The one Millennial habit I’ll never give up

One minute you’re the *hip young people*, and then you blink and you’re suddenly the butt of the joke. 

This is the rude reality Millennials – the artist formerly known as Gen Y – have been thrust into in their thirties and beyond. And while every generation weathers a version of this process, surely it’s never been this virulent before.

With the internet as their megaphone, our Gen Z counterparts have made a sport of ruthlessly picking apart each and every single thing we say, do, wear, eat, enjoy – from our selfie method and reliance on terms like “adulting” to our music. (I almost blacked out when I heard someone refer to The Strokes as ‘dad rock.’)

Many of us have pursued an ‘adapt or die’ approach, dragging our side parts to the middle, embracing wide-legged pants and trying to pull off conveying amusement with a skull emoji, rather than ye olde faithful crying-laughing face.

But it seems there are some more ingrained habits we, as a generation, aren’t willing to shake, regardless of the potential for ridicule.

For me, it’s the ‘big task = big screen’ mentality – something I didn’t realise was particularly Millennial until memes calling it out started flooding my feeds and informing me that I am, in fact, a cliché. 

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You will never catch me booking a flight, making a significant purchase or doing any remotely important administrative task on a phone. I know you can, but I simply won’t. 

Having come of age with the desktop computer, my brain still conflates a small screen with fun and frivolous tasks like social media and embarrassing Google searches.

For the actually consequential stuff? Give me a horizontal screen and a keyboard. (God forbid a girl need to flick between multiple tabs or fill in a form using more than just her two thumbs.)

Here are some of the other Millennial behavioural relics holding on for dear life.

Wired headphones

It seems those iconic iPod ads of the early 2000s had a lasting impact on some of us. Nic, for one, won’t be giving up the wired headphones.

“The audio quality is just unquestionably better, they actually fit in your ears unlike AirPods, if you lose them it’s a $30 fix and not a $400 one,” he declares. 

“Apple perfected headphones in, like, 2012 and there is just no need to fuss about with worse audio and fit just because it’s wireless!”

Throwing a peace sign

If you hear the direction “OK, now a silly one!” while posing for a group photo and you don’t make a peace sign, are you even part of this generation?

“I didn’t know what to do with my hands then, and I still don’t know what to do with my hands now,” Carina says. The peace lives on.

Similarly, many of us are reluctant to trade in the classic heart-hands formation for the Gen Z-favoured update, involving a bizarre configuration of one’s pointer and middle fingers. 

Paper trail

We all love the Notes app, but sometimes it just doesn’t hit the same as the physical version.

“I always write my grocery list and any daily notes and to-dos on paper,” Rachael tells me.

“It feels easier to add to, it’s faster and the sensation of crossing something off isn’t the same as deleting a few words, and I love crossing things off a list.”

Sarah feels the same about her paper diary: “I still take pleasure in writing everything in there.”

Food photography

If you listen carefully, you can hear The Cloud groaning under the weight of the entire Millennial generation’s food photos.

“I can’t not take photos of my meals, especially if I go somewhere nice and sometimes my own cooking, though this is more maybe just to prove to myself I was able to make something,” Jess admits.

“Even though I don’t actually do anything with the photos.”

Endlessly quoting sitcoms

Long before exchanging and quoting memes was the baseline of social interaction, we were quoting movies and sitcoms ad nauseam. Some of us never stopped.

Just ask April: “I think sitcom quoting and being annoying with constant references, like The Simpsons and Friends, is something that’s very Millennial that I do.”

Lol and lmao

They might be cringe, but they’re ours. As Rachael puts it, “Lol is a habit and also just says what I mean.”

A lifelong aversion to low-rise jeans

Having endured the early noughts, every Millennial is haunted by the mere suggestion of low-rise jeans making a comeback.

We’re not talking about a gentle mid-rise here, Gen Z pals. We’re talking the terrifyingly low pubic-bone-grazing version beloved by the likes of Paris Hilton circa 2002.

“You will never catch me wearing low-rise jeans. We are old, our lower backs deserve a hug, not a breeze,” Sindy declares.

We gave up the skinnies without too much of a fight, but this is simply a step too far. Truce?