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00:00:00Why are millennials so annoying?
00:00:03From the moment they arrived,
00:00:04the millennial generation has seen its culture mocked
00:00:07and its problems derided.
00:00:09This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.
00:00:12I've led a very fortunate life.
00:00:14On screen, millennials are often the butt of the joke,
00:00:17represented by characters with a litany of negative traits.
00:00:21Millennials are often portrayed as entitled,
00:00:23believing they're owed success and status
00:00:26without having really earned it.
00:00:28Wait, I got passed over for a promotion again?
00:00:31What do I have to do?
00:00:32I've been here eight weeks.
00:00:34They have unrealistic ambitions,
00:00:36pursuing artsy, creative careers and entrepreneurial endeavors,
00:00:40but lacking the talent or focus to actually see them through.
00:00:43Now you're still right.
00:00:45Barely.
00:00:46Too busy living out moments you won't remember five years from now.
00:00:48I know this because you posted out this life all the goddamn time.
00:00:52They're seen as self-absorbed,
00:00:54selfie-snapping, social media-loving centers of their own universes.
00:00:58Oh, it's my pleasure.
00:01:00Make sure you tell all your friends to follow me and make me more powerful.
00:01:03And they're also easily offended,
00:01:06quick to accuse others of microaggressions and too thin-skinned
00:01:10to take any criticism.
00:01:11Progressing all again?
00:01:12I felt so misunderstood in class.
00:01:15But it's notable that the rise of negative millennial stereotypes
00:01:19coincides with an increase of pop culture made by millennials.
00:01:23There are certain people where you kind of make the calculation where you're like,
00:01:25you're probably going to be pissed if I write about this interaction we had,
00:01:29but I kind of don't care because my work is more important to me than knowing you.
00:01:33Does the annoying millennial trope represent a backlash to their sudden ubiquity?
00:01:37Are these characters a form of self-aware criticism?
00:01:40Or do some of these ostensibly tiresome traits simply reflect the problems
00:01:45that millennials have been forced to live with in a world that seems to love to hate them?
00:01:49I am beset upon at all times by a tsunami of complex thoughts and struggles,
00:01:55unceasingly aware of my own mortality.
00:01:57Here's our take on the trope of the annoying millennial,
00:02:00and why it may be time to reevaluate one of our culture's favorite scapegoats.
00:02:06I give zero f*** about anything, yet I have a strong opinion about everything.
00:02:20No word defines the millennial experience quite like privilege.
00:02:24The millennial generation, defined by the Pew Research Center
00:02:27as anyone born between 1981 and 1996, grew up with access to the internet,
00:02:33advanced technology, and better opportunities for education,
00:02:37giving them significant advantages over earlier generations.
00:02:41Yet they're often portrayed as taking these things for granted
00:02:44and acting like they deserve more.
00:02:46Money, please!
00:02:48Oh, no, no, there's no money.
00:02:50Oh, my bad, no problem.
00:02:53That's fine, um, I'll just destroy this office.
00:02:57In his 2013 Time Magazine cover story,
00:03:00The Me, Me, Me Generation, Joel Stein wrote,
00:03:03Millennials got so many participation trophies growing up
00:03:06that a recent study shows that 40% believe they should be promoted
00:03:10every two years, regardless of performance.
00:03:13It's an attitude that has since been satirized,
00:03:15and some would argue embodied, by shows like HBO's Girls,
00:03:19in which Lena Dunham's Hannah Horvath harbors dreams
00:03:22of becoming a famous writer, but chafes at the demeaning,
00:03:25entry-level day jobs she has to work in the meantime.
00:03:28Do you think that I think this is the best use of my literary voice
00:03:33and my myriad talents?
00:03:34And we've seen it reflected in characters like The Office's Ryan Howard,
00:03:38who, despite being played by a Gen X actor,
00:03:41represents a distinctly millennial attitude toward work.
00:03:44It's like, I could run GM, but I couldn't fix a car.
00:03:49It's not saying that one is better than the other.
00:03:51Seriously? Because it sounds like one of those is better than the other.
00:03:54On and off screen, millennials are regarded as aspirational, yet lazy.
00:03:59Passionate, but unrealistic, and totally unwilling to shut up
00:04:03and pay their dues.
00:04:05Adulthood is where dreams go to die.
00:04:09Grew up, get a job, become a drone, that's it.
00:04:13In their most searing depictions, millennials go beyond annoying
00:04:17to downright villainous.
00:04:19They're seen as singularly obsessed with finding a shortcut
00:04:22to fame and fortune.
00:04:23Netflix's Girl Boss, a semi-autobiographical look
00:04:26at millennial entrepreneur Sofia Amoruso,
00:04:28celebrates the moxie and business savvy of this vintage clothing mogul.
00:04:33This is an original 1970s East-West calfskin motorcycle jacket
00:04:38in perfect condition.
00:04:40Know what your shit's worth?
00:04:42But it also doesn't shy away from showing how the protagonist leverages
00:04:46her privilege and builds her business by stepping on other people.
00:04:49But I thought that you, as a friend, would want me,
00:04:52your friend, to be a part of Nasty Gal.
00:04:54Everything you do could be done by an intern.
00:04:56The millennial characters in Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring
00:05:00are also based on real people, privileged young women
00:05:03who have grown up obsessed with the lives of wealthy socialites
00:05:06and Instagram influencers.
00:05:08I just have to graduate so I can go to Fidham.
00:05:11Fashion Institute of Design?
00:05:13That's where all the Hills girls went.
00:05:15Yet their privilege only leaves them wanting more,
00:05:18and they resort to stealing to get it.
00:05:21Come on, let's go to Paris's.
00:05:24I want to rob.
00:05:25And when they get caught,
00:05:27their privilege not only insulates them from consequence,
00:05:30in this world where attention is everything,
00:05:32it actually rewards them with the celebrity they've been seeking.
00:05:36I want to lead a huge charity organization.
00:05:41I want to lead a country one day for all I know.
00:05:43A similar plot plays out on the fictional Search Party,
00:05:46whose millennial ensemble consists of entitled,
00:05:49status-obsessed narcissists.
00:05:51She was always just, like, around,
00:05:53and she was, um, I mean, she was very jealous of me.
00:05:58Their every action, no matter how altruistic,
00:06:01feels self-serving and fake.
00:06:03We're making these designer water bottles,
00:06:05and for everyone that we sell in the States,
00:06:07we're actually going to give one to one of the African villages in need.
00:06:10Their privilege is such that even when they commit murder,
00:06:13they're able to compartmentalize it,
00:06:15refusing to examine their own blinkered worldview.
00:06:18Everything's gonna be okay.
00:06:21You know why?
00:06:23Because we're good people.
00:06:24We're good people.
00:06:25Yes.
00:06:26Yes.
00:06:27And eventually, that privilege becomes a cudgel used against them
00:06:31by a prosecutor who's out to indict all annoying millennials
00:06:34for thinking only of themselves,
00:06:36and for believing they don't have to play by the rules.
00:06:39If we allow these two morally repugnant abusers of privilege off,
00:06:44well, you know what you're doing?
00:06:46You're letting an entire generation off.
00:06:48This is a common criticism made by these annoying millennial satires.
00:06:52You kids have been told you can do anything.
00:06:57You think everything is out there for you to have.
00:06:59It's not.
00:07:00But then who sets those rules?
00:07:02For most millennials,
00:07:03their greatest crime is simply not adhering to the career
00:07:06and life paths laid out by their earlier generations,
00:07:09paths that for the most part have been denied to them anyway.
00:07:12You deserve paid work.
00:07:14I can't get paid work.
00:07:15I just graduated from Cornell with a business degree.
00:07:18That's the worst Ivy.
00:07:19Without a clear way forward,
00:07:20millennials feel entitled to experiment,
00:07:23to delay growing up, and to not settle.
00:07:25And you can see why other generations might resent them for it.
00:07:29It's hard to believe you're the future.
00:07:32Thank God I'll be dead.
00:07:39Older generations have always written off the youth.
