Why millennials' money diaries are a media phenomenon

“I earn 40k and live at home, but I still need my parents to bail me out each month,” reads the viral Grazia article you may have seen furiously shared on social media. Money diaries are the media phenomenon for the millennial age, raising the collective blood pressure of thirtysomethings like me at a time of squeezed wages and a housing crisis. Grazia is only the latest in a long line of publications that offer us the dual temptation to nosy through the bank statements of complete strangers and then judge them for it.

The problem, of course, is not actually how the people featured spend their money, but that their habits are often distorted as a means to beat Generation Rent with.

Millennials cannot win: if the diarist has saved for a deposit, it means others can surely do the same. If they have not, it’s said to be evidence that we’re frittering away our wages. In fact, scan the article and these cases almost always involve a display of inherited wealth: either they have been left £50k via a grandparent’s will or are living in their parents’ home rent-free.

Just like the arguments that young people cannot afford to buy a home because we’re buying too many avocados, such diaries perpetuate myths that hide the very real structural problems facing the average young person.

If you’re struggling to put away a tenner a week, it feels galling to read these diaries – people who often display little self-awareness about their privilege. But “hate clicks” are never innocent. Traffic-hungry editors clearly know the reception such headlines will garner online. That these diarists almost always also happen to be young women – criticised as spoilt, often for the audacity of being female with spare cash – should surely give us pause.