The lazy, entitled millennials trope just doesn’t hold up. Whoopi in hot water again...

return2ozma@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 541 points –
The lazy, entitled millennials trope just doesn’t hold up
msnbc.com

Whoopi Goldberg argued on “The View” that millennials feel that raising a family and buying a house are out of reach because they simply aren’t working hard enough.

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“I’m sorry — if you only want to work four hours, it’s going to be harder for you to get a house,” she said

What a joke. I spent the better part of the last three years working 70 hour weeks until I burned myself to a crisp. I'm much better off financially than many people my age, yet I am somehow still years away from homeownership and starting a family - if I ever can.

Maybe Whoopi should retire and let a millennial do her job for her pay. Not me; I don't think I'd be able to work as hard as her. 🙄

I wish famous people would just shut up if they're going to say stupid shit. I don't want her tainting my TNG rewatch.

Who the fuck does she know that only works four hours?

Even if wages kept up with inflation, housing prices sure as hell have not. The house I own sold for $62k back in 1988 which is about $163k today. We bought it for well over twice that eight years ago. We could probably sell it for $600k. It is one of the cheaper houses in the city. How the fuck are people starting out supposed to afford that? I get that she has little concept of housing prices anymore but you would think worry her growing up in public housing, she would be a little more sympathetic to people having a hard time. But I guess she is taking the "fuck you, I got mine route."

The only person she knows that works 4 hours/week is herself.

The rest of the time is spent playing Diablo on her Mac apparently

Who the fuck does she know that only works four hours?

Getting paid as if we only worked 4 Boomer hours, I guess?

I don’t want her tainting my TNG rewatch.

That’s when you learn to separate the art from the artist. Gunian has some rather wise words to say; Whoopi says some banal shit at times.

I dunno... I could actually see guinan spouting off some bullshit about hard work

"You know, that lt barclay spends all his time on the holodeck.. If he worked a little harder in engineering, he could afford a.... Oh wait, we live in a post-scarcity society. He already has all has basic needs met."

Tbh I think one of the only celebrities I'm able to separate the art from the artist, is probably Tom Cruise.

Goddamn can he make an entertaining movie even though he's absolutely batshit.

You sure you couldn't just talk bullshit for like an hour every weekday? I do that shit for free now.

I’d love for someone to just once elaborate on this.

What does it mean to work harder? More hours? Work harder at my current job?

Most people would not be allowed to work at their job for more hours due to overtime limits. Some jobs won’t let people work a second job.

If I work harder at my current job, what’s going to happen? Will they be grateful and just pay me more or will they create a position to promote me?

I don’t get what that means.

It means get off your lazy ass and quit that dead end job. Start your own business selling chia underwear. You can't afford the startup costs? Just get a couple mil loan from your dad.

Man I've got all this chia underwear, is that what I'm supposed to be doing with it?

You wanna know the real answer? Take advantage of others. Cheat, steal, lie, do whatever it takes to get ahead.

Once you have money, you immediately become one of the 'hard workers.' Without it, you'll always be seen as a lazy bum who only has themselves to blame for their position in life.

Funniest thing is, probably anyone making minimum wage is working harder than woopi shitberg ever has

I'm a high-school teacher in Italy, if I wanted to work a second I would have to ask my principal for permission (and there are lota of jobs that are forbidden, anyway). If I wanted to work more at my high-school job, those activities would be paid next year, if I'm lucky.

What kind of jobs are forbidden?

People who say it don't get what it means, because people who actually work hard don't say it, and people who say it don't work hard.

Duh. If you aren't a multimillionaire with an EGOT, you obviously don't work hard.

It means giving up your life for a corporation who will never even know your name beyond a number on a computer.

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“Every generation is told, ‘You’re gonna do worse than your parents,’

What? The historical expectation is that every generation will be better off than the last. That hasn't held in recent years, which is a problem.

If you're raking in easy TV pundit money, you're going to get out of touch real quick. That's why watching TV is just so weird these days. It's all millionaires that haven't held a normal job in decades saying we're just not working hard enough.