00:07:42Gen-Xers may think millennials are lazy and entitled,
00:07:45but boomers also thought they were cynical slackers.
00:07:48In Gen-X, Roku-Sip and Chainsmokers need to learn the lesson.
00:07:53If you ask the so-called silent generation,
00:07:56baby boomers were a bunch of freeloading hippies.
00:07:59Would you mind telling me then what those four years of college were for?
00:08:02What was the point of all that hard work?
00:08:04You got me.
00:08:06Getting mocked and derided by your elders is one area
00:08:09where millennials are decidedly not special.
00:08:12But what is unique is that millennials seem to get it from all sides.
00:08:16Black women aren't bitter.
00:08:17They're just tired of being expected to settle for less.
00:08:20Her outfit settled for less!
00:08:23The generational rift between millennials and Gen-Xers
00:08:26already spawned its own sitcom in CBS's short-lived The Great Indoors,
00:08:31which cast Joel McHale as a sarcastic travel reporter placed in charge
00:08:35of a group of young millennial stereotypes.
00:08:37I don't know they allowed pets in the office now.
00:08:39Or is that one of those special dogs that weird people can take anywhere?
00:08:42Oh, you're not allowed to ask if it's an emotional support animal.
00:08:47Predictably, they're all social media-obsessed,
00:08:50overly coddled, and unable to form meaningful real-world connections.
00:08:55What if I told you there was a dating app that would allow you
00:08:58to meet actual human beings right now? A bar.
00:09:02Ew, is that for Android?
00:09:03A similar dynamic underscores Noah Baumbach's While We're Young,
00:09:07where the 40-something filmmaker Josh,
00:09:09played by quintessential Gen-Xer Ben Stiller,
00:09:11meets Jamie and Darby, a millennial couple portrayed
00:09:14by Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried.
00:09:16If I'm gonna be totally honest with myself,
00:09:18I don't think I'm ever gonna die. I know that's crazy.
00:09:20Jamie and Darby are hipster caricatures,
00:09:23from their fetishization of vinyl and VHS tapes,
00:09:26to what they wear and eat.
00:09:28It's an avocado and almond milk sorbet.
00:09:30And while Josh's attempts to fit in are held up as ridiculous,
00:09:33Jamie especially is made out to be entitled, amoral, and fake.
00:09:38The clash between Gen-X and millennials is usually portrayed
00:09:41as one of authenticity and integrity.
00:09:43If I hear a song I like, or a story, it's mine.
00:09:46It's mine to use. It's everybody's.
00:09:47No, it isn't. That's not sharing, Jamie.
00:09:50That's stealing.
00:09:50That's old man talk.
00:09:52For baby boomers, this generational rift takes the form
00:09:55of an all-encompassing disdain.
00:09:57The comedy horror Tone Deaf turns this generational battle
00:10:01into an all-out bloodbath, with the annoying millennial Olive
00:10:04pitted against the psychotic boomer Harvey.
00:10:07It's nothing personal. It's not you.
00:10:09It's just, it's everything you represent.
00:10:13The film clearly sympathizes with Olive.
00:10:15Harvey is a homicidal maniac, but it also makes her out to exemplify
00:10:19some of the worst aspects of millennial entitlement.
00:10:22Can you at least let me go at the end of the week?
00:10:24It's almost free lunch Friday.
00:10:25I earned that meal.
00:10:27I deserve that meal.
00:10:28It suggests that the contempt between millennials and baby boomers
00:10:32is one born of not just differences, but rage.
00:10:36Getting drunk off your skinny girl margaritas.
00:10:40Cowording around with your jobless, fedora-clad boyfriends.
00:10:44Millennials have been around long enough that they're
00:10:46also taking flack from the next generation.
00:10:49I personally don't want to be associated with people
00:10:52who still think that Harry Potter movies are a personality trait.
00:10:55In shows like New Girl, we see how even millennials edging
00:10:58toward the end of their twenties find themselves increasingly
00:11:01socially obsolete in the eyes of kids just ten years younger.
00:11:05And in the future of humanity, a pan-ethnic pansexual hive mind,
00:11:09and they want nothing to do with me.
00:11:11Jess's cutesy millennial demeanor is mocked by her younger,
00:11:14acerbic Gen Z students.
00:11:16Your happiness seems like a mask.
00:11:18And this echoes Gen Z's real-world attitude toward millennials,
00:11:21which regards them as both old and developmentally arrested.
00:11:25They're old people trying to use social media.
00:11:28As one Gen Z-er told Vice,
00:11:29they try to fit in with the younger generation,
00:11:32but they're not really the younger generation anymore.
00:11:34Well, at least the bully's not making fun of that kid anymore.
00:11:37They're making fun of me.
00:11:39Ellie Alves on You embodies this perspective.
00:11:42She's a precocious 15-year-old who sees through the artifice
00:11:45of millennial culture.
00:11:46Feeds that aren't lame help people understand you.
00:11:49But don't overshare, like, your breakfast.
00:11:52The Los Angeles in the show's second season is immersed in insincere
00:11:56millennial nonsense, and populated by entitled hustlers
00:11:59who are determined to speak their futures into existence,
00:12:02rather than work for them.
00:12:04I will make a film that premieres Sundance 2020 at the Eccles,
00:12:09Friday Night Slot, then goes on to sweep the Gothams.
00:12:12The Gen Z Ellie deflates their ridiculousness
00:12:14with an old-school idea of authenticity
00:12:16that even Gen X-ers would admire.
00:12:18Celery juice?
00:12:20Oh, what is wrong with you?
00:12:22This kid knows what's up.
00:12:23So why do millennials get such a tough time from everyone?
00:12:26As with so many things about them, it goes back to the internet.
00:12:29Millennials came of age as the personal essay
00:12:32was becoming the standard for personal expression.
00:12:34Let me just begin by saying that there are two sides to every story,
00:12:39and this is my side, the right one.
00:12:41And this focus on mining themselves for content
00:12:44can explain why other generations find millennials especially annoying.
00:12:48Because their works are so personal,
00:12:50they're also often dismissed as shallow or navel-gazing.
00:12:54But I think that I may be the voice of my generation.
00:13:00With more avenues for content, we also just see and hear
00:13:03a lot more from millennials.
00:13:05It's little wonder that other generations feel like
00:13:07they've dominated the conversation,
00:13:09but behind their millennial urge to speak their truth,
00:13:12there are also valid reasons they feel so compelled to share it.
00:13:21While we often define generations according to years,
00:13:24it's arguably more helpful to define them by shared experiences.
00:13:27In the case of millennials,
00:13:28these experiences have been largely traumatic.
00:13:31According to millennial researcher Jason Dorsey,
00:13:34the dividing point between millennials and Gen Z is 9-11.
00:13:38In order for 9-11 to be a generation-defining moment, he said,
00:13:41you had to remember it, feel the emotion of it,
00:13:44and the uncertainty of what was going to happen next.
00:13:46And while that uncertainty was shared by everyone who lived through it,
00:13:50for millennials it was compounded by a financial crisis that struck
00:13:54just as many were graduating college, creating a stagnating job market
00:13:58that left their future looking exceptionally bleak.
00:14:01And I know that a lot of you are concerned about your future,
00:14:03but there's no need to worry.
00:14:04The economy is booming.
00:14:05The job market is wide open.
00:14:08The planet is just fine.
00:14:10These lingering traumas color 2018's Vox Lux,
00:14:13in which the life of a pop star played by Natalie Portman
00:14:16is marked by a series of defining millennial events,
00:14:19from a Columbine-like school shooting, to 9-11,
00:14:22to a random terrorist attack in Croatia.
00:14:25Celeste, you need to get up and step away from the windows,
00:14:30because in a few minutes there'll be an explosion.
00:14:32Film programmer Ashley Clark has called Vox Lux a millennial origin story,
00:14:37showing us just how psychologically damaging it can be
00:14:39to grow up internalizing these ordeals,
00:14:42while attempting to put on a happy face.
00:14:44That's what I love about pop music.
00:14:48I don't want people to have to think too hard.
