Dead-eyed capitalism with Snapchat's puppy filter on
November 16, 2017 5:01 AM   Subscribe

A report from Millennial 20/20, a two-day conference held in the Carriageworks “creative space” in Sydney; where hundreds of marketing executives, CEOs, startup founders, big-data analysts, “disruptive innovators”, “change makers” and “thought leaders” gathered to discuss the subject of “millennials”, and how to most effectively monetise them. The WiFi password was “SmashedAvo”, there were branded fidget spinners in the swag, and the overall attitude was one of predatory infantilisation.
posted by acb (71 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
I forget who said it - maybe somebody here - but it's indicative of the millennial situation that our shorthand for luxury is literally a piece of fruit smeared on bread.

Joke's on you, popsicle disrupters. Maybe you can disrupt our debt, say. In a good way. Please disrupt my health insurance bills. Disrupt disrupt disrupt.
posted by fast ein Maedchen at 5:27 AM on November 16, 2017 [40 favorites]


the overall attitude was one of predatory infantilisation.

Very 2017. Very zeitgeist.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:43 AM on November 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


What is "SmashedAvo"? Does it relate to milennials somehow?
posted by crysflame at 5:48 AM on November 16, 2017


Avo is short for avocado, I think.
posted by RobotHero at 5:49 AM on November 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's avocado on toast for breakfast, an extravagant luxury indulged in by the younglings, which prevents them from affording a house. According to right-wing boomer journos.
posted by adept256 at 5:51 AM on November 16, 2017 [36 favorites]


Fidget spinners are a millennial thing? What even is a millennial anymore? I thought it was someone reaching the age of majority post 2000? So that'd be people born 82 to 99? Surely one born after 2000 doesn't go in the same category - you'd be well over 30 years which spans more than one generation. So there'd be post-millenials. Which in my experience is the generation of fidget spinner madness, not millennials.
posted by Dysk at 5:55 AM on November 16, 2017 [6 favorites]


I read that as "CringeWorks" and it was entirely fitting.
posted by Foosnark at 6:00 AM on November 16, 2017 [14 favorites]


Fidget spinners are a millennial thing? What even is a millennial anymore? I thought it was someone reaching the age of majority post 2000? So that'd be people born 82 to 99? Surely one born after 2000 doesn't go in the same category - you'd be well over 30 years which spans more than one generation. So there'd be post-millenials. Which in my experience is the generation of fidget spinner madness, not millennials.

Yes, well, I was born in 1958, well over ten years after WWII ended. I was nine years old when the Summer of Love happened, and never had to register for the draft. Yet, I'm somehow considered a Baby Boomer, to my everlasting despair.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:02 AM on November 16, 2017 [10 favorites]


Generational cohorts as a thing really seems like astrology set in the span of 2 decades instead of a month.

Snake Oil.
posted by jonnay at 6:02 AM on November 16, 2017 [39 favorites]


snake oil for snake people
posted by entropicamericana at 6:03 AM on November 16, 2017 [69 favorites]


“Millennial” means everybody younger than the olds (boomers/Xers) now. From thirtysomethings who can't afford to buy a home/have kids/keep pets as is the time-honoured natural way of things because of their crippling avocado-toast-induced debt to tweens who prefer to use Snapchat to Facebook (which is for boring old people) and whose cheesy, inauthentic pop music makes no sense to those raised on the canon of the Velvet Underground, Nirvana and Arcade Fire, and presumably to any toddler old enough to operate a fidget spinner. It's an ungodly conflation of everything from precarious gig economy jobs to finding meaning in Taylor Swift songs.

Soon, though, the millennials will start to be those people who are just having kids/renovating homes/hitting the mid-life milestones of abandoning youthful dreams and making compromises, and they'll have to come up with a new name for the feckless young. One commentator suggested “Generation K”, after Katniss from The Hunger Games.

A decade after that, survivor-bias-driven thinkpieces will start to appear about how it was the millennials' exemplary self-discipline and work ethic (in contrast to the lackadaisical younger generation who will never amount to anything) that is at the root of their success, as they have about the Boomers and Xers before them.
posted by acb at 6:07 AM on November 16, 2017 [25 favorites]


Hell is the people who look at something - anything - and think "how can we most effectively monetize this?"
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:07 AM on November 16, 2017 [13 favorites]


What even is a millennial anymore?

