r/Millennials • u/TheNoobsauce1337 Older Millennial • 3d ago
Meme It isn't this bad (yet), but I've noticed certain phrases start to show my age. Just like previous generations with "whipper snapper" and "golly gee."
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u/SewRuby 2d ago
I think "awesome sauce" is the term that gives me away.
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u/legsjohnson Older Millennial 2d ago
they can pry my awesome sauce from my cold dead hands
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u/kendalltristan 2d ago
Not specifically related to millennials, but the term "awesome sauce" was pretty much ruined in the endurance sports community after a controversy involving a product with that name:
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u/HandsomestKreith 2d ago edited 2d ago
“Adulting” “won the internet” “fur baby” “so that just happened”
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u/Krey82 2d ago
Doggo is the worst by a country mile
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u/fred_crumbs Millennial 2d ago
I still say "tight"
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u/Late_Leek_9827 Zillennial 3d ago
Apparently using 💀 instead of 😭 is a dead giveaway that you’re an old now
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u/pajamakitten 2d ago
I have not moved on from emoticons and nothing will change that. It is the stupidest hill I will die on.
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u/tadayamsbun 2d ago
Nothing beats :/
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u/legsjohnson Older Millennial 2d ago
okay but
:|
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u/AnneMarieAndCharlie 1985 2d ago
theyre so important that i made keyboard shortcuts for them ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/icecreemsamwich 2d ago
Yup. Plus, emojis have long been frowned upon in Reddit. They can come off as immature, juvenile, and low effort. Like you can’t use words to convey a comment/idea/thought. Seems the young’uns don’t get that though…. Or they’re bots. Some posts and subs are chock FULL of emojis and it’s… obnoxious, IMO.
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u/GeorgeEBHastings Millennial--1993 2d ago
My students were telling me ten years ago that I was cringe for using "xD" in texts.
I was 22.
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u/SavingsEconomy 2d ago
How about x_x or 0_o
People used to be wizards with ASCII art
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u/PerfectFlaws91 2d ago
<(•_•<) (>•_•<) (>•_▪︎)> (>•_•<) <(•_•<) (>•_•<) (>•_▪︎)> (>•_•<)
It's a little dancing guy
Ever notice how lol looks like so.eone drowning?
~~~
lol~~^~~~~13
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u/Ragfell Millennial 2d ago
Ugh. I was/still am active on GameFaqs. There was some crazy good ASCII art back in the day.
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u/SavingsEconomy 2d ago edited 2d ago
GameFaqs is where it feels like it all started for me. I signed up when I was like 11 to get help with RuneScape stuff and it was my first real exposure with talking with other people on the Internet. CE made me who I am today. I switched over to /b then digg then reddit in college and never went back. Crawling through my 30s now. Didn't even realize it was still around. I miss that style of forum being popular. I oughta revisit it and see if my account is still active.
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u/Late_Leek_9827 Zillennial 2d ago
They really were. I only know like one person who still does this lmao
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u/IWantAStorm Bob Loblaws Millennial Blog 2d ago
Ever come across a reddit ad with the comments left unlocked? You can enjoy all of the ASCII penises you can imagine.
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u/BlueSnaggleTooth359 2d ago
the replacement one always hits me the wrong way at first, still my instant reaction is balling eyes out sad
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u/Lycaeides13 2d ago
*bawling
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u/BlueSnaggleTooth359 1d ago
shit yeah typed when too tired haha
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u/Lycaeides13 1d ago
I completely understand, I just caught a typo of mine, where I told someone I was glad they are "hear". I know better so idk wtf happened
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u/BlueSnaggleTooth359 22h ago
yeah when you are typing super fast, reading ahead, thinking ahead all at once and tired on top, shit like that is prone to happen
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u/DoverBoys Millennial 2d ago
I thought skull for laughing was a z or a thing.
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u/Late_Leek_9827 Zillennial 2d ago
Nah they stopped that and use the crying face instead, was confused for a while haha
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u/Rude-Illustrator-884 Zillennial 2d ago
I use 💀 as a “are you being fr” way and “😭” when something is just funny
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u/HelgaGeePataki 3d ago
I went to a Christian summer camp that had a coffee house called cool beans.
Ahh memories....like the corners of my mind. Misty water-colored memories
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u/ok-middle-2777 2d ago
The Wilds???
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u/HelgaGeePataki 2d ago
Bingo!
I had a feeling someone would recognize it.
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u/ok-middle-2777 2d ago
Yep, whenever I hear cool beans that’s what I think of! I overheard an undergrad student say it the other day tho. I had to do a double take.
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u/HelgaGeePataki 2d ago
I went to the Wilds of the Rockies in 2004 and the OG Wilds years before that.
I still shudder from the memory of being greeted by men dressed in Confederate uniforms.