As someone who falls into this category, yes I have a mortgage, yes I have kids, yes it's insanely hard to juggle it all and keep your head above water... I have worked hard since 15 years old with only 2 times since having longer than 2 weeks off consecutively and I just turned 40. My job is fair, but can have long hours, on call, and work on weekends. The salary seems great, but where I live, plus being 2023 it just barely cuts it. As it is now I can get by, but my future for retirement looks pretty bleak right now. My wife has a decade old student loan that's $500 a month and interest has basically kept it there and I have no way to afford paying over that amount which even if I did would still take 10 more years to possibly pay it off so this loan is for life.

So stagnant wages, student loan debt, rising costs on everything, no programs to help middle class, and finally the need for services or certifications that appear to be needed more and more for everything which also takes your money. If I can barely get by I don't want to see how people less fortunate seem to do it... I honestly think about what if I didn't have kids probably weekly because it seems like the better decision for survival. It's messed up that you can do everything right yet still feel so close to failure at any given emergency. So screw her and her so called "hard life". People our age do deserve better and more needs to be done to help. You know how much of a difference it would make if we had free daycare like some other countries? That's just one thing and it would turn my life around tremendously. There is so much that can be done, but it never does.

Idk man sounds like you're just not working hard like Whoopi is.

Have you tried making coffee at home??

Lay off the avocado toast!

That is a really cool thing about being California poor. I can barely afford shit, but I do have a 2 story avocado tree on the property I rent. I have so many avocados I plan weekly meal menus around them ripening.

I turn 40 next month and I've done everything right and I'm BARELY keeping up.

I got good grades in school. I did as much community college as I could and then my parents paid for the rest of my bachelor's. I worked hard at my jobs. I put myself through school for another degree so I could move up (and paid for it out of my savings, no loans). I had two kids and went back to work. I paid the crippling $3k a month to have them in daycare. I moved closer family to get their help after school. I drive a modest car and I live in a modest house. I have no vices - no drugs, no alcohol, no gambling. I cook my own food and do my own cleaning. I worked a "side hustle" for most of my 20s and early 30s (writing, making maybe 500-1k a month). I've saved everything I didn't spend on rent, food, and utilities. I've never bought a coffee, or traveled outside the US, or traveled much at all. I am in good health. I married a good partner, and he's a software engineer with no debt.

I literally did everything right, and yet we are behind on savings, we can't afford to repair anything but the absolute essentials on our home, and we're counting the days until we write our last daycare check so we can start... saving for college.

It's hard not to think that shelling out over $140k to the daycare over the past 7 years didn't have something to do with it.

And then there are my 79-year-old parents, watching my husband and I run this treadmill, and scratching their heads in wonder. We have so much less than they did at my age, and yet we have two incomes! How are we not living in absolute luxury?!

What a different world they lived in. Sometimes, when I feel like feeling bad, I remember that my dad's pension pays him more every month than I earn doing my 40 hour a week software developer job. A pension! Imagine being paid while not even working.

(It was definitely the kids that did us in - I often think about how much more secure we would be without the daycare costs.)

I have worked hard since 15 years old with only 2 times since having longer than 2 weeks off consecutively and I just turned 40.

Holy Fuck! That sounds like a nightmare. How do you accept everything happening around you?

Millennials are coming up on FORTY. We are starting to show up regularly in congress. We can run for president. We have survived multiple economic crises, the world falling apart around us, and have seen the ladders our forebears climbed pulled up behind them.

There aren't enough hours in the week to afford the American dream anymore. Every starter home is being bought by multi-nationals for far more then we have to rent back to us for far too much of our paycheck. That paycheck still hasn't gone up (despite our company having a banner year and giving massive bonuses to the chiefs) because we bought into the idea that our company is family when it turns out that family was the Donners and we're looking like a snack.

So eat a bag of dicks Whoopi.

According to the US debt clock the median salary 20 years ago was $32,086 and the median home price was $167,890. Today the median salary is $36,097 and the median home price is $426,973.

Whoopi needs to understand that there are several systemic things that are different now than when she was younger:

  • Health Care is prohibitively expensive, especially for major issues. If you don't have a job with good insurance, and you have a major health emergency, that could ruin your finances for the duration. The good side to it is that we can treat a lot more things now; things that used to kill you are now survivable, even if it ruins your financial stability to do so.

