The Old Guard Takes the Fight to Millennials

Going Down Swinging

Examples of Millennial-induced hysteria

It’s a rite of passage for each generation to dabble in the sacred art of freaking their elders the fuck out.

From edgy wardrobes to uncouth friends, pushing boundaries is a time-honored American tradition. Like sediment, each generation adds its own unique layer of grit and grime onto American existence, continuously altering the essence of the mainstream whole. It’s a gradual alteration that no single group loves, but all have realized the futility in fighting. Each generation strives to leave its mark but eventually succumbs to compromise on how deep, wide and permanent that mark can be.

Lives of quiet desperation indeed.

Without fail each generation has a sense of itself — some identities are strong, formed in the fires of a crucible that unites a generation (e.g. WWII and the G.I. Generation). Others meander through existence as middling generations — remarkable for little other than a series of miscellaneous events that happened on their watch. Yet even among generations of less luster, a collective sense of self naturally forms, hardening against all outsiders. This process inevitably causes generations to be put-off with subsequent generations; groups with diverging principles, norms and priorities.

How these inter-generational struggles play themselves out is often amusing and always fascinating.

As it so happens,

we’re in the middle of one such struggle right now

and it’s funny as hell.

¤

Battle Lines

Everywhere you turn someone is desperately concerned with the state of the modern Millennial. Look no further than the mainstream media, which has created a de facto “Millennial Studies” beat with coverage of varying degrees of hysteria. Suddenly, the media’s old guard has awoken to the reality that Millennials have arrived and taken center-stage.

And, oh do Millennials love the stage. As much as anyone, Millennials themselves perpetuate Millennial Studies with a daily deluge of navel-gazing listicles, micro-blogs and tweet storms that embrace and enhance the stereotypes associated with the group. Millennial-focused publications are effortlessly cool, aggressively self-aware and unfailingly sugary. What’s not to hate?