07/23/2026
People love to blame millennials for participation trophies.
As though six-year-olds drove themselves to the trophy store, placed the order, and said,
“Make sure everyone gets one.”
Children didn’t invent participation trophies.
Adults did.
Parents bought them.
Coaches handed them out.
Organizations made them standard.
Then, twenty years later, many of those same adults turned around and mocked an entire generation for receiving something they never asked for.
Maybe this was never really about trophies.
Maybe it’s about our tendency to criticize the next generation for the world we helped create.
Every generation leaves something behind.
The next generation simply grows up in it.
Modern Absurdities™
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