  • Education is similarly expensive. We told all these kids that going to college is the key to a good job, but everyone is doing it so at the end of it all they don't really have any advantage over their peers, but end up in tons of debt before they even start.

  • Casual Spending is much higher now, particularly as people work longer hours to pay off that medical and student loan debt. When Whoopi was young, going out to eat was a super-expensive treat. You got dressed up for it and everything. And you needed to go to the bank first and get cash to pay for it. Now "eating out" means grabbing a Taco Bell between shifts, because you dont have time to cook, and it all goes on the credit card to pay later (or not). It all adds up, but it not nearly as glamorous as she thinks.

  • The cost of living in an area has a lot to do with it. The Software Engineer who can work remotely can move from the Bay Area to almost everywhere else in the country and net more money after local expenses. But that schoolteacher in Palo Alto can't do their job remotely, and will never be able to buy a house there. They will need to rent until they retire, or move so far out they have to clog up the freeway for over an hour each way.

Nome of these things are the kids fault, and some of them are the current ownership class (from her generation) draining as much value out of young people as they can before they die off. We should start calling Boomers "The Vampire Generation".

A Show like the View works if someone on the panel would say these things.

The older generations have always seen the younger generations as lazy

“They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.”

“Our youth love luxury. They have bad manners and despise authority. They show disrespect for their elders and love to chatter instead of exercise. Young people are now tyrants, not the servants of their household. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up food and terrorize their teachers.”
Rhetoric, Aristotle, 4th Century BC

People have always whinged about young adults. Here's proof

Why old people will always complain about young people

The big takeaway from this is that change doesn't happen until the old guard dies.

We can't reason with them. All we can do is wait for them to die of natural causes.

Thank god death is built-in to the universe, or else we'd never solve these problems.

The big takeaway from this is that change doesn’t happen until the old guard dies.

Not quite.

The takeaway is that every year the old guard that died is replaced by a new group that ages into being grumpy old fucks.

I'm old GenX and have watched many people who used to be radicals when they were young turn into reactionary old fucks when they hit their 40s and 50s.

And people in your cohort will do the same as they age.

That hasn’t been happening. Millennials are moving further left with age. My take is that the previous trend of moving right as you age relied upon your life getting more comfortable as you age. You buy a house, you have two cars, you get to start going on vacations, you have assets you need to secure. That isn’t happening for Millennials. We’re not getting anymore comfortable as we age. We have nothing to conserve.

That said, I see so little radicalism in millennials compared to Gen Z. My generation is a bunch of liberals still trapped in corporate fairy tales about peaceful protesting and voting harder. Gen Z reminds me more of the generation of the turn of the 20th century. They’re not tolerating this shit.

Is that Aristotle or Socrates? I’m seeing both being attributed to the quote.

Edit: Also Plato… found this not sure if reputable but appears to be a quote from 1907 https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/?amp=1

Probably invented, but it's worth pointing out that Socrates did not write. Most of his stuff came from Plato or others.

The Ancient Greeks also had a fundamentally different idea of what it meant to be a historian. It wasn't a fact and evidence-driven field, as it is thought of today. Herodotus, for example, regularly wrote stuff in the framing of "I wasn't there and it was many scores of years ago, but if I HAD been there this is what I would've seen happen", so to speak. Assuming he was a real person and not an invented personality.

I remember finding the source. It was a doctoral thesis on education in the ancient Greece, and that passage was like a summary of the sentiment in source texts, written by the author of the thesis.

edit; found the source text.

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Whoopie doing this shit makes me more sad than other dipshit boomers. Growing up she was Guinan, a character on Star Trek TNG. She was unbelievably old and wise and gentle and kind and, honestly, had the best fucking hats. Every time she says something like this, or shat on Bernie, or whatever it is today, it drives home that it's all story telling, and makes it harder to believe in something better.

Actors acting? No way.

But I do share your sentiment.

I knew her from Sister Act, where she was a fraud acting pious

Has anyone else noticed how wild it is that in the service industry, despite the supposed crisis of shortstaffedness, things like McDonald's never have to close locations even temporarily? It was never easy to work at McDonald's yet all the workers pull through every single day with so fewer people to do it all. And they get less for it too. It's beyond me how people could see the current generations as anything but the hardest workers since god knows when.

