All the things boomers do that we millennials hate. Full stop.
Radhika Sanghani on why the punctuation mark is ‘aggressive’ and what else drives her generation nuts
The sight of it makes every millennial’s blood run cold. With its blank finality, lack of warmth, and overtones of passive aggression, there is no punctuation more terrifying than the full stop.
Compared to the allure of ellipsis or an enthusiastic exclamation mark (so beloved by we millennials that I have one tattooed on my wrist), the use of a full stop – be it at the end of an email, Whatsapp, or even this very sentence – is nothing short of intimidating.
Now it’s official. This week linguistic experts have, rightly, claimed that the punctuation mark is viewed as a “sign of annoyance” by younger generations who have grown up with phones in our hands. To us it’s shorthand for “I’m so annoyed with you I’m going to send you this cold symbol of dread”; to anyone over 50 it’s the only grammatically correct way to end a sentence.
Alas, this is just one of many irritating intergenerational divides…
1. Leaving voicemails
Voicemails used to serve a purpose. Like in the Eighties when people had landlines and would arrive home to messages on their answering machines, and the funniest prank they could conjure up was to record themselves saying “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?” before the beep. But now, in a world of Whatsapp? It’s baffling. Yet baby boomers insist on waiting for unanswered calls to ring out (how they don’t give up after the first two rings is beyond us), only to then wait even longer for the automated voice explaining how to leave a voicemail, before eventually recording an overly formal message that no one will ever hear.
Because no millennial has the time or inclination to listen to voicemails when they could just read a message.
2. Ringing the doorbell
Doorbells are the new landlines: they’re becoming so obsolete that the only people who use them are cold callers – or your mother. Because in 2020, there is really no need. Apps tell us when our Deliveroo is on the doorstep, or a package has arrived. When our friends are outside, we know because they’ve already texted us saying “here!”’ – so we can open the door at the moment of their arrival, making life as easy as possible.
But this modern etiquette seems to have bypassed boomers who eschew the common decency of a simple one-word message in favour of pressing a shrill doorbell – something so terrifying to millennials that there are actual studies showing this one little button can cause us fear and anxiety.
It’s why my peers on Twitter are calling for a solution: “Someone needs to make a doorbell that texts the person saying you’ve arrived. That way we don’t even need to text it.”
3. Watching live television
Boomers are not the only ones who got through lockdown with Normal People and The Nest. But unlike them, we millennials don’t know that the next episode is on BBC One at 9pm this Sunday. We don’t care. We probably don’t even have a television set.
Why would we bother watching programmes live when we can just view them in our own time on a streaming service, which you can pause to go to the loo and binge watch – rather than arranging your social life around the listings in the Radio Times?
4. Assuming anyone younger than them is a tech expert
Yes, we are more tech-savvy than you. No, that does not mean we know how to take apart a motherboard. Yet every boomer assumes that anyone in their twenties or thirties has the tech knowledge of an Apple Genius. We don’t. We might understand how the cloud works, but please stop asking us to fix your laptop and buy a new one.
5. Loving their phone sounds
Most millennials I know don’t use ringtones. We’re so attuned to our phones that we can leave them on vibrate (even silent) and never miss a message. In contrast, boomers love to keep their phones on loud. The second they get a call, a personally selected ringtone blares incessantly while they struggle to open their book-style leather phone case. But it’s not just the ringtone that makes a noise. Oh no.
They love the sounds of their phones so much that they don’t silence the keypad or Candy Crush. Which means any sensitive millennial within earshot can hear them taking five minutes to compose a twosentence message. Click, click, click.
Not to mention the fact that said message is easily readable because the font size is 14. I could go on.