Culture, Sports, Writing…or whatever
I don’t think I’m very good at being a 20-something. I’m in the bottom half of the bell curve at least. If being a 20-something were really the fairytale race it’s so often depicted, I would be neither the tortoise nor the hare. I’d be more like if a sloth fused with a manatee after shoving down two whole roast chickens from your local grocery deli; I’ll get there, but, um, don’t wait up for me.
(One of my proudest high school achievements was while working at Winn-Dixie—the underwear skid marks of Florida grocery stores—I bare-handed inhaled an entire lemon pepper roast chicken on my 30-minute break on a co-worker’s dare and somehow didn’t get fired—despite almost puking twice in a customer’s shopping bags, and also disappearing for an hour in the bathroom—as I trundled through the rest of my shift like 25-pound sandbags full of greased chicken were attached to every limb of my body. You might also be surprised to learn I didn’t lose my virginity until college.)
Looking around me, everyone seems better suited for this 20-something lifestyle than I am. I’m not saying this as criticism of my generation’s tendency to only post about the *lit*, aren’t-you-jealous moments of their lives on social media so I feel FOMO and jealous and wish I was someone else. And I’m not throwing a pity party regarding possible advantages or early successes my peers might have had, ones that cause thoughts of re-imagined pasts full every possible connection and break a lucky guy could have. And I promise you I’m not leering over the fence, wondering how so-and-so has “figured it out” while I haven’t, desperately wishing someone would hand me the correct blueprint to follow. Because if there’s one trait I’ve learned defines being a 20-something, of being a 21st century human, I wholeheartedly share, it’s that deep down, in some branch of their life, no one has their shit together.
So yeah. None of that stuff really bothers me. Well okay, it bothers me a little, but I don’t find it troubling, it doesn’t keep me up at night. It’s mostly cool, I guess. Instead what unnerves me is this idea of being a 20-something, and how we should all cherish the chance to stay a big kid.
Within the past 20 years or whatever this idea of having an “extended adolescence” has become more obligation than option. You kind of can’t grow up in that traditional sense—own a house, start a family—in your 20s anymore, especially if you live in any thriving, even semi-metropolitan area. It just costs too much. Perhaps the adultlike distinction of getting married remains an available recourse, though you a) would likely need significant financial assistance from loved ones and b) makes no mention of the convoluted, fucked-up dating scene currently available to most singles in their 20s. Don’t worry, we won’t venture down that sidewinding tangent of millennial dating. But know that over the past 50 or so years the median age of marriage increased from 21 to 27 for females and 23 to 29 for males. I don’t think that’s a random coincidence!
But owning a house, starting a family? In this economy? With this tunneling pit of debt filled with college loans preemptively saddled upon me as precedent to even possibly entering this economy? Can I get out of this hold I find myself in first?
I want to catch myself before painting some massive swaths of generalization here, but the pressures of overpopulation (some of you refuse to die), our still-freshly interconnected global economy, and technology improving so rapidly and so widely, rendering more jobs obsolete as more overly qualified people compete for this dwindling job pool, does rather complicate things. I know this is where the boomers and reformed hippies interject that a threat like automation has loomed dangerous for the past seven hundred decades and hasn’t destroyed us yet, so stop worrying. To which I’d say: Saudi Arabia became the first country to grant citizenry to a robot last week—a robot that literally said “Destroy all humans” just a year ago!—so yeah, I’d venture to say things are a little different. Cryo-freeze Arnold Schwarzenegger now or else we’ll have no chance to save humanity.
Wow this post derailed quickly… Anyways! That tangent served to underscore my growing theory that “extended adolescence,” once a kitschy term for morning talk show segments and Gallup polls, isn’t a trend. It is the future reality. If 50 is the new 40, being 25 is the new 15. For so many 20-somethings that’s the truth: They still live at home with their parents, can’t find a girlfriend, and stuck bussing tables as any means of income. This week you mopping floors—and if you’re really ambitious—next week it’s the fries. Yeah…that’s nice.
Most blessed enough to obtain work in their desired field are scraping by or somewhat compromising what they really want to be doing. (Hold that thought.) The kids who couldn’t find work and don’t live at home resorted to the only option they had left: grad school. Yay, more doubt and debt!
Apologies for painting a soulless, cynical picture, because I promise you I know it’s not that bad. Really, it’s fine. I’m fine, you’re fine. Maybe some of us have a small drinking problem, but like just don’t start injecting heroin and it’ll probably be okay, fam.