A born killer.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:12 AM on November 16, 2017 [13 favorites]


survivor-bias-driven thinkpieces will start to appear

oh god i just had a horrible thought: what if we have to suffer through another round of intergenerational reconciliatory whitewashing, this time from millennials about how the baby boomers were really the Greatest Generation™ because [spurious reasons here].

hopefully this xer will be dead by then
posted by entropicamericana at 6:13 AM on November 16, 2017 [6 favorites]


Every generation, shortly before its death, briefly becomes the Greatest Generation Standing.
posted by acb at 6:17 AM on November 16, 2017 [7 favorites]


Generational cohorts as a thing really seems like astrology set in the span of 2 decades instead of a month.

I had to try to explain generational cohorts and inter-generational conflict and "pulling up the ladder" (guess when I got to the Baby Boomers!) to my 13-year old son the other night. He seemed a little non-plussed.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:24 AM on November 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


> as they have about the Boomers and Xers before them.

Um. Show me one thinkpiece that equates Gen-X with self-discipline and a work ethic.
posted by Leon at 6:25 AM on November 16, 2017 [13 favorites]


Generational cohorts as a thing really seems like astrology set in the span of 2 decades instead of a month.

I mean, I do think that some things define generations - remembering 9/11, having always had internet at home, having been financially affected (esp. in your early career) by the recession, etc. - but while all those span "millennial", they don't all encompass exactly the same years. And I imagine that there are several overlapping factors like that that shape each generation.
posted by mosst at 6:26 AM on November 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Snake Oil.
posted by jonnay at 6:02 AM on November 16 [1 favorite +] [!]

snake oil for snake people
posted by entropicamericana at 6:03 AM on November 16 [8 favorites +] [!]


Snake oil is MADE OF snake people! (Soylent Green callback because, as marketing research has shown, social-commentary scifi is a key touchstone in millennial discourse.)

Also, Conquest of Cool might be a useful book for anyone seeking a broader historical perspective.
posted by it's FuriOsa, not FurioSA at 6:27 AM on November 16, 2017 [6 favorites]


Actually, I'm not sure that "always having internet at home" is really indicative of a millennial - I'm a young millennial and I didn't always have it. It's probably more "millenial" to remember the pre-internet world while still being very comfortable in the post-internet world.
posted by mosst at 6:28 AM on November 16, 2017 [20 favorites]


Um. Show me one thinkpiece that equates Gen-X with self-discipline and a work ethic.

I remember reading one report recently about how employers prefer the stolid reliability of dutiful Xers to the flakiness of sensation-hungry millennials. It's not quite a thinkpiece, but the flow is starting.
posted by acb at 6:29 AM on November 16, 2017 [4 favorites]


acb: Jesus. Does this mean I have to start wearing business casual?
posted by Leon at 6:30 AM on November 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


> I remember reading one report recently about how employers prefer the stolid reliability of dutiful Xers to the flakiness of sensation-hungry millennials.

Every story I've read about millennials and how they don't want to work!/buy cars!/buy houses!/fit into polite society!/etc. has been an almost literal reprint of the stuff I remember reading about Gen X'ers when my friends and I were graduating and entering the workforce. It goes without saying that none of us have steady jobs or houses or children because we're all lazy slackers who want to skateboard and play hacky sack all day, maaaaaaan.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:39 AM on November 16, 2017 [27 favorites]


Boomers are Marcia Brady, Xers are Jan, and Millennials are Cindy.
Boomers will deny this, Xers will agree, and Millennials won't understand the reference.
posted by bartleby at 6:46 AM on November 16, 2017 [27 favorites]


and Millennials won't understand the reference

Sure, bartleby.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 6:51 AM on November 16, 2017 [9 favorites]


A much more interesting generational scheme via Joshua Glenn at Hilobrow.

Thorzdad, you (and I, and all of us 54-63) would be classified as Original GenXers...
posted by emmet at 7:01 AM on November 16, 2017 [5 favorites]


I remember reading one report recently about how employers prefer the stolid reliability of dutiful Xers to the flakiness of sensation-hungry millennials.

