Who are the Millenials?

In America, Millennials are loved as a generation on which to hate on. They're often blamed for having "killed" the department store, the car industry, diamonds, marriage, and even bars of soap. While it's comical, and probably not necessarily their fault that these industries and institutions no longer have the value they did, it's not unfair to say that even outside America, millennials are a rather revolutionary generation. But who even are they?

The term "Millennial" is a name given to a generation of people born between (roughly) the early 80s and late 90s/early 2000s. The coursework brief defines it as 18-35 year olds. The generation is characterised by "increased use and familiarity with communications, media, and digital technologies". Divided by sub headings, in following paragraphs, I break down what their generation represents as part of wider society, particularly in Britain.

One of the biggest problems I faced in compiling this factsheet on millennials is that the facts are saturated with American data. I've looked deeper and tried to find data that more applies to the more British Audience that I am aiming for, but in some cases I have decided to present the same American data as a rough guide. Some sources have been incredibly useful. This fact sheet by Square Space tried to focus on that exact problem I had and gave me lots of useful information. This article by the Guardian and this article by the Financial times were both also useful in gathering information about the financial struggles of the generation. This document was also packed with facts. Any other information I have referred in from various sources which are referenced through on Wikipedia.

Status
Millennials make up 25% of Britain's population. 
53% of millennial households in the US already have children, with 1 in 4 millennials already being parents.
41% of UK millennials live at home with parents, but 47% of them expect to move away and rent their first house. 

Wealth
Millennials in the UK suffer from a jobs shortage, lower incomes and inability to achieve home ownership. They are more financially pressured than the generation before them.

Education
Millennials are the best educated generation in Britain ever, with more people than ever having university level qualifications.

Lifestyle
Millennials are digital natives, with a strong knowledge and dependence on digital and internet services for their daily way of life. 

Millennials’ health and wellness with 54% rating mental health as being of utmost importance versus 47% for physical health.

Hobbies
Millennials spend almost 50% of their disposable income on Leisure, and upto a week every month (altogether) is spent on leisure activities.

Interests
60% of UK Millennials will engage with online content that interests them, even if it’s obvious that it’s been paid for by a brand. It's important to them that the content reflects them or their interest. "Relatability" is a key phrase that's very important as it sums up how millennials view their content. They want to be able to relate to what is being shown.

TV still reigns supreme when it comes to where the surveyed UK Millennials are most receptive to brands. However, social media is close behind this.

Millennials are also marked as being loyal to a brand or service more than before, which could also reflect into how they view a TV show, and whether they are likely to keep watching

Over half (53%) of UK Millennials would rather spend money on an experience versus a possession (versus only 22.6% who valued material goods more than experiences), and 62% of this audience plan to increase their expenditure on experiences versus possessions over the next year. This is very important again, as it shows millennials as a generation who are eager to fulfil themselves with memories and an experience, a TV show could very much cater to this desire. 73% also agreed that "Fear of Missing Out" is their primary motivator in seeking out new live experiences and activities.

Religion
Over half of millennials polled in the United Kingdom in 2013 said they had "no religion nor attended a place of worship". Religion is not important to a majority of millennials.

TV/Magazine habits
72% of British survey respondents unsurprisingly turn to family and friends for recommendations on what to buy, which can reflect back into TV shows as it means that a majority of what they will watch will be influenced by people close to them.

Increasingly consume their media through their phone, and are more likely to watch on-demand through services than Netflix than before. 

Millennials spend about 27% less time on traditional TV compared to previous generations. 

During premiere episodes of various primetime programs in the fall of 2015, Millennials were least likely to change the channel during commercial breaks.

Politics
Politically, they are more likely to be socially liberal and supportive of progressive views; millennials are "the least prejudiced generation in the history of the United States", according to US 2016 Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders. This quote most likely applies to millennials in the UK as well; the millennial support for Britain to remain in the EU was often noted as coming from more internationalist and tolerant perspective of the world.


Millennials are often characterised as being incredibly narcissistic generation (Generation Me) and as a collective too young to make right decisions. While to some extent some of these might be true, is a misconception for the most part. For one, a large number of them aren't actually careless teenagers anymore! Many in the millennial generation are already employed and a lot of them are now parents. They are also one of the most diverse and open minded generations, which probably comes as a by product of their higher standard of education. They are a generation that focuses on themselves a lot, but it's also evident they care a lot about their collective future as well. What also seems to be evident is that they value experiences more than possessions, and value mobility and flexibility over permanence and tedium. To help alleviate and appease their thirst for new and different ways of being, they often turn to TV and other media. They require their content to be usually some form of escapism that they can also relate to, whether it's representing people their age or discussing issues they care about.

While I'm just out of the reach of being in the "millennial" generation, what seems cut out for me here with this research is to begin creating a programme that I would like to watch myself. It seems that what millennials seem to demand from their shows is something very similar to what I do. Being able to understand and relate to the lifestyle of the millennial is a big advantage as I've found that too much of the mainstream Media industry has failed to capture who they really are.

I end this post with a selection of images that are tagged as representing the millennials.