Recently, my Facebook newsfeed blew up, mostly because of this video:

It has been posted by almost everyone type of person I know. My too-political Uncle, that outspoken kid from high school that I barely talked to, but stay friends with just to lurk on the flame wars in the comments, my acquaintance's moms, and even some of my actual friends. Overwhelmingly, in my experience the response to this video has been exceedingly positive, with older generations praising her harsh words and the self-loathing of scores of Millenials claiming not only that they agree with the put-down of our entire generation, but that they are so happy that they're the exception.

This Millenial hate is not just here, in fact, it's everywhere. The media, the workplace, and your parents or grandparents have probably said it to you before. Millenials are "narcissistic, lazy, and entitled." Time Magazine called us the "Me Me Me Generation." They claim we don't want to work hard, we don't respect our elders, and we are nothing compared to Baby Boomers, Gen X, or the so-called "Greatest Generation." These claims are mostly just stereotypes and their continued use is putting down a diverse, educated, talented generation.

Claim 1: Millenials Are Entitled

(Image: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/me-me...)

This could better be summed up as "old people complain about young people". Older generations have been complaining about younger generations literally since the beginning of time. Socrates (469 to 399 B.C.) once said "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers." (http://pps.sagepub.com/content/5/1/58.full, http://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html) Hesiod, a greek economist and philosopher, (750 to 650 BC) once said "They only care about frivolous things. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly … impatient of restraint." (http://www.vox.com/2016/3/21/11277726/millennials-...) Now, doesn't that sound familiar? As a matter of fact, there are records of magazine articles about virtually every semi-modern generation saying essentially the same thing. There is even an essentially identical article to the 2013 Time Magazine one about Millenials that was published in 1976 about the Gen Xers. The Wire does an entire list of these articles with similar titles and even more similar themes of calling young people entitled that dates all the way back to 1907. (http://www.thewire.com/national/2013/05/me-generat...) The issue at hand here is not one concerning that Millenials are any more entitled than any other generation, just that generational thinking has always been, as Adam Conover puts it, "reductive and condescending" (http://www.vox.com/2016/3/21/11277726/millennials-...). In reality, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 61 percent of graduating college seniors in 2014 held interships and 46.5 percent of those internships were unpaid (http://www.naceweb.org/uploadedfiles/content/stati...). If the Millenial Generation is so entitled, then why are so many of its members working for free?

Claim 2: Millenials Are Narcissistic

(Image: https://amandasass.com/2011/07/28/the-me-generatio...)

Now let's talk narcissism. Ignoring the aforementioned trend where every generation has been calling those younger than it narcissistic since the beginning of time, we must bring up these so called studies that claim that Millenials "score higher on narcissism scales." The main proponent behind this movement is Jean Twenge, PhD a psychologist and professor at San Diego State. She has done research using these "Narcissism scales" and has written two entire books on how doomed she believes the people she calls both "Generation Me" and "The Entitlement Generation" are and how much she believes they are ruining society. Her conclusion though, just doesn't add up, as Millenials continue to advance society in legitimately every field. Eight Millenials can pitch over 100 mph in baseball versus the previous 1. Michael Phelps, a Millenial, holds the world record for gold medal. 10 Millenials are on the Forbes richest list (which is even more impressive, given how young they are). The number of Chess Grandmasters has doubled in the last generation, and classical pieces once thought to be impossible are regularly played by Millenial musicians. According to the Pew Research Center, Milllenials rank their top priorities as "Being a good parent," "Having a successful marriage," "Helping others in need," and "Owning a home." Does that sound narcissistic? Comparatively, only 15 percent of Millenials state that their priorities include having a high-paying career (http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/mille...). What Twenge fails to realize is highlighted in the study "It Is Developmental Me, Not Generation Me." This study shows that in general, young people are more narcissistic than older people and that this narcissism is just apart of growing up and developing. The study shows that you are the most narcissistic when you are a student and then it lowers exponentially when you become a parent and then does the same thing once more when you become a grandparent (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC302009...). All young people always have been more narcissistic than their older counterparts, and Millenials are no exception. This does not mean, however, that we as a generation are any worse than any of those before us. The study even concluded "Younger cohorts are apparently not suffering from an increasing epidemic of narcissism."

Claim 3: Millenials Are Always on their D*** Phones!

The rise of the cell phone has most definitely changed the way we live. We now have constant access to the vast network of information known as the internet. It is true that Millenials are on their phones a lot, but so is everyone. This global obsession is not just a problem for Millenials, but for adults too. The problem is not that we are more obsessed with this new technology but that older generations are more afraid of how it is "ruining our lives." Douglas Adams, author of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," has this to say about technology:

1. "Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’re 35 is against the natural order of things."

(http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2014/07/07/douglas...)

This type of argument has also been made about virtually every new technological advancement ever from bicycles, to movies, to radio (http://www.vox.com/2016/3/21/11277726/millennials-...). This fear that this technology is ruining our lives is outdated and silly.

Facts About Millenials

1. We're Diverse - 42 percent identify as non-white, 15 percent are first generation immigrants, and the Hispanic population has triple.

2. We're Educated - We're the most educated generation to date, 34 percent have Bachelor's Degrees (http://www.npr.org/2014/11/18/354196302/amid-the-s...).

3. We're dealing with a difficult job market - We earn less than our older peers before the recession and we have 60 percent lower wage growth.

4. We're People - No better, nor worse than those before us. Pigeonholing and stereotyping are just holding us back and older generations need to acknowledge that just because we are different, doesn't mean that we are worse.

This article was inspired by and is in many ways an expansion of this speech by Adam Conover. Check it out!