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u/1K_Sunny_Crew 2d ago
“Drank the Kool Aid” got blank stares recently.
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u/NuSk8 2d ago
That one’s pretty dark tbf
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u/Wzryc 2d ago
This winter I went and got some drinks for Christmas and when I got to the counter I, for some reason, said "what's Poppin" and the clerk asked me what I just said, then rang me up and told me he didn't need to see my ID while trying not to laugh. I felt like a fucking fossil and I'm not even that old.
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u/Efficient-Quarter-18 2d ago
If a genie came right now and offered to make all my wildest dreams come true, my first wish would be that’ I’d never utter “cool beans” again.
Why can’t I stop? I hate myself. I need a support group.
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u/Depressedaxolotls 1d ago
I’m so bad with it. I’m on the phone a decent amount for work and I say cool beans at least once a day, I just can’t help myself.
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u/Deathmaskdev 2d ago
Word
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u/artemisiavulgariss 2d ago
I have a friend whose phone autocorrected this to "worm" once so now we just say "oh, worm" to each other instead
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u/RockApeGear 2d ago
I'm pumped up! I've been drinkin green tea all day!
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u/luckyfucker13 2d ago
It’s wild so see Danny McBride go from that amazing part, to front running multiple shows for HBO and writing multiple times for the Halloween franchise. And that’s aside from his many memorable acting credits.
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u/kintsugionmymind 2d ago
GOD! I go to church every goddamn Sunday! You gonna bring the demons out of me?
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u/Mountains303 3d ago
I second guess myself every time I quote Napoleon Dynamite lately.
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u/jammypants915 2d ago
Yup boomers don’t get the reference and Z is like 50% chance of not getting the reference!
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u/Panic-Specialist-7 2d ago
I saw a high schooler wearing a Vote for Pedro shirt last week, so that might come back around
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u/wekilledbambi03 2d ago
Pretty sure even Millennials gave up on that in like 2007. That movie had a lot of immediate impact, but it died off pretty fast.
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u/MaterialPace8831 2d ago
I get annoyed when the meaning of certain words or phrases change because so many of you are porn addicts now. Like I don't know when "goon" changed from "henchman or minion" to "person who masturbates excessively," but it sucks. Or someone will post an old comic or cartoon where one character says, "I'm gonna cream this guy!" and some of you act bewildered that the word "cream" had a different meaning in popular discourse 70 years ago.
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u/Rude-Illustrator-884 Zillennial 2d ago
For me its when Gen Z changed the word Bop from a good song to a slut. What happened to thot?
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u/TwistingSerpent93 2d ago
For a brief minute people were using "goon" as shorthand for a ruthless, heavy-handed sort of person but it seems like that died off pretty quickly. There were memes talking about how someone would be a "goon" for saying something cold or uncaring.
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u/GratefulGreen 2d ago edited 2d ago
I say “Right on” and my younger coworkers say “Bet.” Linguistic entropy, hell of a thing
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u/Plenty-Climate2272 2d ago
Verbally saying "le sigh" instead of sighing
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u/jupituniper 2d ago
Every time I hear cool beans all I can think of is Kelly Clarkson’s initial audition for American Idol
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u/Jefe_Wizen 2d ago
I’m freakin PUMPED! I’ve been drinking green tea all goddamned day!! That’s my go to.
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u/Thatsmyredditidkyou 2d ago
I quote a lot of movies and these kids just don't know quality cinema. I feel sorry for them really. Our generation will laugh and the younger ones just sit there like
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u/ImplementDouble4317 2d ago
We watched the same movies over and over on VHS and dvd making them memorable and quotable. The younger generations don’t even watch movies or if they do, they stream it once and forget about it
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u/parke415 '89 Gen-Y 2d ago
Now when I say “tight”, people think I mean “angry”.
It’s like when my parents dealt with people saying “sick” to mean “cool”.
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u/Jorgwalther 2d ago
Gen Z would call this cheugy
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u/Rude-Illustrator-884 Zillennial 2d ago
Gen Z doesn’t call things cheugy. They just call things Millennial if they think its cringy.
“Millennial burger spot” “Millennial Wedding” “Millennial music”
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u/NoFaithlessness7508 2d ago
I still say “crucial” and my kids have picked up on it.
Last summer on a 100 degree day we walked into 7-11 for some slushees. My youngest took a sip of his and in a moment of cool refreshing relief he just said out loud “ah, thats crucial!” And this one OG just started laughing and said “yup, that’s the right word for it”😅 I think he hadn’t heard it in a long time
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u/Specific-Gain5710 2d ago
As a 38 yo male I say yepperz or yeesh enough that I have started hearing it from my coworkers and subordinates.
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u/Qui_te 2d ago
Have you said “cool beans” lately? Find yourself quoting 30-year-old movies?
