable home while still talking about how [millennial] TV shows are the best,” Daugherty said.