CNN – “General Mills has a cereal problem. It thinks children and aging boomers can help solve it. The cereal category has been shrinking over the past several years as increasingly health-conscious consumers turn to other options. But cereal remains important to General Mills: Along with yogurt, it makes up about 30% of the company’s overall business…While Millennials have generally turned away from cereal as a meal -— instead snacking on it during the day or swapping it out for dessert on occasion — kids and older adults who eat cereal still like it for breakfast…For people over 55, cereal is attractive because it offers certain nutritional benefits, like fiber. While Millennials and younger adults tend to care about “ethical labels,” like organic certifications and may try avoid foods that use genetically-modified organisms…”
It is one of my great joys in life to blog about what “millennials killed” every time one of these stories comes up. We’ve apparently killed department stores, tipping, beer, canned tuna, and even the United States economy among other things. Well now I see this headline that Millennials abandoned cereal? My official response:
Just saw a headline that #Millennials Killed Cereal.
CCN – Last year, Heineken-owned Lagunitas slashed 12 percent of its total workforce, 17 months after it was acquired. At the time, Lagunitas had said the cuts were necessary for the company to adjust to the needs of a dynamic and significantly more challenging market.
To put that more bluntly: millennials just don’t drink beer like their parents did.
INJECT IT INTO MY VEINS! Companies run their business poorly, change nothing, and then blame their tanking sales on millennials, the modern day scapegoats. I love it.
Last month, Diageo CEO Ivan Menezes noted in an interview with CNBC that consumers are moving from beer to spirits and cocktails.
According to data released by the Distilled Spirits Council, a trade group based in the United States, spirits (including vodka, rum, and gin) gained even more market share in the alcohol market for 2018, as compared to wine and beer.
Bullllllshit. There is no way millennials are drinking *more* booze than beer these days. I am a proud millennial and I am a proud rum and coke guy, but I cannot drink for shit anymore. The hangovers these days are absolutely brutal so I’ve basically transitioned entirely into a few IPAs on a good night.
LOL wut?
Millennials are just not into beer anymore, and this is quickly pushing many beer companies to the brink. Molson Coors saw sales slump in four straight quarters in 2018, and the volume of Heineken cases sold has decreased drastically – even while wine and spirits sales are on the rise.
Are these companies really just going to ignore the rise in craft beer and how breweries have popped up on every corner in major cities? From 2007 to 2018 the number of breweries in Massachusetts exploded form 34 to over 150! There are more than 6,000 breweries in the United States as of 2017 too.
Thats bananas.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not drinking that much less beer, I’m just not drinking Bud Light, Miller Lite etc. I’m drinking IPAs, Sours, Stouts and other craft beers that are owned predominantly by independent small brewers.
How does the major beer industry respond? By brewing nightmare fuel like this!
Pass.
Millennials just aren’t drinking the stuff our parents drank; well almost all of us.
ESPN – The future of sports-betting-infused game broadcasts will be on display Friday, when the Washington Wizards host the Milwaukee Bucks. NBC Sports Washington Plus will produce an alternate broadcast for the Bucks-Wizards game that will feature a free-to-play predictive contest with a $500 prize, along with real-time sports-betting data and statistics that will be displayed on-screen throughout the broadcast.
The predictive contest, “Predict the Game,” will ask approximately 30 questions throughout the game, such as: “Will Wizards forward Trevor Ariza score 10 or more points in the first half?” In addition, odds, point spreads and over/unders will be shown on broadcast graphics.
Inject this into my veins.
The only problem I can see with this is I already spend 75% of my time watching a game looking at Twitter. I can literally be looking up stats about the game, chirping opposing fans, or just tweeting out videos like the one of the Bears mascot literally dying on the field.
But that speaks to a larger issue with people as a whole; massive fragmentation of attention. This is the one area where Millennials really *are* the worst, albeit with good intentions.
We all try and do as many things as possible at once. We are masters of multitasking. We grew up with video games that required you to sneak past 20 armed guards, snipe a moving target’s face off from half a mile away, then escape an enemy base, all while collecting the necessary pieces of intel and disabling communications for enemy reinforcements. So anytime someone’s mom tries to tell me that video games are bad for kids I tell them to KICK ROCKS. Video games are the REASON I am able to focus on so many different objectives and deliverables all at once.
