millennial pause

plural millennial pauses · alternative Millennial pause

1. Internetneologismsocial mediaA brief pause by someone between starting a video recording of themselves and beginning to speak, said to be characteristic of millennials (people born around the 1980s and 1990s).

   Apparently, I'm still guilty of the "Millennial pause." After hitting "Record," I wait a split second before I start speaking, just to make sure that TikTok is actually recording.

   2022 August 6, Kate Lindsay, “Are You Sure You're Not Guilty of the 'Millennial Pause'?”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 31 Jul 2023

   1 more example

   Ekin-Su doesn't flatten herself to widen her appeal to audiences. It's even more obvious, now that she's out of the villa, that she had minimal IG career aspirations going in — she and Davide both are endearingly bad at social media (check Ekin's IG Story and you're likely to find millennial pauses, the comic sans font, and 2012-style selfie angles).

   2022 August 16, Katja Vujić, “An Ode to Ekin-Su, TV's Best Reality Star”, in The Cut, archived from the original on 10 May 2023

plural Millennial pauses

1. Alternative letter-case form of millennial pause.

   As the mannerism is somewhat exclusive to those born in and around the 2000s, it's being cast as this generation’s Millennial pause.

   2023 February 22, Amy Francombe, “Unpacking the Gen Z shake”, in i-D, archived from the original on 20 Mar 2023

   3 more examples

   Apparently, I'm still guilty of the "Millennial pause." After hitting "Record," I wait a split second before I start speaking, just to make sure that TikTok is actually recording.

   2022 August 6, Kate Lindsay, “Are You Sure You're Not Guilty of the 'Millennial Pause'?”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 31 Jul 2023

   As Millennials overtake Boomers as the most embarrassing generation — the most recent focus of slagging by the younger Gen Z is the “Millennial pause”, which is that excruciating two seconds that pass in a smartphone video while a thirtysomething is checking to make sure they’re recording themselves — I’m reminded of the phrase “adulting”.

   2022 September 10, Emer McLysaght, “So much admin, too many taxes – adulthood is a crushing disappointment Emer McLysaght”, in The Irish Times, Dublin, archived from the original on 10 Sep 2022, page 3

   From embarrassing Millennial poses to the dreaded Millennial pause, and even just the simple boundaries you put (or don't, in my case) around apps like Instagram, there's plenty I do wrong on a weekly, or even daily basis.

   2022 September 30, Alison Izzo, “There are big pros and cons to using Instagram's Close Friends function to lure your crush”, in Body + Soul, news.com.au, archived from the original on 01 Oct 2023