Today, “Millennial” is more than just a title. It has adopted characteristics and social trends, making the “Millennial” something to be worked for, ideals to conform to. A Millennial is as living and breathing as I am or you are. It’s constantly changing and acting and ‘sharing’ and ‘liking’. “Millennial” is the love child of Cyberspace and self-worth; It’s a quivering, beating, thrashing thing that wakes up tired just to put on makeup, take a selfie and go back to its restless sleep while “likes” and “shares” pile on top to keep it warm.
I identify as a Millennial because I was born in 1996 and it’s no secret to me, the toll that being a Millennial takes, what with Generation X nagging us to stop posting pictures of ourselves and Baby Boomers asking us to explain what “software” is on the computer. Millennials only befriending each other to get one more “like”; And I, Millennial, putting so much pressure on myself to take the artsiest picture for Instagram or laugh the loudest in the video that I know will show up on someone’s Snapchat Story.
The Millennial leads two lives and has to balance the Self and the CyberSelf. The Self experiences every feeling, bad hair days and stomachs full of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream on the worst of them. This Self is deemed unworthy of a post, except on "finsta" where the Self is turned into a joke. On the other hand, the CyberSelf is broadcasted and worthy to be shared with the world. This is as intangible as Kanye’s love for Kanye. This “person”, or rather, ideal, always has the largest, whitest smile and makeup is always on "fleek". Millennial loves to go to music festivals and travel to faraway places and read “deep” books with a steaming cappuccino on the windowsill overlooking a rainy day, with the Canva filter and the caption: a crescent moon emoji. And I'm proud to be a Millennial.
Although I can recognize the bad, I know that nothing is ever so simple (a lesson that being a Millennial has taught me). The Millennial is a person with two faces: The Self and the CyberSelf. Without these two natures, a person can’t be a Millennial, just as Jekyll can’t be Jekyll without Hyde lurking in the background. This person, the Millennial, is neither good nor bad. The Millennial is a gray area between both; which makes the Millennial so real.
Millennials are smart,
We have a great ability to understand technology and adapt to new tasks and we’re pros on social trends. We know what people want to see, so we makeup and filter ourselves to give it to them. These skills can even be applied to jobs especially in the growing fields of marketing and computer science.
And Millennials are strong.
It takes a lot of courage to share yourself, put your own face and words out onto the internet with no take-backs or redos. Not to mention the strength it takes to put your political or social views on the internet especially with all of the racial tensions and this controversial election. This strength teaches us confidence in ourselves and helps us develop our own voice, but it can also be dangerous if it isn’t reinforced with an acceptable amount of ‘likes’.
Millennials are not afraid of commitment- no matter how many of us say that we are-
Think of every post, every selfie, every panorama-view landscape as a tombstone commemorating a fleeting moment and attached to that moment, is our name, our words, our mark- forever.
But in general, Millennials are afraid.
We're afraid of our perceived immortality crashing down around us and we see that happening to our good friends and hear about that happening to strangers every day. Some are killed because of bias and prejudice; things that some of us can't understand. Some take their own lives because the balance that we strive to maintain can get spread too thin and clawing at the pieces of our truer selves, whoever that is, hurts too much to hold on to. Some are taken from the world in freak accidents by fellow Millennials who are testing their mortality by driving drunk or high. And others, still, get lost in the chaos and kill people at gunpoint in shopping malls or movie theaters. And Millennials mask this fear with posts and filters and Kylie Jenner lip kits.
Millennials are also funny.
No matter how much we post of our CyberSelves, a Millennial knows that nothing posted is genuine. It’s like an inside joke that we share and put out there for Generations before us to analyze and critique with words like “kids these days don’t have any sense of privacy” or “kids these days have no self-respect”. Little do they know, we respect ourselves so much that we are confident enough to know what we’re good at, and brag about doing it. And we do respect privacy, which is probably why we only post the good, happy times.
Millennials love to love and be loved.
It's pretty obvious how much Millennials love Love. We post about the people we love, the people who love us, the places we love, the concerts we love, the moments we love and were captured on camera, loving. We post pictures with our faces smushed together as closely as possible to our friends, holding hands with our lovers, kissing, touching, hugging, holding. We love to show how much love we have to give and have received. We post to show people that they are loved, that our lost loves will not be forgotten and that we, as a human race, may be divided right now, but we can still connect.
Outsiders will think that we’re just a bunch of starbucks-crazed, duck-faced, pushed-up and tucked globs of fake looks and artificial energy, prostrating ourselves for the next ‘like’. But if you take time to get to know and maybe even become a Millennial, because birthright is not the only way, you’ll realize that we’re so much more.