00:14:50I just want them to feel good.
00:14:54In stories that truly engage with the millennial experience,
00:14:57rather than simply mocking it,
00:14:58this unease underscores everything.
00:15:01The millennial terrorists in 2016's Nocturama seem,
00:15:04at first, like extreme parodies of woke young people,
00:15:08indiscriminately destroying everything just to upset the status quo.
00:15:11But if we're even further, you can say that civilization
00:15:15appears as the sufficient condition of the rupture of civilization.
00:15:18Yet we gradually see how their dissatisfaction is a response
00:15:22to a world where disaster and violence is always imminent,
00:15:25lurking behind a veil of bland, pacifying consumerism.
00:15:29It should have happened.
00:15:30It should have really happened.
00:15:32That's it.
00:15:34Both Vox Lux and Nocturama deal with the idea of processing these fears
00:15:38through performance, whether that be through art,
00:15:41through dramatic acts, or simply through how we present ourselves.
00:15:44Performance can be seen as superficial,
00:15:47but through performance, millennials are often able to articulate
00:15:51a deeper, more impactful truth.
00:15:53And when I tried to find the reason for my sadness and terror,
00:15:57all the solutions were trial and error.
00:16:00On Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, performance means protagonist Rebecca Bunch
00:16:04literally bursting into song.
00:16:06Rebecca is a bit of a narcissist, and yes, a tad annoying.
00:16:09She does move across the country just to stalk her ex-boyfriend, after all.
00:16:13I was in New York, I ran into Josh, he made me feel warm inside,
00:16:16like glitter was exploding inside me, then I moved here.
00:16:19But the show also examines how this bubblegum facade
00:16:22is actually a cover for serious mental health issues.
00:16:26It's called Borderline Personality Disorder,
00:16:29and I read two and a half sentences about it,
00:16:31and they were the worst sentences ever, and I don't want to know any more.
00:16:34And when Rebecca finally hits rock bottom and attempts suicide,
00:16:38it's all the more compelling when contrasts it against that performative fantasy.
00:16:42Millennial stories also grapple with just how much performance is involved
00:16:46in our everyday life, just to process the ambient anxiety of living.
00:16:51In Personal Shopper, Kristen Stewart's Maureen is sullen and impassive
00:16:55in her day-to-day of working as an assistant to a wealthy supermodel.
00:16:58Yet in her drawings and through her text messages, we get a glimpse of
00:17:01just how much inner darkness she's suppressing at all times.
00:17:06My brother died here. My twin brother died in Paris.
00:17:12A similar struggle takes place in HBO's I May Destroy You,
00:17:16where Michaela Cole's Arabella is sexually assaulted,
00:17:19while the series follows her attempt to minimize her experience
00:17:22and put it out of her mind.
00:17:23I say, there are hungry children, there are hungry children,
00:17:27there are hungry children, to remind myself of the bigger picture.
00:17:30These stories underscore the many transgressions that have just become
00:17:34normalized, and the ways in which we've forced ourselves to ignore them.
00:17:38Then he secretly took off the condom.
00:17:40Like, that's so messed up.
00:17:42There are actual Reddit forums where men share tips and tricks.
00:17:45By bringing their raw interior lives to the surface,
00:17:49millennials are talking loudly and honestly about a lot of things
00:17:52we've long tried to suppress.
00:17:54It's understandable that some people would find that a little annoying.
00:17:58When we talk about the annoying millennial,
00:18:00we usually picture some privileged white character
00:18:03making themselves the center of attention.
00:18:05Working feels bad and I don't ever want to work one more day in my entire life.
00:18:10Oh my god, it feels so good to say that.
00:18:12But in truth, millennials who create content out of their own lives
00:18:16have exposed us to a far greater diversity of voices and experiences.
00:18:20Aziz Ansari's Master of None may mine a lot of its laughs
00:18:24from observations about millennial dating,
00:18:26but it also confronts some rarely explored universal truths about race.
00:18:30I did read somewhere that the people that do worst on the apps
00:18:33are Asian men and black women.
00:18:35Well, it's great white people finally have an advantage somewhere.
00:18:38Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens presents a portrait of arrested development
00:18:42that's not dissimilar from the slackers of two generations ago,
00:18:45but it also offers a refreshing departure from the stereotypical
00:18:49Asian-American stories of upward mobility.
00:18:51You're too old for this.
00:18:53Come on, throw some of this stuff away.
00:18:55No, not that one!
00:18:56Can you at least throw away this bag of trash?
00:18:59Okay, fine.
00:19:00There's also the radical body-positive joy of shrill,
00:19:04which celebrates the thoroughly millennial attitude of loving yourself,
00:19:07both as an act of defiance and no big deal.
00:19:11I've been letting people dismiss me or say shit to me about my body my entire life.
00:19:17And at this point, I just feel like f***ing them.
00:19:20And Issa Rae's Insecure showcases what writer Yami Adegake calls
00:19:24the humdrum experiences that all black millennial women go through,
00:19:28centering their stories while giving them dimension and relatability.
00:19:32I don't want to be who y'all think I am.
00:19:35So don't be.
00:19:37How?
00:19:39You asking me?
00:19:40In previous generations, these types of characters may have been reduced
00:19:44to stereotypes or tokenistic portrayals,
00:19:46their stories revolving around one-dimensional issues,
00:19:49rather than their fully-realized lives.
00:19:52But in millennial culture, they're allowed to be themselves—
00:19:55the good, bad, and yes, the annoying.
00:19:57We cannot be in the same room without one of us
00:20:00making it completely and entirely about ourselves.
00:20:02There's a phrase that goes,
00:20:04the first one through the wall always gets bloody.
00:20:07Millennials are proof of this,
00:20:09trying to break down so many barriers at once,
00:20:11only to get buried in the rubble of the structures
00:20:14built by those who came before.
00:20:16If I'm sending mixed messages, it's because
00:20:19I don't know who I am.
00:20:21So how am I supposed to know what I want?
00:20:23They may seem annoying now,
00:20:25but maybe future generations will thank them for it.
00:20:29When Gilmore Girls first aired, Rory Gilmore was a unicorn.
00:20:33She was the rare teenage girl character who always had her nose in a book
00:20:37and was super close with her mom.
00:20:38She's my best friend.
00:20:39But this wasn't framed as uncool.
00:20:42It was aspirational.
00:20:43I want to go to Harvard and study journalism and political science.
00:20:46On your way to being?
00:20:48Christiane Amanpour.
00:20:49It's safe to say that most who watched the original series
00:20:52imagined that after Rory's graduation from Yale,
00:20:55her arc would only continue its upward trajectory
00:20:58towards Rory becoming the next Amanpour.
00:21:01So it came as a surprise when, in 2016's Gilmore Girls revival,
00:21:05A Year in the Life, the young Miss Gilmore hadn't exactly become a raging success.
00:21:10I have no job.
00:21:11I have no credit.
00:21:12I have no underwear.
00:21:13Instead, she was a portrait of a faltering millennial.
00:21:17The whole journalism thing didn't really pan out the way I hoped.
00:21:20If you look closer, though,
00:21:21the original series holds clues as to what went wrong for Rory.
00:21:25Everyone in Rory's life is constantly in awe of how smart and cultured she is.
00:21:30Rory, you are tailor-made for Harvard. They're lucky to have you.
00:21:33And as the show progresses, Rory seems to believe her own hype.
00:21:37She bristles whenever something doesn't come easy for her.
00:21:41She becomes increasingly entitled and arrogant.
00:21:44So I spent a night in jail. Big deal.
00:21:46So did Martin Luther King.
00:21:47Are you comparing yourself with Martin Luther King?
00:21:50She's so convinced she's the main character in her story
00:21:53that she justifies some pretty dubious behavior,
00:21:56like having affairs with married and engaged men.
00:21:59Plus, for a person who prides herself on being an achiever,
00:22:02in her 30s she displays a terrible work ethic.
00:22:06Sorry, I just didn't have a pitch prepared.
00:22:08That's a little weird.