What am I saying? Something like that a contradictory tension undergirds being a 20-something and no one openly discusses it enough to my liking. On one hand you’re instructed to embark on a free-spirited adventure because there’s nothing like being in your 20s. Splurge on adventures, travel, and don’t worry about that developing gut of yours. If you lack the funds now, just put it on the credit card! You got time, you’re in your 20s! On the other hand, you’re supposed to be #hustling, with plenty of (maybe) experts cramming into you 12,000 lifehacks to implement daily—“Bro, buy these $69.95 nootropics, cut out gluten, and microdose penicillin to achieve grind goals of working 34 hours a day.” You’ll have to wait on those simple joys of being a human—love, nature, laughter—because right now you should focus on your brand and know your Plan to Success™. Thanks to the internet, you have all the tools you could ever need, why aren’t you winning yet?
It all makes you want to yell, “Can’t I just be a fuckup sometimes?” Really it’s overwhelming and we haven’t even discussed the glut of news, opinions, and other bullshit you should be up to date on, like, two news cycles ago. (You might even be reading this as alternative to engaging with whatever latest controversy or scandal that everyone’s sharing their trite opinions on.) This, I reason, is why most would rather curl up on a couch and binge the latest mediocre Netflix show now available to stream. Seriously no judging—it’s easier that way.
But if you do the research and survey the data, only one reasonable conclusion remains available. It’s so obviously boring I don’t even want to type it out. Really, it’s so simple: You just can’t give up. Survive and keep trying as much as humanly possible. Continue knocking on that door because you never know when it’ll open for you—could be tomorrow and it could be when you’re 43. You really must steel yourself for that possibility. Your dream job or dream project might not come for that long. But you have to know it will come if you continue to put forth the effort.
So why do I suck at being a 20-something? Because I know all this shit and it doesn’t comfort me any. I should revel in this beautiful struggle, but I impatiently can’t. I just want to know the latest first step I’ve taken is the right one and I promise I’ll put my head down and just work if given that confirmation. Yet even that admission carries with it this strange guilt, knowing how utterly first world problem/white people problem this all is. Part of this, too, stems from entering the downward stretch of being a 20-something (I’m closer to 30 than 20), where your core foundation of who you are is mostly figured out, but some lingering insecurities persist as you piece together the final building blocks.
I read this quote from an actress—it was either Lizzy Caplan or Tina Fey—basically saying how once into your 30s, you kind of just are who you are, and all this anxious worrying falls away. That thought comforts me. I cling to it, really. I think I’ll be better as a 30-something anyways. My beard will look cooler at least.
For now I’m just doing my best to shut off this side of my brain and continue doing what I’m doing. Steer into the insecurity and fear as always. Writing all this down helps. So does that conventional wisdom of travel I gently mocked. People repeat it because it’s true. Sometimes you just need to get away from it all. This is why I’m disappearing to Japan next week and intend to eat every udon noodle and piece of sushi I can find. I might come back with my gut looking like a sumo wrestler’s. But hey, I’m only in my 20s. I still got time, right?
< 3 Sashimi Bren
1.
Sometimes I don’t know who I’m supposed to hate. It can be a confusing emotion. That hate is human, however, that it is core to the experience, seems firmly established: Hate, as I see it, is the kneejerk reaction to rejected love, promises, beliefs, and realities. And who doesn’t have those?
Even if you despise that idea of hate (which could just be read as more proof of its existence), there’s still ‘hate,’ like we toss out the term now. He’s a hater. I hated that TV show. Fuck hating-ass Donald Trump. Him and his hater army should drink some haterade. You get the point.
That there’s all this hate floating around likely explains my own retreat into sports. My emotions needed somewhere to go and games create a sort of alternate reality for everyone to occupy. Within this context, it might seem perfectly reasonable to scream phrases like, “Die, die, DIE, you janky, long-neck mother fucker,” as five guys collapse onto an opposing star quarterback like, um, just for example, Peyton Manning. Or, in your sports safe space, it is not out of the ordinary to imagine delivering an iron crowbar to the knees of Paul Pierce (another star chosen at random) because you swear to God if he lazily baits one more bullshit foul you’ll stab the damn crowbar into your own eyeballs just to end the visual torture. All of this seems normal. It makes sense as heightened tribalism. An us vs. them attitude. That team is trying to stop ‘us’—who I love, who I believe should win, who represent my hopes, desires, dreams in a physical sense—so fuck them and everyone who fucks with them. Hating follows a logical explanation, not an emotional one.
