For some reason, people assume that out of every generation to exist in the modern world, it is millennials and zoomers who don't know how to manage their own finances. They truly believe that we pay for Netflix and then go all surprised Pikachu face when we don't have enough rent money. They make these condescending posts about saving money and not spending it all on avocado toast, as if we're 5 year olds who got our first allowance. The reason they act this way is to satisfy the cognitive dissonance they suffer from how they perceive the world to be and how it really is. They lived through the best years of our country, when workers' rights were strong and Reagan hadn't yet fucked everything up. They went to cheap college, bought cheap houses, and got well-paying jobs with hefty pensions. Capitalism did right by them, at least when it still had a leash on it. On the other hand, they watch as we suffer from everything they didn't have to and then some. They would never speak ill of a system that has benefited them so much, but they can't ignore the present facts. So instead, they make us the problem. They deny that the system has failed us. Rather, they posit that we have failed ourselves.