Management has a lot to do with it. There's a pizza shop in town that has had the same young staff for years. It's unheard of anywhere else. They all appear happy and motivated. Other places are mixed bags. Some employees are good, some aren't great. You get what you pay for. I can only assume the good place pays well and aren't monsters to work for. During Covid they never had staffing shortages unlike the rest which had long wait times or signs on the door about staffing shortages. One place in was getting testy about their signs, not going as far to say "no one wants to work", but close. Turns out they were offering $11/hr, while the Grocery store literally next door was offering $15/hr, and usually more hours at that. I don't know if they ever figured out why they couldn't keep staff.

I don't see any of these places actually struggling though. Sure it takes longer to get mcdonalds but like I said I've never seen a closed mcdonalds even during snowstorms. The employees ALWAYS make it work. I used to work at a Tim Hortons which was "short staffed" but you should have seen the stacks of applications we had pouring in. They were like small town phone books. Almost daily interviews too. But nobody else got hired the entire 8 months I was there. Management had "help wanted" signs up, but they clearly didn't want help very badly. The "worker shortage" is nothing but pure bullshit on bullshit on bullshit. Literally nothing is true about it, not even what you're saying that the jobs aren't worth it. Even the worst jobs have tons and tons of people competing for them.

I can't speak for McDonalds I don't go there. Can't recall any of the chains closing for worker shortages or anything, but the mom and pop shops definitely did have worker shortages, I know some of the workers personally and they took jobs for more money in other industries. I'm pretty sure McDonalds paid more than these places during covid. I haven't seen any signs in well over a year so I'd agree that there is no shortage anymore. I can confirm that several grocery stores were hiring people between 2020 and 2022. A lot of older people retired early or left public facing jobs.

I'm not denying that some businesses choose not to hire people on purpose, I'm sure that happened too. But I'd argue that Business owners doing that are also probably terrible to work for and people probably end up quiting.

Because if they acknowledged our efforts they'd have to give us something for them.

Speaking from a USA perspective:

I'm 34. I guess that's right in the sweet spot of middle millennials. I've been hearing how lazy and entitled I am since as long as I can remember. Almost every single one of my generational colleagues have been some of the hardest working people I've ever encountered and yet some of the most underpaid.

Millennials on average are more educated, more trained, and more productive (in the sense that we are the largest generational labor pool in a labor environment that is roughly 70% more productive than the equivalent market when baby boomers were in their 30's) than their baby boomer equivalent.

To top things off, the average wealth gap between baby boomers and millennials has more than doubled since the 70's and we own less than 5% of all US wealth.

I'm not sure how less entitled we can get, relatively speaking? What I really ever wanted was a somewhat steady, fulfilling career with some meaning and a small little place of my own to eventually retire to. Maybe enough money that I didn't have to worry too much about bills, food, and rent all of the time. We were told that so long as we worked our ass off, did well in school, got multiple degrees and certifications, put our heads down and did the hard work that we could get that. Turns out: not really true.

Same. I feel so entitled. My grandpa was able to pay for a house, two cars, a child, my grandmother's law school and nice vacations, all on a working man's salary. Sine my wife and I are both working full time, we should be able to afford way more than a shitty apartment that we never get to leave, and to start our own family. Must not have those things because we are lazy and entitled.

Well maybe if, when you were in high school working at Burger King, you put just a smidge more effort, just a pube's worth more effort, into sweeping that floor, a senior VP at Boeing would've walked in and seen you, and said "Hey kid, you've got a great work ethic. Want to be a manager overseeing the new plant?"

But you were lazy. You were putting in only 50 sweeps per minute when you could've clocked 75 spm EASY, and the SVP knew that, he saw that in your posture, so instead he just said to you "Hey can I get a napkin", and because of that lazy entitlement, WITHHOLDING those 25 spm from your employer (God bless), you missed out.