This (should) complicate with age. You (should) develop some empathy and (should) realize it’s just a game, even it’s only after the fact. Because of my foray into sportswriting during my time at Florida State, this transformation happened without my realizing. The goal, as a writer, is to identify these athletes as humans ripe with potential and meaning, with stories. To see them not as players but as people. Experiencing these stories through longreads, an Outside the Lines piece, or just following these dudes’ Instagrams (should) have a similar effect. Not hating ends up following an emotional explanation, not a logical one.
2.
But it is not always this easy. Life, as much as some argue otherwise, is not sports. Again, in discussing hate, what I’m really describing is unresolved anger/frustration/turmoil/etc. Rational thought might lead one to seek a conquering of one’s self; that if one could accomplish this feat—and accomplish it perpetually as it’s a neverending war of sorts, considering life beats on endlessly and fresh problems appear throughout a lifetime—one might discover a fulfilling life. Hate, one realizes, taps into the same vein as love, birthed from the same chemicals and properties of it, and the expression of hate might stem from a lack of loving one’s self. So if one could learn to love one’s self, the problem might disappear.
Now that sounds like a lot of work. That “neverending war” bit? And really, “the problem might disappear”? So it’s basically a wash? Upon examination, that paragraph starts sounding like a lot of pleasant rhetoric masquerading as erudite philosophy. As if some 23-year-old stumbled upon ‘the secret’ and here it is up front for you. It could all really be that simple.
To which I say: Who knows? Maybe, probably not, possibly. Regardless, those are me and my thoughts. What I’m dealing with currently. I’m also realizing my broad explanation of hate might be like the 1B. definition, not the entire scope of the term. Thinking about it, hate has infinite possibilities.
3.
Bridge of Spies is a very good movie I did not expect to like. It follows Tom Hanks as James B. Donovan, an insurance lawyer assigned to defend Rudolf Abel, a recently captured Soviet spy. No one expects Donovan to argue valiantly on his behalf amidst the backdrop of the Cold War. His firm, friends, and family all but demand him not to. Instead he does and loses all the way to the Supreme Court. But then Francis Gary Powers, an American pilot on a secret U-2 spy mission, gets shot down and imprisoned in Soviet territory. Donovan receives backchannel messages requesting he negotiate an exchange to take place in East Berlin: Powers for Abel. The movie threads these narratives from there.
Tired subject matter (Cold War espionage) and its star explain my low expectations. I find Hanks’ acting too self-serious and self-regarding; he usually chooses roles where he represents some virtue inherent to living as a paragon. He always plays the Good Guy. It’s not that compelling to me is all.* Hanks doesn’t sway too far from that guy in Bridge of Spies.
* Whenever a director attempts to undercut this persona, though, it’s rather intriguing. Like in the Toy Story movies where Hanks voices Woody. The point of that character is that he takes himself too seriously, is too needy for glory. Every Toy Story movie reminds us we’re not always meant to play the hero in our story, we’re not always to be regarded as ‘special.’ Meanwhile, Cast Away might be the funniest unintentional comedy ever made, as everyone who has screamed “WILLSSSOONNNNNNN!!!!!!” at a volleyball recognizes.
It’s been a critical darling, though. Before its Oscar nominations it had underground buzz. Steven Spielberg’s directing is gorgeous, conveying emotional notes and narrative dynamics through every shot; it’s extremely motivated filmmaking, really. Mark Rylance’s performance as Abel certainly elevates the picture.
This is not why it’s been a popular movie, if I had to guess. In the mainstream but also for the critics and cinephiles. It’s about this mix of nostalgia and coherence. You understand the ‘villains’ and their motivations: East Germany, USSR; socialism, totalitarianism, erasure of America’s influence and ideals. Not knowing this history and these enemies is simply not allowed growing up a certain age. Teachers, grandpas, aunts, family friends repeat stories also seen in the film: practicing hiding under school desks, or filling bathtubs with water, a resource that’d be lacking in case of nuclear fallout. This too was Spielberg’s childhood. “It’s as close to my life as you can get,” Spielberg has said.
Back then, it was no mystery who drew our ire. Tribalism lines were sealed with concrete blocks topped with razor wire: Americans vs. Russians; freedom vs. socialism. When I watched Bridge of Spies, I could feel the audience relax a little, sigh some relief. It was all so comforting knowing who we were supposed to hate.
4.
Everyone’s always trying to save the world in movies. Probably because someone always wants to destroy it. Those are the stakes in big blockbusters anyways. I mean, how many cities sieged, how many nuclear launch codes stolen, how many loved ones kidnapped, how many apocalypses, how many secret chemicals with weird names, how many planet-ending devices stashed in dubious safes, how many radioactive spiders, how many dead presidents, how many alien invasions, how many mechanized robots evil and good can there really be? At what point do the fear of these threats dissipate a little bit?
