Millennial Writing

About

Millennial Writing is a slang term that refers to a type of writing, primarily in video games, that is distinguished by an unnecessary abundance of sarcasm, meme and pop culture references and cliché quips such as Marvel One-Liners. The most recognized example of "millennial writing" is the Borderlands video game series, High on Life and the 2022 reboot of Saints Row, while screenwriter Joss Whedon is generally considered a major influence. Following a 2023 YouTube video that popularized the term, millennial writing became a viral subject of discourse on X (Twitter) and 4chan's /v/ board.

Origin

Precursors

On May 14th, 2016, an anonymous 4chan user made a post in which they parodied the quippy, rambling writing style in the video games Borderlands 2 and Battleborn (developed by Gearbox Software), comparing it against succinct writing. The comment, posted in a /v/^[1] thread about Battleborn, gained six replies in roughly seven years (shown below) and was widely circulated online in the following years.^[2]

On August 14th, 2018, comic book writer Chuck Wendig made a tweet^[3] in which he humorously described human life as being a "magic skeleton packed with meat and animated with electricity and imagination." The tweet (shown below) gained over 11,400 reposts and 31,300 likes on X in five years and has since been circulated as a prime example of "millennial writing."

The style of writing in Borderlands 2 and Borderlands 3 remained a topic of discussion in /v/ and other video game communities online through the late 2010s and early 2020s. For example, on March 25th, 2022, X^[4] user @Googleygareth made a tweet about a way to mod all audio lines from Borderland 3, which received over 3,600 reposts, 29,100 likes and 1,400 bookmarks in one year.

Marvel One-Liners / So That Just Happened

On March 4th, 2022, the superhero film The Batman (based on the DC Comics of the same name) was released. Shortly prior to the film's release, jokes about fans of Marvel Comics and movies (a more lighthearted universe compared to DC Comics) being angry at the film not having many quips in it gained popularity on TikTok.

Following the release and the initial complaints, Fans When memes about Marvel fans not finding any such one-liners in the film became popularized (examples shown below), with the style of humor in Marvel films becoming a subject of ridicule.

"Millennial Writing" Term Coined

On January 23rd, 2023, YouTuber^[5] ShreddedNerd made a video titled "Millennial Writing," a video essay with critical analysis of writing in Borderlands 2, the 2022 remake of Saints Row, High on Life and other video games. The video (shown below) received over 1.1 million views in seven months.

I've noticed a trend in writing. It seems to be getting more common over time. It's a certain type of writing I'm trying to describe, the best term I can of to call it is Millennial Writing. You'll find out why.
Okay, imagine this: you know those tweets that are like, "capitalism kow key killed our vibe and gaslit us into being okay with our bosses and landlords taking our excess value," and then it has like 260,000 likes? I'm more so just referring to the Twitter style of speaking, the tone and affectation and vocabulary. Now, have you noticed this style of writing in modern games?

Spread

Starting on January 26th, 2023, the term started spreading online. On that day, an anonymous 4chan user posted a thumbnail from the ShreddedNerd video and wrote "How do we stop the problem of millennial writing in games," starting a /v/^[6] thread that garnered over 110 replies in eight months (shown below, left). On February 5th, Twitch streamer Asmongold reacted to the video essay, with the reaction video gaining over 1.8 million views on YouTube^[7] in seven months (shown below, right).

Throughout 2023, the term achieved more recognition on 4chan's /v/ and on X, seeing increased use following the releases of Forspoken, Viewfinder, Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield. For example, on July 19th, 2023, X^[8] account @VinesauceClips posted a clip of Vinesauce Vinny reacting to "millennial writing" in the indie game Viewfinder by immediately setting speech volume to zero. The clip (shown below) received over 13,000 reposts and 89,200 likes on X in two months.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL pic.twitter.com/kVY98WTKvv

— Vinesauce Clips Bot (@VinesauceClips) July 19, 2023

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References