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Online Trends

Published May 28th 2019

Things Millennials are Killing in 2019, According to Twitter

Our annual research into what millennials are killing explores the industries, trends, and items that are set to bite the dust (according to internet commentators).

Porn, the print news industry, and (oddly) exorcisms were on the millennials kill list last year, but what’s at risk in 2019?

To find out, similarly to previous years, we took around five months worth of tweets that included the phrase “millennials are killing”. We then used Excel to find the most common phrases to appear afterwards, and used an online word counter to determine the most common things.

Removing stop words, we had our list.

We decided to break out our results in two ways – industries (including for both general and specific things) and trends generally.

These are the things millennials are killing in 2019.

“Millennials are killing the x industry”

‘Industry’ or ‘industries’ is the most common thing to appear in the words following “millennials are killing” in tweets so far this year.

But what industries are we talking about, specifically?

Pet food topped the list, followed by the now cliché alcohol and restaurant industries.

Why pet food? Well, Business Insider (who are a hub of murderous Millennial content) reported in late 2018 that millennials are opting for more expensive pet food for their pets, which has meant the more traditional household names are suffering due to the change in spending behavior.

The result? Tweets about millennials killing the pet food industry.

Dairy was next on the list. This is one we’re surprised not to have seen before – after all, veganism is a trend that’s been growing for a while.

Moving on from dairy, napkins are apparently in the firing line. This has been floating around the conversation since 2016, when one study found millennials prefer paper towels.

Next up is mayonnaise.

Dairy and mayonnaise being murdered? The two may be related.

This, again, follows from a Business Insider report in 2018 in which it shared the story of the decline in mayonnaise sales.

Tweeters responded (this year) by joking that articles on millennial habits are becoming a bit of a joke.

To be fair, it’s a joke that’s been going on for years now, and we’ve been humoring it since 2017.

The final industry on our list is diamonds which, like napkins and restaurants, have been a common theme for multiple years.

“Millennials are killing”… other stuff

With industries out the way, we thought we’d take a look at the more obscure stuff in common words that come after “millennials are killing”. Stuff that isn’t a product or an industry in itself, but that still warrants a mention here.

Sex in parks

According to the New York Times, the number of police tickets issued for having sex in NYC parks has dramatically dropped in the last decade.

For this tweeter, it was a shocking revelation.

Challenging old beliefs

This tweet shares the results of a survey where members of different generations are asked about difficulties African Americans can face when it comes to social mobility.

According to these results, millennials are challenging views held by older generations.

Homes on golf courses

This story combines golf, which has appeared before, with Baby Boomers’ house values.

Double kill.

The things millennials are killing in 2019

Ranking Thing Volume
1 Industries 971
2 Pet food industry 224
3 Beer industry 176
4 The value of baby boomers' houses (on/near golf courses) 146
5 Views of older generations on race and social mobility 145
6 Restaurant industry 131
7 Sex in parks 130
8 Napkin industry 75
9 Mayonnaise 73
10 Diamond industry 68
Volume of words alongside "millennials are killing" in tweets | Data gathered using Brandwatch Analytics (Jan 12 - May 12 2019)

Will millennials still be accused of murdering things next year? Volumes of tweets on the subject appear to be dropping on Twitter compared to last year.

But even if millennials are still getting flack, what will be on the list? Who knows what effects an election will have on what they go after.

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