And the Winner Is ... the Millennials

A recent report has found that the Millennials (aka Generation Me or Generation Media, depending on your perspective) are the most entitled and delusional generation in history (Salon). It appears there is a growing discrepancy between their desire for material rewards and their willingness to do the work required to garner those rewards. Is it any wonder, given the world they have grown up in? They are constantly bombarded by aspirational ads and television, by stories of the rich and famous (particularly of the young, untalented variety) and by an existence steeped in media and its spectacle-inspired mythology. Technological addiction has brought ADHD to  social pandemic level as instant gratification and multitasking become the norm. And they live in a political world that continues to tell them lies about their collective future, while the older generations essential pilfer it from under them. Yet the most troubling aspect of this new world is the distance between expectations and potential success. 

The Millennials appear to believe that success is now a formula based on passing particular life benchmarks. Finish school, go on to college, start some sort of little business (generally online), live your life out loud (online) and success will surely follow. It is almost perceived as a birthright. Yet what is missing is any dedication to struggling toward that goal. School and college are just inconveniences along the road to future jobs, which are not high on their list of adult life responsibilities anyway. They cheat with abandon, fail to do the reading for their classes and hope to slink by. And universities acquiesce to this new reality by giving less work and lowering standards, particularly among part time faculty worried about those pesky student evaluations. They are now "customers" who demand what they need and take what they want. That sense of entitlement, given to them by their parents, schools, marketers and media outlets all provide a space where they are the center of the universe. They see themselves in advertisements, on television and in movies outsmarting adults with more wisdom and life experience by the tender age of 12 than that stuffy older generation that just doesn't "get it."

All this occurs against a backdrop of real threats to the future of the Western world. Not only are we being attacked from outside, by developing countries like Brazil, India, Russia and China, but from within by an older generation that actually does the hard work -- to take as big a piece of the pie as possible. Unemployment, underemployment, economic stagnation and lower real wages are the economic reality of the day and little appears to be being done to address the situation. In fact, in America we have one party that is trying to slowly shut down the government and allow corporations to rule our lives down to the minutest detail. And it is this generation that has most openly embraced the corporate creed of profits and self-gratification at any cost. There is the hook up culture that has emerged as the new reality of "dating," the social networking craze that takes hours of their lives in sharing those lives with others (a form of narcissism that seems unparalleled even by the boomers), the constant distractions of constant communication (what the hell do they text each other all day?) and a tendency to be constantly busy without actually accomplishing much at all. In Spain and Greece, the youth already recognize their futures are shot but in America this generation seems largely oblivious of its fate. 

So what does this bode for our collective futures? One wonders what will happen when this generation wakes up and realizes so many of their dreams are mere facades, an oasis erected within the spectacle. What appears is good and what is good appears. But what happens when the glamour and envy become regret and bitterness? Will this generation have the fortitude shown by the "greatest generation" in working to forge a better future? Do they even have it in them? Or will they fall back on those perpetual distractions, addiction to legal and illegal drugs and essentially create another urban blighted 70s, without the street and DIY rebellion underbelly? We shall certainly hear about it, on a Twitter, You Tube and/or Facebook station near you ...