About that Vaccination...

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them.
Six years ago, Obama insisted that the issues “solved” in the ‘60s persist. He proposed
change. Millennials trusted him but later turned away when they perceived the
President as failing to carry out his agenda. While 73 percent of Millennials favored
Obama in 2008, only 41 percent did so by November 2013, halfway through his second
term, according to Pew Research Center surveys.
Simultaneously, youth increasingly turned to irony to communicate and relate to one
another.
In popular culture, Millennials hear tales of a “post-racial society” while African-
Americans are disproportionately shot by police. Politicians argue over same-sex marriage.
First Lady Michelle Obama tells Millennials, “Getting a college degree is one
of the most important things you’ll need to succeed in the years ahead,” while college
graduates fall into the highest levels of student loan debt, poverty, and unemployment
in two generations, according to Pew.
Howard Ross, author of Everyday Bias, told USA Today, “This is a generation of
people who are now saying, ‘Wait a second, we thought this was over. We were told
this was over. We thought we were moving forward and now we see the same old stuff
happening.’”
A society riddled with hypocrisy disheartens Millennials, increasing their amotivation.
Again, Caceres explains: “Embedded in irony is a rejection of the way things are.
It is a criticism.” What better way to dismiss rampant hypocrisy than with a joke?
But, in a twist that is ironic in itself, Millennials, hoping to distance
themselves from the influence of media and consumer culture, became
the culture.
Hemp clothing, bedding, and paper roll off assembly lines.
Mason jars originally used as an alternative to travel mugs due to
convenience and frugality can now be bought at Starbucks for
a discount on a Frappuccino. Round glasses with thick frames
balance above overgrown mustaches and beards, and pants
are creased, cuffed, and ripped by designers to achieve the
perfect ratio of casual to stylish.
In September of 2014 Gap released a line of black
jeans, displayed in Santa Cruz windows on matching
black nooses behind words reading, “Don’t be afraid of
the dark.” The edgy marketing ploy mirrored a love
for the wry, dark, and twisted that hipsters are drawn
to.
Jedediah Purdy observes the pervasiveness of
irony throughout contemporary culture: “Around us,
commercials mock the very idea of commercials, situation
comedies make being a sitcom their running joke, and image consultants
detail the techniques of designing and marketing a personality
as a product.”
Thus, Millennials develop self-awareness in a world of commercialism which
removes innocence, scoffs at real passion, and encourages an “aesthetic” of self-hate,
apathy, and misanthropy.
While commercialized hipsters deny the “normality” of their institutions and disengage
with their country, myths of a post-racial society free from gender and and sexual
discrimination continue to attract younger generations. Ironically, the most common
self-defense mechanism of irony hurts Millennials the most.
Purdy once described his own book as “one young man’s letter of love for the
world’s possibilities, written in the hope that others will recognize their own desire in
it and will respond.” Even before the turn of the century, he believed irony damaged
society. He pled for a change.
As the largest living generation with the most financial, political, cultural, and social
influence, Millennials have the power to enact change on a level previously unknown.
As the children of the Internet, coming of age with the rise of technology, they have the
power and ability to use worldwide communication and limitless information to their
advantage. Whether they will do so is the question of their generation.
Ironic humor eases the harshness of reality, but it often mires its user in apathy. Empty
criticism does not inspire advancement. In a world that values apathy above sincerity
and indifference above ambition, society will stagnate. In order to introduce change,
the world needs people who care.
April Ludgate may be funny, but she will never change the world.