6 Movies (And 1 TV Show) That Made Everyone Hate Millennials 

If you ask any proud Gen X parent of a Gen Z child, they will tell you that millennials are the bane of their existence, a scourge on society, the sole reason that hurricanes exist, and living embodiments of Satan. We are lazy, narcissistic, horny, materialistic, and unable to concentrate on anything requiring extended thought, they say, as their dead-eyed adolescent children scroll through TikTok, unable to distinguish between news, conspiracy theories, and the rich (and ignored) sensory information surrounding them.

How did this come to be? Millennials have amassed crippling student debt and inherited a crumbling economy, hurtling towards retirement without a safety net. We were the first to overwhelmingly embrace a gig economy, forgoing healthcare and investments just to keep (rented) roofs over our heads. Less than five years ago, 1 in 5 millennials were living in poverty. So, why do so many people older than us hate us enough to blame us for these problems? One possible answer is: pop culture. Let’s investigate these 6 movies (and one show) that are the reason everyone hates millennials, probably.

But first, let me take a selfie.

The Bling Ring (2013)

This is Sofia Coppola’s glossy take on the Bling Ring, a real group of millennial teens who robbed multiple residences in the Hollywood Hills, most notably Paris Hilton’s. Though the Bling Ring were once notorious enough to flesh out a compelling crime drama, Sofia Coppola wanted to explore why the Bling Ring did what they did. The impression that she came up with — that millennials were conditioned to become fame-hungry and materialistic by Tumblr and Perez Hilton — was damning enough. You can bet that some Gen X film nerds have seen this movie and assumed that millennials everywhere possess one collective dream: to try on Paris Hilton’s shoes.

Frances Ha (2012)

No one is arguing that Frances Ha is a bad movie, but neither is it doing millennials any favors. While it nails many millennials’ perpetual broke-ness and lack of direction circa 2012, it also portrays the titular character as the quirky embodiment of the “adulting” hashtag. Frances doesn’t know how to grow up, and barely wants to. A very helpful characterization when trying to convince old people that millennials are not emotionally stunted.

Drinking Buddies (2013)

Drinking Buddies may just be the definitive portrayal of craft beer-loving hipsterhood in the mid-2010s. This movie is all about indie music, ironic flirting, and quarter-life crises. It’s like being trapped at an early Arcade Fire concert with a man who has just proclaimed that he’s not gay, he just doesn’t like labels. If this movie didn’t make people hate millennials, it at least confirmed their hatred of hipsters.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

The movie’s comic relief is a screaming, crying, whiny millennial. He is meant to be the overwhelmingly non-masculine foil to Chris Pratt’s rugged Gen X Velociraptor Whisperer. I feel that I have made my point.

We Are Your Friends (2015)

“I want to become a DJ” has become shorthand for “dump me immediately,” but it wasn’t always this way. “DJ” was once a respectable career choice for many young artists, so much so that Zac Efron starred in We Are Your Friends, a serious drama about a young DJ in Los Angeles and his tribulations. That said, the movie was so lightly rendered that it only reaffirmed the idea that millennials are pretentious navel gazers who will do anything to achieve fame.

The Social Network (2010)

This movie might just be the source of all millennial hatred. Its portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg is like a millennial stereotype Bingo card: entitled, narcissistic, and socially stunted because of the Interwebs. But the movie also paints him as a disruption-obsessed sociopath, creating a sort of straw man argument that justifies hatred of not just him, but millennials everywhere. 

Girls (2012-2017)

Though superbly crafted, this show practically invented every stereotype that followed millennials for the rest of human existence. The characters of Girls are entitled, narcissistic and whiny — just short of being the reason that hurricanes exist. However, older generations who watched Girls failed to understand that it portrayed a specific subset of millennials: white, privileged, and American. Hannah, and by extension Lena Dunham, proclaimed to be the “voice of generation,” and non-millennials actually believed it. The rest of us are still suffering the consequences.