And that's just one example of millennials being entitled, really it happens all the time. And Gen Z, they don't even fetch the napkins, they just point to the dispenser on the counter, where it always is, and so there's no really no chance for them at all.

beautifully said.. the way i feel about things also is.. boomers and the immediate subsequent generations are fucking up the country and thriving.. millenials are the ones holding it together with ducttape because that's all we've got for now..

and no, im not speaking for everyone in each group i just mentioned

Cmon, Whoopi a lot of us looked up to you.

Yea this is just sad. I know this is the View, and having unpopular opinions is what fuels ratings and all but damn.

Yeah! I expect the voice of Barb Goldberg from Summer Camp Island to be better than that...

You're like one of the only people I've seen who acknowledge that that show even exists

Yeah Whoopy, I think you are totally on the money.

That is to say, you have too much money and you are totally out of touch.

Woopi Goldberg specializes in saying ignorant shit to try and stay relevant. She's just a shock jock. Stop falling for it.

This coming from somebody whose job is to just sit around and gossip with other women.

And before that played dressup for 30 years.

Whose name is literally a euphemism for coitus.

Thanks for the input coitus Goldberg.

Attacking someone for their chosen name, even if we disagree with them, is childish and only weakens our arguments. Attack the idea, not the person.

Just concede the point. Why should we work hard enough?

Someday you could be part of a daily talk show panel and parrot whatever confirmation bias your audience "needs."

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This from the woman who once-upon-a-time thought black people couldn't be actors in mainstream media?

She should reflect on how environment, upbringing, and socioeconomics can affect people.

The Republicans last night suggested raising the retirement age and blamed us for being lazy when we complain about not wanting to work an extra 3-5 years before collecting on social security and our retirement accounts.

Fuck these people.

Make it retroactive so that everyone that's already retired has to come back and work an additional 3-5 years. Lazy boomers won't do it.

I once thought that if i could ever make six figures, I'd be set for life. I could have anything i wanted. Now i make multiple times that number and i can still barely afford a house that's big enough for my family of 3. I'm house poor and an emergency could bankrupt me in an instant. I'm in the top like 0.1% of income earners. What the fuck?

Haha, not quite making as much as you, but I'm doing significantly better than the average person and saving is just impossible. Groceries, energy and basically every other inelastic good just crept up to take up an increasingly big slice of the budget. It's all shit you can't easily cut.

Then you hear conservatives talk about the fertility rate, and young people not having kids and you just think to yourself: "I can't afford to add kids to a family, we're barely getting by as it is.". The family values people don't give a shit about the economics of having one.

How??? What kind of house do you live in? What kind of car do you drive?

I haven't bought a house yet. Been house shopping for about 4 months trying to find something in my budget. I drive a beat up old Honda Civic.

What housing market are you in? City?

Portland, OR. My budget realistically maxes out around 600k, and so far at that price all i can find are weird houses from 100 years ago with various flaws or in bad neighborhoods. Good houses seem to start around 750k.

If you make >$200,000/year and still struggle to find housing, you're the problem. It's sad how people like you feel they need more money when so many others, somehow, get by with significantly less. Why should you get it before them?

Probably because you feel entitled to live on the West Coast. You just want to ignore supply and demand.

Probably because you feel entitled to live on the West Coast.

I don't even understand this comment. Should the West Coast be completely unpopulated aside from rich people?

Obviously people should live where the jobs aren't.

If lazy means doing a full time job and two side hustles just to afford an overpriced home that you barely spend time in because you're always at work, then yeah, I'll admit it. You got me.

What an out-of-touch Boomer. Even many famous actors acknowledge they are extremely lucky. Without at least the tiniest dose of humility you become entitled. Which is whatever. But when you apply that standard to everyone, it's absolute nonsense. Not everyone had the money or connections to be set up for life. And not everyone should have the traditional "print money, afford any house and lifestyle you want" style career.

But they all deserve to have affordable housing, as well as healthcare. That's being empathetic and actually contributing something as a human being...

And not everyone should have the traditional “print money, afford any house and lifestyle you want” style career.

Hard disagree. We created the predatory system that categorizes humans' worth by how much money they generate. We can change the system so that any worker can afford a real home. Printing money? That's fake. Humans are worth more than their intellect/skillset/education level/resumé.

