During most of my life, I was content with being a child of the 2000s. But after I started going to college, I started to have obsessive thoughts over 9/11 and not remembering a pre-9/11 world. It haunted me to the point where I just tried everything I could to calm down over the event. But since then, it made me feel powerless as if people were saying that we live in a very dystopic world ever since. I've looked on countless YouTube and Reddit comments, along with several forum posts to see if this was just a nightmare. But I keep finding the same message. Right now, I have a folder of photos and text that I have related to this mess since 2019. In which it has a total of 207 files. It has already affected how my life goes because I think about it almost every day.

I obviously didn't ask to be born in the late 90s. Let alone have people make me (and possibly others) feel ashamed of the year they were born in. Especially from a professor in my college that boasts about the 80s and how better it was economically, especially towards its interest rates. It just feels like the same thing over and over again when other people tell me that the 1950s all the way to the 90s were better and that the 2000s were the supposed "decade from hell".

Even after the COVID pandemic began, I still feel like this because it seemed like nothing has really changed for me as much. More recently, I had a dream where I was in somebody's car in 1988 as a passenger where I was riding all across the town, with things feeling all different. All I'm saying is that this doesn't feel normal to me. Even at a time like this.

This just had me develop an inferiority complex all because I can't remember 9/11, let alone anything before it. I keep searching up stuff like "Has the impact of 9/11 been worse than COVID? or "Was everything before 9/11 better?". I doubt most people my age really worry about this. I know that not everyone didn't have a good time in the 2000s, but I certainly didn't think that stuff may or may not affected me.

I've only been to an airport in 2003, where I boarded a flight to Toronto for my mom's friend's wedding. I never recalled a time where a terrorist threatened a place I went to regularly such as my elementary school at the time. I mean, I had lockdown drills eventually when I went to middle and high school. But that was because of school shootings. Hell, not even my dad's workplace received such a threat and he worked in Manhattan.

I keep wondering is that why some people around my age said that they "were born in the wrong generation"? Because of how some older guys keep telling them that, over listening to music from the 80s and 90s. It just feels like it almost never stops all for being too young. All I want is to feel okay again and not suffer from something that seems ridiculous now.

Hey Mikey! I wasn't fully grown in the '90s but I don't think it's worth getting caught up in not remembering 9/11. People had much the same problems that we have today (sans pandemic). Life has its up and downs and no era is perfect.

People are nostalgic for their youth, that is why they say the 80s/90s are better than today. There is really nothing more to it. It actually has very little to do with 9/11. In 20 years people your age will probably doing the same thing, except maybe it might be about pre-Covid or some other event.

Every decade has it's ups and downs. There's really no reason why you should be feeling that way. I actually like the 2000s and I am nostalgic about it sometimes. I don't like remembering 911 so I focus on the great events, music, fashion, fads, video games, and culture of the 2000s.

I was born to the correct generation,
In fact, no than any other,
Born at the correct time,
For my father and mother.

I feel I was born in the right generation but I didn't actually experience The 1980's until my early teens.

Do wish I were slightly older personally but I'm only thankful that people of Gen Z tend to be more inclusive than previous generations.

There's no "right" or "wrong" generation. Like what Jessica said, every decade in modern history has its ups and downs. Even the 80s and 90s that seem picturesque and idyllic have downsides as well. The 80s had the AIDS crisis and discrimination against the gay community at the time, the early 80s recession, the Chernobyl disaster, the Cold War, and the Iran Contra Affair. In the 90s, there were race riots, the OKC bombing, the Kosovo War, the Rwandan genocide, and of course, Columbine.

Every generation has some people saying that their childhood decade was better when in reality, there were also opposing problems that happened in society.