It started when Erika Mackley, a 34-year-old art director from Detroit, posed a tongue-in-cheek question to users on X: “i don’t want to hear your most boomer complaint. what’s your most millennial complaint?”
A “boomer complaint” is a concept that has floated around for a while. Typical ones might include people not working as hard anymore or everyone using their phone too much. Ms. Mackley’s post this week, aimed at a younger generation, prompted a mix of gripes and jokes, with posts about bringing heels back to the club, the golden age of comedy films (think “Horrible Bosses” and “Step Brothers”) and a longing for the return of television shows with 24-episode seasons.
“Everybody’s ringtone should still be a 30 second cut of their favorite song in terrible quality,” wrote Dom Pappagallo, 27, an actor from Boston.
i don’t want to hear your most boomer complaint. what’s your most millennial complaint?
— erika (@yeeeerika) January 14, 2025
As fellow millennials flooded Ms. Mackley’s replies it became clear that members of her generation were nostalgic for a relatively recent past that already felt far away, when large social issues like misinformation, fragmentation and artificial intelligence seemed less prevalent. And for an era in which social media was a place for harmless banter and fun.
Most of the responses — which were hardly limited to actual millennials — did not reach back to the 1990s, but rather to a prepandemic society, when technology seemed more user friendly and personal finances seemed more manageable.
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