Every generation has its moment in the sun when the fashion, music, and slang that define it are at the cutting edge of popular culture. On the flip side, every generation transitions from youth to adulthood, and the latest cultural trends no longer start and end with them. For millennials, the generation born between 1981 and 1996, that time is now, and members of Gen Z, the generation born between 1997 and 2012, are taking notice.
Over the past few years, Gen-Zers have used social media to identify the many things millennials do, particularly online, that now feel out of touch. They’ve even coined a catchall phrase for those behaviors: millennial cringe.
In 2023, conversations about millennial cringe became even more mainstream. Gen-Zers continued finding new examples of it (perhaps in response to seeing their own irrelevance on the horizon as Generation Alpha comes online), and millennials and news media kept catching on.
We used our AI-powered social listening and analytics platform to take a closer look at the millennial cringe conversation from November 2022 through October 2023. Here’s what marketers can learn from it.
Tip: Learn more about generational considerations for marketers in our Brands on ESG report.
First, what is millennial cringe?
In a nutshell, millennial cringe refers to anything millennials do that inspires second-hand embarrassment in younger people. Take, for example, the millennial pause, i.e. the moment 30-somethings and older take before speaking in a recorded video. There’s also millennial humor, which younger people skewer as being overly self-critical with lots of references to defining pop culture phenomena like The Office, Friends, or Harry Potter.
When we zoom out, however, millennial cringe really refers to one generation’s shift in digital literacy. Many people have noted that examples of millennial cringe are artifacts of an online era gone by, with the millennial pause coming from a time when video recording on apps like Snapchat and Instagram had a slight delay. And as Vox points out, internet humor was once sillier, more earnest, and more accessible. Today, it is much more ironic, driven by algorithms, and most importantly, quickly evolving. Inevitably, though, that style of digital communication will also make us roll our eyes.
For marketers, understanding phenomena like millennial cringe is really about tracking the way communication and meaning are evolving online.
How much are people talking about millennial cringe?
This graph from Meltwater's social listening and analytics platform shows how the conversation around millennial cringe had viral moments consistently throughout the year.
From November 1, 2022, to October 31, 2023, there was a 119% increase in mentions of millennials and cringiness compared to the 12 months prior (period over period, or PoP). It saw its highest peak on July 19, when Yahoo! Lifestyle picked up this article about cringey millennial interior design trends, pushing its potential reach up to 8.35 million.
The second highest peak came on September 19, when dating app Plenty of Fish’s survey about what millennials and Gen-Zers think is cringe in dating was publicized in more than 280 news stories, including one in Yahoo! Finance with a potential reach of about 46 million people.
This screenshot of Plenty of Fish's Instagram post shows how the brand added to the generational cringe conversation.
Our AI-powered content clusters feature highlighted the story as the biggest one in this year’s millennial cringe conversation.
These AI-powered content clusters from Meltwater's social listening and analytics platform illustrate how many stories the Plenty of Fish survey spawned within the millennial cringe conversation.
Marketers take note: Plenty of Fish’s survey was a great example of a brand hopping on a relevant cultural trend in a creative, identity-building way. In the process, it took the opportunity to learn more about its audience’s attitudes and preferences.
Who is talking about millennial cringe?
On Twitter, where the most represented age group is 25-34, about 13,700 unique authors are posting about millennial cringe. According to demographics inferred from their bios, most of them are Gen-Zers and millennials, with relatively equal representation between men and women.
This ring chart from the Twitter analytics feature of Meltwater's social listening and analytics platform shows that authors in the millennial cringe conversation are relatively evenly split by gender, slightly skewing female.
This bar chart from the Twitter analytics feature of Meltwater's social listening and analytics platform shows that the most represented age group in the millennial cringe conversation are ages 25 to 34.
What are some other examples of millennial cringe?
According to some of the most engaged posts, as well as links with the highest Social Echo, more examples of millennial cringe are:
- Using the 😭emoji, or emojis in general
- Posting a Boomerang
- Homes painted a neutral grey
- Skinny jeans
- Taking photos in landscape mode
The list, unfortunately, goes on.
Tip: Learn more about The Top Emojis of 2023.
A closer look at the millennial pause
We analyzed conversations specifically about the millennial pause from November 2022 through October 2023. In that time, mentions of it increased by 432% PoP.
This line graph from Meltwater's social listening and analytics platform shows eight spikes in the millennial pause conversation, with most clustered at the beginning of 2023.
The conversation’s biggest spike came on March 17, thanks to a Reddit discussion on the topic that potentially reached 31 million people.
A closer look at millennial humor
Mentions of millennial humor increased by 274% PoP, making it an even hotter topic than the millennial pause.
This line graph from Meltwater's social listening and analytics platform shows eight spikes in the millennial humor conversation, with most clustered in the second half of 2023.
Lessons for marketers
The millennial cringe conversation can tell marketers a lot about how to approach consumer intelligence, but here are a few major points:
- Conversations about audience segments can reveal how they perceive themselves: Really, most people talking about millennial cringe are Gen-Zers and the millennials themselves. Those mentions are shedding light on how these age groups are thinking about their changing places in the wider landscape of current pop culture.
- You can let general themes point you to specifics: Analyzing conversations about general topics at scale can help you pinpoint the uniting emotions or concerns behind them. In the case of millennial cringe, that concern is, at its simplest, anxiety about keeping up with the times.
- Find your opening: Not every brand or company’s identity gels with the emotions or concerns at the heart of every social trend. Examining them closely helps you understand which ones are opportunities for your brand to get involved and which ones are best to let pass by.
To learn more about how to use social listening and social analytics to get to the heart of rising trends, fill out the form below to schedule a demo with a member of our team.
