You guys ever feel like 9/11 will always be the defining pivotal moment of our generation?

22 comments

1. Financial crisis of 2008 and covid are way more significant to me and most Americans. I guess if you were in the military or the middle east 9/11 might win.

2. I guess it depends on exactly what age you were.
   If you were 10 (like I was) the financial crisis of 2008, the pandemic, the current race war, and the insurrection far surpass 9/11 in my eyes – but it was a total surprise and shock (9/11) whereas the writing was on the wall for everything else and nothing was done, so it was a different shock.

   The crisis, pandemic, race wars and insurrection will have a much longer last impact and one that is far greater to the demise of our country.

3. The view that defines a generation by a single event is a very narrow one. I’m an “elder millennial” born in the early 80s, so I think I’m probably the generation you’re talking about, but it’s worth recalling that multiple generations have been impacted by 9/11 and the cultural changes that followed on from it, and multiple significant events have helped to distinguish our generation from the ones that preceded it and the ones that followed it.

   It’s a whole lot less flashy, but I think if I were to try and pinpoint the single most significant event that differentiates millennials from those that came before and those that come after, it would be the development of the World Wide Web. Millennials are the first generation to grow up on the web, and it’s significantly impacted the way we interact with information, society and leisure.

4. 37. For people about my age, absolutely. The shift in American culture was severe.

5. I think what’s going on now with an attempted coup will be more defining in retrospect.

6. No. Not everyone here is from the US.

7. In school for 9/11 and then graduated college at the recession.

   Both sucked ass.

8. Columbine is for me. That level of horror was a defining moment in going from childhood to young adulthood

9. everything has gone mad. living in days of sodom and gomorah

10. So I have been really into generational theories for a few years now. Memory of 9/11 has been my cut off for what makes a Millennial. I have been using the definition of, a Millennial is someone who has no memory of the Challenger Disaster but is someone who recalls 9/11. This would place our cohort around 1981/82 to 1996. A 15 year generational cohort.

    However, some made the case that while 9/11 was a huge deal, and sort of an event that set the rest of the era in motion, it was not an end point. That would be the 2008 financial crises and Great Recession. And really, the whole total instability of post 2008 life. The case should really be made that our generational cohort wasn’t 1982 to 1996 but 1982 to the early 2000s.

    Our defining struggle wasn’t 9/11, but the following crises years in 2008-Present. The financial crises of 2008 lead into the Great Recession, then what I am calling the “Great Instability”. During this time civic institutions completely malfunction, we can’t do things we used to be able to do. Housing, Healthcare, and Educational costs have all exploded. When housing was cheap, unemployment was high, jobs were low paying, people could not get loans for homes. Now unemployment is low, but housing prices are absurdly expensive. We are starting to deal with he affects of climate change and general global instability.

    We are probably going to face a lot of technological disruption this decade that will further transform the economy and require an updated political mentality to deal with these rapid changes in society. Industrialization was an extremely traumatic process for a lot of societies. But so was the long term disruption of the internet. And likely so will be the Great Stranding (its where we abandon fossil fuel assets, and the communities built around them). Dealing with this great instability is our main challenge as a generation.

11. You know, it’s hard to say. 9/11 was obviously a big deal, but the event itself didn’t affect most Americans directly. There were, however, a ton of indirect consequences. Various military campaigns in the Middle East, of course, but also things like TSA and the Patriot Act. Air travel is a radically different experience compared to pre-9/11, and the surveillance state that spawned out of it has only grown since then. Art, in hindsight, was clearly affected as well. There was a lot of dark film in the 90s, but it was mostly dark in a very naive sense — like kids from the suburbs trying out being goth — whereas everything becomes a more gritty and cynical post-9/11. It’s hard to quantify this sort of thing, but I think the general vibe throughout the country changed in a big way after the towers were hit.

12. Every generation has their “Where were you when x happened” and 9/11 is certainly one of them. For me, at 47, that list includes “Where was I when the Challenger exploded” (I was in 5th grade, we were all gathered out in common room to watch the launch and subsequent explosion,) along with 9/11 (I was idly playing with my wedding band, still unfamiliar with it as having just got married 3 days prior.)

13. nope . the invasion of ukraine has far exceeded it

14. Perhaps. Everything changed in America when it happened, but there is sure to be another one within our lifetimes.

15. [removed]

16. I think Covid has surpassed that. 9/11 was pivotal for people living in the US at that time, but Covid has had an effect on pretty much every single person living on earth for the last two years, and is one of those things that will forever divide time into before and after it happened.

17. I’m 41. 9/11 was my early 20s, the destruction of New Orleans and the War on Terror was my mid-20s, the crash of 2008 was my late 20s, 30s were pretty chill (thanks Obama) until the Trump era, and now it’s the rise of fascism and American democracy under attack. Can’t wait for how that plays out.

    I guess the point is that it’s always something.

18. Because it was an inside job to get us into war, yea. That’s when I became aware. Dick Cheneys private army *blackwater*. We blame Afghanistan but invaded Iraq because of Weapons of mass destruction that weren’t real. Bush lost the election with the peoples vote but somehow became president because of the electoral college meaning the people vote does not matter but only a select few. Tower 7. Afghanistan passports on the roofs of neighboring buildings, word? Thermite *burning at 4000 degrees* at the bass of the towers when jet fuel only burns at 1500 degrees. Fun stuff.

19. Climate change is going to be FAR worse.

20. I’m Canadian and the event still shook our country and changed the world. I remember being told about it in class, and everything on television for weeks was follow-ups on what was going on.

21. I remember the Abu Garib prison abuse scandal being pretty big news for a while in 2004. Also the D.C. sniper attacks from Oct 2, 2002 to Oct 24, 2002.

22. i did until the Pandy. The Pandy changed more of everything, way more than 9/11 did, imo.