It seems like every month a new article comes out in a high profile publication either taking a huge crap on my generation or taking a smaller, more polite crap while at the same time reassuring our parents that we’ll get it together soon.
The NY Times fired two shots, “Millennial Searchers” and “Embracing the Millenials Mindset at Work,” wherein the latter essentially paints us as a bunch of over-educated, under qualified status seekers who need constant encouragement, gold stars and magical hand jobs from unicorns to be useful employees. Slate asks, “Why can’t Millenials Grow Up?” The Atlantic wants to know, if Millenials are the “Greatest Generation or the Most Narcissistic?” And even Buzzfeed, that never ending nonsense machine churns out their shitty opinion in Pulitzer prize winning pieces like,”19 facts we learned about Millenials in 2013“
To my knowledge, none of the authors of these pieces are in my age group, which is evident in the length and detail of each article. (Don’t they know we got ADD and only watch the YouTubes!?) They give us gaudy statistics, colorful pie charts, and interview disappointed millenials who studied for too long and now find themselves stuck in entry level jobs paying off heaps of debt. Boo fucking hoo. I’m never sure what the point of any of these articles is. Life is sad and frustrating, but there is hope? We’re terrible, ungrateful shitgoats who should respect our elders and go die in a corner somewhere? No wait, we are insightful, emotionally intelligent, tech savvy dreamers who hold the key to the future if somehow we could just get out of our parent’s basement? Thanks 50 year old journalist mom of two, without your intensely accurate analysis of what it’s like to be a fledgling 20 something, how would anyone ever know how to interact with us? I get it; we’re a real mixed bag,
There is nothing inherently bad about our generation; we are merely products of our surroundings. If Tinder was around in the early 20th century, your grandfather would have never gone off to be a war hero, he would be in his Model T trying to get fresh with Eloise May or whatever girls were named back then. Hemingway would be the most subscribed to YouTuber as he belligerently vlogged his tales of bravery and breast fondling. None of us are going to write the next great American novel or build miles of interstate to connect the country, but we might create an app that makes it safer to send dick and titty pics and get offered a billion dollars for it.
It’s hard to blame us for being ambitious yet distracted when faced with these realities. Our successes and failures cannot be measured in the same way as previous generations, but I assure you older folks and self-deprecating millenials that cool shit is happening. You may not achieve all you want as quickly as it takes to swipe to your next match on Tinder, but ideas are important. The founder of SnapChat was laughed at for his idea at Stanford Business School, but he charged forward and followed through. I don’t think it will alter history, but it altered his life, made an impact on people and realized a dream of his, which is all we can really hope for. I don’t necessarily want you to make an app, but we all have great ideas that go to waste. Kindly forget the naysayers, charge forward and follow through. You may be shitheads to them, but you’re all right with me.
Very Serious Barista 