Hey, Boomer. Think you’re so smart, eh? Well, here are the worst pieces of life advice ever passed down to millennials.
If you’re not rich by the time you’re thirty, then it’s because ghosts exist and they don’t’ like you so much.
Just because your great-grandfather paid for trade school with some lukewarm goulash, got a career as zoo architect, and bought a house using railroad bonds all by the age of fourteen does not prove that the paranormal exists. If you don’t believe us then just ask your tarot cards. They know.
Paraquet food is a part of every balanced breakfast.
This one may not actually be that universal. We’re pretty sure our mom just didn’t want to go back to the grocery store that morning.
Grades are the most important thing in the world, stupid.
Your parents told you this. Your teachers told you it too. Your high school valedictorian told you this shortly before he died in that grisly motel shootout at beach week. But now we’re going to break the myth that grades matter in life in even the slightest. After all, look at us. We proudly graduated high school with a D+ average and now we write list articles for the internet for a living. Success!
It’s totally safe and normal to iron your clothes in the bathtub.
RIP Billy. We really wish you hadn’t believed those lifehacks written by Andy Rooney.
Respect your elders – specifically Old Man Crackers who lives down by the abandoned blast furnace
Age is not a determining factor in giving respect. You should judge people based on their character, not whether or not they know how to make moonshine in an old pig iron smelter. Respect should be earned through empathy and support. And sure, maybe Old Man Crackers has a little bit of knowledge to impart. But just ask him about all those “fish bones” he keeps in the abandoned anthracite shute and you’ll understand why you might not want to emulate him.
Go to college. It’s the perfect place to start drinking.
Maybe you should have gotten a degree in economics if you still believe this one. Back in your parents’ days a case of imported beer was only a dollar, while nowadays even an economy brand handle of vodka costs at least three hours of minimum wage. Instead of following their old fogey advice, try spending a couple years drinking Steel Reserve at community college before trying this advice.
Write smaller numbers on all your credit card bills, then still don’t pay them.
Older millennials remember a time when they still had to learn how to balance a checkbook. When their mountains and mountains of debt weren’t online, constantly looming over them like a convenient apocalypse, they were on paper contracts often written in their own blood. But no matter how many times those poor fucks tried to make it work, sadly, just writing smaller numbers on all your credit card bill will not fool Rocko and Moose, the lead goons at Capitol One’s collections department.
Always carry around a hundred copies of your resume and give them to every person you meet throughout the day.
Well, your grandfather was half-right on this one – you are the most unemployable boob on the planet. But unlike your chinless grandpa who just walked into the cow factory the day after a bunch of Finnish immigrants died in the de-boning machine, it turns out that most employers nowadays are not thrilled about reading your shitty resume. Same goes for all those people on the bus, the cashier at Coldstone, and the physical education teacher who physically threw you out of your daughter’s clarinet recital.
Learn how to talk to rats.
This one just reeks of Gen X privilege. Remember back in the early 90s when it seemed like every alt rock band on the scene was singing songs about how we should all learn how to verbally communicate with rodents? Well a lot of good that did, right? Have fun conversing with hamsters, old man – I’ll be busy trying to pay my rent.
We just feel safer if you do it with us – auto-erotic asphyxiation.
How many times can it be said – DON’T EVER DO THIS! No matter how amazing it feels and how it will almost certainly be the greatest orgasm you will ever experience! And yes, it is exceptionally weird that your parents bought you non-chafing nylon cord for Christmas and labelled it “From Santa” with a winky emoji.