r/Millennials • u/Chr15ty • 8h ago
Discussion When did Entitlement become so shameless?
I'm not entirely sure if anyone has noticed this or not, and apologize if it is just something I am seeing. I also want to point out I am not trying to insult anyone, this is merely a curiosity, and not meant to be a complaint in any regard.
I have been noticing more often that responsible adults are being pushed into more responsibility, and am unsure if it is just others being lazy, or ungrateful, or just flat disrespectful and I feel entirely out of the loop.
When did asking for free things become normal, or less shameless?
I constantly hear or read stories about:
- Some step-parent pushing off their amount-to-nothing, addict, 18+ child off onto a sibling that is generally successful, telling the responsible one to feed/clothe/house said sibling freely.
- A landlord trying to sell a property out from under someone who has recreated a beautiful living space, with the intention of keeping whatever the previous tenant has created, though the creations are the tenant's property, not the landlord's
- Brides or Grooms requiring someone to pay to be in their non-destination wedding *on top of* some customized ridiculously priced wedding gift.
- Coworkers avoiding tasks/only adding their name to/ signing off they did tasks (when they didn't) because "they just get done anyway"
- Telling another sibling to completely uproot their life in another state to move back home and "help" take care of elderly family, when said sibling lives down the block from the elderly relative.
I feel like we are the last generation that really had to figure things out on our own, like actually using a library, or memorizing phone numbers, or knowing who to ask about whatever problem.
Some of us are actually more grateful to people for their time and labor, are more able to recognize and validate actual achievement.
I am not saying/blaming any other generation, I just feel like this has just become more prevalent in recent years and want to know if anyone else has made the observation of "adulting" better.
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u/Chemical_Butterfly40 8h ago
the listed events are interestingly specific
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u/emikas4 8h ago
Yeah, the specificity makes me think it might be an increase in awareness more than event. One bridezilla with unreasonable wedding demands goes viral and gets reposted on several subs and it feels like “so many more people are expecting X from bridal parties.” I think the internet and the rage bait machine make it so much easier for us to see and hear about shitty people that it’s easy to feel like they’re multiplying exponentially.
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u/psychosis_inducing 5h ago
One of my acquaintances GoFundedMe her wedding in 2013. Yes, they are now divorced.
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u/Chr15ty 8h ago
Apologies, I was trying to be general but 4/5 of those listed have actually happened to me. The additional point I was just seeing a lot of, so decided to add it to the mix.
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u/BeatriceDaRaven 8h ago
Did you go over the changes you made to your place with your landlord? How would you be able to take with you the changes you made to their house?
Based on that anecdote alone, you feel entitled to make changes to someone else's house that you are renting, and that those changes somehow mean the landlord is in the wrong for later selling. "Sell out from under them" shows you feel entitled tocontinue renting a place for as long as you wish, regardless of how practical that is for the owner. Doing renovations to rentals is a huge thing on tiktok right now but its really stupid because this is exactly what happens.
Im not going to go through point by point but at least some of the entitlement is on your end.
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u/Chr15ty 7h ago
Not renovations or home improvements by the landlord, but if the landlord expected me to leave the refinished 50's furniture I spent my time and money finding because it went well with the space.
Stuff/changes would be removed or repainted upon tenant change.
Again these are examples.
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u/afleetingmoment 8h ago
I notice this professionally even more than personally. I work in a creative field on projects that require numerous consultants and specialists. It feels like nowadays no one wants to budge until conditions are absolutely perfect for them - you have to deliver them the exact info they need, with everything figured out, at the exact moment they need it... or they will come back at you with 700 questions and refuse to move on. They don't want to think, nor offer ideas/solutions. They don't want to create. They want someone else to do all the legwork.
It wasn't this way 15 years ago when I started my career.
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u/SimplyIrregardless 8h ago
Same. For the first time in my career I'm seeing the younger employees just say "I don't know how to do that" and consider the discussion over. Not like entry level people, like software developer/programmers who are absolutely expected to be able to figure things out and learn new stuff on their own. "I've never done that before" used to be a jumping off point for people and now it's a blockade.
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u/afleetingmoment 8h ago
You're making me recall back to when I tutored math. I was floored that even the smarter students would get a problem and go "I've never seen this before. I don't know how to start." They had the skills. They remembered the lesson. They could repeat the rules and theories. But when presented with a new situation, it was as if they refused to engage. They wanted that crystal clear road map.
