Millennials Are Finally Calling Out The Absolute Garbage We’ve Been Told Our Entire Lives, And It’s Kinda Cathartic

Millennials were raised on promises of flying cars, stable careers after college, and the dream of owning a home. But here 2025, none of that feels remotely true.

We’re drowning in student debt, hustling through a gig-based economy, and watching Gen Z ironically recycle our baggy jeans, along with the rest of the early 2000s trends we wore unironically.

While deep-diving through r/Millennials, I came across a post asking millennials to share the biggest lies they were told growing up. From participation trophies to the myth that turning on your car’s cabin light at night is illegal, these responses pull back the curtain on just how many tall tales shaped our generation.

1.“That millennials created participation trophies. I was 7 in 1988 when my summer baseball team placed second-to-last in league play, and every player was literally awarded a trophy. I PROMISE you, at the age of 7, I did not have the resources to order trophies for myself and all my teammates.”

–u/sacklunch

2.“The food pyramid and the idea that different areas of the tongue taste different flavors.”

–u/Square-Hedgehog-6714

3.“Take out student loans to pay for your degree, and you’ll definitely get a job making enough to pay off the loans.”

–u/the-jish

4.“You will write all your papers in college in cursive. Lmao.”

–u/Briebird44

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5.“If you’re a good driver and don’t have any claims, your insurance rates will decrease over time.”

–u/MillwrightWF

6.“That our future was going to be so much better than our parents’. We were all going to be high paid white collar workers, and the economy was going to keep growing fast enough to make that a possibility for everyone. Lol, instead our life expectancy is going down while retirement age keeps going up and the economy isn’t even keeping up with inflation.”

“I used to worry more about it, but I’m starting to think it’s the boomers that need to panic as they lose control of the vote and the younger generations finally want their pieces of the pie.”

–u/SoggyGrayDuck

7.“Quicksand is a common thing and knowing how to escape it will likely save your life one day.”

–u/akronguy84

8.“Discussing your salary with coworkers is wrong.”

–u/jgasbarro

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9.“Don’t talk to strangers on the internet. Don’t get in a stranger’s car. Today, I use the internet to hail an Uber so I can get into a stranger’s car. But really though, stranger danger was really overblown when we were kids and has made society more insular and crappy.”

–u/clothespinkingpin

10.“‘Hard work will bring success.’ Total bullsh*t. This is literally what you tell exploited workers. They told our parents, and our parents told us, believing them.”

“From personal experience, it’s all about how much you are liked and your ability to convince people to say yes when asking for more. I am at an executive level and manage people with certifications and better marks in school than I have. This wasn’t because I was smarter or anything. It’s because when I started here five years ago, I decided I was going to play the social angle, and it’s surprisingly effective. I dressed like them, talked like them, and walked like them. It wasn’t long before they considered me one of them and treated me as such.”

–u/jmirelesv3

11.“That the United States was built on a system of checks and balances and that the President is not a king.”

–u/Liquid_1998

12.“‘You’ll become more conservative when you’re older.’ That’s bullshit.”

–u/ANotSoFreshFeeling

13.“The Philadelphia Eagles will never win a Super Bowl.”

–u/Kindly-Leather-688

14.“Be loyal to your job and they will stand behind you 100%. Cue the Great Recession early in my career…luckily, it showed me early on that loyalty to a company is BS. I’m loyal while there, but if I get an uneasy feeling at some point, I’m looking out for myself.”

–u/GeauxFarva

15.“‘Cellphones and the internet are rotting your brain. We don’t allow phones in this classroom.’ Fast forward to 2025, when you need a cellphone to order at a restaurant, and the internet to basically make money. Without either, you basically don’t exist, but back in the day, you weren’t allowed more than 30 minutes on a cellphone, if even.”

–u/Legal-Baseball9203

16.“Turning on the car cabin light while driving at night is illegal.”

–u/poison-rationality

17.“Video games will get you nowhere in life. Now I see teenagers and 20-somethings making six figures or more streaming online. It’s wild how you can never really know the future (but act like you do).”

–u/sstubbl1

18.“That you couldn’t eat a vegetable or fruit seed because a plant will grow inside of you (curious to know if this was something in other countries, too).”

–u/Admirable_Green_1958

What do you think has been the biggest lie told to millennials as a generation? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.

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