What Are Millennials?: A Millennial Guide to a Millennial World

by Will Stephen on March 21, 2013

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What Are Millennials?: A Millennial Guide to a Millennial World

By

Will Stephen

SLIDE 1 (PowerPoint):

WHAT ARE MILLENNIALS
HEY. // SUP. // NAMASTE.
(or A STUDY IN ME + US + EVERY1 or IT’S NOT MY FAULT VIETNAM WAS FIFTY FUCKING YEARS AGO)

SLIDE 2:

- Hai. For those of you who don’t kno me, I’m Zach?

- I’m 24 and I, like, go all around the country making this presentation to piece of shit companies like yours who are interested in engaging with my generation, the “Millennials.”

- Newsflash: most of the shit u think u kno is str8 wrong. So I am here 2 give u a more accurate idea of us, the new Greatest Generation.

- I guarantee that when you leave here today you will understand exactly what it is like to be a twenty-something in this beautiful, messed up digital age. 100% guaranteed.

- So for the next few minutes, just shut your out-of-touch mouths and focus on what is important: me.

SLIDE 3:

LIFE
TO. // BE. // YOUNG. // AND. // HOT. // IN. // OBAMA’S. // “AMERICA.”
(or DIVE INTO ME, I’M A SOUND ARTIST or THIS IS UR MIND ON iOS 6.1)

SLIDE 4:

- Millennials like three things: brunch, Skrillex, and no-strings fucking.

- Millennials never wake up b4 noon (unless there’s a free nude etchings exhibit @ the MoMA), and are obsessed with public transportation (“Bus 2 Coachella 2day?”).

- Millennials speak in memes and can cook a mean frittata (“Porcini mushrooms, por favor?”).

- Don’t mess with a Millennial and his or her TV shows (Lena forbid you spoil last night’s “Pretty Little Liars”). Watch your back, or you might get caught in the crossfire of some caustic post-9/11 wit.

- And what’s that? There’s a yard sale at that foreclosed retirement home? Chances are you’ll find a “litter” of Millennials tweeting @ each other by the used mattresses, huffing asbestos and bickering about Dropbox.

SLIDE 5:

DATING
LOVE. // IS. // ME. // PLUS. // YOU. // MINUS. // REALITY.
(or MY HEART COMES WITH RETINA DISPLAY or I NEVER MEANT TO BLOW YOU ON THE F TRAIN)

SLIDE 6:

- Want 2 date a Millennial? Good luck. You could try texting them (“PBRs on my landlord’s garage?”), but you will get a response zero percent of the time. Millennials are more likely 2 raise a family of four with a Ford before twenty-four than go on a fucking “date,” you Republican pig.

- Group hangs (i.e. “.Fun concert @ noon?” or “We r duck bowling on Staten Island Ferry, come with?”) are a better bet. And if not, who cares, we live in a fucking construct.

- Sex is the Millennial currency; Snapchats, our credit cards.

- There is no such thing as the protozoan concept of “true love.” Only taxi-cab hook-ups after sake bombs with the Persian F.I.T. student you met on Tinder whose gay dad invented House music or owns Bose or some shit. THAT is what is real and visceral and beauty and young.

- The concepts of commitment, gender, and sexual identity are now nebulous and laughable. You boink who you boink. No1 cares.

- After all, what is life if not spending your weeknights inside a cardboard fort in a blacklit SoHo loft spooning a forty-something mute performance artist with a cleft palate who pays for ur Spotify Pro? It’s not the 50’s anymore, America. My President is Black.

SLIDE 7:

WORK
MONEY. // IS. // TIME. // AND. // TIME. // IS. // NOTHINGNESS.
(or TAXES ARE MY BOYFRIEND or I LIKE 2 GET STONED AND CRY ON W-9’S)

SLIDE 8:

- Jobs are generally horseshit, and unlike everyone else, we aren’t afraid 2 admit it (sorry we’re not sorry).

- Nine-to-fives are the new Red Scare, and our dignity as artists and thinkers won’t be compromised by some fucking Reaganite with a punch card on a power trip.

- That being said, popular Millennial jobs include anything with psychosexual depth and/or thought given to what it means to be human and impulsive in this fucking post-TRL socioeconomic ennui. Like, I don’t know, Google some non-profits or some shit.

- On paydays, Millennials do coke and go 2 “group hookups” -- sometimes on the internet, sometimes out of state. Age and body type may vary, but vibes do not.

SLIDE 9:

MEANING
FINDING. // YOUR. // TRUE. // YOU. // ON. // ETSY.
(or I WOULD MAKE OUT WITH NEWT GINGRICH or HBO-GO IS MY ANTI-ANTI-DRUG)

SLIDE 10:

- We know what it means to suffer and we know what it means to feel. We will never apologize for fucking up your shit.

- We smoke, we drink, we flirt shamelessly with old people. We make out on rooftops, we run demi-marathons, we scarf shrooms and talk about Silly Bandz.

- We wait in line for hours at the DMV and then ditch at the last minute to party with Michael Musto at the Odd Future pop-up store.

- We are Facebook. We are Buzzfeed. We are innovation.

- We are America.

- We are beautiful.

- We love U.

SLIDE 11:

THE END
FUCK. // YOU. // PAUL. // MCCARTNEY.
(or KISS ME AND LIVESTREAM MY HEARTBREAK or I PAY RENT IN EMOJI POEMS)

SLIDE 12:

- Thank you for your attention.

- An alternate interpretation of all this is that young people now = young people always + the internet. And that I’m just fucking with you using that famous “Millennial” irony and what have you.

- But that’s probably wrong, right?

- Oppa Gangnam Style.

- Peace.

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