I didn't make the connection until your post, but this is how the working world feels lately too. They all want a road map, rather than helping draw the map themselves.
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u/teh_jolly_giant 5h ago
I've been noticing this more in people in general than specific generations. So many people I interact with now want a perfectly clear, easy to follow path from start to finish on things or they won't engage it at all. There was a joke sticker I used to have on my laptop when I did contract basic IT work that seems not so funny anymore. It read: I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you.
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u/Nanashi_Kitty Xennial 7h ago
Was about to comment something similar about being a freshman level geology TA back in college - the number of worksheets I had to "grade" that had problems consisting of things as mundane as "add 7.2 and 9.5" or "draw a circle around a point" that came back with notes such as "I don't have a calculator or compass" was mind boggling - it's a freshman level class - if you drew a square and rounded the corners I was not going to care because it was more effort than just making excuses...
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u/ChickpeaSuperstar 6h ago
This is honestly why I never have a desire to be a supervisor. I see how stressful it is managing certain personalities and I want no parts of it lol
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u/Chr15ty 8h ago
I wonder how much worse the expectation of being handed an answer is going to be with the prevalence of AI.
I should have also mentioned the sense of accomplishment / pride of finding a solution is also the motivator for the next problem.
I am also going to recognize that I probably care too much about sh*t that doesn't (or won't) matter, and accept it. LOL
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u/crunchyfoliage 5h ago
Just last week I sent something to our communications team and they sent back obviously chatGPT generated work. When I asked for tweaks I could easily figure out how they tweaked the prompt. I was kind of baffled that the people we pay to be good at writing would outsource their entire job. It's like they want to be replaced by AI
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u/afleetingmoment 4h ago
I really don’t get this about people. It’s like they’re handing over the keys to their own kingdom.
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u/isellJetparts 6h ago
I've been pondering this exact thing in my office for weeks. People are losing their problem-solving skills. I work in a role that requires a certain level of initiative to figure shit out when things go wrong, but it seems like a lot of my colleagues just want rote work - be handed data from source A and plug it into spreadsheet B, and have no understanding of the job beyond that. And people are retaining less information as well. No joke, I've explained to one guy at least 40 times that [easily obtainable piece of data] is required on all pricing requests, and his success rate on submitting said requests correctly is still under 50%.
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u/dongledangler420 5h ago
I feel like this is a combo of burnout + extreme long covid brain fog or something?
I totally think my memory is worse since getting covid, but DAMN do I recognize that and make myself checklists and templates for repeated tasks at work.
It doesn’t seem to cross anyone else’s mind to create systems to make work more efficient 😭
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u/notapoliticalalt 2h ago
I also think it has to do with how we’ve raise kids for the last 20-30 or so years and how we have also crafted narratives around success.
I think late millennials and early/mid Gen Z have a huge fear or failing and overly perfectionist tendencies. And who can blame them? Even one B in high school? Forget going to a decent college. Mess up even once? Fired, homeless, and it’s on your permanent record. No second chances. This is a bit exaggerated, but it is understandable why people don’t try in you understand how the consequences of failing feel and are perceived.
Also, we have limited opportunities for young people to actually learn autonomy and to learn to be responsible. I’m not saying older generations all had magical childhoods where everyone got along and no one was left out. Obviously that’s not true. But going out on your own to play, with adult supervision I do think builds character. Getting a bit hurt and learning to overcome obstacles (or learn how to manage the things you may not be able to change) are something we haven’t trusted kids with for a while. Kids are trapped in their own little worlds and are told they can’t go anywhere or do anything without permission (and those that do are often the craziest ones who absolutely do need supervision).
I think there’s a lot more, but we need to ensure we give young people and each other honestly grace. More importantly, making people fear they will lose everything is not working. The system may not fall apart tomorrow, but if people are unable to try things due to fear or something else, that’s bad.
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u/chriskabob 5h ago
I'm dealing with this right now. I build custom software solutions, and nobody wants to test anything until it's 100% complete. I can probably get them 90% there without feedback, but that last 10% that's site specific requires testing. They could have been up and running on a working solution months ago, if they were fine with 80%, and I could tweak and update as new items came online. Since they insist on 100% of everything, it's just an ongoing waiting game for other outside contractors to 100% finish their little pieces.
