In 2013, Time branded millennials “The Me Me Me Generation.” The accusations were familiar: lazy, entitled, and obsessed with themselves. Yet teenage drinking, smoking, pregnancy, and fighting were all declining, while young adults faced rising student debt and a difficult path to homeownership. The complaints about the next generation were nothing new. The world they were inheriting deserved a closer look.

In the seventh installment of Disturbing History’s journey through American life, Brian revisits the 2010s—the decade when his own generation became the adults doing the complaining. The economy recovered, smartphones transformed everyday life, and scientific discoveries pushed the boundaries of human knowledge. But prosperity and progress shared the headlines with addiction, corporate deception, and warnings that went unanswered.

This episode follows the opioid epidemic from prescription pills to fentanyl, examines Flint’s water crisis, and revisits disasters from Deepwater Horizon to Hurricane Maria and the destruction of Paradise, California. Along the way, Theranos, Wells Fargo, and Boeing raise an unsettling question: what happens when protecting an institution becomes more important than protecting the people who trust it?

Then there’s the device in everyone’s pocket. Instagram and viral fundraising showed what connection could accomplish. Cambridge Analytica, data breaches, and conspiracy theories revealed its costs. From surveillance disclosures to Pizzagate and the harassment of Sandy Hook families, the decade exposed how quickly information—and misinformation—could change lives.

There were also extraordinary reasons to look up: the Higgs boson, gravitational waves, Pluto in startling detail, and the first image of a black hole. Rescuers brought Chilean miners and a Thai youth soccer team home alive. Violent crime remained far below its early-1990s peak.

Even the Cubs finally won. The decade closes with avocado toast, “snowflake” accusations, and the reply “okay, boomer.” 

By then, the millennials on that magazine cover were approaching middle age—and the first complaints about the generation behind them were already appearing in the same magazines.


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Disturbing History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.

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