One characteristic of the Millennial generation as a peer group is their desire to fit in, to be conventional. For all the angst about being too boring – or “basic” – about leading uninteresting, fuddy-duddy lives, there is this undercurrent of wanting to just be normal.

Social media is the great definer and enforcer of what is normal, and no site does that better, IMO, than reddit. Its system of upvotes and downvotes ensures that the consensus opinion is always prominent. The hivemind cannot be resisted.

Millennials who are stuck on the fringe of society are using reddit to fold themselves back into the conventional world. For example, children of anti-vaxxers can look for help.

Another great example is the subreddit for Millennials who have escaped the outlier belief system of the Mormon church – https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon.

Through social media, Millennials as a generation are establishing a definition of what is conventional and acceptable, despite the efforts of some Boomer and Gen-X parents to raise them in an environment fragmented from the rest of society.