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There are plenty of millennials writing manly stories. They're all over Royal Road since traditional publishing and media frowns on that kind of thing. There's plenty coming out of Asia too - Three Body Problem series for one. The series puts great emphasis on plot, combat, advanced technology and creative problem solving. The whole series revolves around idiotic/evil women who do their best to wipe out humanity, only to be mostly foiled by heroic male efforts. Or my hobby-horse, Reverend Insanity where our based sigma MC rejects all romance in favour of acquiring more power. It's funny to see readers show up, feel like they can see a ship coming up only for the author to pummel them with 2000 chapters of 'no, it makes absolutely no sense for the most sociopathic man and woman on the planet to pair up: their relation is purely platonic and dominated by blackmail, betrayal and exploitation - and by the way, the power of love is strong but not unbeatable'.
The thing is that female storytelling is seen as more classy than male storytelling. They're choosing less-acceptable-to-men authors and creators of all ages. Kathleen Kennedy's no blue-haired millennial. Ryan Johnson's no millennial yet he felt free to go on a random tangent about how capitalism was so terrible in his Star Wars movie and nobody at Lucasfilm objected.
I don't know much about MLP but it is a very girly show, by design. I won't say that girly media can't be good or attractive to men. But even Equestria at War shows the fundamental differences between the sexes. They found a setting that was basically derived from horse puns, secondary to the characters and turned it into a world of blood, death and industrial warfare. What's so specifically Gen X about MLP, isn't it just a well-made creation generally, something that entertains both sexes?
Gen 4 is Gen X girly ("girly isn't anything out of the ordinary; guys could engage with these things too but simply choose not to"), not Boomer girly like Gen 1-3 ("girly means absurd immature diabetes fuel") or Millennial girly like Gen 5 ("girly means 'that which alienates anyone who isn't a girl'").
Gen X girly is also referred to by "cute girls doing cute things" when the context is anime. Fooling around, story stakes, and conflict resolution in a way typical to girls, basically; something that boys know exists but don't have the time or opportunity to explore.
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