Millennials, if we had the money to celebrate, we would! Remember when we were told that we weren’t actually broke, but just ungrateful? Well, well, well it turns out generations before us have been way more fortunate financially and we’ve been dealt a pretty poopy hand. Millennials are, in fact, broke af and no, we aren’t just being dramatic.

Not only are millennials broke but we flex on dating apps like we’re not, says Jeanette Settembre from MarketWatch. Does this news literally surprise anybody, though?

You’ve even probably stumbled on a few of those profiles while dating online. I’ll bet you $5 you’ve seen the guy who uses a picture of himself on a yacht. Or what about the guy who takes a picture of his Rolex gripping a Ferrari steering wheel?

And flexing your social and financial status isn’t always that obvious. More often than not, the bragging is very subtle. They’ll imply “I’m totally loaded and if you’re lucky you’ll get to join me.”

Flexing on dating sites might backfire on you

According to a study recently released, this behavior is more prevalent among men than women, which makes sense considering the archaic social pressure of the man having to be the provider.

The funny thing though? Flexing your social and financial status may not actually work in your favor anymore. There seems to be a shift from striving for curated and perfectly instagrammable lives to valuing authentic, raw, and real experiences.

Pictured below: millennials finding the perfect man, in theory, except they’d never be able to actually afford that house.

“There’s been more of a shift toward people showing off experiences rather than showing off material possessions”

Dan Ilani, Founder of Sweatt

The other reason it may very well backfire, as the title of this article states, is that most millennials are actually broke af. Not that that’s news to us, since we live this reality every single day.

So…how broke are we?

The Economist reported the median household wealth in 2016 for 20-35 year olds was 25% lower than it was for the same age group in 2007.

More specifically, the millennials most at risk of being less financially stable than their peers are those born in the ’80s. According to a 2018 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, they had accumulated 34% less money that what they should have had if the 2008 financial crisis hadn’t happened.

So, pretty broke, I guess.

If you’re gonna take anything from this article, it’s these two things:

1. Generations before us set us up for failure and we are in fact, quite broke. Thanks mom and dad! 😂
2. Filtered and perfectly instagrammable lives are on their way out, while authentic and honest lives are on their way in! Integrate that into your dating habits and dating profiles and you may see some more success!