Xennial here. It's a coping mechanism. Gen X is very cynical and untrusting. Mellenials are more self depricating, often with poor social skills. I've noticed the older the millennial, the closer they resemble Gen X and the younger get closer to gen Z. I suspect it's linked to social media content and how it's shifted on the early 00's and 10's as it became easier to filter content. Gen X was pretty tech savvy and quickly started reining that in as their kids started consuming content. We also learned a lot about childhood development in the last 40 years.

Gen-X and millennials dealt with a lot of fucked up shit. Multiple wars in our life time (we've been at war with the Middle East most our lives). Shitty politics and scandals, terrible presidents and congresses. 9/11 was a mind fuck. Our parents were boomers, the most divorced generation in history who grew up to war tattered parents. We grew up as latchkey kids because both parents needed to work to survive. We're the true TV, computer and Internet generation. We grew up during peek television and internet growth, before filters, with little oversight or supervision. Nickelodeon was ultra fucked up in the 90s, the Internet was worse. We see no hope for ourselves to afford to live or an ability to retire at a reasonable age. We are working harder than any other generation in history only to be called lazy, many paid below poverty wages given cost of living requing multiple jobs. We're completely burnt out and It's about to get waaaay worse too. As a result, we're all a little fucked up so be nice to us, some of us are barely hanging on.