It was a piece today on All Things Considered that finally pushed me to write about it, but I’ve been noticing for a while that all sorts of people (the media, commentators, bloggers, etc.) have become suddenly very interested in “the millennials”–the generation now in its mid-twenties that seems to be shit out of luck at every turn. The main reason people find us so damn interesting: we are massively unemployed. I can’t have a conversation with an older person now without the topic somehow shifting to the awkward subject of my current endeavors, which are embarrassingly few: applying to graduate school, doing some freelance work, and waiting to start an internship in January. I’ve had this conversation so many times, I’ve got it down to a finely-tuned routine that I can recite without thinking, and that conveniently glosses over my embarrassing lack of employment. And then the inevitable response: “Yep, you young people sure have it rough these days. It’s just such an unfortunate time to graduate from college. Sucks to be you.” As if I didn’t know.
Anyway, I’m not going to pretend I understand my own generation, but a lot of smart people are thinking about us (and some not so smart ones, too). Here are some interesting articles about Gen Y. If you know of any good ones I missed, hit me up in the comments section.
- A New York Magazine cover story last month, “The Kids Are Actually, Sort of, Alright“
- The All Things Considered story that sparked this whole post
- A piece in The Atlantic from several months back, which is actually more about parenting than Gen Y — but it does have interesting things to say about the “culture of self esteem” that we grew up in
- Another NPR story on the subject
- Apparently, the Pew Research Center did (and is continuing to do) a series of reports / articles on the millennials