I haven't seen anything like that, but I then rarely see anything written about Gen X at all these days—I don't look hard—and when I do it's usually either a comic take, an expression of surprise that those crazy kids got it together after all, or a narrow focus on Gen X and its relation to techy/bloggy stuff. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:06 AM on November 16, 2017


Actually, I'm not sure that "always having internet at home" is really indicative of a millennial.

I'm a millennial and I remember when if you called your girlfriend and she wasn't home, you didn't get to talk to her. And if you wrote her a letter, you had to use paper and draw the eggplant by hand.
posted by adept256 at 7:36 AM on November 16, 2017 [36 favorites]


Yeah, this Xer is happy to fly under the radar.


I just want to be left alone to do my own thing, the way I was raised.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:37 AM on November 16, 2017 [8 favorites]


Wait, this is real? Not some piece of performance art that turns out to involve someone with a dormant MeFi account?
posted by ocschwar at 7:43 AM on November 16, 2017


Yeah, this Xer is happy to fly under the radar.

That is all but inevitable. There is an arc in age-cohort demographic marketing. When you're young, they're falling over themselves to sell—nay, give—you things that might form future habits. If you're young, well-connected and affluent, you're technically an influencer, and are going to need help climbing out from under the pile of clothes, accessories and gadgets that companies hope you'll imbue with your innate cool. That tapers off; 35 is supposedly the cut-off point at which you exit the prime marketing demographic, and the ads for phones and holidays are replaced with those for foot lotions and lawn-care products. Meanwhile, your data profile has grown, and companies know exactly how much you're really willing to pay for car insurance or hotel rooms or whatever and can adjust their offers accordingly. Eventually, if you live long enough, it becomes triage: are you likely to be enough of a profit centre to justify engaging with?
posted by acb at 7:46 AM on November 16, 2017 [4 favorites]


Actually, I'm not sure that "always having internet at home" is really indicative of a millennial - I'm a young millennial and I didn't always have it. It's probably more "millenial" to remember the pre-internet world while still being very comfortable in the post-internet world.

I'm an old millennial and I, too, remember life before the internet. I think it's also important to remember that the internet really came of age in the 2000s, first with broadband and wifi, and then with smartphones. Most folks in their 30s that I know (myself included) still seem to have this idea of the internet being a cordoned-off section of life, in a way that my teenage nieces definitely do not.

I do think we need to come up with a new label for today's 18-year-olds if we're gonna keep doing this, and "Gen Z" is lazy as fuck.
posted by breakin' the law at 7:49 AM on November 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


...hundreds of marketing executives, CEOs, startup founders, big-data analysts, “disruptive innovators”, “change makers” and “thought leaders”...

All of them conveniently gathered inside a single place stocked with reasonable amounts of convention catering food and fidget spinners for entertainment. And nobody thought to brick up the doors and windows? We're all going to regret this missed opportunity, aren't we?
posted by Hairy Lobster at 8:40 AM on November 16, 2017 [17 favorites]


It sounds like a 21st century "B Ark" with disruptors instead of phone sanitizers.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 8:43 AM on November 16, 2017 [14 favorites]


"Gen Z" is lazy as fuck
And confusing to acclaimed game artist Jen Zee!
posted by inconstant at 8:54 AM on November 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


The main reason why there are no thinkpieces about Gen X is that it's now the default.
posted by suckerpunch at 8:58 AM on November 16, 2017


I do think we need to come up with a new label for today's 18-year-olds if we're gonna keep doing this, and "Gen Z" is lazy as fuck.

As a Gen-X'er my first idea is a versioning scheme like [Major.Minor.Bugfix.BuildNumber], but in keeping with modern parlance maybe we can just call the most recent generation HEAD and all older generations "abandoned JavaScript framework"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:03 AM on November 16, 2017 [13 favorites]


Show me one thinkpiece that equates Gen-X with self-discipline and a work ethic.

This is what makes us the Greatest, Greatest Generation, of course.

But it wouldn't be cool to actually, you know, say that, though. Whatever.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:14 AM on November 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


> Um. Show me one thinkpiece that equates Gen-X with self-discipline and a work ethic.

People who entered adulthood during the Reagan administration entered a work world for which the government's chief economist advised that ensuring the unemployment rate never dropped below 10% was good for business and therefore the economy as a whole.

Generation X got their first jobs in a job market for which public policy is designed to ensure a significant percentage of their cohort remain underemployed for as long as possible and where the first major union-busting campaigns since the 1930s succeeded. If there's a kind of collective cynicism among them regarding the value of hard work, that is probably relevant.