I’m not complaining. I’m not. I love this popcorn garbage. I’m just identifying trends and why it’s interesting when new ones develop. It’s almost a way to stock whatever we as a culture fear most. Then, to alleviate that fear, our hero conquers it. For example, following 9/11, it was quite vogue for filmmakers to annihilate mid-town Manhattan. Avengers famously did it. I Am Legend did it. The Day After Tomorrow, Cloverfield did it. That strange Nic Cage movie Knowing felt rather explicitly about the guilt and fear that swept the country post-9/11.
That’s (mostly) over, though. I mean, directors still like blowing up the planet and that will never change. But new threats, in a globally dependent economy, in a world where attacks are perpetrated by jihadist groups not countries, in a time when more people are more connected than ever before, are more insidious. Or maybe blockbuster sequels have run out of ideas. Both explanations are plausible.
Look at something like Furious 7, a movie in which I did not cry when that Wiz Khalifa song started and Brian teases Dom for trying to leave without saying goodbye and that Paul Walker FF montage plays and Vin Diesel states they’ll always be brothers and their roads diverge and … no tears at all.
But the film’s plot. It revolves around a program called God’s Eye, a software that utilizes every smartphone and camera worldwide along with facial recognition technology to track individuals. The team acquires God’s Eye, uses it to track their villain, loses it to the villain, and ultimately destroys it to defeat the villain. (Then that emotional stuff happens.)
A similar technology presents itself in James Bond: Spectre. The 00 espionage program, and James Bond, have been deemed obsolete. C, the head of the private Joint Intelligence Service, aims to push Britain into “Nine Eyes,” a joint surveillance operation including nine first-world countries. It’s revealed Spectre, an underground terrorist group Bond has been tracking, instigated attacks to convince waffling countries they needed “Nine Eyes.” In exchange Spectre would be given unfiltered access to the program. Bond, of course, stops all this from happening and saves the day. The 00 program continues. “Nine Eyes” does not.
Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation has an identical plot (although it’s a much better movie). Ethan Hunt believes a secret criminal group called the Syndicate exists, though, like Bond in Spectre, no one else does. And like Bond, an outside CIA man believes Hunt’s organization, the Impossible Missions Force, should be disbanded and succeeds in absorbing it into the CIA. Hunt eventually learns through his mission-impossibling the Syndicate was real and created by the British government to track and destroy enemies without detection or accountability. But the Syndicate went rogue and the government can no longer control it. They tried to cover it up but can’t. A big plot point involves Tom Cruise’s risky business in the field (a meta joke I appreciated). To prove everyone wrong, Cruise gambles and captures the Syndicate leader. He wins. Secret government courts reinstates the IMF, recognizing the importance of individuals in the field. Monitoring countries uninhibited and the Syndicate influencing change unreported ceases.
So. The movies aren’t really feeling mass surveillance, huh?
5.
Emotions are short-term solutions. They are episodic responses of fluctuating neurochemicals responding to stimuli. They are fleeting. You pull weeds in a garden and a snake pops out. Your grandmother says something racist at Thanksgiving. You eat bacon. You overhear some skank make insinuating comments to your boyfriend. Emotions are involuntary reactions to fix an immediate problem.
In some ways, they can betray you. Without your doing, emotions show up on your face all the time. This is because humans used to be stupid (and some still are). Facial tics stem from paleocircuitry within your brain, where most nonverbal communication is stored, back when we lacked verbal skills. Because we couldn’t say it, our face had to communicate for us. I’m happy. I’m scared. I’m disgusted. I’m sad. I’m angry.
I had a public speaking professor at FSU who I remember saying, quite frequently, that 70 percent of communication is nonverbal. This, I learned, is a wildly disputed figure. Most numbers stem from two studies conducted by Dr. Albert Mehrabian in 1967. We’ll skip the details, but he concluded this oft-repeated and misrepresented figure of 55/38/7. Those numbers indicate factors of communication: 55 percent equals body language, 38 is tone, and 7 are the words actually spoken. But Mehrabian only intended those numbers to be context-specific, in which the messages relayed via nonverbal and verbal channel are incongruent. For all other communication, those might not be the precise figures.
