# Millennials Millennials is the generational label for people born roughly between the early 1980s and early 2000s, coined by authors William Strauss and Neil Howe in 1987. The term picked up meme energy in the 2010s as boomer-voiced 'Millennials Are Killing X' headlines and Australian property developer Tim Gurner's 2017 avocado toast comments sparked one of the defining generation-mocking meme formats of the decade. ## Origin The term Millennials was coined by American authors William Strauss and Neil Howe in 1987, who defined the cohort as people born between 1982 and 2004[4]. Their reasoning was practical: those born in 1982 would graduate high school in the year 2000, positioning them as the group shaping the new millennium. For years the label competed with 'Generation Y,' a name pushed by Advertising Age, before Ad Age conceded in 2012 that Millennials had won the naming fight. The demographic label itself was not the meme. That took another two decades, once Millennials aged into adulthood and became a target market for online publishers, financial columnists, and eventually property developers with strong opinions about brunch. - **Platform:** Print (1987 coinage) / Twitter (viral meme spread) - **Creator:** William Strauss and Neil Howe (term coinage) - **Date:** 1987 ## Overview The Millennials meme operates less as a single image and more as a running joke framework where older generations blame Millennials for killing industries, avoiding homeownership, or spending recklessly on trivial things. Property developer Tim Gurner's smashed avocado toast comments in May 2017 crystallized the format into a shared reference point that both critics and Millennials themselves quote endlessly[1]. Self-deprecating jokes about student loans, burnout, and never being able to afford a house filled Twitter and Instagram feeds throughout the late 2010s. The tone runs two directions. On one side, boomer-aligned columnists write headlines framing Millennial habits as economic threats, from killing chain restaurants to killing paper napkins. On the other, Millennials fire back with math-based rebuttals showing that skipping brunch would take literal centuries to fund a mortgage[2]. Urban Dictionary entries describe Millennials as 'triggered snowflakes' and 'the most entitled, stuck up, lazy, brattiest generation ever created,' showing how the label became shorthand for a whole bundle of intergenerational grievances[5]. What makes the format work is the tension between real economic frustration and the flimsiness of the accusations. When a millionaire developer says brunch is why 25-year-olds cannot buy homes, the response practically writes itself, and that response is the meme[3]. ## How It Spread The Millennials label picked up meme energy in the mid-2010s once online publications identified them as their core audience and boomer-voiced trend pieces started blaming the generation for economic decline. The generation-blaming genre hit peak visibility on May 15, 2017, when Australian property developer Tim Gurner, then 35 and worth nearly half a billion dollars, told 60 Minutes Australia that young people could not buy homes because they were spending $19 on smashed avocado and paying $4 each for four coffees at a time[3]. The clip went viral within hours. Journalist Kaleb Horton tweeted that if he stopped eating avocado toast daily, he could afford 'a bad house in Los Angeles in 642 years,' a post that got quoted across major outlets[2]. Others pointed to student loan debt and wage stagnation as more likely culprits than brunch spending[1]. Writer Kavitha Davidson jokingly claimed she made her fortune 'flipping avocado toast,' buying rundown pieces and fixing them up[2]. Today and Mediaite ran follow-up pieces inside 48 hours, treating the backlash as its own news story[1]. The phrase 'avocado toast' stayed linked to intergenerational finance debates for years afterward, appearing in headlines every time housing affordability came up. 9News kept covering Gurner's take alongside opposing views from writers like Oxford scholar Jo Lennan, who told 60 Minutes that 'it's never been harder for young and ordinary people to make a start'[3]. ## How to Use The Millennials meme format typically pairs a mundane spending habit (avocado toast, oat milk lattes, streaming subscriptions) with a satirical claim that this habit is the reason the generation cannot afford housing, retirement, or other traditional milestones. Common conventions include mock budget spreadsheets, response tweets calculating how many years of skipped coffees equal a down payment, and self-mocking posts about wanting to buy a house someday[2]. Boomer-voiced 'Millennials Are Killing X' headlines are often quoted or parodied as setup for the joke, with the punchline usually pointing back at wage stagnation or student debt[1]. ## Cultural Impact The avocado toast angle jumped from meme to mainstream financial punditry. Today ran the story under a house-buying advice framing, treating Gurner's comments as both controversial and worth debating[1]. Mediaite documented the Twitter backlash in aggregate, treating it as a case study in how intergenerational finance arguments play out online[2]. 9News framed it around Australian housing affordability, tying the joke to a genuine policy crisis and Sydney home prices approaching $1.5 million for ordinary suburban houses[3]. The Gurner soundbite became so widely quoted that 'avocado toast' worked as economic shorthand in headlines for years. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Millennials? Millennials is the generational label for people born roughly between the early 1980s and early 2000s, coined by authors William Strauss and Neil Howe in 1987[4]. ### Where did Millennials come from? The term was coined by authors William Strauss and Neil Howe in 1987, referring to people born between 1982 and 2004 who would come of age around the year 2000[4]. ### What does Millennials mean? Demographically it refers to people born between roughly 1982 and 2004[4]. As a meme, it stands in for jokes about a generation blamed for killing industries and buying too much avocado toast[1]. ### How do you use Millennials? The label is used in 'Millennials Are Killing X' style headlines and in self-mocking posts about student loans, burnout, and unaffordable housing, often pairing a small purchase with a mock budget[2]. ### Is Millennials still popular? The term is still standard shorthand for the generation, and the avocado toast joke keeps showing up whenever housing affordability makes headlines[1]. ### Who coined the term Millennials? American authors William Strauss and Neil Howe coined the term in 1987, choosing it because those born in 1982 would graduate high school in the year 2000[4]. ### What is the avocado toast meme? It refers to Tim Gurner's May 2017 claim that Millennials could not buy homes because they spent $19 on smashed avocado and $4 on coffees, which triggered a wave of Twitter jokes calculating how many centuries of brunch equal a mortgage[3]. ### Who is Tim Gurner? Tim Gurner is an Australian property developer who was 35 and worth close to half a billion dollars when he criticized Millennial spending on 60 Minutes Australia in May 2017[3]. ### Why do people blame Millennials for things? Trend pieces and headlines from outlets like BuzzFeed, Mashable, and 60 Minutes framed the generation as reckless spenders and industry killers, a framing Millennials themselves often turn around into self-mocking memes[1]. ### What years count as Millennial? Strauss and Howe originally set the range as 1982 to 2004, and most sources still use a similar early-1980s to early-2000s window[4]. ## References 1. [https://www.today.com/home/millionaire-s-tip-buying-1st-home-skip-avocado-toast-coffee-t111578]() 2. [https://www.mediaite.com/online/twitter-blasts-mogul-who-says-millennials-cant-afford-houses-because-theyre-buying-avocado-toast/]() 3. [https://www.9news.com.au/national/melbourne-property-tycoon-hammers-millennials-over-spending-habits/f1e61616-94c2-4fa4-aa07-49a33f7bf842]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/millennials]() 5. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Millennials]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/millennials Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library