But, probably closer to the heart of the matter, Coupland's novel Generation X coined the term and portrayed its denizens, and the stereotypes deriving from that have been far more pervasive than any practical consequences of their 30-plus years as adults in the world.

'Twas ever thus, though. The Greatest Generation were all rough-hewn, hard-working but compassionate. Baby Boomers are all NIMBY liberal. Millennials, well, I hope you-all like avocado toast because popular media's going to be shoving that shit in your mouth until you're too old to chew.
posted by at by at 9:47 AM on November 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think we should name generations by what video game console dominated our youths

F'r example I am squarely a late Atari-early NES

These Xbox one X kids these days, get off my gorram lawn
posted by caution live frogs at 9:52 AM on November 16, 2017 [7 favorites]


The main reason why there are no thinkpieces about Gen X is that it's now the default.

It's because everyone has always ignored GenX. Don't talk during M A S H or Happy Days was an actual rule.

Whatever. We're used to it.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 9:53 AM on November 16, 2017 [9 favorites]


A loaf of bread costs a few bucks. Good avocados are like 99 cents at Food Lion. Using half the fruit on the toast isn't that two breakfasts at 60 cents or so each?
posted by freecellwizard at 9:55 AM on November 16, 2017


This whole grouping of people into generations is something that fundamentally keeps us apart and in conflict.

Reminds me of "Bridges - The Past Didn't Go Anywhere":

I always thought that anybody [who] told me I couldn't live in the past was
trying to get me to forget something that if I remembered it would get him in
serious trouble.

No it's not that '50s, '60s, '70s, '90s that whole ideas of decade packages,
things don't happen that way. The Vietnam War heated up in 1965 and ended in
1975, well what's that got to do with decades? No that packaging of time is a
journalistic convenience that they use to trivialize and to dismiss important
events and important ideas.
To defy that!

Time is an enormous long river and I'm standing in it just as you're standing
in it. My elders were the tributaries and everything they thought, and every
struggle they went through and everything they gave their lives to, and every
song they created and every poem that they laid down, flows down to me. And
if I take the time to ask, and if I take the time to seek, and if I take time
to reach out, I can build that bridge between my world and theirs. I can
reach down into that river and take out what I need to get through this
world.

posted by jkaczor at 10:21 AM on November 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


A loaf of bread costs a few bucks. Good avocados are like 99 cents at Food Lion. Using half the fruit on the toast isn't that two breakfasts at 60 cents or so each?

They're not opposed to that, although avocado is more expensive than butter per serving. They're opposed to fashionable restaurants that cater to millenials that sell $8+ avocado toast as a dish. Which is code for "millenials shouldn't go out to eat if they're complaining about not being able to afford rent or get a real job." (Whose fault is the economy, though? OH RIGHT.)
posted by blnkfrnk at 10:26 AM on November 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'd link you to (what I think is) the original smashed-avo article but it was written in such a Greatest Generation newspaper that it isn't available online without subscribing so here is a collection of tweet responses instead.

My favorite bit was when the author complained that all these people on twitter and all hadn't even read the article, and to make sure that didn't happen to his follow-up article he took a photo of the tree-paper and uploaded that for people to read oh my sides
posted by the agents of KAOS at 11:14 AM on November 16, 2017 [4 favorites]


Millennials won't understand the reference.

This millennial remembers The Brady Bunch Movie which was released in 1995.
posted by muddgirl at 11:59 AM on November 16, 2017 [6 favorites]


My favorite thing about this article is that it just introduced me to to the word spruik. Verb (transitive, Australia): To promote a thing or idea to another person...pimp, pitch, tout, hawk.
posted by ourobouros at 12:25 PM on November 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


So, I don't actually know enough kids to test this empirically, but I have for some time thought that a workable lower bound for millenials might be whether at any point in your life you thought it was cool that you could press buttons on the internet and have real physical stuff show up at your house.
posted by bring a tuba to a knife fight at 12:45 PM on November 16, 2017


>you (and I, and all of us 54-63) would be classified as Original GenXers<
I could get behind that.