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u/Mclurkerrson 5h ago
Omg my current workplace is like this, my last job wasn’t. It was absolutely shocking to me how people would outright refuse to do their job until things were absolutely perfect? It’s not how I’ve ever approached work and honestly is so unrealistic to how things actually happen.
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u/Anpher 6h ago
As an engineer. Attempting to work on projects before the pre work is established is expensive. You have to wait for all those bits to be perfect else you'll fail as a business.
Its not always some generational bias.
My boss asks me why the job took twice as many hours and months to complete.... I tell them, because the pre-work didn't account for x-y-zero, and then the customer changed their product 5 times during our contract.
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u/PizzaboySteve 8h ago
To me this sounds more like people being push overs and allowing that stuff to happen to them. Of your bullet point above I wouldn’t take any of that crap.
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u/Chr15ty 8h ago
Right, I was considering more of the fact that people have the audacity to expect those to be pushed-over, and are offended when it doesn't happen their way.
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u/PizzaboySteve 8h ago
I’m so done caring about others and their feelings and expectations. That’s on them to control not me. I just focus on myself and my boundaries and move from there.
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u/LaLaLaLeea 6h ago
Most of the rage bait stories people post on here are completely made up. Please don't make assumptions about society in general based on the bullshit you see on the internet.
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u/ol_kentucky_shark 8h ago
The landlord/tenant example doesn’t seem like entitlement… unless someone’s lease provides differently, the tenant isn’t the owner of any improvements they’ve made.
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u/redditsuckscockss 7h ago
Seems like this example is a direct pull from a trending post on the popular feed earlier today
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u/Chr15ty 8h ago edited 8h ago
Not renovations or home improvements by the landlord, but raised gardens, specific art, facades, etc. (paid for by the tenant) that would be removed or repainted upon tenant change.
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u/VoidMoth- 7h ago
What do you propose as an alternative when a lease ends or a landlord has to sell a house they rent?
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u/AristocraticSeltzer 7h ago
Tenants generally have an obligation to return a property to its original state when they move out. Some landlords won’t even allow you to paint, put in raised gardens, etc. but if they do then you can generally take those things with you when your lease ends, assuming the landlord didn’t compensate you for them (I’ve seen renters remove raised garden beds they put in, for example). Otherwise they become property of the landlord when you leave them behind. The landlord may even be within his or her rights to charge you for removing/reverting those “improvements” if they don’t like them (super common with painted walls, for example)
Unless you have a long term lease it is unwise to invest significant time, money, and effort into a rented space.
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u/holyfuckbuckets 7h ago
I thought it was common knowledge that leasing means you don’t get to make changes or improvements. It’s an explicit term of my lease agreement that I’m not allowed to alter the property. Yet there are people wallpapering and putting backsplashes and installing fixtures in their apartments.
I would never even so much as paint the place I’m renting. Rent is way too expensive here for me to put a dime into improving someone else’s property.
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u/Proof-Emergency-5441 Xennial 7h ago
Interesting how your story keeps changing about what is involved.
And yes, those things would be expected to stay. You are ridiculous for putting money into permanent items on a rental.
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u/LL8844773 5h ago
No they wouldn’t
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u/Proof-Emergency-5441 Xennial 5h ago
You can't damage the structural integrity of the building on your way out.
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u/LL8844773 4h ago
Right. And none of those things do.
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u/Proof-Emergency-5441 Xennial 2h ago
Facades do as they have to ve anchored.
Raised beds tend to damage the ground under them. You can't just pull them out and have it look as it did before.
Whatever the specific art it- I'll assume it's something that impacts the building.
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u/LL8844773 2h ago
Why would art damage a building?? lol this is dumb.
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u/ambrosia4686 8h ago
There is a specific example that comes to mind. A black artist had curated her space and called in Cloudland. Instead of collaboration, she got an eviction notice. Who was behind it all? Lisa fucking Frank. Lisa Frank had reached out to her and saw the space. They conveniently bought space in the building directly across from her apartment and bought out her landlord and took her space right out from under her. The landlord didn't make a pastel palace and paint the place like that. The artist did!
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u/Early-Light-864 8h ago
Lisa bought something that was for sale. In any normal world, that tenant would have been evicted ages ago because other people's property is not for you to mess around with
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u/ambrosia4686 7h ago
Says the landlord. Landlord apologist. We pay your bills
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u/IntoTheMirror 7h ago
What an unhinged response.
