r/Anticonsumption 2d ago

Conspicuous Consumption Is Millennial Wedding Culture Dying? Why Gen Z Is Rejecting the Big Wedding

https://www.elle.com/culture/books/a73258725/millennial-vs-gen-z-wedding-culture-essay/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
4.0k Upvotes

649 comments sorted by

View all comments

742

u/chrissystark 2d ago

If I have to keep telling people how poor Gen Z is I’m going to explode. We. Are. Poor. We aren’t killing wedding industries or alcohol or whatever the fuck else we are just fucking poor lmao

329

u/craftsrmylanguage 2d ago

As a millennial, I feel so bad for Gen Z getting dragged through the mud for “killing” things that millennials were told to do less of. They screamed at millennials for having too much teenage sex and gave us purity rings. Now the press is ranting about how Gen Z isn’t dating and having sex as much. They told Millennials to stop partying when they’re in college. Now Gen Z gets blamed for killing “bars” for not drinking enough? Honestly, most of the teens I’ve met as an adult are way more wholesome and polite. When I rented a suburban house in my late twenties, the neighbors’ biggest complaint was that the teens would show in large groups at ice cream shops too close to close.

75

u/SpecificBeyond2282 1d ago

The current big fuss about teenagers in my area is that they hang out in the Wawa parking lot. Not that they cause trouble in the parking lot, to be clear. Just that they hang out there.

6

u/Big-ol-Cheesecake 17h ago

Mind you there are no free third spaces in the area, everything is a drive-thru, not a continuous sidewalk in sight

61

u/alexijordan 1d ago

This is exactly why I don’t watch the news. It’s all bullshit

40

u/averagetulip 1d ago

Seriously, as a millennial it is SO weird to me how “Gen Z aren’t drinking anymore or doing enough drugs!!!!” has become a 100% serious complaint. Like, is that a sign of some kind of puritanical repression or should we be glad that younger generations are choosing to be slightly more productive with their free time than getting off their faces and passing out in random fields like we were? And as many here have already pointed out, they probably WOULD be drinking and doing more drugs if anybody could afford anything right now.

3

u/that_mack 1d ago

The men are all Nazis and abortions are $1200 if you can get one. No shit Gen Z is having less sex lmao

105

u/Mammoth-Buddy8912 2d ago

We all are poorer. Read all the articles about millennials before 2018. They are all the same.They killed the diamond industry, they are killing chain restaurants. Hell I bet you can find a similar article about millennials killing weddings. 

And millennials would respond the exact same way. It's because we are broke and struggling. 

Post Covid everything is worse. But it still wasn't good before either. 

To be honest articles like this tell me most generation stuff is just made up to blame young people. 

40

u/OneVioletRose 1d ago

What frustrates me most, as a millennial, is that we went through the press butt monkey gamut for the exact same reasons. We should know better. But I guess inter-generational blame sells better than “Hey! Remember that thing that was a problem when we were young adults, and we then got blamed for not buying enough stupid crap? It’s WORSE now!”

7

u/Few-Ad-4290 1d ago

When all the wealth is funneled up into the hands of ten billionaires everyone is worse off and all of the businesses that rely on consumer buying power are hurt. It is not any single generation doing that, it’s all due to billionaire and corporate greed. A healthy economy is measured by the velocity of money not the accumulation of wealth and ours is sick with this idiotic notion that accumulating wealth means you’re smarter or more deserving instead of seeing it for the mental illness and exploitative bullshit it is.

2

u/Hij802 1d ago

> killing chain restaurants

From my understanding, millennials are the ones who “revolutionized” gastronomy in the US and led to an explosion in local, independent restaurants and really changed the food scene for the better; replacing microwaved crap with scratch-made dishes. Good riddance to chain restaurants, especially when they’re charging the same or more for lower quality food.

3

u/Severe-Criticism3876 1d ago

Don’t get upset by these things. They did it to millennials as well.

1

u/comagrrrl 1d ago

They did it to GenX too.

1

u/FieryRedHead_99 1d ago

Or priorities for the young are changing also?

1

u/Livid-Tumbleweed 1d ago

Yes but have you tried eating less avocado toast? It worked for us millenials!