The Millennial Cringe Canon
Whether you call ’em cringe, cheugy, or just “deeply embarrassing,” you can’t talk about millennials without talking about their, uh, tendencies
Welcome to The Ringer’s Millennial Canon, a weeklong celebration of the people, places, and things that defined a generation. Vote in Round 2 our Millennial Canon Bracket to determine who or what best encapsulates the generation, and check back throughout the week for a selection of stories about the millennial experience.
One of the hardest parts of getting older is realizing that mainstream culture is passing you by. For me, the inflection point this year was A Minecraft Movie. Here was an adaptation of a popular video game I’d never played, promoted via trailers that might as well have been delivered in another language. I hated every second of them. I saw A Minecraft Movie as something so horrifying that the only way I’d ever watch it is if somebody Clockwork Orange’d me; the rest of America, however, turned the film into a box office sensation. Worse yet, our country’s youth are wreaking havoc in theaters, losing their shit over the appearance of a “chicken jockey”—on my life, I have no fucking idea what that means. What I do know is that some folks are bringing live chickens to the cinema to celebrate (?) the occasion.
Vote Now in Round 2 of the Millennial Canon Bracket
We’re supposed to come to this place for magic, not to trash theaters because a CGI zombie rode a CGI chicken in a boxing ring opposite non-CGI human man Jason Momoa. Is this really what society has come to? The whole ordeal is exasperating, but the fact that I’ve become the proverbial old man yelling at a cloud underlines what I’ve come to fear: Millennials are no longer the driving force in pop culture. It’s Gen Z’s world now; we’re just living in it.
I shouldn’t be shocked by this development; time is undefeated, and culture is naturally designed to appeal to the youth more than anyone else. (A Minecraft Movie is just the latest example of Gen Z’s affinity for video game adaptations.) But it’s nevertheless humbling to go from feeling like you’re at the cutting edge of art and fashion to becoming Steve Buscemi in 30 Rock. And one of the many consequences of this vibe shift is learning that the hallmarks of your youth are now a punch line. Or, more specific to my generation, “Millennial Cringe.”
Put simply, Millennial Cringe encompasses the cultural touchstones, behaviors, and memes that the younger generations—particularly Gen Z—have deemed, well, cringe-worthy. Thus, in honor of The Ringer’s Millennial Canon, we’re presenting the Millennial Cringe Canon: A collection of the most millennial-core habits that have been subject to ridicule. For research on this project, I (32M) have conferred with my Gen Z partner (26F) and her friends, who’ve taken the opportunity to trash my generation with the same vigor as a Dementor draining happiness from an unlucky soul. My fellow millennials may question why some of these entries are viewed so unfavorably; others, with the benefit of hindsight, are clearly more embarrassing than we initially thought. Either way, it’s not the end of the world: To be cringe is to be free.
The Millennial Pause
While millennials are adept with technology and have used smartphones for as long as they’ve been around, many of us grew up in the bygone era of camcorders and VHS players. One of the consequences of this digital generation gap is the so-called Millennial Pause, in which someone waits a second or two to speak after pressing play to make sure the video is recording. It’s something so habitual that I didn’t realize I do the Millennial Pause every goddamn time—to the extent that it feels way more unnatural to implicitly trust that the camera is running. If it’s any consolation, even Taylor Swift is guilty of the Millennial Pause.
Naturally, Gen Z mocks us for this behavior—despite being prone to the Gen Z shake.
BuzzFeed culture
Peak BuzzFeed was similar to another millennial media staple, CollegeHumor, splitting the difference between original content and aggregating from the wider internet. Comprising everything from listicles and quizzes to comedy videos about guys who try, BuzzFeed was the kind of site that excelled at irresistible clickbait: quizzes on which Friends character you are, the 25 ways to tell you’re a kid of the ’90s, community-submitted poop horror stories (still an instant click, TBH). Like CollegeHumor, BuzzFeed is a shell of its former self after comprehensive layoffs, including the shuttering of BuzzFeed News, a branch of the company responsible for reputable investigative journalism. These days, BuzzFeed is still trying to appeal to the youth, but its attempts at mocking the generation that catapulted it to the mainstream is a textbook case of the pot calling the kettle black:
Somehow, “scrolling BuzzFeed” didn’t make the cut.
Oversharing on Facebook
Long before the Instagram photo dump, millennials were doing the absolute most on Facebook. There were the constant status updates (“Miles Surrey is … going to the movies tonight!”), “poking” someone (also known as early stage flirting), and, of course, albums (the original photo dump). You could see your friends sharing approximately 200 photos from something as trivial as a pool party, the comments peppered with inside jokes as well as the hint of desperation that’s common across all of social media: Putting a little too much effort into letting others know you’re living your best life. My Gen Z partner reacted to finding dozens upon dozens of photos I was tagged in from a single night like an anthropologist studying a primitive, cringier life-form. No, I will not be sharing them here.