But the specifics are irrelevant. Let other people worry about the exact numbers. What matters is the idea behind them: That a significant portion of communication occurs nonverbally. How eyebrows pinch or high-pitched a voices rises or breaking eye contact during a crucial confession. It’s an idea we all agree upon without ever really saying it.
This is what most technophobes fear about the Internet and smartphones. That we lose something crucial to human experience and communication as we exist more and more in these channels. But these people also ignore how conservation has evolved in digital spaces. We #invent ways to *~express~* $h!t and how we reeeeeaalllly mean it :).
Between two people, communication in the digital age hasn’t changed. No different than writing letters. In some ways, I’d argue it’s better. Hyperlinking, sending memes, GIFs, instantaneous delivery. Screw a To My Dearest Abigail, have you ever received any cute cat GIF ever? Brightens your whole week.
The caveat: Social media changes the equation. When critics invented “mass communication” as a term, it only ever meant one sender to millions of receivers. But social media inverts that: One receiver to billions of senders. It is like being thirsty, finding a water fountain, pushing a button, and four waterfalls rain overhead. Not only is it your job to drink, but you also must find the streams of quality water. Because tons of people are plain shitty communicators.
6.
Any conversation involving mass surveillance circles back to Edward Snowden so instead let’s just start there. To recap: Snowden is the infamous NSA whistleblower who leaked numerous documents to journalists revealing the breach of privacy governments around the world break to collect information on individuals. The main culprits are, but not limited to, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and United States. They comprise “Five Eyes,” or FVEY*, who circumvent domestic law and spy on each other’s individuals, sharing that intel amongst one another. It’s kind of terrifying to consider what they do and don’t have on you. This is why I don’t send dick pics.**
*Yes Spectre assuredly stole that name for its fake “Nine Eyes” organization and why that movie stunk: It wasn’t trying to be a James Bond movie; it was trying to be a mass surveillance movie.
**Among other classified reasons…
Snowden also (sort of) starred in the best thriller picture I’ve seen in years: Citizenfour. The documentary details the account of Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald (then later Ewen MacAskill) meeting Snowden in a Hong Kong hotel where he plans to leak the aforementioned documents to them. Paranoia haunts them as they fear US and UK governments seem to be on their tail. To be fair, weird shit happens: at one point a fire alarm rings on and off, almost as a bait to force them out of their protected hotel room. When Snowden calls the front desk, they inform him it was just a test.
That countries spy on each other is nothing new. Information is invaluable. This becomes more so as individuals’ impact lessens and technological advancements’ increases in the battlefield. A character in Bridge of Spies literally says this: “We are engaged in a war. This war does not for the moment involve men at arms, it involves information.”
Appearance has changed as well. Spies no longer look or act like Vin Diesel or Daniel Craig or Tom Cruise or even freaking Austin Stowell; they look like Edward Snowden. They are Edward Snowden. And he is not cool. He is a dork. A very, very intelligent dork I respect immensely, but a goddamn dork nonetheless.
What mass surveillance means as a violation of our citizenry is not very interesting. The answer is simple: It just is. To steal from Snowden, saying you don’t care about mass surveillance because you have nothing to hide is identical to saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say. Rights and results remain separate influences in determining policy.
Behind both ideas, however, lies motive. It’s easy to understand those who support rights: Individual freedom protects a democratic people from the unstoppable power of a tyrannical government. Activist groups often stretch this idea to unnecessary means, losing their shit upon any perceived infringement of those rights, say, background checks for gun purchases. That isn’t always a bad thing, but also like chill.
If you asked officials and supporters of increasing mass surveillance, their answer would point to stopping terrorist threats like the recent Paris attacks from happening again. You get the sense these people truly believe in a Minority Report world, where crime becomes foreseeable and stopped before it ever happens. They wish for a secure existence against outside threats. They wish that our country just might be safe. But I think that’s only half the truth.
“When they use the word security, they’re not talking about safety. What they’re talking about is stability,” Snowden said. “Like when they’re saying they’re saving lives by bombing them. Stability is the highest value. It’s not about freedom, it’s not about liberty, it’s not even about safety. It’s about avoiding change. It’s about ensuring things are predictable, shapeable, because then they are controllable.”
Now that I can understand. I see why people believe in it.
7.
My friend called me a disease the other day. It was one of those friendly pokes disguising a truth. Like all millennials, we participate in a friends-group message.* Some days it’s popping, other times it goes ghost. Even in interpersonal texts, it’s how we communicate. Days pass in between responses and no one’s insulted by it.
*If you’re over 32, it’s just called Slack.
My friend explained this was my fault. At some point in college, I started communicating like that, and over time it infected everyone else.