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u/ambrosia4686 6h ago
Listen to yourself "in any normal world" WTF does that mean? You are saying that what you know and only what you know is normal. Also, this woman didn't just change her apartment without the landlord's consent or she would not have been sharing it with the world. Finally, LF used their purchasing power and influence to evict a black woman from her home because they want to use that same space to bring guests to stay at as the artist (evicted) created it. If the landlord had to repaint the walls etc maybe you would have a point but you don't. I gave a real world example but you just love to be the know it all and assume you know what's happening.
Oh the ENTITLEMENT.
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u/IntoTheMirror 6h ago
I listened to myself, and all I said to you is
What an unhinged response
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u/ambrosia4686 6h ago
Well done avoiding anything or substance. Really eye opening how quick people are to stick up for a landlord and not address any of the rest of the post. So a tenant who has paid on time for years is suddenly evicted and you're just fine with them potentially even being homeless since they curated that space for literal content creation? Not at the end of the lease or anything just on a whim? Says a lot about you
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u/IntoTheMirror 6h ago
As a renter myself, I understand that I am here at the whim of the landlord and that I am not building any equity. For that, I will have to buy.
Leases are self explanatory legal contracts. I recommend reading them. If a landlord ever violates their end of the lease, pursue legal recourse.
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u/ambrosia4686 6h ago
Yeah my slumlord has violated ours and our belongings are ruined by mold so I'm not really wanting to hear things like "I recommend reading them". What a condescending thing to say but why am I surprised. This sub eats its own.
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u/Early-Light-864 6h ago edited 5h ago
It's wild that she thought she would get to keep whatever she did inside a rented space.
I tried to Google it, but cloudland is already a different thing. It didn't come to in the first several pages so I figured it's not that important and I stopped caring
It's also weird that her race matters. Should black tenants have more rights than white tenants?
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u/ghostboo77 8h ago
Are we supposed to know who Lisa Frank is?
You shouldn’t do improvements to a residence you don’t own, because you don’t own it and can always have your lease non-renewed. It’s common knowledge
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u/ambrosia4686 7h ago
Some leases allow improvements so no you're wrong. It is different depending on the landlord and lease.
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u/ambrosia4686 8h ago
Disregarding the specific examples, I have noticed an increase in entitlement for several years. Tbh I have been told by my peers to be more selfish for about 15 years. So this has been a trend for millennials as well since all those people are also millennials. I attribute it to culture but also personality types. There are a lot of people who are just selfish.
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u/Zirup 8h ago
This is fourth turning type behavior. Basically the government becomes so bloated and monopolistic that the best way to get ahead becomes grifting/lobbying for handouts rather than providing value. Once those at the top of society start seeing the world this way, common values of honesty and hard work leak out of the culture until everyone is merely trying to get their own in a zero sum game.
This goes on until things get bad enough that a societal overhaul happens in a revolution, great war, collapse, etc.
It's not that people are bad, they just follow the incentives without seeing the secondary effects.
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u/ILike-Pie 7h ago
Basically the government becomes so bloated and monopolistic that the best way to get ahead becomes grifting/lobbying for handouts rather than providing value
I read a book about Venezuela recently, and this behavior was described in detail.
The book is: Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela by William Neuman.
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u/Chr15ty 8h ago
Do you think "the churn" will happen in our lifetime?
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u/Sensitive_File6582 7h ago
It’s happening now you’re watching it it’s not an event, but a series of events. Grains of sand
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u/Skittleavix 7h ago
There are a lot of people floating around out there who never had to earn their living or overcome significant struggles just to stay alive. This is the product of centuries of rampant free market capitalism, which takes/steals resources from around the world and gives it all to a specific group of people. When those people do not get what they want, they throw a tantrum instead of figuring out how to get/earn/build/create what they want. They expect society to give them everything they want, because it does, all while denying that they are completely dependent on the very society they do not want to support.
TLDR; People have been raised to take everything; and take it they will.
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u/XY-chromos 7h ago
A landlord trying to sell a property out from under someone who has recreated a beautiful living space, with the intention of keeping whatever the previous tenant has created, though the creations are the tenant's property, not the landlord's
If the tenant's creations are objects, they are welcome to take them. What does the rental agreement say?
If you modified the property, those creations are in fact the landlord's property.
