30+ People Are Sharing Millennial Trends, Experiences, and Memories They Don’t Think Will Last Beyond Their Generation
Life Before the Internet
Crucially, millennials grew up in the internet age. That makes them digital natives, or people that are fluent in using technology. This is because millennials came of age at the same time as cell phones and social media.
However, many millennials spent their early childhoods in a time of landlines, clunky PCs, and dial-up modems. This means that millennials truly straddle the line between the old world and the new one. They remember life before the internet — when there wasn’t an app for anything at all.
Beware the Millennium Bug
In 1999, there was rampant fear about the turn of the century. In fact, people were whipped into a frenzy about the so-called Millennium Bug. This was also known as the Y2K problem, and was related to our still relatively young computer systems. The fear was, when the year struck 2000, computers worldwide would cease to function.
For kids growing up in this time, this was all rather alarming. Would our new world crumble before us? Thankfully, hardly any major issues actually occurred.
Cassettes at the Ready
In the days before Spotify or Apple Music, people just had to wait around to hear a song they liked. Millennials would wait dutifully by the radio hoping the newest Britney single would play.
When the magic time came, these music fans had to quickly hit record on their sound system and capture the song on cassette. Music was hard to come by in the ’90s and early noughties. Millennials were at the whims of local DJs to serve up the tunes.
Road Trips ’90s Style
Imagine a world before Google Maps. Well, millennials don’t have to. Back in the ’90s, if you went on a road trip, you were armed with a physical map. That’s right — lines on paper were all millennials had when it came to navigating the big, bad world.
Google Maps was invented in 2005, so before that, we were on our own. Well, MapQuest was launched in 1996, but the mapping service wasn’t exactly refined. Armed with printouts, millennials and their parents had to find their own way.
There are all sorts of trends, experiences, and memories that relate to various generations — whether it’s the TV shows we watched, the weird clothes we wore, or the technologies we grew up with. Millennials are people that were born between the early ’80s and the mid-’90s. Together, they went through the Tamagotchi phase, experienced the golden age of the internet, and survived several financial crises. Let’s take a look at parts of the millennial experience that won’t exist for future generations.