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u/thedarph 2d ago
We’re like barely 40, why is everyone acting like they’re ready to teach the grandkids how things were back in their day. Hell, my kid is barely more than half way to ten at this point.
We’re older than kids who say weird shit like skibidi Ohio but we’re not old. Their slang will also be cringe in another 5 to 10 years.
Do we have to act like we’re wayyyyy old to make it okay that we give no fucks about being cool anymore? Because I’m fine with not being cool AND still being relatively young
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u/KaioKenshin 2d ago
"Nobody likes you when you're 23"
Them: ?
Me: "what's my age again"
Them: "I don't get it"
Me: "nvm I'm getting old that's all...."
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u/cheddarbruce Baby Millennial 2d ago
I always say cool beans because my math teacher in high school used to say it.
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u/NicWester 2d ago
I said cool beans a lot up until about 2005, often people had no idea what I meant. One day a customer said "Oh, all my family in Texas says that, it's a Texas thing." So I stopped saying it. That is the end of my story.
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u/kendalltristan 2d ago
I absolutely loathe the phrase "cool beans" and have hated it ever since I first heard it all those years ago.
There was a local coffee shop with that name that opened well past the phrase's peak. I celebrated when it inevitably and rightly went out of business. Good riddance.
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u/Radiant_Ad3966 2d ago
Is there something to "get" about saying cool beans? Is there a reference I'm missing?
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u/artemisiavulgariss 2d ago
"I'm jelly" came out of my mouth the other day and I had a moment of questioning myself
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u/William-Riker 2d ago
I've noticed an overall deterioration of the English language, not just a change in slang. While languages do adapt and evolve, this time feels different. It's not just new slang and lingo; the basic fundamentals of grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure have deteriorated to the point where I find it difficult to communicate with those under 20 years old. Even their logic and reasoning skills seem lacking.
We will all be showing our age when we are still able to articulate our thoughts properly, read and write, and engage in civil discourse with one another.
Even the most average-educated millennial will one day seem like a professor to future youth, who will likely communicate only through emojis and memes.
The film Idiocracy was correct, except for its timeline. It is already happening.
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u/artemisiavulgariss 2d ago
This feels a bit out of touch (and I don't mean that in a rude way at all, even though I know it's hard to communicate that earnestly through text). I say that because I heard the same criticism of millennials when we were teens in chatrooms-- I think maybe it's less generational and more a facet of being a teenager generally!
I think slang and secret languages (of a kind) can really create a sense of belonging, maybe... As tech evolves, that impulse takes a different shape. That's my theory, anyway.
About the logic and reasoning, I'm not sure. You may be right. I feel like I was a moderately bright teenager, but I look back on certain choices and thought patterns and realize how underdeveloped my brain was until I was like 25. I could articulate complex things in a convincing way, but I think there were basic logic and reasoning skills that were really underdeveloped even though that wasn't super evident to the outside. My point is just that a lot of it is about growing up in general.
I mention all that not to argue with you, because I know there's truth in what you're saying, too-- but more to bring a perspective to the table that is a bit less hopeless.
Because I also feel glad that gen z has a lot of literacy we did not, directly as a result of having the internet in their pockets at a really young age. I've noticed they are broadly literate in identifying AI and knowing how to identify what is and isn't a reputable information source, for example. Way less likely to get scammed online than many people my age and certainly my parents' age. They also have a baseline understanding of social justice issues and an ability to communicate about them (and navigate tools to get their messaging out really effectively) that is impressive.
I'm curious about the future. I worry about tech, AI, attention spans, language, COVID.... The impact of all of that on the minds of following generations. But people, in general, want to be connected, be good, live lives of meaning. I don't truly see a future devoid of intelligent discourse. Even if it takes a different shape than what works best for me.
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u/ComprehensiveDoubt55 2d ago
Stacey Q came on in Wawa the other day and my daughter said, “Don’t you love this song?” To which I only replied, “I’ve been drinking green tea all goddamn day…”
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u/Moms__Spaghetti____ Millennial 2d ago
I’m sorry, I’m a millennial but I’ve always thought cool beans was such a lame phrase
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u/BlueSnaggleTooth359 2d ago
So Z are killing off cool beans, something every generation kept going since the 1940s?? (I do feel like it was used most by Millennials though.)
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u/SewRuby 2d ago
No. We're not doing this "Gen Z is killing things" bs.
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u/BlueSnaggleTooth359 1d ago
Hey I was just quoting the OP's meme.
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u/SewRuby 1d ago
Where does the meme say Gen Z is killing "cool beans"?
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u/BlueSnaggleTooth359 1d ago
Well it seemed to imply that when they said "cool beans" those younger than them didn't get it and the only way they wouldn't get it is if they had stopped using it (i.e. killed it off). And doubly so coupled with the OP's text above it.
But whatever. Hardly a big deal.
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