More Artifacts From the Millennial Canon
Musical parodies
Musical parodies—and their close relative, lip-synching—are the lowest common denominator of online comedy for anyone that isn’t the Lonely Island. Sadly, they were also one of the most surefire ways to attain early 2010s virality. There were whole YouTube channels dedicated to parodying pop stars, historical figures, and even other viral videos. The higher the production value, the less authentic these videos would feel, which is to say: the Smosh duo lip-synching the Mortal Kombat theme from one of their bedrooms can still hang.
Taking photos of meals
For most of our time on this planet, when a meal was presented to someone, the first thing they’d grab was a fork. Millennials, however, have led the charge when it comes to the Instagrammable food photo op—so much so that one market research company in 2017 estimated that 69 percent (nice) of millennials snapped a pic of their meal before digging in. While there’s evidence that taking photos of your food can actually make it taste better—the power of our minds!—the ritualistic way some millennials curate these moments isn’t just cringe: It’s downright dystopian. It should come as no surprise there’s a Black Mirror episode skewering this phenomenon; pun unintended.
Adulting
As of 2025, millennials are between the ages of 29 and 44, which leaves us firmly in the throes of adulthood. While it’s been a challenge for our generation to achieve certain hallmarks of adult life when, for example, we’re saddled with nearly 50 percent of the nation’s student loan debt, there’s also a perception that millennials have Peter Pan Syndrome. That’s because some millennials use infantilizing terms on themselves for accomplishing mundane tasks that grown-ups are expected to do. Filing your taxes? Congrats, you’re “adulting.” The adulting craze got so big in the 2010s that J.J. Abrams sold a comedy pilot to Fox about the concept. For millennials, adulting—or its cousin, “So, I did a thing”—is entirely self-defeating, and practically invites other generations to never take us seriously. And who can blame them? Nobody approaching the recommended age for colonoscopies should be patting themselves on the back for stocking up on toilet paper.
Finger mustaches
There was a time when putting fake mustaches on items became so trendy that the Associated Press was reporting on it. Thankfully, ’stache fever was, just like any trend, a fleeting moment in time. The problem for some millennials is that tattoos are, uh, a little more permanent. Bless their souls, some people thought it’d be a great idea to get a tiny mustache inked on their finger. (Holding it up to your face to mimic a real mustache … peak comedy!) It’s one thing to be ashamed of the silly things we did when we were younger—it’s infinitely worse to have a constant reminder of it anytime you wash your hands.
Internet challenges
Whether or not you believe being online isn’t fun anymore, at least we’ve moved past the peak of internet challenges. The 2010s had a bit of everything: planking, the Harlem Shake, the cinnamon challenge, the mannequin challenge. At best, these were harmless viral gimmicks that could be cleverly executed by, say, a football team after a big win or [checks notes] the army of Norway; at worst, they could get someone’s accidental death nominated for a Darwin Award. In any case, I think we can all agree: When James Corden participates in a challenge, the novelty has officially worn off.
On the bright side, at least we weren’t eating Tide Pods.
LolSpeak
You know it when you see it. LolSpeak is the grammatically incorrect, performatively childlike slang for everything from greeting your friend (oh hai!) and referring to someone’s pet (doggo, pupperino) to sentences of utter gibberish (“im in ur base killin ur d00dz”).
While LolSpeak has basically been expunged from the internet as we currently know it, the website Cheezburger—as in, yes, I Can Has Cheezburger?—is still up and running. It’s like stepping into a time machine designed to shame millennials for our comedic transgressions:
Harry Potter everything
If there’s a single piece of pop culture that defines the millennial generation, you’d be hard-pressed to find something more fitting than Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling’s seven-book series was published between 1997 and 2007—take notes, George R.R. Martin—becoming a beloved staple of so many of our childhoods. Unfortunately, like Disney Adults, there’s a cringier side of the Harry Potter fandom. Pottermore, Hogwarts house sorting quizzes, and playing college quidditch are just a few examples of millennials making Harry Potter part of their personality to an uncomfortable degree. “I worry about Harry Potter fans because they should be over that by now,” Miriam Margolyes, who played Professor Sprout, said in an interview with New Zealand's 1News last year. No arguments there. Even if Rowling wasn’t steeped in controversy, obsessing over children’s fiction as a grown-up is a really tough look.
Frankly, it’s Riddikulus.
