Steve Spillman

I’m a little worried about my generation.

I’m having a hard time putting my finger on it, but there’s something that’s really starting to bother me re: the way my generation is working really hard to present itself, specifically on the internet.

So, this morning or sometime last night I guess, Millennials Magazine launched with its first “issue.” The writing is uniformly good/great (lots of current & former NYU Local folks, I gather) and there’s an obvious level of hard work here that’s entirely admirable. More than I would be able to get myself to do, for sure.

(If you haven’t looked yet, maybe start with this funny piece on AOL screennames, or Rosie Gray’s thing about the O.C., or Nicole’s smart observations about being on YouTube.)

Their Twitter account hawks the fact that they aim to “define ourselves to ourselves,” ostensibly because the New York Times and its ilk have tried too often, and failed, to do the same for us. It’s well done.

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But, like, when do we quit ~~circle-jerking~~ navel-gazing and start using the immense resources and advantages we’ve been given for something that looks outside the millennial box?

You know, there are a lot of people who would prefer to call us “Generation Me” instead of “Millennials,” wherever that comes from. It sells our collective potential short to talk about ourselves incessantly and continue to fetishize what makes us so different from everybody else. “We’re special,” we cry. Listen, just because we know we’re spoiled doesn’t make it any more excusable or cute. Self-aware arrogance is not a good look, and it’s an old one.

I don’t know, maybe I’m not saying this very well. But the privilege of being born in a world with computers and the internet should beget the responsibility to branch out and try new things and experiment with the rest of the world. Maybe we could even teach them a thing or two about the Millennial way, instead of talking to ourselves. It’ll be hard, duh. But it’ll be more important.

What do you think?

(PS, A good example of the way forward—sincerity and curiosity about the world outside our collective conscious)

(PPS, I haven’t written something longer than a few sentences in a while, and it seems I’ve forgotten how to use grammar outside the grammar of the internet. Good/bad? Please advise.)

Posted September 27, 2010 at 3:59pm
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