Your generation is like your country or nation. The backs of those within your age bracket are the largest platform you’ll ever have to pour your output into culture. Since I view my fellow millennials as extended family, I figure it’s time we all have a little talk. Millennial culture has been stagnant for a long time.
We’ve been in La La Land since day one, numbing our visceral instinct as a collective. I believe we were trained to act delayed in every sense of the word. I’m not trying to claim we are perfect victims by any means, but we are tragically underutilized by design. I have a certain type of autism that makes me notice wasted potential everywhere I go. I see it most vividly within my own generation, and if we continue to remain complacent in our failure to reposition the modern paradigm, then we are dooming ourselves to deserved irrelevancy. If we cannot gain the confidence required to lead future generations to victory, we will be hazed like our Boomer parents for the rest of our lives.
I’ve never related to the culture that’s been sold as “mine,” nor has any millennial I’ve ever met. It was built and marketed by out-of-touch Boomers and resentful Gen X-ers. Nothing about so-called millennial music, fashion, or even political beliefs feels organic. We were handed mass-produced, socially engineered environments by people who had already secured their place in the world. I believe this is true for every generation, which is why it must be called out, and destroyed, to give younger generations a fighting chance. We must put the true meaning behind our name to good use and end this nonsense with us.
When it was my time to find my way in life, I was nursing a nuked ego, and ended up taking the most basic and predictable millennial path. While I wanted to make television, I convinced myself I would never be able to create anything of artistic value. Television is dying! Voice acting is impossible! Art is pointless! It won’t make money! Higher education is the way! The medical field is the future! I didn’t invent these beliefs out of nowhere, they were well-meaning recommendations from generations with no concept of the world their children were actually stepping into.
So I went to college. I graduated with a degree that only opened doors to jobs my parents worked with just a high school diploma…and for half the pay. I refuse to entirely blame them, though. This is MY mistake. I contributed to the problem. I used my time, talent, and money to create more places for the youth to drown in the puddles of their wasted lifeblood. Out of fear, I turned my back on creation for the sake of playing it safe. And when playing it safe failed, I blamed others.
In a merit-based society, this decision would have made sense. But look at where we are now: even if you do everything “right” by working hard, saving up, and letting go of childish dreams, you still might not make ends meet. We were told we needed to live practically, yet we weren’t guided with an ounce of practicality. We were shown a dilapidated home and endlessly lectured about how it must be maintained. Then, once we finally picked up the tools to maintain it, the cops were called on us for attempted breaking and entering.
Well, time’s up, kids. We’ve been voyeurs to the controlled demolition of everything we hold dear, and now we must rebuild until we’re dead. Even if it looks bad at first, we have to save this house. We must harness the emboldened integrity of the Silent Generation, the purity of the Boomer heart, and the cunning spirit of Gen X. We are a uniquely curious group of people, and we must get to the bottom of the destruction of our shelter. The world won’t welcome us a second time (it wasn’t thrilled about the first time), but our genuine influence has finally arrived. So make it something future generations can build upon.
