Millennials nostalgic about load-shedding, don’t realise it’s Stockholm syndrome

As load-shedding is back on the menu for Bangladesh, millennials are getting nostalgic about their late 90-s electricity deficient childhood. Although the government is claiming this to be a temporary issue, local millennials are on the streets with the ludicrous demand of making load-shedding permanent as a part of our heritage. 

One of the frontliners of the movement and admin of the Facebook page '90s kids', Shadman Sakib, forced the press to listen to him whine about his childhood, "Kids these days have everything easy. Access to internet, 24-hour electricity, proper drainage system, less physical abuse at schools – you know, basic necessities for a healthy life. I didn't have access to any of these in my childhood and now it's only fair that everyone must suffer too. It's that simple!"

"Back in our days, we had to sit for hours in darkness while getting bitten by mosquitoes as big as our ego. We didn't have these fancy mosquito bats back then! Who needs passive smoking to destroy your lungs when Akiz mosquito coil can do the trick?" Shadman coughed as he told us about his struggles as a member of the most annoying generation to exist, "These Gen-Z kids complain about broken roads – the audacity! Back then, we went to school on boats during floods. With our feet soaked in drain water, floating faeces would greet us in all their stench. Many of my kindergarten friends lost their feet to gangrene – ah memories! Sometimes I leave this urban jungle and go back to Bashundhara and Mirpur just to reminisce how it feels to live like savages with dysfunctional sanitation and drainage system."

Shadman believes care for mental health is a privilege true fighters like himself and his fellow millennials couldn't afford, "Kids these days won't stop about how the pandemic was tough on their mental health – pfft! Back in my days, we'd spend half the year fighting the black death and the rest half getting beaten by our parents."

"Weren't you born in 1999? You barely even qualify as a…," this reporter was interrupted by Shadman as he was about to ask a question. 

"Shush," he continued, "Ah, the sound of my mother's sandal smashing my back! Still the second-best sound to my ears, the first one being the Uefa Champions League anthem of course. The 90s, man! Apart from major corruption scandals, rise of religious extremism, borderline ethnic cleansing, culture of thug politics, lawlessness and all things 2022, the 1990s were the best!"

"What millennials complaining on the internet don't realise is that, if this were their precious 90s, they wouldn't have internet to show their outrage in the first place," explained psychologist Dr Sigma Fraud, "Their conflict is not with Gen-Z, rather with the very flow of time itself! As much as they despise the boomer generation, we old people handled growing up much better."

With millennials getting more and more irritating with time, the Ministry of Generational Gap has planned to create Upazilla-based support groups to help them, "For millennials to accept themselves, we must accept them first! Whenever you see a millennial, don't just run away. Give your nearest millennial a hug and tell them, 'It's been decades since Alif-Laila ended. I know nothing on Netflix will ever be as good as Alif-Laila or Hatim-Tai, but it's time you stop being annoying and let others enjoy things for once'."

Remind Ifti to be quieter at [email protected]