I said "traditional", but that apparently didn't convey enough. I mean like the "solid" wealthy careers many parents and grandparents wanted their children to have. So no, everyone should not be a doctor/lawyer/business executive etc. Not because they deserve less, but because society needs people doing all the other jobs... But compensate them fairly.

The highest paid jobs in society should be teachers, farmers, medical staff. Pay people for what they are actually contributing to the future of society.

Sure, you're not wrong. I also believe in a Universal Basic Income, but neither is going to happen, especially not here in the US.

They say: "Work smarter, not harder."

Millennials went to college, got smarter, then went out into the workforce and saw all the inefficiency in its processes (this 4 hour meeting could have been an email!) and pointed out how to do things differently. The older generations, afraid of loosing power, labeled the different way of doing things "lazy", and labeled the millennials as such.

Hollywood has rallied behind Roman Polanski after his arrest in Switzerland over the weekend, with the actor Whoopi Goldberg suggesting that whatever he was guilty of it wasn't "rape-rape".

As a guest on The View chatshow on US television, she said: "I know it wasn't rape-rape. It was something else but I don't believe it was rape-rape. He went to jail and and when they let him out he was like, 'You know what, this guy's going to give me a hundred years in jail. I'm not staying.' So that's why he left."

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/sep/29/roman-polanski-whoopi-goldberg

it wasn’t rape-rape

It almost never is. Reminds me of that one scene in Bottoms. "Gray area stuff counts too."

Whenever Whoopi says something stupid, just remember she once trotted out Ted Danson in black-face and didn't understand why people were offended.

‘the view’ is toxic. If there was an equivalent of toxic masculinity for women, it would be that show. I mean it had barbara Walters as an opinion in where she attacked Corey Feldman for trying to speak out on sexual harassment in the film industry. that should be all it needs to assess it as a garbage program. I cannot believe it kept running after that and found more garbage opinions to taint the media. I immediately lose all respect of any celebrity that gets cast on the view. Although I suppose I should be grateful that it has exposed so many piles of shit in the industry. A sandbox of regret filled with cat turds.

The View is still on air? I thought they dropped it years ago.

Somewhere along the line, Whoopi became a Hillary Clinton clone.

Pretty much around when she joined the View, maybe a bit before

It's a simple bargain: you just say whatever Disney wants you to say, and they'll just keep shoveling money in your direction.

I read this comment section and I have no clue how about the world sometimes.

I see 20 year olds getting married and having kids. My cousin is barely 21 married with 2 kids, husband is the only worker and they own a house. He probably makes 50k a year. He works in a refinery.

My old boss moved to Castle Rock, Colorado. He doesn't work, his wife is corporate and makes low 6 figures. They're saving for a $600,000 house and will have the down payment in a year.

I'm not sure why some people are having such hard times and others seem to make it no problem.

My guess is that we aren't being financially sound with our money. My buddy's mom asked him to hold $100 to start her savings for a new apartment - she then called him a day later saying she needed $50 of it to eat. She called a day after that saying she needed the other $50 so she could eat. I asked him what she was eating and he said she only eats out, never cooks. Probably orders GrubHub constantly. If I had to guess A LOT of people live a lifestyle that is inconsistent with their income. But, those people will argue they're eating sandwiches and nothing but crackers ALL THE TIME, things are just "more expensive." I'm honestly perplexed by the economics of the world.

When boomers were our age, they owned something like 40% of the United States wealth. We, currently, own just 4% of the wealth. 2% of that is owned by Mark Zuckerberg.

That kind of disparity and change doesn't happen simply on its own, or because of laziness. There are systemic issues at play.

Huh, it kind of sounds like there's this kind of... divide between certain groups of people where some can make it and some really struggle. Any ideas on what we should call these two CLASSes of people? Maybe we could figure out some kind of CLASS SYSTEM.

I'm gonna invent a term forb when there's consciousness of class.

I think I'm gonna call it "social stratification alertness."

That guy that works in a refinery definitely makes way more than $50k. Oil & gas pays very well, especially with overtime.

But you don't know their financial situation in any case. I know people that own houses because they got lucky. They knew someone that was selling and they got a good deal, or they happened to buy right before COVID and everything jumped. Or their family contributed, or they have something they inherited. Or they just financed everything and they're in debt up to their eyeballs.