However, the downside of that is with my attention being pulled in so many directions I simply cannot sit down and do just one thing anymore. I can’t even tell you the last time I sat down and watched an entire game without picking up my phone or laptop. I guess high school? But even then you were IM-ing your buddies. It’s honestly like I graduated to better drugs because while in hindsight AIM wasn’t that great, I *still* get a rush of dopamine to the brain when I see this:
So am I excited for a gambling focused broadcast? Hell yes, in fact I’ve said for years that NFL games need to have alternative broadcasts featuring just a couple of guys f-bombing the coaches for bad decisions in between play-by-play. It would be like watching a game with your buddies, provide a little levity to sporting events that are already too serious at times, and ratchet up the entertainment value all at the same time. Would you rather watch that or Dan Fouts trying to remember where he left his keys?
New York Times – Why are we suddenly talking about canned tuna and millennials? The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that overall consumption of the packaged fish has declined by more than 40 percent in the United States over the last three decades, according to the Department of Agriculture.
Among the reasons that people are less inclined to reach for a can of Bumble Bee: It isn’t convenient enough for younger consumers. Many people “can’t be bothered to open and drain the cans, or fetch utensils and dishes to eat the tuna,” The Journal reported.
But the rationale that cut hardest, it seems, was a quotation from a vice president for marketing and innovation for StarKist, one of the big three tuna purveyors.
“A lot of millennials don’t even own can openers,” he said.
It’s my duty to call out these “Millennials Killed x” articles every time I see one. We’ve been blamed for killing the economy, tipping, home ownership, SEARS, personal health, and now millennials are getting blamed for killing CANNED TUNA. Look if this were 11 years ago then they may have a point with that last line because when I was a freshman in college, as sad as it is to admit, I didn’t own a can opener. Hell if I knew how to work one.
I was like a wounded baby deer wandering through the woods, blacking out 2-3 times a week just trying to find my way in this world.
But I also didn’t own silverware, cups that weren’t plastic and red, or a fridge that could fit more than one Red Barron pizza and 4 cans of beer soda. So I probably wasn’t the best test case as a kid living on his own for the first time. Except, I am on record as being a huge tuna guy so you know what I did in that strange time of my life? I bought those little bags of tuna that you walk by in the grocery store and ask who the hell would eat those?
I bought the shit out of those little bags of fish. They were delightful in the absence of a can opener. So Big Tuna can go screw with this attempted defamation of character. Millennials may be too poor to buy anything, but don’t you dare say we killed tuna.
Papa Giorgio and I took a picture with Tuna HQ in Pittsburgh for christs sake. Said picture was unfortunately lost somewhere between my iPhone 4 and now though.
If they want to blame anyone they should really blame Keenan and Kel. One episode on Nickelodeon Splat in the mid 90s and everyone between the ages of 25-35 will never eat tuna ever again.
When the Red Sox last made the World Series in 2013, Papa Giorgio and I were liquored up every night and hungover every morning. Our third roommate, god bless his heart, was a bartender right outside of Fenway so we would show up, throw down a $20 and just drink until the cows came home.
Now? I’m on the doorstep of 30 and guzzling coffees at night just to stay awake for the game. And I’m pretty jazzed to head up north for a little wine tasting at a vineyard tomorrow afternoon I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but I have become Will Ferrell in Old School.
AOL – A campaign that aims to get millennials to register to vote turned heads by enlisting the help of actors posing as elderly, white Trump supporters. The ad, titled “They’re doing fine, are you?” was created as part of the Knock the Vote movement, started by ACRONYM, an organization that claims to be “the largest digital program focused on electing Democrats to state legislative seats across the country.”
In the cheeky one-minute PSA, a group of elderly white actors purported to be Trump supporters urges “young people” not to get out and vote on Election Day for a plethora of outrageous reasons.
This is A+ stuff. Whether you’re into politics or not, this video cuts right to the core. Don’t vote? Fuck you, I’ll vote twice. Well, not really since thats frowned upon, but you get the point. Tell me not to do something and the first thing I want to do is exactly that because I’m a golden retriever at heart.
It doesn’t matter how great of a marketing campaign any voting PSA creates though because none will ever top the GOAT.
