What Was the Millennial?

A fine time for a living wake!

I have given thought to this plenty of times, and if I had to collect, say, a handful of nonfiction essays that could explain some aspects of culture, however vague, in the 2010s, a time now firmly in the past that was when millennials were the target consumer, I think that these essays do a good job of it. At the least, they’re essays that I think about a lot. They are, quite possibly, the Best Millennial Essays of All Time:

“Black Teens Are Breaking the Internet and Seeing None of the Profits” Doreen St. Felix, The Fader (December 3, 2015): Ah, the internet, a totally fair meritocracy where obviously the cream rises to the top and is fairly compensated, yes? No! Brilliant profile of young Black creators who coined terms like “on fleek,” and the way that the slang has been stolen and co-opted, with the creators seeing no profits.

“#vanlife, The Bohemian Social Media Movement,” Rachel Monroe, The New Yorker (April 17, 2017) Haunting profile of young, good-looking kids selling their lifestyle right back to the internet, and how the computer is chaining them to capitalism despite the back to nature ethos that they are selling.

“Grizzly Bear Members Are Indie-Rock Royalty. But What Does That Buy Them in 2012?” Nitsuh Abebe, New York Magazine (September 30, 2012) I remember this piece being somewhat horrifying on its release, because the hottest band around — I will always love them, I met Stu because of them — was talking and being somewhat frank about the amount of money they were making (not much!) and now, ten-plus years down the line … imagine how little money it could be. (If you are interested in frank talk about musicianship in 2025, I highly recommend Casey Dienel’s substack.) These days I know one guy from the band is a therapist and another is doing film soundtracks, I definitely saw his name in the credits for Past Lives. Another guy I used to see at the bookstore/bar in Hudson all the time. Is it any wonder that Grizzly Bear announced a small reunion tour for this fall? The New York shows are all sold out.

“Is Everything Wrestling?” Jeremy Gordon, The New York Times Magazine (May 27, 2016) Where Jeremy Gordon accurately traces the showmanship and teflon bluster of future president Donald Trump to his past in WWE wrestling, the sort of industry where, despite being willfully dumb and shallow, its stories and patterns are repeated, over and over, in life itself.

“When Will Kirsten Dunst Get Her Due?” Elisabeth Donnelly, BuzzFeed News (August 22, 2019) A piece by me, for me, about the great elder millennial actress Kirsten Dunst, how she should have an Oscar for Melancholia, and how her career has been filled with perennially underrated hits, partially due to her sunny visage that is always hiding something darker underneath. The notes on why elder millennial actresses are bad at Instagram are also true and relatable. Sadly, On Becoming a God was a Covid casualty, which is too bad, it was an interesting television show.

“Welcome to Airspace,” Kyle Chayka, The Verge (2016) Oooof, this piece. In it, Chayka, nails just what AirBNB and Silicon Valley has done to design all around the world. Do you walk through a city and think, this is the young folks’ corner, and this is Airspace? I do, and I still do ten years on.

Do I have some more examples? Yes, 100 percent. Read this sharp Bim Adewumni appreciation of Winston in New Girl before the Great Millennial Sitcom gets on our radar, once again. “Welcome to Hotel Millennial” by Daisy Alioto covers a whole ethos that was created by the Ace and mutated in further cities. You have read Jia Tolentino’s essay about scammers in Trick Mirror and you have read Anne Helen Petersen’s Burnout essay. But am I missing other ones? Please, let me know. I want to read all of them!

Finally, a cri de coeur: millennials have had it tough — instead of saying goodbye properly to being the dominant, catered-to generation of advertising and hipness, we had it kind of snatched away from us in the covid years, where suddenly Gen Z has emerged and we are all of a sudden deeply uncool to the point that our socks are wrong. (But truly: what is cool?) The least you could do, out of some slight respect for your elders or your much maligned little sisters, is to try to understand the millennials’ era in the center of some culture, before we all became remnants of a previous century.