He’s not wrong. That is my preferred style of texting, emailing, what’s apping, etc. Admittedly, this is pretty abnormal for a millennial Internet kid. I’ll borrow a new friend’s phone, taking a picture or whatever, and message notifications run nonstop. Anxiety creeps in and I can’t wait to pass it back. I don’t need more waterfalls overhead.
It seems to only be increasing, too, as no one’s part of just one group either, myself included. Text after Instagram like after GroupMe alert after email buzz after Twitter follow, the notifications never stop.
Now being the semi-shitty aloof communicator I am hurts me. Not even as means to breakthrough as a writer, or a ‘creative’ or whatever moniker, and gaining attention, but a as human being who values intimate relationships the older I get. My lack of responses might be explained in simple terms: I don’t have anything to say or I haven’t formed an opinion yet.
But that’s not true. Honestly, I just feel too busy most times. Not an hour passes where I don’t believe I should be accomplishing something productive with my time. This leads to more anxiety of what should I accomplish then and sometimes a debate rages internally with both sides delivering equally compelling points and an hour’s gone and I’m checking Twitter again and reading Kardashian Wikipedia pages because damn that’s a fascinating history and a couple more hours pass and I still haven’t done anything. So then I feel I lack enough minutes to spend keeping up with friends and I don’t. This is not a healthy existence.
Time has become a perpetual micromanagement of evaluating what is and isn’t worthwhile. As I’m on my phone, friends texting and DJ Khaled snapchats and Bernie Sanders’ tax reforms all blend together as equal parts of this machine. Usually, DJ Khaled snaps win out because who doesn’t want to know the pathway to more success? Probably some bing bong like Paul Pierce because he’ll just foul his way there.
8.
What I hate is not knowing how everyone else feels. I mean, everyone sure seems eager to tell you what they hate, but I never believe it. Not on “the Internet”*, anyways. Most times, someone says or writes something (slightly) inflammatory, it catches the wave, and soon everyone’s crashing over everyone to ride it. It’s almost like a game: Who can torch the trending topic the quickest or loudest or funniest?
*The Internet= blogosphere, ‘online magazines,’ and Twitter. The greatest trick that group ever enacted is re-branding themselves as “the Internet.”
Most times, this mob rage distills down to a) a perceived infringement upon one’s rights to identity or b) an opportunity to extend a brand. Joining a social cause has sadly become the trendiest act a millennial can perform. It means you’re part of something. It means you’re Good. It means you’re #important.
Which is fine. I enjoy being those things, too. Any young person does. That’s why we’re the lost generation or the unknown generation or the “me” generation, as if no other generations in the past century have been either. (Hint: They were all one of those.) Unlike others, we have a “voice” in social media. We can place thoughts, feelings, selfies into the world and for whatever reason people pay attention. We can point to proof of our existence.
But I’m not sure it’s helped anything. No topic seems as confusing as identity currently is for young people, except maybe why white people love Peyton Manning so much.* And I think it starts with this constant deluge of information piling on our heads every day. There’s about 17 news bits you should either care or know about and that’s just when you wake up. The information, it doesn’t stop. And don’t forget the wealth of history elders repeat you don’t know enough about. And don’t forget that so many historical narratives are tangled in bias and shaded coloring of half-truths you must read a dozen nuggets of articles and possibly a book just to encapsulate a big picture of the thing. Which just returns us to the central dilemma: What am I supposed to think? How am I supposed to feel? Who am I supposed to believe or trust?
*Okay I’m done.
This constant processing of information forces these perpetual critical evaluations of the self. It’s like being asked the big question numerous times with slightly different wording: Who am I? Because you must know that before answering and understanding everything else. But that’s assuming you live a conscious existence where you’re even wondering about all this crap. I get why most don’t. Some people just prefer believing the Matrix is real.
I have this fun trick I like to play whenever someone delivers a CAPS-LOCK screed online. Every time they declare they “HATE” someone or insists someone has gone too far and we should all be upset about it, I change their words to either “I wanna be needed!!” or “I’m alone.” I realize that trivializes things, but it’s my defensive mechanism from overloading on all the rage. We’re all just trying to get by in our own ways, really.
Because, really, we put ourselves out there too much, often exposing ourselves in potentially harmful ways, because deep down we’re just scared. It’s why we create these enemies just to beat them down. It validates us. It proves we have purpose. Or something like that.
Great. I’m back to the start of this whole dilemma: Hate is a misguided feeling and motive as any other. Sometimes we hate socialists, other times (kind of) ignorant celebrities, technology, and also ourselves. Everyone’s pretending to know who they hate or the why of it. We’re all just confused about it as we ever were.
