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Here Are All The Things Millennials Killed In 2017

Congrats, everyone. We did it!
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I’ll be the first to admit, millennials can be really irritating. We started a selfies at funerals trend, we’re late to everything (if we don’t flake out altogether), we’re glued to our phones at meals, we kill our boyfriends as part of a YouTube stunt.

Still, the trend of blaming us for everything has gotten completely out of hand. I mean, sorry that we’ve crushed the car industry, but with our high rates of unemployment, they’ve become a luxury those of us who live in urban centres can’t afford.

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At this point, you could Google “Millennials are ruining” and add literally anything to the end of that phrase, and you’d likely get at least a few hits.

As this year comes to a close, let’s take a closer look some of the things we millennials have allegedly murdered in cold blood.

Cops
No, we aren’t actually killing cops. That would be foolish. But according to Dallas Police Chief Renee Hall, we’re a threat to the law enforcement profession itself. Hall told Dallas city council that millennials don’t seem to be interested in becoming police officers. “We have nights, weekends and holidays—not attractive to millennials who want all days off and to be the chief in six months,” she said while Dallas Fire Chief added, “they’re job hopping every five years.” In an effort to reach a wider net of younguns, Hall’s strategy is to overlook people who’ve been convicted of minor crimes and give days off to officers who successfully bring on new recruits. Maybe it'll work. But she could also try not publicly insulting the demographic she's hoping to employ.

Malls
According to a consumer report from Yes Lifecycle Marketing, more than 55 percent of 1,000 millennials surveyed in March buy crap off Amazon. I am one of them. My bathroom would not exist were it not for Amazon. Meanwhile, profits for major department stores like Macy’s are falling and the US-based National Retail foundation has found young adults’ top choice for online shopping was online. I can’t pretend to be sorry about this one. The minute I step foot in a mall, I regret it. The crowds, the slow walkers, the hell that is the Apple Store—who, aside from teenagers with no lives, actually enjoys any of this?

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Drinking/drugs
An Eventbrite survey of UK millennials found that four in 10 had negative views on getting drunk, describing it as “pathetic” or “embarrassing” whereas only 10 percent thought getting drunk was “cool.”

Part of the reason, according to dating expert Nichi Hodgson, who contributed to the report, is that millennials don’t need to self-medicate as much as their older counterparts. "Generation X were still suffering from a stiff upper lip problem, they used drink and drugs to hide their problems. Younger people don’t want to cover up their problems with drinking and drugs, they want to face them," she told the Telegraph.

DrugAbuse.com has found that millennials consume less weed and cocaine than baby boomers at their peaks.

Anecdotally, I don’t feel like when the subject of drinking comes up, my peers are like “that’s pathetic!” In fact, I’d say it’s still the number 1 hobby amongst writers my age, for better or worse. (Someone just asked me to go for a beer as I was writing this paragraph.) And as far as Canada goes, we are smoking tonnes of weed out here. Unfortunately though, it seems millennials are using far more painkillers than other generations. More than 12 percent of millennials ages 19–20 report recent painkiller abuse, according to DrugAbuse.com.

Dinner dates
Dinner dates with people you barely know are dumb. Why would you commit several hours of time and money to potentially be bored out of your skull, when you could just be chilling on the couch alone with take-out. Probably for these good reasons, millennials are over the dinner date. According to an OKCupid survey, only 7 in 10,000 messages suggested going out to dinner. Frankly, if someone asks you out to dinner for a first date, you should be suspicious as to why they have so much time on their hands.

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Soap bars
Research firm Mintel found soap bar sales dropped 2.2 percent from 2014-2015, and you can bet millennials are being blamed for it. The survey found it’s men over 60 who tend to still buy bar soap. The problem with bars of soap is they get dirty and little hairs stick to them and they become sort of gross to look at. They really can’t complete with a nice, classy bottle of shower gel that contains “30 percent goat’s milk.”

Threesomes
It’s starting to really sound like millennials are boring. No booze, less drugs, and now you can add threesomes to the list. A study out of the University of New Brunswick surveyed 300 straight Canadian undergraduate students, and asked if they’d been in or were interested in threesomes. It found “only” 13 percent had had a threesome. (That actually sounds like a lot, tbh—how thoroughly were the claims of these horny undergrads verified?) Anyway, the survey found the hesitation to go through with threesomes was based on a fear of being judged by peers. I will say, I saw very few people under the age of 30 when I attended a massive swingers’ convention in Niagara Falls this past Valentine’s Day. I guess it takes a few decades to grow a pair.

Boobs
Who in god’s name doesn’t like boobs? According to PornHub: millennials. The porn site found people aged 18-24 were 19 percent less likely to search for things like “boobs,” “tits,” or “breasts” when looking for content to help them jerk off. And when they do look for boobs, they tend to prefer fake breasts. Disappointing.

Fabric softener
What the fuck even is this?

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.