Aldous Huxtable

EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that the original post was written in October. I received it today. It changes nothing about my statements below.

To Mr. Mat Honan, who wrote a post today last October lamenting Millenials like me and to all Gen X-ers who read his post and couldn’t agree more:

Allow me to start by offering you a hug. Seriously. You sound like you all need one. Next, I think my Millenial brethen won’t get mad if I think I speak for us all when I say, “Cool story, bro.” The thing that you’re not seeing through the rage, is that we’re going through the same amount of suck you are—except we have you and the Boomers telling us what entitled jerks we are all the live-long day. As far as the “sense of entitlement” is concerned, it’s my guess you’re referring to the fact that we watched our parents (and you, for that record) get canned after following the pre-determined script that was placed in front of you and realized, “Hey, that life path kinda sucks.” So no, we’re not in love with the idea of saddling up to a job that’s gonna throw us out like yesterday’s Tamagotchis whenever they feel the need. We’re starting our own companies like Facebook (you’re welcome!) Pinterest and Tumblr—you know, the platform you used to type this rant? While we’re talking about tech, let us say that we appreciate the technological advancements you brought to us. Here’s the thing though. It’s called “progress” you took basic framework of the web was and built on it (while mailing a bunch of AOL CD’s). We took that, connected the planet and started revolutions from our mobile phones. Our bad.

On the music front, we can’t thank you enough for RUN DMC, Radiohead, Nirvana and Biggie. Also, thanks for spending so much money on crappy artists that the record companies felt comfortable charging $15.99 for a damn Chumbawumba album. We pay for our music too, we just don’t do it en masse anymore unless we REALLY like it. How WAS all that hair metal, by the way?

As far as culture is concerned, we appreciate everything you guys did, from Nirvana to Freaknik. Whether it be the Foo Fighters or popular “reality TV” shows (You guys came up with that one, remember? Word to Eric Nies.) your influence is still being felt. (While we’re at it: You guys had Star Search and the Mickey Mouse Club. We have American Idol. That’s a win for Gen X. We’ll take Ed Mcmahon over Seacrest ANYTIME.)

See, the overall theme of this little rant is that you don’t seem to enjoy getting older. It’s understandable. You were the “slacker generation!” Ben Stiller made that movie about you! But for every talking head you find to back up your claim that we’re entitled and spoiled (what, you didn’t have rich kids when you were our age?), you’re missing that the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds was around 17.6 percent last year. For those of us lucky enough to have jobs,  we wish we had better health insurance too! Actually, we wish we HAD health insurance. You forgot to mention something though. We’re about community. From social networks to our involvment in volunteer work, (You knew that between 1989 and 2006, teen volunteering doubled to 26.4 percent from 13.4 percent, right?). We take care of our own.

Don’t be too upset, some of us on the older end of the generation see the age rage coming on the horizon. It was all good a week ago, right? Then next thing you know, you aren’t being fawned over any longer by magazines and popular culture isn’t creating products specifically to get in your pockets..err to appeal to you anymore. Your idols are dying or dead and the ones here now to replace them just aren’t up to your arbitrarily ridiculously high standard.  We get that—change sucks. Can you wait to crap on us more though? We’re still picking up the crap from the generation before you! We’re in the same fight and we promise not to forget that when we have to take care of you later on in life.

Oh and needs to be said, thanks for all the left-over coke, we seem to have run fresh out of Adderall these days. Now re-blog THAT shit.