A recent Fast Company article detailed the extent to which “Millennial nostalgia is now driving culture.” The Millennial generation—those born between 1981 and 1996—now make up the largest share of all employees. This group accounts for roughly 39% of all workers, the largest age cohort in the workforce, ahead of Gen Xers (35%) and Boomers (19%).
Millennials also now constitute 22% of the U.S. population, the largest share of any single age group, and are “arguably the most influential (generation) since the baby boomers.”
As Fast Company notes, “A generation that was once ridiculed for its pop-culture preferences is now both being catered to and calling the shots, from reboots to concerts to Happy Meals…It’s a good time to be a Millennial. At least, it is for anyone who enjoys being the cultural marketplace’s new favorite customer.”
Their influence stems not just from their numbers but also their spending power. The youngest members have now graduated from college and entered the workforce, while the oldest are in their early 40s—firmly ensconced in middle (or even top) management.
Millennial Nostalgia is Everywhere
Given the size, spending power, and professional influence of this group, it’s not surprising how extensively their preferences and nostalgia are driving popular culture. Fast Company points out how Millennial driving nostalgia is impacting:
Movies
Per Fast Company, “The two biggest movies of 2023—Barbie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie—are based on IP popular with kids born in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, and were even made by some of those kids. Now, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice follows Twisters and other such recent “legasequels” as Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire into theaters. Pretty soon, they’ll be joined by a new Transformers movie, a new Sonic the Hedgehog, and a live-action reboot of Masters of the Universe.
Music
90s boy-band *NSYNC recently reunited and has had their music featured in several different theatrical releases. Millennial-focused music festivals have featured artists including Ashanti, Ja Rule, Death Cab for Cutie, and My Chemical Romance.
TV
Along with fare like Stranger Things, Cobra Kai, and That ‘90s Show, notes Fast Company, “the company Original X Productions is bringing millennial comfort TV of Friends and The Office into the real world with live ‘experiences’ that recreate the sets of those shows.”
Food and Drinks
“Pretty much anything millennials once craved is now ripe for a resurgence—whether it’s Dunkaroos, the ‘90s snack that returned a couple years ago, or Sunny D, which got a grownup twist last year as a vodka seltzer,” per Fast Company.
Politics
Though the presidential tickets are topped by a boomer and Gen Xer, one of the vice presidential candidates as well as a serious contender in the Republican primaries, are Millennials.
Why is Millennial nostalgia and influence having such a moment? As Fast Company concludes, “What is happening is that the kids who watched Saturday morning cartoons in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s are getting into their late thirties and early forties. Many of them now have money to spend and children of their own to incept their own childhood memories into.”
Optimizing for Millennials in the Workplace
Millennials have changed and reshaped the workplace in a number of ways. Among other impacts, they have higher expectations than did previous generations for collaboration, connection, and engagement at work.
As noted here previously, team building activities support all of those needs: “By their very nature, team building activities and initiatives incorporate certain essential pillars for engagement: communication, leadership, problem-solving, and establishing roles.
Whatever the specific program, the…teams work together to achieve the objective. It’s fun, collaborative, and engaging.”
All of those benefits combine with the interest in Millennial nostalgia in our Virtually Back to the 90s team building game. Participants use their smartphones to answer a mix of multiple-choice, true/false, and fill-in-the-blank trivia questions posed by an engaging host in an interactive online environment.
90s-themed trivia challenges run the gamut from movies, TV, sports, celebrities, and politics to science and music, incorporating photos, video, and song clips. Team members build workplace relationships and improve communication while engaging in fun, friendly competition.
And for those older Millennials as well as the Gen Xers and boomers in your workplace, who routinely spout movie lines like:
- You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
- I’m not dead yet!
- You can’t handle the truth.
- If you build it, they will come.
- I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.
There’s also our Virtually Awesome 80s trivia option. (Without clicking—can you name the movies that match the quotes above?)
Final Thoughts on Incorporating the Millennial Nostalgia Trend to Improve Your Workplace
Millennials now make up the largest share of the U.S. population of any single generation. Given their numbers and purchasing power, their preferences of today and nostalgia for their youth are having a huge impact on the culture, from movies and music to food and politics.
They are also changing norms in the workplace, with very different expectations than previous generations in areas like engagement, communication, and connections with coworkers and the organization.
Team building activities like virtual trivia games focused on the 80s, 90s, and 2000s can help build productive workplace relationships and enhance communication while capitalizing on the Millennial nostalgia trend.
