FYI: The Coronavirus-Spreading Spring Breakers Are NOT Millennials

Twitter reminds everyone that millennials are old now and are not the coronavirus-spreading spring breakers

In light of the coronavirus pandemic, businesses are closed, schools are schools, and most states have issued “stay at home” orders. However, a number of “young people” flocked to the beaches for spring break this weekend, seemingly unbothered about catching COVID-19. These people are dummies, but let’s be clear — those spring breakers are not millennials, despite the fact that many people keep referring to them as such.

This “millennials need to take coronavirus seriously” scam kicked off when Dr. Bruce Aylward, senior adviser to the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), falsely equated millennials with the naive twenty-somethings partying on the sand.

“One of the things that terrifies me now is, as this is spread in the west is, there’s this sense of invulnerability among millennials,” Aylward told Time.

First of all, Pew Research defines a millennial as someone born between 1981 and 1996, making the oldest millennial 39 and the youngest 24 right now. Spring breakers are college students and college students are usually under the age of 22, meaning, those ding-a-lings on the beach are members of Gen Z. It’s wild that a literal doctor who advises the WHO doesn’t know what a millennial is, but these are wild times, I guess.

Millennial is not an all-purpose word for “young people,” because millennials aren’t young. The average age of a millennial right now is almost 32 years old. I am a millennial and I can attest that millennials are not the culprits you are looking for. At the time of publication, I am 31 years old, I have a mortgage, I go to bed at 10 pm, loud bars give me a headache, I have wrinkles! and I don’t even know when spring break is. It’s this week? Sure. I wouldn’t know because I graduated from college A DECADE AGO.

This idea that millennials are 22 and running around spreading COVID-19 is a frustratingly popular one. Even news publications and supposed journalists are confused about the true age of millennials.

Hundreds of actual millennials rushed in to defend their generation and point out that millennials are old AF now. You could not pay a millennial to party on literally any beach.

For reference, this person is a millennial.

And this person.

These two are millennials.

So is he.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B32A79cJJEg/

If you want to blame Millennials for something, blame us for panic-buying all the toilet paper on Amazon Prime. Sorry, I do think that one’s on us. Whoopsie.