I’m amazed at the number of articles I’ve seen lately that are talking about Millennials as if they are doing a documentary for the discovery channel. Any second I expect to hear someone with a British accent say “as we observe the Millennials in their native habitats we discover their social patterns.” At worst we seem to be brushed off as “those kids.” I’d like to think at 30 and with a baby of my own that I have transcended above the “kid” stage.

However marketers seem obsessed with finding out what makes us tick as a generation. So I had to ask myself who are we? If we don’t define ourselves the world does it for us. Currently I’m not thrilled with the picture others have been painting so I’m going to try to outline what I see looking from the inside out. Let me state before I get up on my soapbox, that I am not trying to be the voice of the generation or anything. I just want to share my point of view and if you can’t do that on your own blog then where can you share it?

I’ve heard Millennials currently defined as those who were born during the 80s and 90s. I disagree with the extreme range here. Here’s my take…

Millennials are people who came of age during the 2000 millennial change so anywhere between 14-22 years of age on January 1st, 2000. We are old enough to remember a time pre Internet but young enough to not remember a time before computers. This may seem trivial but we are the last generation that can say that the Internet did not exist in our lifetime. We did not grow up with the instant access to information via cell phones and mobile technology although we adapted quickly enough when it came along. The generations behind us may never know the weight of 5 volumes of the encyclopedia britannica while trying to write notes on index cards. I hope they realize how lucky we are. Sad but I digress…

We’ve grown up with TV, radio, and now the Internet, all trying to be the vehicles of marketers trying to sell us something. Through this over exposure to advertisements we’ve developed a highly tuned BS radar. I generally tune out all commercials, channel surf, or multi task during commercials. I very rarely even notice online ads unless they are pop ups and then i only notice them long enough to find where the X is to close it. If your ad is good (and I mean REALLY good) I may give it a bit of my attention but the ones I generally pay attention to are ads that one of my friends have mentioned. I absolutely can’t stand low budget commercials and will actually avoid doing business at the places that air them. Key learning for marketing here? You’re better off not making a commercial than making a crappy one.

Another key point in the life of Millennials is that we experienced 9/11 at a critical point in our lives. I don’t know how everyone else reacted but that day is the moment where I realized that the world was no longer the safe place that we thought it was and war became a constant in our lives. This taught me that life is short and not guaranteed therefore what we spend our time and money on should matter.

Therefore I place the Millennial generation currently between the ages of 27-34. It’s a tight range, I know. Any older and we’re knocking on the door of Gen X. Any younger and you are into what I have heard termed the “wired” generation due to their exposure to technology at such a young age. Some call them the younger Millennials. I disagree. There are extreme differences in the generations created by technology which have been further magnified by the Great Recession. This generation was the hardest hit by the sinking economy right when they were ready to enter the job market. The Millennials were hit as well but there is a tenacity and willingness to contribute that will, I believe, eventually prevail through entrepreneurship and hard work. ( yes we DO know what that is)

It has been said we will not accumulate the wealth of previous generations. Maybe that is a good thing because we will be more selective about how we spend what wealth we do have. Bringing this back to wine, and after all, that’s what this blog is supposed to be about, most of my friends that are also Millennials seek out quality over quantity. We’d rather drink nicer wine less often than have something to drink every evening. We’d rather try something new, have a new experience, than repeat what we have already tried. Most of all we want an authentic story. Don’t sell us BS; tell us the truth then let us decide if we want to know more. We can always “Google” it if we’re interested so make sure we can find you and your product when we need to.