I've often seen in posts I've done about being a millennial and growing up in the '90s, that younger generations will argue in the comments that they experienced the exact same things growing up in the late '00s or the '10s. However, a lot of the stuff in those articles is very specific to the decade, so unless you lived through the '90s, knowing about something and experiencing it firsthand are two entirely different things. Like, I can Google a lot of things about the '60s, but I couldn't say that I know what it was like to grow up in that time period.
And recently, I stumbled upon a year-old Gen X Reddit thread where user FeleciaO shared this tweet about getting older and having younger people lecture you about things you experienced and events that you lived through that happened way before they were born.
The whole thing started a discussion where Gen X'ers shared stories about things younger people have said or argued to them about that were just so wrong some of them couldn't even bother to respond. Here are some of the top and best comments:
1. "A younger millennial once insisted to me that we dial 911 for emergencies in honor of the victims of 9/11."
2. "I was chaperoning a trip to Disney and one of the teens confidently told me The Haunted Mansion ride was based on the movie with Eddie Murphy. She was wondering why Eddie Murphy didn’t appear in the ride. The other Gen X'er I was with explained the ride came first, like Pirates of the Caribbean."
3. "A thirtysomething (?) accused me (48) of being a twentysomething pretending to be Gen X because I said the style of a photo was more 1970s than 1980s. I did not have the words or motivation to argue."
4. "I heard a younger coworker complain that NIN ruined Johnny Cash’s 'Hurt.'"
5. "This guy told me I must not actually be Gen X because if I was, I would know that straight guys didn’t buy Milli Vanilli. Crazy.
6. "Hearing: 'In 1986 you could work part-time at a yogurt shop in LaJolla, California and afford a three-bedroom home on the ocean.' No. Parts of this country have always been super expensive to live in."
7. "How much better athletes are today. I have had some turds tell me that Michael Jordan would just be average today. Shaq can't shoot. And that the 1980s Lakers would not be competitive today."
8. "I was chaperoning my daughter’s trip to Washington D.C. The millennial tour guide said he was going to take the kids to see the Challenger Space Shuttle."
9. "Missy Elliott at the Super Bowl and the young people posting about how she was trying to be Cardi B or some other current rapper. Lol, when I read those tweets I laughed so hard."
10. "Just the other day some young person tried to passionately tell me that 'Shout' by Tears for Fears was actually written and performed by Depeche Mode. I was so embarrassed for them. They were so sure they were right. Bless their heart."
11. "My dad got laid off twice in the early '80s, when I was a kid. It was a rough period for a lot of my relatives also. You never hear about that early-'80s recession anymore, people just go, 'Oh, everyone could buy a big house with just a high school degree.' There were a ton of homeless people in the '80s where I grew up also."
12. "Someone was explaining how we had to invade Iraq to find the people who did 9/11. It was just too much for me to even try."
13. "I've had people tell me I'm making up the nuclear bomb drills we did in elementary school in the '80s."
14. "I had someone tell me that AIDS wasn't a big deal because well 'they had drugs for that' 👀. I literally said to them I need you to shut up right now because you’re looking like the most stupid person in the planet right now. Pulled out old Google and showed them how many people died, why, and how horrid it was. Like I had friends who died. Complete a** clown 🤡."
15. "A few years back, in an open office, I was quietly listening to music and singing along (my desk was far away from all others so I wasn't being rude), when a much younger coworker came up and asked how I knew the words to 'the song' already, since it just released two days ago by a popular young artist. I said that I had been singing the original for decades. They laughed and said, 'No, really?'"
16. "LOL, my oldest kid told me how O.J. Simpson may have not killed his ex-wife and the matching DNA was likely his son Jason's. Listen here, I didn’t watch Court TV for six weeks and read 20 books on the case to have you lecture me about a 10-second TikTok clip that 'solved' the crime of the century!!! You don’t even know who Kato is!
17. "The most common one I see is from younger writers proclaiming that 'The entire country was up in arms about [insert major event]'...I was there, the reality is that most of the country didn't really care either way, but a few hundred protestors made a lot of noise."
18. "My favorite is when they are like: 'What's your source? You have no proof!' and it's like: 'I didn't read about this, I lived it!'"
You can read the full thread of responses on Reddit.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.