00:22:09Thought you'd bring some ideas.
00:22:11On closer inspection, Rory embodies a lot of the realities
00:22:15of millennial white privilege.
00:22:17But unlike some of her peers, she remains staunchly in denial
00:22:21of the fact that she's not a scrappy underdog.
00:22:24Whether you like it or not, you're one of us.
00:22:26You went to prep school. You go to Yale.
00:22:28Your grandparents are building a whole damn
00:22:30astronomy building in your name.
00:22:31Here's our take on what Rory's failures teach us
00:22:34about the importance of forging your own path
00:22:36and taking responsibility for your mistakes early on.
00:22:40Stealing a boat is a pretty big deal.
00:22:51I was upset.
00:22:52About what?
00:22:54About life.
00:22:56Gilmore Girls is about a millennial's coming of age.
00:23:00Years before, the modern portrait of millennials would come to be defined
00:23:04through endless think pieces about avocado toast and the self-mocking humor
00:23:08of shows like Girls, Broad City, and Search Party.
00:23:12Working feels bad and I don't ever want to work one more day in my entire life.
00:23:16Oh my god, it feels so good to say that.
00:23:18As Tara Setherum writes in The Atlantic,
00:23:21Rory's experiences mirrored, or even foreshadowed,
00:23:25what would become the defining challenges of her upper-middle-class fictional peers
00:23:30a decade later, from handling the privilege of choice
00:23:33to grappling with a false sense of entitlement.
00:23:36This is all your fault, you know?
00:23:36Why?
00:23:37Because you told me I could do anything.
00:23:39So what are these traits that millennials are supposed to embody?
00:23:43Inc.'s Bill Murphy Jr. breaks it down into a whopping 17 bad habits.
00:23:49But the ones that crop up again and again are entitlement, sensitivity to criticism,
00:23:55being out for themselves, and wanting to be entrepreneurial
00:23:59without actually understanding what it takes to get there.
00:24:02Rory's sense of entitlement is deep-rooted,
00:24:05a result of both her privileged background and the expectations put upon her.
00:24:10Harvard?
00:24:11Yeah, ever since she could crawl, I really wanted her to go there.
00:24:15A lot of the narrative about annoying millennials
00:24:18is really about white, upper-middle-class millennials.
00:24:21Miss Rory Gilmore, may I present your building?
00:24:26When Rory doesn't get an internship at the New York Times,
00:24:29her grandparents can't fathom a reason why she may not have been accepted.
00:24:34This is preposterous.
00:24:35Who could be more qualified than you?
00:24:36They were so confident she'd get the role that they already planned
00:24:40on buying her an apartment in the city.
00:24:42Now, we realize that the Upper East Side is not the most convenient address
00:24:46for an employee of the New York Times, but it's just a 20-minute cab ride to work.
00:24:50Her grandparents also display a distinct lack of self-awareness
00:24:54by suggesting Rory's failure to land the role is down to nepotism.
00:24:58I'm sure it's nepotism.
00:24:59If your name isn't Keller or Salzburg, you may as well not even apply.
00:25:02Conveniently forgetting their own nepotism
00:25:04in helping Rory get into both Chilton and Yale.
00:25:08I thought I was helping my granddaughter get into what is,
00:25:11in my opinion, the best Ivy League school in America.
00:25:14Meanwhile, down-to-earth Lorelai doesn't model this entitled attitude,
00:25:18but she has placed a lot of pressure on Rory
00:25:21by constantly underlining her daughter's specialness.
00:25:25And if you see a teen walking around with a halo in a book,
00:25:27that's my daughter Rory.
00:25:28As much as Lorelai is framed as the unusual best friend mom,
00:25:32like many parents of millennials, she has centered her own life
00:25:36around cultivating her daughter's education and individual success.
00:25:40Everything we worked for all these years, her whole future,
00:25:44she was supposed to have more than me.
00:25:46She was supposed to have everything.
00:25:47Gilmore Girls begins with Lorelai making the choice
00:25:50to do what's best for her daughter and tap into the source of privilege
00:25:54her parents represent.
00:25:56I wasn't too proud to come here to you two
00:25:59begging for money for my kids' school, was I?
00:26:01The first season centers on Rory entering private school
00:26:05and cultivating a relationship with her wealthy grandparents.
00:26:08And we watch her gradually develop into the person Emily and Richard
00:26:12wanted Lorelai to become, hence Emily's blind panic after she finds out
00:26:17Rory and Dean spent the night at Miss Patty's.
00:26:20She's gonna get pregnant.
00:26:21No, she's not.
00:26:22She's gonna ruin everything just like you ruined everything.
00:26:24But who is this model young lady they want Rory to be, really?
00:26:28It's someone who runs to them for help after she gets arrested for stealing a yacht.
00:26:33She came to me, Lorelai.
00:26:34She told me what she wanted in her own words.
00:26:37And goes behind her mom's back to get them to pay for her college tuition.
00:26:41I need money.
00:26:42You need money.
00:26:43For Yale.
00:26:43You need money for Yale.
00:26:44Does your mother know you're here?
00:26:46No, this is my thing.
00:26:49Rory is caught between two ideals.
00:26:51Her self-reliant, hardworking mother who took a stand to make her own life.
00:26:56You provide for yourself.
00:26:58You're not dependent on anyone.
00:27:00And her extremely wealthy insider grandparents who can unlock doors
00:27:04to make Rory's goals more easily obtained.
00:27:07This is the office of a very dear friend of mine.
00:27:10His name is Harris Fellows.
00:27:11And he just happens to be the Dean of Admissions.
00:27:14In reality, while Rory likes the narrative and self-made credit of her mother's path,
00:27:19she often takes advantage of the privilege represented by her grandparents.
00:27:23I mean, I'm a Gilmore.
00:27:25Do they know that?
00:27:26But what makes all of this so toxic is her lack of awareness and unwillingness
00:27:31to view her own behavior honestly.
00:27:34We take you in.
00:27:34We pay to redecorate a pool house so you can have a place all your own.
00:27:37I did not ask you to do that.
00:27:39You accepted it.
00:27:40You did not turn it down.
00:27:41A notorious millennial trait that defines Rory is sensitivity to criticism.
00:27:46He said I can't do it, so I can't do it.
00:27:49When Lorelai tries to spin the New York Times setback as a learning experience,
00:27:54Most of the things you've gone for, you've gotten.
00:27:56This setback might help you have some perspective.
00:27:58This isn't even really a criticism, but Rory clearly takes her mom's words that way and bristles.
00:28:05And there is some paper out there that is gonna hire you as their future superstar.
00:28:10That's just a fact.
00:28:10Yeah, right.
00:28:11Just as she takes job rejections intensely personally.
00:28:15I'm never gonna get a job anyway.
00:28:16That's not true.
00:28:17You are gonna get a job.
00:28:18I'm not.
00:28:19The New York Times doesn't want me.
00:28:20It's worth remembering at this point that Rory's existential crisis comes after a mere
00:28:25two job rejections, one of which doesn't count because there was no job there in the first place.
00:28:31I got a letter from the Chicago Sun-Times they're not hiring.
00:28:33Not to mention that Rory already turned down a job at the Providence Journal Bulletin,
00:28:39presumably thinking she was destined for something better.
00:28:42I even called the Providence Journal Bulletin and begged for that job,
00:28:45but they already gave it to someone else, some non-idiot,
00:28:47who didn't think they were too good and turned it down.
00:28:50Recent numbers say that it takes job seekers over 100 or 200 applications to get a job offer,
00:28:56and often 10 to 20 applications to land even a single interview.
00:29:01Rory's refusal to adapt to or understand the wider context and her petulant response
00:29:07to not being immediately lauded by the top institutions in the country,
00:29:11betray that her attitude has really always been more,
00:29:14what would my grandparents do, than what would my mom do?
00:29:18I thought I was so in at the Times.
00:29:20I was just saying that I wasn't gonna get it because I was trying to be humble,
00:29:24but I was so not humble.
00:29:25Take the incident with the study tree.
