Word of the Day: Millennial »

Word: Millennial

Meaning: A one-size-fits-all tag for the generation of “kids” born in the ’80s, early ’90s.

Usage: “The millennial generation might just be the most talked-about generation around.” — David Burstein, in the New York Times

 You should know it because: Every generation is given a name; every generation hates that name; every generation thinks the generation before it had it easier, had it better, had better access to opportunities, had cleaner drugs, realer rock and roll (except for prog), realer hip-hop, more trustworthy politicians (except for Nixon), and so on; and every generation thinks the generation that comes after it is lazier, more spoiled, more screwed-up, more pretentious, has worse taste in music, has worse taste in everything, knows more, thinks less, works less, wants to work less.

And so my generation is the Millennials and I can’t stop reading about our problems. “Is This The Future? Don’t Bet On It” was the actual title of one of the meanest-spirited, least fair things I’ve ever read, in Maclean‘s circa 2008; it was subtitled “spoiled, shallow, and selfish”—in case you didn’t quite get it—and concludes with a vague hope that Millenials will “start growing up.” “What Is It About 20-Somethings?” asked the New York Times in 2010, and also “why are they taking so long to grow up?” (At the same time, a Pew study found Millennials were voting and volunteering earlier than the previous generation, but I suppose that isn’t what theNew York Times qualifies as success, because neither of those things gets you a brownstone or a reso at Pastis.) More recently, articles like this one in The Atlantic and this one (actually written by a Millennial! We know words!) in New York Magazine have shifted the focus from “Millennials are lazy, precious brats” to “Millennials are really educated and optimistic but ill-equipped for life and still can’t find the jobs because the economy sucks,” which is sort of helpful. Yesterday the New York Times chimed in again, with probably its 50^th article written by some old(er) dude about the woes and wherefores of people 10 to 20 years younger than him.

This one, “Generation Sell,” essentially says it doesn’t matter that there are no jobs, because we’re all affable little entrepreneurs engaged in the sweet, sweet business of selling… ourselves. And while that’s becoming truer in this creative freelance economy, the “personal brand” thing is rooted as much in necessity as in some widespread idealization of “selling out,” and it doesn’t mean we all have that “bland, inoffensive, smile-and-a-shoeshine personality” of which the writer so unauthoritatively speaks. Nor does it mean that, even though subcultures, yes, are increasingly co-opted by a speedy and voracious mainstream, we’ve just given up rebelling. Perhaps you’ve heard of Occupy Wall Street? That’s our protest. And if the criticisms of #Occupy are that it’s inchoate and confusing, that it has too many voices, too many aims, and too many sides, well, doesn’t that say something about our generation, too? No definition of “Millennial” fits us all, or fits any of us all that well. There’s no youth monoculture anymore.  I don’t think there ever was, but there definitely isn’t now.

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