From the universal to the particular, we lost our way. We were good enough at rejecting the day's powers that they were forced to double down—and it was only then that we folded. Look closely at almost any millennial, and you can see the creases. We were slandered for our good traits before we were more rightfully maligned for our bad ones. We were the killers of brands before they regrouped, repositioned, and became (with their marketing departments) eventually the maimers of us.
Oh fellow Millennials, when did the tide turn? From my vantage, 2014 or 2015 are two good guesses. Once proud crossers of played-out cultural riptides—we finally lost ourselves to new and powerful breaking waves. Our independence to movements that, unbeknownst to us, we were only backseat driving. And music and the arts—oh! Our independence was too successful—and it proved a temptation to buy up. See how independence transitioned from a mindset to a style.
Do you know what I mean when I say: it was activism that finally condemned us to passivity. Creeping monoculture assimilated all our niches. Poptimism was just disguised relativism—which itself was only a foot soldier for philistine capitalism. Let us convince everyone that good art is what sells the best—and to think otherwise is pretentiousness at odds with holy equality. We lost ourselves to the trendmaking powers we first rejected. They overcame us, they altered their methods and message—and like a virus mutating, it finally overcame the defenses we had built up only for the previous variants.
"Do what you love," they told us—we not realizing they were so hellbent on delivering us this message because they controlled the means of information production and transmission and so were thus assured they could convince what was worth loving. Which means our labor was eminently controllable.
We are no longer the generation on the cusp. We have taken our place in the world—that is less ours than it once looked possible. This is just one plea—from just one traveler on that road—and I know I've been pulled just as much as I've ever walked myself. Let us turn back to that shore where a new world still seemed possible—where community and art and truth and political causes worth fighting for weren't flown in algorithmically. Let the waves break in irregular time signatures and randomly—may we be with them.
May something, anything arise organically once again. Please, please, please—for it's been years.