00:29:27Another bizarre example of Rory's entitlement,
00:29:30when she becomes irritated because someone else dares to sit by a tree she's claimed as her own.
00:29:36This is my study tree.
00:29:37The hell's a study tree?
00:29:38The tree is plenty big enough for two, even three people to sit around.
00:29:43But Rory eventually decides to throw money at the situation to get what she wants,
00:29:48which, unfortunately for Rory's personal growth, does work.
00:29:52This gets at Rory's main problem.
00:29:54It's not that she makes mistakes, which everyone does,
00:29:57but that she refuses to learn from them.
00:30:00It's this intractability that's the reason for her drifting aimlessly as a 30-something.
00:30:06She's just waiting for more opportunities to present themselves to her
00:30:09and more doors to magically open.
00:30:11You basically promised me the job was mine.
00:30:13You were a candidate.
00:30:14Looking back at Gilmore Girls,
00:30:16the extent to which everyone reveres young Rory can be a little mystifying.
00:30:20She's a very impressive young lady.
00:30:22I wholeheartedly concur.
00:30:23She's a diligent student, but none of her accomplishments really set her apart.
00:30:28Every child that applies has the same high-grade point average,
00:30:32they've taken the same AP classes, and they're all on the student council.
00:30:35It's hard not to be skeptical of how simply earning good grades
00:30:38gets her into so many Ivy League schools,
00:30:41or why she's elected editor of the Yale Daily News
00:30:44after she's just recently taken time off from Yale.
00:30:47Um, I did miss that semester, so seniority's a question.
00:30:51We're past taking seniority into account.
00:30:53Rory's best frenemy, the ultra-driven and extracurricular-obsessed Paris,
00:30:58behaves the way you'd expect Rory to behave if she were the hyper-achiever we're told she is.
00:31:04What the hell did Romain mean when he was going on about weeding out the hyper-intents
00:31:07in the interview process?
00:31:08He stopped just short of calling me by name.
00:31:09I'm losing it.
00:31:10Paris does put in the work and, arguably, isn't rewarded for it enough.
00:31:15How am I going to tell him I didn't get into Harvard?
00:31:17What am I going to do?
00:31:19Lydia Venn writes that Paris should have been valedictorian over Rory.
00:31:23Quote,
00:31:24She worked her arse off for four years, got perfect grades, was president of the student council,
00:31:29editor of the newspaper, and on every committee going. What more did she need to do?
00:31:34Meanwhile, Rory kind of skates by on a mix of intelligence, privilege, general likability,
00:31:41and an easy-going veneer.
00:31:43You're quiet. You say excuse me. You look like little birds help you get dressed in the morning.
00:31:47People don't fear you.
00:31:48But the post-recession world of A Year in the Life seems to finally catch up to her,
00:31:53as Rory finds she's no longer rewarded for acting like she's above trying.
00:31:58Don't get me wrong, I have ideas. Like, um, stuff about the world, uh, culture.
00:32:13Rory has a pretty bad case of main character syndrome.
00:32:16She takes it for granted that both her grandparents and mother's lives should revolve around her.
00:32:21She claims her mother's life experiences as her story,
00:32:25You're 16, you're pregnant. You're packing up to leave grandma's house.
00:32:30It's a riches to rags story. It's got everything.
00:32:34and doesn't find it valid that Lorelai objects to having her intimate personal life shared in a book.
00:32:40I don't want my mother finding out I left you in a bucket in a hardware store in chapter 6.
00:32:44This is such an overreaction.
00:32:46It's my life, Rory.
00:32:47In Rory's Friendships 2, most of the focus is on Rory's problems and Rory's life.
00:32:53I have to get to the bus stop. Dean's meeting me there.
00:32:55But I'm trying to talk to you about this.
00:32:57What good is it to have a best friend when she's never around and she never listens?
00:33:01But perhaps this main character entitlement is most egregious in Rory's love life.
00:33:07Throughout the series, she treats men pretty shabbily and plays love interests against each other.
00:33:12She appears to view married and engaged men as fair game because, if they're exes,
00:33:18she considers them mine. Existing characters in her story.
00:33:22He's not a married guy. He's Dean. My Dean.
00:33:26He's not your Dean. He's Lindsay's Dean. You're the other woman.
00:33:29When she sleeps with her first boyfriend, the now married Dean,
00:33:32she not only blames Dean's wife, Lindsay,
00:33:35She's not good for him, okay? She lets him quit school and work himself to death.
00:33:40but also doesn't respect Dean's adult life because it's not the one Rory imagined for him.
00:33:47Rory has always looked down on Dean for not being as academically inclined as she is,
00:33:52instead of accepting that he's just interested in different things.
00:33:56Step forward Jess, who does fit the prescribed Rory Gilmore mold of intelligence,
00:34:01in that he reads a lot of books.
00:34:04You've read this before?
00:34:05About 40 times.
00:34:07But Rory still makes sure to keep Dean around while she's making up her mind,
00:34:11and she repeats this self-centered behavior of keeping her options on the table
00:34:15when she kisses Jess to get back at Logan.
00:34:19After rejecting Logan's proposal, in a year in the life, Rory is back to sleeping with him,
00:34:24despite the fact that he's engaged.
00:34:26Someone's coming to town.
00:34:28Kind of.
00:34:30Odette.
00:34:31And she's dating Paul, while the joke is that Rory doesn't respect this person.
00:34:36Oh crap, Paul is here.
00:34:38Why is Paul here?
00:34:39I invited him for dinner, and I totally forgot.
00:34:41Psychologist Stephanie Newman claims that one of the reasons women will sleep with married men
00:34:46is because they crave competition and a need for superiority.
00:34:50Saying,
00:34:51Feeling superior has less to do with the man in question and how desirable he is,
00:34:56and more to do with being more powerful than and superior to the other woman.
00:35:01The callous and confusing way that Rory treats the men in her life
00:35:05also reflects her signature millennial traits,
00:35:08like an emphasis on competition and fixation on the self.
00:35:12In Why Dating as a Millennial is So Screwed Up,
00:35:16Bold's Drea Rose writes that some of the generation's bad dating habits include,
00:35:21we ghost as a way to end things,
00:35:24we're in a competition of who can care the least,
00:35:27we expect a perfection that doesn't exist,
00:35:30we're overloaded with options,
00:35:32we're always stuck in a gray area,
00:35:34and we don't feel accountable for the pain we inflict on others.
00:35:38Dean, you're my boyfriend.
00:35:39I would never do anything to hurt you.
00:35:41Yeah?
00:35:42You're doing it right now.
00:35:44Rory's self-centeredness may also stem from the fact that she's an only child.
00:35:49G. Stanley Hall, a child psychologist who first theorized the idea of only child syndrome,
00:35:56describes them as having a tendency to be selfish and hypersensitive to criticism.
00:36:01I never realized how spoiled you were, Rory,
00:36:03but I guess that's to be expected, only children are always spoiled.
00:36:06All this speaks to a larger problem.
00:36:09Rory has to stop thinking of her relationships only as part of her story,
00:36:13and start thinking more about how others feel.
00:36:16It's my life.
00:36:18It's our life.
00:36:18Yeah, well, you write your side of it.
00:36:20A year in the life starts with Rory aged 32,
00:36:28the same age Lorelai was at the beginning of the original series.
00:36:33Hey, how old is your mom anyway?
00:36:3532.
00:36:36Lorelai was the teen mom who everyone thought had ruined her life.
00:36:40But in fact, she worked her way up at the Independence Inn and made a life for herself.
00:36:46I worked my way up. I run the place now. I built a life on my own with no help from anyone.
00:36:51Ironically, while Rory was supposed to be the golden girl,
00:36:55she's accomplished a lot less than her mom had at her age.
00:36:59This is in part because Rory has never had to struggle or take on the world alone.
00:37:03Rory's never been seriously tested, so she hasn't developed the resilient spirit
00:37:08her mom built up out of necessity as a young single mom.
00:37:12We've seen earlier signs of this missing resilience.