ESPN – After peeling back prices on some of their most popular items last year to unprecedented levels, the Atlanta Falcons are ready to shock the sports world again with a $5 craft beer.
The Falcons will sell the $5 craft beers at their regular-season games — starting Sept. 16 against the Panthers — and any home playoff games. The craft beer price, along with all other concession prices, will remain the same next February when Atlanta hosts Super Bowl LIII at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, despite the traditionally elevated concession prices at Super Bowls.
God bless Arthur Blank. We may have dropped years worth of 28-3 jokes on you and your franchise, but goddamn if the man doesn’t know how to please a broke cheap football fan.
Last year the Falcons made waves for slashing all their concessions prices to absurdly cheap levels, comparatively speaking. While having much lower prices than their peers, the Falcons are saying they did more business so it seems to be worth their while. Now they’re doubling down on that and will be selling craft beers for $5 a pop. That is insane.
When I go to games at Fenway, I go to the last beer vendor by the bleachers, which the same woman has worked at every game I’ve been to in the last decade, just so I can get the sweet sweet deal of a tallboy can for $11.50 instead of $10.50 for a 12 ounce Bud Light.
True story: I’m a huge craft beer guy. I never thought I’d turn into the beer snob, but here we are. My dad never drank anything, literally anything, other than Bud Light cans. So I was always a Bud Light guy, when I could spring for it, or some cheaper light beer like Busch when I wanted to get blind drunk for $22 bucks.
With the explosion of craft beer and breweries being the only bar I can actually bring my dog to without getting the cops called on me, I gradually started drinking more and more obscure shit.
Started with IPAs, dipped into Sours, discovered that Double and Triple IPAs are a thing and before we know it I’m three sheets to the wind off a handful of beers.
Downside to all of these mega alcoholic brews though is the fact that they are expensive as shit. College me would slap 29-year-old me in the fucking face if he witnessed what I did at the packy yesterday. Saw the brand new Nightshift Double IPA (I’m on the email list NBD) at the packy and audibly gasped when I read the price tag for a 4-pack of tallboys.
$18 dollars. Eighteen Dollars for FOUR beers.
You’re goddamn right I bought those beers.
And now we sit here going through bank statements and credit card receipts wondering where all my money goes saying things like “well if I cancel Netflix and my car insurance I should be able to cover rent this month.”
Yahoo – It’s that time of year, when students prepare to head back to the classroom. For many taking the next step in higher education, the question is increasingly, “Is it worth it?” Millions of millennials have already put off settling down because of the rising costs of servicing college debts to the detriment of economic growth. Student loans are now the second-largest category of household debt in America, topping $1.4 trillion and trailing only mortgages at $9 trillion..“You do stand to see longer-term negative effects on people who can’t pay off their student loans. It hurts their credit rating, it impacts the entire half of their economic life,” Powell said in March. “As this goes on and as student loans continue to grow and become larger and larger, then it absolutely could hold back growth.”
And now millennials are tasked with ruining the United States Economy.
Good.
Millennials get blamed for everything and when we respond with “we’re broke” we get slapped with articles saying the reason we can’t afford to buy a house is because we lack discipline and eat too much avocado toast.
So now the hens have come home to roost. Hey I’m not asking for a handout. My dumbass 17-year-old self signed that life altering contract filled with soul sucking student loan debts. Thats on me. Whether that should be allowed as an option for a teenager who just got their drivers license, yet still can’t buy a pack of smokes is a different question altogether.
But when millennials complain about anything we get told we need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, ignoring the fact that the generation before us literally killed social security and luxuries like “retirement” for their kids. Millennials basically just get the speech from The Departed.
Which is all fine, but when all of us 20 somethings with college degrees that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, just refuse to spend money on things like houses and cars and weddings because we literally cannot afford it; then the economy takes a hit. Then I laugh. Not because it solves anything, but because I’m a spiteful prick.
You want to see what corruption looks like? Look no further:
“From 2007 through 2017, the CPI rose by 21 percent. Over that same period, college tuition costs jumped 63 percent, school housing surged 51 percent and the price of textbooks by 88 percent.”
