I actually believe many or likely even the majority of the young generation of Americans are relatively more “level headed” about not spending money frivolously.
An interesting story: Several of us had a farewell lunch at our company to send off an intern who will go back to grad school. A coworker originally from Indian (as a new immigrant) happened to sit next to me. We talked about the wedding and honeymoon cost. He said if he got married today, he would likely need about $5000 US dollars only. I feel that his estimate is likely on the low side or he is too “inexperienced” to know this (he has been graduated from an MS program for 3 years so he is really not that young.) But I somehow has a bias that many parents from the east Asia or the south Asia tend to “baby” their offspring so it could be the case that he really does not know much about this. (He once told me that he was expected to call his parents every evening so you could tell the dynamics in his family. He also told me that his parents could share everything they have with him, no matter how old he is. It was an “eye opening” to me how close he is with both his parents and his siblings - much closer between me and my child.) Also, he took vacations in Hawaii two times in the past two years (likely their family’s destination reunion - his PhD parent seems to work all over the world as a petro/chemical engineer) so he is really not that poor (As a comparison, I have never had a vacation at an expensive place like Hawaii in my whole life.)