Jacob Lund/Shutterstock You might not see the word "millennials" in the news much longer.
- The Wall Street Journal advised its writers to no longer use the word "millennial" to describe young people.
- The word "millennial" carries too many negative connotations, the newspaper argued.
- Millennials don't even use the word to refer to themselves, research has shown.
Millennials have been the subject of countless headlines over the past few years.
But that might become a thing of the past.
The Wall Street Journal advised its reporters last week to stop using the word "millennials" to refer to people in their 20s and 30s, the newspaper announced in the latest revamping of its style guide.
The "millennial" label makes it easy to stereotype young people, the newspaper said, and is usually carries a derisive connotation.
"What we usually mean is young people, so we probably should just say that," the Journal said. "Many of the habits and attributes of millennials are common for people in their 20s, with or without a snotty term."
Moreover, many of the newspapers readers are millennials themselves. And according to a Pew Research Center study from 2015, 60% of millennials reject the label to describe themselves.
"We are writing for and about a group of people who are building major companies, altering the way we work and live and challenging long-held notions of family and society," the Journal wrote.
The Journal's decision is part of a larger trend of companies considering dropping the "millennial" label. Such a move could help companies engage young people, "at least until that label loses the baggage associated with it," Lauren Stiller Rikleen of the Rikleen Institute for Strategic Leadership said earlier this year.
"Employers who want millennials to feel like they're part of the company should start by bringing a healthy skepticism to the adjectives used to describe the largest living population," she said.
However not every news outlet is abandoning the helpful descriptor. Buzzfeed, for example, argued in April that young people have reclaimed the word millennial and are stripping it of its negative associations.
"We are today flying the white flag, announcing our surrender to the term's unironic usage and acknowledging its journey from cheesy marketing buzzword we tried desperately to combat to just another everyday, descriptive word in our vernacular," it wrote.