Textbook prices increased 88 PERCENT. How the fuck is that even possible? Ask anyone who ever went to college for anything other than law or medicine how many times they used their textbook. Almost never. Buying textbooks was the biggest scam going and I graduated years ago and now I’m learning that prices have only continued to rise?? Do yourself a favor kids;
Go to state school and save your money, or better yet just punt on college and work a $30,000/year job and live like a debt-free king.
If you insist on going to college and buying textbooks, don’t be a sheep. Just get the previous year’s edition on Amazon for probably 75% less than what the university is trying to sell you.
Other tidbits from this story;
“Korn Ferry puts the average starting salary for a 2018 college graduate at $50,390”
$50K out of the gates? Maybe the title of all these articles should just be focused on Communications and Journalism majors bringing down the economy because I can tell you I did not touch that salary level in my first job. Not even close.
“[Average starting salaries] up 2.8 percent from 2017, the just-released July Consumer Price Index report shows the inflation rate rose 2.9 percent over the last 12 months. Does the phrase “treading water” come to mind?”
So the minimal increases in salary that millennials are starting to earn immediately gets dwarfed by rising housing costs and inflation rates? Its definitely the avocado toast thats holding kids back goddamnit.
Yahoo – The millennial generation, those ages 18 to 37, are cheap when it comes to tipping restaurant servers, according to a new surveyed released by CreditCards.com of 1,000 participants. When dining out, 10% of millennials said they typically leave no tip for their server, compared to just 3% of respondents who are older.
In today’s episode of “Millennials Are Killing ___” my generation is now accused of killing gratuity and being the worst tippers at restaurants. To that I must swiftly and decisively reply:
While I’m sure the CreditCards.com survey team is very reputable, I gotta call bullshit on this study. 10% of millennials tip *nothing* when eating at a restaurant? If anyone tips its millennials because despite often complaining about low pay, exorbitant rent prices, impossibly high cost of buying a home, and a devalued college degree — if anyone tips its these guys. You know why? BECAUSE WE ALL HAVE WORKED THESE JOBS INTO OUR LATE 20s.
Ask anyone thats ever worked in the service industry what they tip and its always above and beyond because they understand how hard of a job it is. So don’t try and portray us all as Mr. Pink.
I have worked as a dishwasher, as a Gap denim folding specialist, and as a bouncer just to name a few of the service industry jobs and its because of that I don’t stiff the 19-year-old waitress because the guy in the back burnt my burger.
I have friends that still work 80 hours a week to make ends meet because the college degrees we all were pushed to attain, financial pitfalls aside, are now worth a fraction of the sticker price. Those people have gained something very valuable because of that; empathy.
So I’m calling kangaroo court on this whole CreditCards.com survey.
TechCrunch – The pioneering chat app that taught us to text is pulling the plug. On December 15th, AOL Instant Messenger will shut down after running since 1997. AIM dominated online chat in North America at the turn of the century. But with SMS and social apps like Facebook and WhatsApp having conquered chat, AOL is giving up the fight with no planned replacement.
Giving up the fight? What fight? I haven’t used AIM in six years, but it was pretty much the same in 2011 as it was in 2001. People complain about Facebook changing its look and features too often, but those changes keep it relevant. Facebook will be twenty years old in seven years, but it’s hard to imagine Facebook dying a death in obscurity like AIM.
Now that pretty much every app on your phone has the ability to send and receive messages from your pocket, AIM really did become superfluous years ago. It’s even a bit surprising this end didn’t come sooner. But broadband internet may of played a bigger role in killing AIM than smart phones. It used to be exciting when your best friend or crush signed on. After broadband internet became common place, no one ever signed off.
And while it is a shame that AOL never figured out a way to freshen up AIM, or keep it a little bit more relevant for a little while longer, it was a trail blazer. Away Messages really were the predecessor to status updates and tweets. Your profile is where you put obscure music lyrics and threw shade at frenemies in the days before MySpace.
But maybe going away is the best thing that could happen for AIM right now. How could we have ever missed Crystal Pepsi or Surge if they never went away? I’ll bet you an Andrew Jackson that AIM is relaunched as an app within the next five years. At that point, younger millennials will remember AIM the way I (an older millennial) remember SEGA Genesis. Now excuse me while I go crush the competition as Stockton and Malone in NBA JAM TE.
The 300s 