Let me go sign up...
posted by twidget at 1:29 PM on November 16, 2017


"Gen Z" is lazy as fuck

They haven't even come of age yet, and you're already criticizing them!
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:45 PM on November 16, 2017 [6 favorites]


I think we should name generations by what video game console dominated our youths

Not too far off the mark from what I've found to be a useful way to draw distinction between being technically a lizard person (born in '83) and my other-worldly younger co-workers.

The Oregon Trail Generation

And yes: I will happily split hairs over playing it on an Apple II vs. a Mac. Get off my stoop.
posted by SpiffyRob at 2:04 PM on November 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Born in 1955 (on the day James Dean died), on the cusp of "Late Boomers", so too young for Woodstock, signed up for the last draft in '73 but safe with a three-digit lottery number, and when I was a kid, Avocado was the color everybody wanted their refrigerators to be. Grew up with Smuckers on Toast for breakfast because I had relatives who lived near their original jelly factory and couldn't eat PB&J for lunch because I was an early member of the "allergic to peanuts" cohort. My parents were "Greatest Generation" who had me in their 30s (rather late for their era) and my dad was a WWII Marine who never talked much about his duty on a Pacific Air Corps bomber but I believe was a bomb-dropper since he didn't know how to pilot and occasionally took pride in 'killing some Japs'. But I was late enough in the Boomer category for many of its tropes to seem strange to me, but when a heart condition qualified me for Social Security Disability at 52, I felt like I had caught up. One of the things I love about MetaFilter is the wide range of members' ages, including a solid group of ones my age or older.

Anyway, the current price of a jar of Smuckers that makes almost a dozen toasty breakfasts make it about one-fourth the price of a good home-made avocado toast, a poached egg on toast is about one-half the price, as is two Pop-Tarts or two Eggo waffles (the other most trendy breakfast, thank you Eleven), but an Egg McMuffin is still a little pricey...
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:59 PM on November 16, 2017 [3 favorites]


As a millennial, it never fails to fascinate me how there is this concept that millennials are within an exact age range. I cringe when I read phrases such as "millennials will begin buying homes in 2-3 years," as if there had been some baby-making sex craze in the late 80s and 90s releasing hordes of us millennials upon the world all at once.
posted by hexaflexagon at 3:41 PM on November 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Reading that article makes me think what we really need is a new punk rock movement.

Something with all the politically motivated anger and do-it-yourself, anti-corporate, street smart work ethos that drove local punk scenes in the U.S. back in the late 70s and early 80s. But this time, with only slightly less primitive musical offerings. Still raw and full of energy, but with more than three chords this time, and maybe some electronics now that at least they're cheap enough.

Who's with me on this? Or am I just so uncool and out of it that I don't know it already exists?
posted by mikeand1 at 3:44 PM on November 16, 2017 [4 favorites]


I think we should name generations by what video game console dominated our youths

I am Pong (how dare you!)
posted by h00py at 3:45 PM on November 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Like Thorzdad I was born in 1958 ... if you look at the demographics in most western countries the baby boom has two peaks .... we're the second one ... essentially as lived experience it comes down to hippies and punks ... the hippies are all retiring right now, the punks are still working (or dead)
posted by mbo at 4:40 PM on November 16, 2017


> as if there had been some baby-making sex craze in the late 80s and 90s releasing hordes of us millennials upon the world all at once.

Ok, who opened their big mouth?
posted by Leon at 4:46 PM on November 16, 2017


It's not so much an open mouth that resulted in all the baby-making....
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:09 PM on November 16, 2017 [3 favorites]


This whole big event about catering to what millennials want and need, and nothing about universal health care or living wages or jobs that don't expect you to come in fully trained? Clearly people have not done their market research.
posted by ActionPopulated at 5:24 PM on November 16, 2017 [6 favorites]


A loaf of bread costs a few bucks. Good avocados are like 99 cents at Food Lion. Using half the fruit on the toast isn't that two breakfasts at 60 cents or so each?

The journo who coined the 'smashed avo' meme is Australian.

Avocados here are currently $3.99. Buy one smashed on toast for you at my local cafe and you're looking at $12+. Without the coffee, which is $5+.

Welcome to Australian food prices. :/
posted by Salamander at 5:34 PM on November 16, 2017 [5 favorites]


Clearly people have not done their market research.