So I’m picking an enemy at random to funnel our meandering rage and I choose penguins. I don’t trust those beaky, tuxedo fuckers. Who wants to look classy all the time? Are you trying to say you’re better than me, penguin? I swear, if we don’t instill anti-legislation they’ll ruin this country yet. Join me in the new war against penguins. We can all be in this together.
I cried. It finally happened, I mean. Been trying to cry close to four months now. Both times caused by movies. This time Room; previously Inside Out. The connection’s transparent: The saddest moment in life is when you’re no longer allowed to be a child.
I’ve been thinking about Her again. An obvious literary trick at mystery. Use pronouns to elicit symbolic distance. Also an attempt to call attention to myself; hope all the She’s read this and think that sentence was about Her. Really I’m referring to Scarlett Johannson. I am Joaquin Phoenix. Surprise.
I wish she called me.
Attended a writing conference. Many people instructed me lessons already learned. I’m an autodidact meaning I’m smart meaning I’m alone. This is all heading somewhere. If I had to predict a direction—down. In a shape of a spiral.
Some people were nice, some were assholes, I was somewhere in between. It was all nothing new. A repetitive cycle of questioning, belittling those deemed intellectually inferior, wondering why it wasn’t my turn, crystallizing into a millennial trope. I’m bored with how pathetic I sound.
I yearn for Purpose. Now I am Justin Bieber. What do you mean? I’ll show you. Where are U Now? Sorry. Get used to it. Love yourself. No pressure. No sense.
I return to my storage unit. It’s funny: I no longer am attached to this Stuff. It once held great meaning, now it’s a metaphor. Something about leaving Stuff behind, but refusing to let go. That’s as close as I can get.
I retrieve what I came for. A plot detail not necessary to explain. Travis Scott’s “Antidote” blares from my phone. I play his music only when no one’s around. I dance and rage. I bashed him once online and wish to maintain my brand. Can’t shatter the illusion. It’s all I have.
My plot detail and I leave. We speed away. The building blows up behind us. Stuff rains from the sky. Insert generic flourish of pluming fire, a couple embarrassing items like panties. One more weird thing. A chicken clucking in cocktail attire. A lesson: The only way to end eras is violently.
The sun sets as I drive. Kanye West’s “Power” provides background soundtrack. The fantasy ends at the bar “I’m jumping out the window, I’m letting everything go.” Too much identification.
In the editing bay, they revert the color palette back to its muted, drab aesthetic. Jump cut to the opening scene of me crying at the movies. Camera follows me from behind out the theater. Stunned shuffling. Drained appearance. Open the door to the dark outside.
Cut to a close-up of my face. Puffy eyes, salt streaks down my face, hot breath steaming in the cold night air. A push-in closer as a thought flickers but doesn’t complete itself in my expression. Pause an almost unbearable time at this position.
Right before it’s totally uncomfortable, a twitch of a smile. Then everything fades to black.
It turns out millennials are smart! Well, maybe.
Last week, Pew Research published their findings on millennials and their relationship with libraries and books and such. Turns out, we’re pretty nerdy. Not surprising considering we live in an era called the Information Age, but cool to know that nerds stay winning.
Before we get to the stats, read how Pew Research describe millennials to preface their findings:
“Younger Americans—those ages 16-29—especially fascinate researchers and organizations because of their advanced technology habits, their racial and ethnic diversity, their looser relationships to institutions such as political parties and organized religion, and the ways in which their social attitudes differ from their elders.”
That’s a lot to unpack (not to mention quite a bit of pressure), but at least some adults think we’re good people (feel free to skip to the good stuff on the “millennial conversation”). Here’s some of the data I want to highlight:
–We like the Internet, but it’s not our bible: 98% of us use the internet and 90% use social media, which emphasizes how integral it’s become in our lives, but 62% of millennials believe “there is a lot of useful, important information that is not available on the Internet.”
–We do get outside and see the world: Millennials attend sporting events, go to concerts, plays, or dance performances, and even go to a bookstore more than those 30+. Take a better look yourself below, but like a true *critic*, let me cherry-pick one specific stat to prove a point: 34% of people ages 25-29 report visiting museums, art galleries, or historical sites compared to 31% those ages 30+. Take that, parents. We are edumacated. [Ignore my college kid age group (18-24) and high schoolers (16-17) on that one. You know what, let’s ignore high schoolers altogether because they’re still finding themselves (didn’t you watch Boyhood?) and don’t know any better.]