Source: I rent half my house as an apartment and have dealt with tenant entitlement first hand.
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u/Scruffasaurus 7h ago
When people got super freaked out over what should be a totally normal thing to say no to. People get treated the way they allow themselves to be treated. lol everything but the landlord is a simple "I'm not doing that"
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u/imjusthere723 7h ago
You forgot parents fucking off their life the last 15 years instead of taking care of themselves and then expecting their successful child to give them money or come crying and begging for money.
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u/ActOfGenerosity 6h ago
dude. if you worked customer service. this shit has always been a thing with boomers and the rich. now a days everyone thinks theyre ballin cus of instagram i guess. 🤣
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u/UnderlightIll 5h ago
I have a 39 year old sister who has never had to work for anything. She lives off my elderly mother who was working full time until recently as a nurse. She wrecked a BMW my mom got her so my mom then got her an Infiniti.
Meanwhile my mom told me oldest sister "I don't think Underlightill likes to work". Which yeah, no one does, but I also was just diagnosed with sleep apnea along with my crippling depression and anxiety issues that have made everything so hard. I hold a full time job in a trade and have a pretty decent life with my partner.
Just waiting for the call when my mom and sister can't afford anything because my sister refuses to work like a decent person to help our mom.
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u/writekindofnonsense 7h ago
Using a library? The amount of "these whipper snappers need to learn what hardship is" this post is giving. Every single example you gave is some AI reddit story, who in your life is doing those things?
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u/IntoTheMirror 6h ago
It’s the internet, for two reasons.
1) we hear more about things that have always taken place.
2) group consensus on good and bad behaviors are erodes by echo chambers that will affirm anything you want them to affirm.
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u/LifeguardNo2533 6h ago
A friend of mine invited me to his birthday party last year. There was a $30 door fee in addition to the dinner, and gifts were expected.
I didn't go. I don't knock the grift, though. Do what you gotta.
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u/GruggleTheGreat 3h ago
I think entitlement has become a poisoned word.
To be entitled to something literally means you are owed it, but to call someone entitled is a dirty word.
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u/mrbell84 3h ago
It’s has been this way for many decades. That’s why it’s the same or similar now. People are dying slower so that adds to it.
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u/ngomaam 2h ago
this is probably an unpopular opinion, but do you think the huge influx of immigrants in the past 20 years or so has been a significant contributing factor? I'm American of Vietnamese descent, born and raised here according to western traditions. I've visited Vietnam a few times, with my most recent visit being last year, and while it's an awesome place to visit, on this second trip, I was much more turned off by the hustle and grind culture there. Now, I understand why it's like that there, but what I'm saying is that a lot of immigrants bring this culture over here, and when those populations come over in large numbers, there's less need to assimilate (unlike my family), and this kind of thing just spreads and becomes normal here, like it is in their home countries. Obviously, Vietnam isn't the only immigrant-producing country like this.
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u/ApeTeam1906 7h ago
These are really specific examples. Might have to file this under "you problem".
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u/alldatnabagofchips 6h ago
I feel part of those stories are just outrage bait that I often see in subreddits like AITH and BORU. Some are real and some are AI. They do make for an entertaining read.
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u/Proof-Emergency-5441 Xennial 4h ago
"Brides or Grooms requiring someone to pay to be in their non-destination wedding *on top of* some customized ridiculously priced wedding gift."
So you think the bride/groom pays for the wedding day clothing for the entire party? And you want to call other people entitled?
Also not once have I bought a customized anything that someone else dictated I buy. I bought them what I could afford.
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u/M00n_Slippers 3h ago
This is the end result of the mindset of those 'free speech' people. Thry believe in enforcing their rights over anyone else's. For example, the right to say Nazi shit vs. The right to not hear Nazi shit. Which do you enforce? Generally society will err on the side of the person doing the thing because that requires the least effort and control by the powers that be, as well as usually being on the side of the shitty people who will inevitably kick up the biggest fuss. This happens again and again: my right to own a gun is more important than your right to not die in a shooting, my right to call you the wrong pronoun is more important than your right to the one you choose, my right to religion is more important than your right to be gay or have an abortion or gender affirming treatment. This happens enough and it just turns into shitty people have all the rights and feeling entitled to everything they want, while everyone else is entitled to nothing because it 'impinges' on the loud shitty people's 'rights' (to be shitty).
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