00:37:15In season 5, Logan's dad tells Rory he doesn't think she has what it takes to be a journalist.
00:37:21I just don't think you really have the drive to put yourself out there, to be honest.
00:37:26To get a story, to dig.
00:37:28And it sends her into such an existential tailspin, she drops out of Yale.
00:37:33All I've been doing is working toward being a journalist.
00:37:35I'm not going to be a journalist, so what momentum am I losing exactly?
00:37:39But even this doesn't turn into an opportunity for Rory to really better herself.
00:37:44Because rather than being made to fend for herself,
00:37:47she gets to live a cushy life in her grandparents' pool house.
00:37:50Hosanna, draw Rory a bath, please.
00:37:52Hosanna has a pot of coffee for you in the other room. Interested?
00:37:57Wow!
00:37:58In her 30s, Rory is at last having the moment of reckoning
00:38:01that her mom had when she was just a teenager.
00:38:04She's no longer finding that the world bends to her will,
00:38:07and she's taking time to figure her life out.
00:38:10I feel like this is my time to be rootless and just see where life takes me.
00:38:15The show begins to view her more critically, and less like the princess of Stars Hollow.
00:38:20But on the flip side, we can empathize with her more.
00:38:24The fact that Rory is so stuck in her early 30s is probably the most relatable she's ever been.
00:38:30I'm blowing everything! My life, my career, I'm flailing,
00:38:34and I don't have a plan or a list or a clue."
00:38:36And now that life has at last gotten tough, it forces her to change, just as Lorelai did.
00:38:42A Year in the Life set up a full-circle journey for Rory that is essentially about
00:38:46becoming her mother.
00:38:48Show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino has even said that the theme of the show
00:38:52takes after the opening song, Where You Lead,
00:38:55In that it's about history repeating itself and Rory following Lorelai's lead.
00:39:05Like Lorelai, Rory reveals she's about to become a single mother.
00:39:08I'm pregnant.
00:39:09And although it's never said explicitly, it seems like the father of the baby is Logan,
00:39:15the privileged immature heartthrob whom Sherman-Palladino has compared to Rory's dad Christopher.
00:39:21While the bombshell of her pregnancy would seem like an indication that Rory's hopes
00:39:26of professional success will be even more unlikely, the implication is that Rory will
00:39:31follow in her mom's footsteps in unlocking her resilience.
00:39:35Once she's at last tested, she'll show the world and herself what she's really got.
00:39:41Digging deep into her relationship with her mother is also the key to her
00:39:46deeper creativity as a writer.
00:39:48I sat down and it just came out, flew out.
00:39:52It's like the story has just been sitting in my brain for years, taking up space.
00:39:56And the cure to Rory's main character syndrome will no doubt be motherhood,
00:40:01which will force her to stop seeing the world as only revolving around her.
00:40:06A lot of Rory's problems as an adult can be put down to the fact that she was a gifted child.
00:40:11Many gifted children struggle to live up to their potential or feel enormous pressure later in life.
00:40:17They also often plan a career path too early.
00:40:20You've known what you wanted to do with your life since you were three. Be a journalist.
00:40:23The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented explains that if a career decision is made
00:40:29early due to cognitive maturation without synchronous emotional maturation,
00:40:35the gifted adolescent may not be able to consider the long-range planning,
00:40:40persistence, and self-sacrifice needed to achieve the intended career goal.
00:40:46If I hire you, tell me what Rory Gilmore would write about for Sandy Says.
00:40:50Oh, if I worked here.
00:40:52Sell me.
00:40:53Sell.
00:40:53Okay, we're selling.
00:40:55Um...
00:40:56Like many millennials and gifted young people, Rory needs to sit down and ask herself
00:41:01if the path she set out for herself at 16 is still the right one 16 years later.
00:41:06She's spent too long plowing on ahead, the privileged, entitled,
00:41:11spoiled millennial who assumes everything will work out for her.
00:41:15So it's good when, at last, it doesn't.
00:41:18Moving home!
00:41:19Gilmore Girls leaves us with a new definition of what counts as millennial success.
00:41:24Maybe career and relationship stuff isn't going to take off for Rory,
00:41:28at least not right now, but she still has a real shot at finding herself.
00:41:34Hannah on Girls was widely deemed one of the most annoying TV characters of the 2010s,
00:41:38but was she just misunderstood?
00:41:40When Girls premiered in 2012, the show inspired a deluge of conversation.
00:41:44Critics raved about the show's portrayal of the murk of post-adolescence,
00:41:48how it made viewers uncomfortable while preferring a new, sharp,
00:41:51slightly bitter flavor of introspective female comedy,
00:41:54or how it honestly looked at serious topics TV rarely covered.
00:41:58I don't really think you would understand any of my problems because you seem like you have a
00:42:00tremendous amount of willpower and general togetherness.
00:42:04But a backlash soon grew.
00:42:06Mother Jones called Girls an unstoppably irritating show about an unsympathetic victim of first world
00:42:11problems. Perhaps the most controversial, hated, and misunderstood part of the buzz around
00:42:16Girls was star and creator Lena Dunham's main character, Hannah Horvath.
00:42:21I have work, and then I have a dinner thing, and then I am busy trying to become who I am.
00:42:27So why did Hannah strike such a nerve?
00:42:30Girls aired at a time when the figure of the annoying millennial was coming into our cultural
00:42:34consciousness. Hannah was a comic avatar of millennial haplessness. She was supposed to
00:42:39be the butt of the joke, but many missed that Girls was trying to explore these generational
00:42:43topics, often through being hard on Hannah. So why did the ultimate annoying millennial
00:42:47anti-hero inspire so much hate? And did her struggles end up being more weirdly relatable than
00:42:52most want to admit?
00:42:53Why doesn't everyone struggling in New York move here and start the revolution?
00:43:02It's the most infamous line in the entirety of Girls, and it comes in the very first episode.
00:43:07But I think that I may be the voice of my generation, or at least a voice of a generation.
00:43:16Early discussion of Girls frequently centered on this line, which was actually making fun of
00:43:21Hannah's inflated sense of self-importance. But many viewers interpret it in earnest as creator
00:43:26Lena Dunham herself claiming unsarcastically to be the voice of her generation, and suggesting that
00:43:31Hannah's extremely minor problems were supposed to be riveting to the audience.
00:43:35And I'm sort of now accepting that that's the line that's going to follow me around till my grave.
00:43:39And as the show went on, internet reactions to Hannah still wasted no time in assuming that
00:43:44Dunham was just as self-involved or out of touch as her character. This misinterpretation fits into a
00:43:49larger trend, where art made by women is viewed as solely autobiographical.
00:43:54Girls premiered during an era rife with auteur-driven comedy series,
00:43:57in which the main writer and producer also starred, often as a thinly veiled version of
00:44:02themselves in shows like Louie, Broad City, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
00:44:06Congratulations on a great attempt at a chat and cut. Really good. 99 times out of 100,
00:44:12that's going to work. Unfortunately, I haven't been on the line.
00:44:15And to an extent, it made sense to see Girls as semi-autobiographical.
00:44:20Dunham has said she was writing in part about her experiences and herself,
00:44:24but it's crucial not to lose sight of the tone of Dunham's writing about herself.
00:44:28Girls was clearly a satire, which wrung comedy out of the awkward antics,
00:44:32entitled privilege, and self-absorption of the characters.
00:44:35You know what? I haven't been offered a beverage, so I think I'm going to get myself one.
00:44:38If Hannah is a version of Dunham, she's a self-parody,
00:44:41constantly leaning into the most obnoxious parts of her identity.
00:44:45Many, if not most of the other characters, are constantly pointing out Hannah's shortcomings
00:44:49in a way that often borders on cruel.
00:44:51She's a lazy, entitled, manipulative, myopic narcissist who knows a f**k of a lot less than
00:44:57she thinks she does.
00:44:58And Hannah's issues with her body, her career, her sense of self,
00:45:01are often treated as a joke when she articulates them, suggesting that it's ridiculous to care or
00:45:07feel sorry for herself as much as she does.