Perhaps they haven't figured out how to disrupt fully automated luxury gay space communism yet?
posted by acb at 5:46 PM on November 16, 2017 [2 favorites]


My homemade avo-toast cost estimate is based on prices in California where avos are growing just down the road... local cafes still markup at least 500%...
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:15 PM on November 16, 2017


Why is this shit always “Why do Millennials waste money on food?” and never “Why don’t Boomers support local small businesses?”
posted by Sys Rq at 6:40 PM on November 16, 2017 [9 favorites]


Why is this shit always “Why do Millennials waste money on food?” and never “Why don’t Boomers support local small businesses?”

Yep. Not to mention, "Why don't Boomers realise that many Millennials have no hope of ever owning a home anyway, due to shit government policies like negative gearing that the Boomers benefitted from for decades, so they figure they might as well enjoy their toast?"
posted by Salamander at 7:56 PM on November 16, 2017 [4 favorites]


Does the smashed avo meme translate to America? Is brunch culture as much of a thing over there as it is here?

Oh hell yes. I'm forever lamenting that I can't get breakfast in the Bay Area for under $20, because it's called brunch. For eggs, potatoes, and coffee. It's ridic. If I wanted avocado toast, too, I'd need to take out a loan. (Also, the breakfast joint near me only takes cash. Cash, mofos. What am I, some kind of gazillionaire that I carry that kind of CASH around? Ugh.)
posted by greermahoney at 11:57 PM on November 16, 2017 [1 favorite]


Who's with me on this? Or am I just so uncool and out of it that I don't know it already exists?
posted by mikeand1 at 6:44 PM on November 16 [4 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]


It does exist, and queer folk n POC are at the forefront. it's not really called punk, it's called DIY. It's very good.
posted by FirstMateKate at 8:08 AM on November 17, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'm an old, and an Xer AF. I don't think my gen is the Greatest. If you all remember, when we were the Millenials Du Jour, the Boomers HATED OUR GUTS, and told us we were slackers, too ironic for our own good, and bratty nihilists.

To think this thread lumps us "olds" with them "olds" is disturbing indeed. Boomers invented sanctimonious coquetry and made tons of money with it. Gen X'ers ARE the Big Chill.

I don't have any illusions about my generation or what it means in relation to any other. I am thankful I can count Kurt Cobain, Chris Cornell, Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donnelly as my peeps and heroes. Eddie Vedder, too.

I got issues with Millenials big-time*, but not enough to paste them all with the same brush we got, that one from Pottery Barn that left wine and pesto stains all over our nice cheap flannels.

*What's with the gentle, "You are an older idiot, but I must respect you." voice?
*Why can't you remember the items I want to buy at a Starbucks? Why do we have to have this conversation three times before you realize where you actually are and what you're doing?
*Your slang makes me think there has been a brain injury recently. Totes Adorbs/SLAY/etc.

posted by Lipstick Thespian at 11:40 AM on November 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


Does the smashed avo meme translate to America? Is brunch culture as much of a thing over there as it is here?

Heavens yes, at least in our cities. Not only in price, but in popularity. I will never be able to eat the breakfast/brunch offerings of some of my favorite restaurants because I won't wait 90+ minutes for a table.

Ironically, one of the few reliable no-wait places in my old neighborhood was an Australian cafe!
posted by SpiffyRob at 12:44 PM on November 17, 2017


It's not so much an open mouth that resulted in all the baby-making....

It was only a kiss. How did it end up like this?
posted by suetanvil at 2:14 PM on November 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


To think this thread lumps us "olds" with them "olds" is disturbing indeed......
I don't have any illusions about my generation or what it means in relation to any other.
Mmmmm, these things are in direct contradiction.
Boomers invented sanctimonious coquetry and made tons of money with it. Gen X'ers ARE the Big Chill.
Not sorry, but a lot of people in TFA are Gen X, as well as boomers. You might want to think everyone from your generation is cool/chill/unaffected/alternative, but that's just not true in the slightest, and Gen X is actually a big source of mellenial hate.
posted by FirstMateKate at 2:52 PM on November 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


Mod note: A few comments deleted. Lipstick Thespian, if you want to make some point about the article fine but don't come in here to pick a repetitive fight we've had on Mefi a hundred times. Yes yes, Millennials are bad, Gen Xers are bad, Boomers are bad; surprise, we have some of each here and they may even be people you like, so cool it please.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 3:02 PM on November 20, 2017


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