We like books and libraries: Across the board, we read books more often than those 30+. [Another thing to ignore: Those ages 16-24 are more likely to be assigned a book to read for academic purposes.] Also, we like libraries quite a bit: 57% of ages 16-29 report using a library in the past year compared to 53% those 30+. That stat makes the most sense to me—the library was a prime dating locale. I probably went on more “study dates” to the library than any real dates anywhere else. It’s simple why: The library is super non-threatening and it’s a way to “get to know each other” under the guise of studying and working, two activities every college student constantly feels pressured to be doing.
So yeah, it’s justified to feel okay about ourselves, millennials.
***
Turns out that last statement might ring a little false, depending on who you ask. Last week, Politico ran a cover feature about millennials titled “Stop Talking ’Bout My Generation” by Ben Schreckinger. Unlike most essays and coverage written regarding millennials, this one was penned by a real-life millennial, which is a feat in itself. So what do we have to say once given the mic? Not much apparently.
With regards to millennials, two competing opinions have emerged: a) we are the “new” greatest generation, with the power to change the world or b) we’re lazy, stuck in our phones and computers, and quite self-absorbed. I think both arguments hold weight*, but that’s not what Schreckinger or I’m arguing here. No, what’s up for debate is if there should even be a debate.
*I feel a) needs time to develop, although more of my generation does discuss ‘changing the world’ positively and optimistically, just not in the typical civic-duty kind of way, while b) seems more true of our society in general, which leads back to a) and why our way of changing the world is different than previous generations. Then again, reading history, it does seem every generation wants to ‘change the world’ somehow.
The headline to Schreckinger’s piece “Stop Talking ’Bout My Generation” is all the piece eventually says and wants. Schreckinger details the history of how we’ve arrived at the millennial moniker and these two differing opinions surrounding this generation quite well. He points out inconsistencies and erroneous reporting by legacy media like Time and NBC properties and the New York Times (pinch me if you haven’t read that sentence before), and how it informs their off-based claims about millennials being the “Me Me Me ” generation or how “Millennials are Selfish and Entitled.”* The piece admits that there are some “useful nuggets” and such, but by and large, the piece contends they don’t know what they’re talking about. And it might be better if they kept their mouths shut, until they get some better data.
*Although he ‘forgets’ to add the rest of that Time article’s headline: “…and Helicopter Parents Are to Blame.” Don’t worry, although he criticizes these articles for “cherry-picking” stats, Schreckinger does the same thing and doesn’t show that these articles tend to be pretty balanced.** Also, if you look as lazily as you possibly can, those same publications promote millennials just as much.
**But in Schreckinger’s defense, any article that quotes Mark Bauerlein at length rightfully should be dismissed. Any ‘fair’ journalist human being can see Bauerlein is a dick who has a highly unnecessary opinion.
Schreckinger crescendos to this climax:
“I’ll refrain from holding forth on what older Americans do need to understand to, like, really know us, but I will say this much: Gen Xers and baby boomers better hope we’re smart and civic-minded and hard-working, because we’re going to be in charge sooner or later, and they’re creating a hell of a mess for us.”
Admittedly, that caused this reader to “lol wtf?” pretty hard. My intention isn’t to “take down” Schreckinger or even defend the people he’s criticized, but to question sincerely just what millennials want to say about ourselves. Here we have a well-informed writer, who has a pretty big platform to lead the discourse a different direction, and he actively chooses to say nothing. Maybe that part was edited out, but I highly doubt it. His motives and thesis are pretty clear throughout.
Again, I’m not trying to bash Schreckinger (although I fear that’s how it’s coming across). I’ve gone as far as I have because I’ve seen this article populate my feeds frequently by millennials with some variation of the comment “he gets it” since its publishing. What is “it”? Beyond a middle-finger to adults who utilize data and quotes and figures to promote a certain philosophy about a generation, in the same way their parents did to them, and in the same way I just did above, I’m not sure. We live in a “selection-bias” era where everyone uses facts to reinforce their viewpoint, not inform them. I mean, is it really that surprising what legacy media says about us? Really?
Anyway, I’ll leave it with this: Millennials want to change the world, improve it in some way. It might be corny and maybe generations previously did too, but now we have the awareness and tools available to us unlike ever before. What’s more, we know what we’re worth now. Hell, we know we have a worth. We’re a little narcissistic, kind of cocky, but in today’s world, that might be necessary to survive and stand out. Time to shine, I guess.
[a] millennial reservations 