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The whining of the Millennial generation have been heard across the universe. If there is one thing Millennials have taught humankind, it’s how to complain about the slight inconveniences of living in the first world. Here are seven first world problems you will only understand if you were born between the early 1980s and 2000s.
1. Not knowing whether to Tweet, Facebook, Snapchat, GChat, text or send a freaking carrier pigeon to your friend. Asking your friend what they’re doing is not as easy as it used to be. We’ve got many, many options. Sometimes it can take a whole minute to decide how to contact someone. And sometimes that decision can feel so hard we just give up.
2. Growing up a snowflake child. Do you know what it’s like growing up being told the sun rises just to shine on you … only to find out you’re pretty much as super special as everyone else? So when we don’t get that second interview (more on that later), we are left wishing everyone in the world would be replaced with our mothers. They would have hired us on the spot.
3. Not getting a decent-paying (or any) job after college. Thanks, Internet, we get it. We’re just lazy and spoiled snowflake children, right? Sure the economy is bad, but you just got to try harder, say all the people who grew up when the economy was fine and dandy. Too bad our great-grandparents weren’t around. They’d understand our struggle #GreatDepression.
4. Being able to buy pretty much anything we want, when we want, from where we want. Who really shops in stores anymore? I mean, you can always find something cheaper online. Plus, it just shows up at your door a few days after you click a few buttons and surrender your payment information. It all happens so fast it’s almost like it didn’t even happen at all. And then you check your bank account. Whoops, definitely happened. OK, I lied earlier, because we definitely go to stores to return things we bought online because they don’t fit … or more likely because we need our money back in order to feed ourselves.
5. Running out of dry shampoo. Other (I can only imagine greasier) generations went without this miracle product for a long time. Reportedly, they sometimes would sprinkle (and not conveniently spray) talcum powder to soak up their excess hair grease. We are spoiled blessed with having dry shampoo to instantly gratify our desire for clean, silky locks. So what to do with post-I-danced-my-heart-out-on-the-dance-floor hair when you don’t have dry shampoo on hand? Or, even worse, when your dry shampoo runs out when you’ve only done half your hair? Are we actually expected to spend our precious energy, time and youth showering? Obviously we need an online store that both sells dry shampoo and does same-morning delivery.
6. Having to figure out the correct hashtag or handle. So you go to your friend’s birthday party and get your Instagram at the ready, but was it #JamesTurns21 or #LegallyJames? You can’t be the lame-o who uses the wrong hashtag. The horror. You’d rather show up to the party wearing the same dress as someone (which would at least be share-worthy, #twinsies). It seems everything has a specific hashtag or handle (often @NothingResemblingActualName) these days, and not using the right one is like singing along to the wrong song at a concert.
7. Trying to read online articles that aren’t in “Millennial Format.” You click a link to an article and you see paragraphs of varying lengths separated by nothing but space, and you’re like: You expect me to read that? Millennial Format, as it shall hence be called, is a time-saving, skim-reading-friendly way to lay out an article. It includes lists (you’re welcome, readers), gifs and super short stanzas. It’s not because we’re lazy … it’s because we’re “internet efficient.”
Beatrice Strnad is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications that cover topics such as beauty, fashion, technology and literature. She writes frequently for The Style Glossy.