From 1951 to 1957 or so we had "Watch Mr. Wizard" on analogue black and white TV.
Don Herbert was great! Quite a few episodes on youtube.
Posted on 04/20/2019 8:41:08 AM PDT by rickmichaels
Millennials are very good when it comes to stuff like posting selfies at Coachella, but there are some skills they lack. So we went on the street this afternoon to ask young people if they can open a can of paint. It's not so hard but let's see if these passers-by can figure out how to do it.
Generation Useless: Millennials can't open a can of paint
You did it right.
Used to be very common to approach things that way (though maybe a little less common to have the boys do some of the housework too).
Unfortunately rare now.
How many of their parents know how?
I recently changed out a leaking shower faucet for my daughter. I have done my share of home plumbing projects over the years, but I have to admit that it was helpful finding a YouTube video showing how to change out the exact same brand and model of faucet.
You are right. The level of detail available is amazing. Every make and model.
Many parents of millennials were just as pampered by their boomer parents. The last uniformly competent generation in America was the Great Depression/WWII generation.
Fair point.
I recall the first time I used Duct tape and didn’t know that I could easily tear it.
Then, years later someone showed me how to “Cut” Filament/Strapping tape without using scissors or a knife. It’s pretty impressive.
Never saw it.
Most modern TV I gave up on.
I could help in my own way.
https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-1944736-opening-paint-can-flat-screwdriver
Imagine if YouTube How-to videos had been available to kids in the 50s. Just think of the terror we could have unleashed on our neighborhoods building our machines from just junk!
From 1951 to 1957 or so we had "Watch Mr. Wizard" on analogue black and white TV.
Don Herbert was great! Quite a few episodes on youtube.
I was a paint mixer at Sears for 30 years - I hated the plastic cans when they came out. Give me a rimmed steel lid any day -
I use a Sawzall myself. Or just run over it with the truck.
People here are unfair:
People here might say Millenials are stupid.
Some are, but most aren’t.
During the time that 90% of the people here grew up, the country was not yet TOTALLY overrun with illegal aliens.
Those aliens are the paint contractors. In Calif, you can see them hangning out in groups in front of paint stores and Home Depots. The groups are usually under 10 people, but sometimes there are many more than that.
I believe the video:
THAT is the effect of illegal immigration.
My friend is a painter, and he says that the “painter = Mexican” concept is soooo strongly cemented in the minds of the public that very many people won’t consider contracting with him, simply because he’s a white guy.
Good show. I watched it after we got a TV in ‘55. But it didn’t show me how to build my soap box glider. Or how to add a brake or put in an operating steering wheel instead of two ropes. Or how to build a four shot carpet gun. You know....important stuff! lol
Millennials now are 21 to 37. Boomers are 55 to 73—a good chunk of the Millennial parents.
And of course no one generation was uniformly anything.
But a majority who grew up through the ‘70s worked as teens and learned basic life skills in their youth.
But many Millennials are already in their thirties.
A lot of the people there are post-Millennials, Generation Z.
I guess that’s another reason we need illegals.
Anyway, a paint can key is a handy tool. Plus the opposite end usually serves as a bottle opener.
Sad day at a gathering of paint-can-incapables.
I am at the tail end of the baby boom generation, growing up in the 60s and 70s. My parents’ families both lost everything in the Great Depression, grew up poor and then went to war (my father and maternal uncle both served in the Navy in WWII). I was fortunate to grow up with a father who could do just about anything when it came to home repairs and who made sure that I could too. If I wanted something, I had to work for it. If I broke something, I had to fix it, with my father showing me what to do, but making me do it. I tried to teach my millennial children to be self sufficient just like I was raised.
IMHO, it was the early boomers (born in the late 1940s) who started the problem. Their parents grew up in the Depression, came home from WWII, immediately started families, and tried to give their kids everything that they did not have. Their pampered kids became hippies, waited for their parents to die off so they could inherit and spend the rest of their money, and raised generation-x and millennial kids who have no idea how to do anything for themselves. These are the socialists out campaigning for Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In the 60's and 70's, too. But you guys didn't need How-To videos back then. You were surrounded by people with knowledge and experience in fixing and building things.
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