00:45:13As Grantland's Andy Greenwald wrote,
00:45:15one of the things that impresses about Dunham, both the actress and the writer,
00:45:18is how hard she is on herself.
00:45:20No one could ever hate me as much as I hate myself, okay?
00:45:23So any mean thing someone's going to think of to say about me,
00:45:26I've already said to me about me probably in the last half hour.
00:45:29Yet, as Willa Paskin put it in Slate,
00:45:31this is at the heart of most misunderstandings about the show, the idea that in portraying
00:45:36selfish, grotesque, privileged behavior, the show is co-signing said behavior instead of
00:45:41lampooning it.
00:45:42A surprising number of interviews and articles even obsessed negatively about Dunham's nudity
00:45:46on the show.
00:45:47Instead of caring what the show was saying about the character's attitude to her body,
00:45:50they seemed shocked or offended by realistic scenes featuring a body that wasn't Hollywood thin.
00:45:55Girls wasn't trying to make you like its characters.
00:45:58Nonetheless, many people struggled with the show because of strong feelings of dislike for Hannah
00:46:02and the others.
00:46:03Plus, you should feel very confident because I'm a lot better at this when I'm not in the
00:46:06middle of an obsessive-compulsive meltdown.
00:46:09Much of this dislike for Hannah stemmed from audience's disdain for Dunham herself,
00:46:12who's been mired in controversies throughout her career.
00:46:15The same failure to separate the creation from the creator was at work in how girls played into
00:46:20millennial conversations.
00:46:21The show came to be the premiere cultural example of the trope depicting millennials as fundamentally
00:46:26irritating, hypersensitive, and self-important.
00:46:29I didn't just feel how everyone feels,
00:46:30which is I have three or four really great folk albums in me.
00:46:32But public perception of the show ignored that Dunham herself was a millennial,
00:46:36and that the comedy of girls came from the writers introspecting and
00:46:40interrogating the feelings of their own generation.
00:46:43Am I seriously the only one of us who prides herself on being a truly authentic person?
00:46:47Hannah was really a millennial anti-hero, one who embodied the flaws of her peers and
00:46:52encountered them in others. So, ironically, Hannah accidentally did become a voice of her
00:46:57generation, though not necessarily in the way the character would have wanted to.
00:47:00Jeffrey, why don't we not workshop my apology?
00:47:03I think that takes us down a dangerous road, workshopping each other's emotions.
00:47:07By the end of the series, Hannah herself wants to grow out of all of the most heavily
00:47:12caricatured aspects of her personality and escape the annoying millennial trope.
00:47:16At the end of the day, that would just be me fulfilling all their expectations of me,
00:47:18and I would love to surprise someone who died.
00:47:20But the aspects of herself and her generation that she couldn't escape
00:47:23may be what ended up making her sneakily relatable.
00:47:31Like another iconic TV anti-hero, Hannah has lost the ability to live the life she was promised.
00:47:37But lately, I'm getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.
00:47:42Hannah is dealing with trying to build a life for herself in the wake of the financial crisis,
00:47:46and slowly understanding that her dream of becoming a writer is just that, a dream.
00:47:51Instead, Hannah bounced around through a series of unfulfilling jobs and discovered
00:47:55that in the millennial economy, to quote the Washington Post's Alyssa Rosenberg,
00:47:59writing sponsored content and coming up with fake trends is the available
00:48:02destination for literary hopefuls.
00:48:04Your whole story was just like a winky eye emoji followed by a poop emoji.
00:48:08Outside of her career, Hannah has basically accepted that a traditional,
00:48:11picturesque family life isn't in the cards.
00:48:14In one infamous episode in the show's second season, Hannah spends a weekend with an attractive
00:48:18doctor played by Patrick Wilson, a plot seemingly designed to raise questions about
00:48:23standards of attractiveness and what people should want out of life.
00:48:26Please don't tell anyone this, but I want to be happy.
00:48:31The very idea of wanting to be happy is fundamentally embarrassing to Hannah,
00:48:35in part because she feels a normal, nice-looking life isn't possible for her.
00:48:39You've got the fruit and the bowl and the fridge with the stuff.
00:48:43I want what everyone wants.
00:48:45And the tragic note the episode ends on is that Wilson's character abandons Hannah the
00:48:49morning after she confesses these feelings. He's evidently uninterested in fulfilling her
00:48:54hidden desires, thus confirming her fears that this life isn't available to her.
00:48:58Underneath all the off-putting aspects of Hannah, there's something about her
00:49:02losses and failures that are fundamentally relatable, as much as we might not want to admit it.
00:49:07Her self-loathing, body image issues, and sense of purposelessness are exaggerated,
00:49:12but they're still recognizable to plenty of viewers who may have had those same thoughts
00:49:16and struggled to find direction in their youth.
00:49:18I'm planning to write an article that exposes all of my vulnerabilities to the entire internet.
00:49:22When Hannah vocalizes everything that pops into her head, many of us have suffered in silence,
00:49:26and may feel even more embarrassed to hear Hannah express our own insecurities out loud.
00:49:31And I really care about you. And I don't want to anymore, because it feels too shitty for me."
00:49:40However much they may have disliked her and not experienced her particular background,
00:49:44millions of people watching then, and now, have dealt with versions of the same problems,
00:49:49and Dunna managed to weave humor and pain together to give voice to this sense of loss.
00:49:54So perhaps what was most difficult to watch about Hannah was how many of us could relate to her at times,
00:50:00precisely when we didn't want to.
00:50:02I just want someone who wants to hang out all the time,
00:50:05and thinks I'm the best person in the world, and wants to have sex with only me."
00:50:13For most of girls, Hannah is just that, a girl who is unable to grow up.
00:50:17But the end of this series explores whether it will leave her as a woman
00:50:20through one of the biggest possible topics facing a young adult female, motherhood.
00:50:24Hannah's unexpected pregnancy at the end of the series became a stand-in for broader
00:50:28debates about what it meant to be a feminist woman, and how the constantly infantilized
00:50:33millennial woman would deal with getting older.
00:50:35Hannah decides to keep the baby, a decision she initially makes just to buck expectations
00:50:40coming from the same doctor she had a fling with back in the second season.
00:50:43It makes you think I want an abortion.
00:50:45This is an example of Hannah managing to surprise herself while still acting in character.
00:50:49Even if she isn't going to have a traditional family in the way she was raised to expect,
00:50:53she decides to create one in the same, messy, impulsive way she's approached the rest of her
00:50:58life, and she accepts help from the flawed friends who have been the focus of the rest of the series.
00:51:03I would like to help you raise your baby.
00:51:04As the quintessential immature millennial, Hannah ends the series in some ways seeming different,
00:51:09like she's getting an adult life, and in some ways just acting like the same old chaotic,
00:51:14hasty, self-involved symbol of generational-arrested development.
00:51:17Because I made a very intense choice to take this on all by myself, okay?
00:51:23Mom, I buckle my bra every day, okay? But just do it for a second.
00:51:29Critics were divided between those who thought the responsibility of pregnancy
00:51:33was an effective way to snap Hannah out of her extended post-adolescence,
00:51:36and those who thought it would have made more sense narratively for her to get an abortion.
00:51:41But there wasn't necessarily a right answer for Hannah, or for anyone in her position,
00:51:45and it makes sense that in many respects she remains the same person,
00:51:49even as she gets older and undergoes a dramatic life change.
00:51:52Hannah's millennial anxieties and insecurities come back,
00:51:55but transition to being about parenting,
00:51:57foreshadowing today's cultural focus on the elder millennial
00:52:01and what kind of parents millennials are turning out to be.
00:52:03I'm a quitter, so what if that's the kind of man that I raise?
00:52:07What if that's the only kind of man I can raise?
00:52:09By bonding with her own mother over their shared experience of parenting,
00:52:13Hannah discovers that there are some timeless things that you can only feel through connection,
00:52:17getting outside of yourself,
00:52:18and going along to whatever surprising places your life's journey takes you.
00:52:22This is your baby.
00:52:25This is my baby.
00:52:26In the end, Dunham suggests that Hannah's issues aren't just generational,
00:52:30they're human.
00:52:30I don't understand why you're yelling at me when I'm in emotional pain.
00:52:34Yeah, well, you know who else is in emotional pain?
00:52:36Who?
00:52:37F***ing everyone!
00:52:38Ultimately, Hannah Horvath isn't Lena Dunham.
00:52:41Instead, she functions as a funhouse mirror that reflects and exaggerates
00:52:45fundamentally relatable human problems.
00:52:48Letting go doesn't come very naturally to me.
00:52:50Ten years after Girls first premiered, it's not hard to see Hannah's wherever you look.
00:52:54The economy is even more precarious and mental health issues are at all-time highs,
00:52:59especially with young people.
00:53:01But Hannah also provides hope to find a way out of those issues through her family.
00:53:05The culture might want to forget about Girls, but Hannah is still with us.
00:53:09Every reality show needs a villain.
00:53:11And within the faux documentary that is The Office,
00:53:14Ryan Howard fits that bill.
00:53:16If you have something bad to say to me, Pam, say it on my face.
00:53:19I don't think you're a very good person.
00:53:22And forgive me, but I feel like I've said this to you before,
00:53:25I don't like you very much.
00:53:26Like all the best reality show heels,
00:53:28You know, I'm not here to make friends.
00:53:30Ryan is arrogant and manipulative.
00:53:32He suffers from delusions of grandeur, yet he's incredibly lazy.
00:53:37I could run GM, but I couldn't fix a car.
00:53:41It's not saying that one is better than the other.
00:53:43Entitled, lacking work ethic, unable to cope with the real world,
00:53:47many of Ryan's character faults are the same that have been leveled
00:53:50against the entire generation known as millennials.
00:53:53If we estimate that Ryan is between 22 and 24 when The Office begins in 2005,
00:53:58given that he's in grad school probably a year or two out of a four-year university,
00:54:02and working an entry-level temp job,
00:54:04this would make him on the older end of the millennial spectrum.
00:54:07And The Office uses Ryan as a stand-in for the many 20-somethings
00:54:10who joined the job market starting in the 2000s,
00:54:13where they quickly earned a reputation for being both incompetent and immature.
00:54:18I quit. This job is different than I thought it would be.
00:54:21Stop.
00:54:22Does this situation look familiar?
00:54:24A new type of worker has entered the workforce.
00:54:27They're called millennials, and they're terrible.
00:54:29While Ryan eventually became an evil millennial punchline,
00:54:33I'm such a perfectionist that I'd kind of rather not do it at all than do a crappy version.
00:54:38He wasn't always like this.
00:54:40Ryan started out as a bright, motivated guy with a dream for a bigger life.
00:54:44I don't want to be like a guy here, you know?
00:54:48Like, Stanley is the crossword puzzle guy, and Angela has cats.
00:54:53I don't want to be the something guy.
00:54:56In fact, from a certain point of view,
00:54:58Ryan's transformation from humble young go-getter into hipster joke is less comedy than drama,
00:55:04an unfortunate fall from grace illustrating the pitfalls of the generation he's meant to represent.
00:55:09Here's our take on how The Office's Ryan Howard is the quintessential millennial tragedy.
00:55:14Ryan has never made a sale.
00:55:20And he started a fire trying to make a cheesy pita.
00:55:24Like beatniks, hippies, punks, and slackers before them,
00:55:38the millennial has become one of TV's favorite targets.
00:55:42Wait, I got passed over for a promotion again?
00:55:45What do I have to do? I've been here eight weeks!
00:55:47After all, every generation loves looking down on those darn kids
00:55:51who all think the world revolves around them.
00:55:54Maybe part of it's the fact that you're in a hurry.
00:55:56You've grown up on instant orange juice.
00:55:58Flip a dial, instant entertainment.
00:56:00Dial seven digits, instant communication.
00:56:03But millennials in particular have come to be defined in popular culture
00:56:06by their inflated sense of entitlement.
00:56:09I think that I may be the voice of my generation,
00:56:13or at least a voice of a generation.
00:56:18Combined with the lack of any real work ethic.
00:56:21Everyone wants to be rich, but nobody wants to work for it.
00:56:25Came in at 10.30 today, right?
00:56:26Ryan embodies all the worst stereotypes about millennials.
00:56:30He doesn't bother to connect with others.
00:56:31He's a flake.
00:56:33Okay, I don't like committing to things just like that.
00:56:36And he believes that he deserves exceptional success.
00:56:40But his self-sabotaging behavior usually gets in the way.
00:56:43Hell yeah.
00:56:45I'll hook it up.
00:56:45Okay, wow, that's dangerous.
00:56:49So what went wrong to make him like this?
00:56:52I want guidance.
00:56:53I want leadership.
00:56:55But don't just, like, boss me around, you know?
00:56:58Like, lead me.
00:56:59Lead me when I'm in the mood to be led.
00:57:04Like many millennials, Ryan appears to be damaged by three key factors.
00:57:09One, a hostile work environment.
00:57:11Two, a shallow, image-obsessed culture.
00:57:13And three, overindulgent parenting.
00:57:16Let's start with the work environment.
00:57:18When we first meet Ryan, he seems willing, even eager,
00:57:21to start at the bottom.
00:57:22Ryan, uh, Howard from the Temp Agency.
00:57:23Uh-huh.
00:57:24Daniqua sent me down to start today.
00:57:25Far from being averse to hard work,
00:57:27Ryan, or the Temp as his coworkers call him,
00:57:30Okay, Temp.
00:57:31attends business school at night,
00:57:33while working at Dunder Mifflin during the day.
00:57:35And although he harbors some typically grand career aspirations,
00:57:39What I want is to own my own company.
00:57:41That is ridiculous.
00:57:42He also seems to know he has a long way to go before achieving them,
00:57:45even if he's already one step ahead of his boss.
00:57:48Market fragments, what is that supposed to be?
00:57:51It's a way of looking at consumers as subsets of a larger client base.
00:57:54You're so effin' smart.
00:57:57You should be teaching me.
00:57:58But this clearly intelligent, driven, and resourceful young man
00:58:02gradually realizes he's entered a disappointing professional world
00:58:05that offers him few opportunities for meaningful advancement.
00:58:08This echoes the experience of graduating millennials
00:58:11who found themselves in a job market
00:58:13plagued by widespread layoffs and recession fears,
00:58:15and corporations run by an older generation that's resistant to change.
00:58:19Dunder Mifflin can't compete with the modern chains,
00:58:22and management is unwilling or unable to adapt.
00:58:26What Ryan needs more than anything is a leader,
00:58:29someone who can educate and inspire him.
00:58:32Unfortunately, he gets Michael Scott.
00:58:34You need to play to win, but you also have to win to play.
00:58:43Got it?
00:58:44Along with not having any real wisdom to impart,
00:58:47Michael abuses their employer-employee relationship,
00:58:50frequently forcing Ryan to do demeaning work
00:58:53and treating him as a personal servant.
00:58:55Get Ryan.
00:58:56Oh, he needs to lift me, and he needs to clean me up a little bit.
00:59:00Bring a wet towel.
00:59:01Worse, Michael objectifies Ryan, making frequent, inappropriate comments that,
00:59:06in any normal workplace would probably lead to a lawsuit.
00:59:09You, my friend, would be da belle of da ball.
00:59:14Don't drop the soap. Don't drop the soap.
00:59:16Michael, please.
00:59:18Ryan's attempts to find a mentor among his other co-workers
00:59:21prove similarly futile.
00:59:23What is the greatest danger facing Dunder Mifflin?
00:59:27Outsourcing and consolidation of competition.
00:59:29Wrong.
00:59:30Flash floods.
00:59:31Baby boomers like to criticize millennials for being too self-absorbed,
00:59:35but this microcosm of the work environment illustrates how those same boomers have failed
00:59:39to realize the example they're setting, or consistently mentor young millennial workers.
00:59:44You know what?
00:59:46We could get this done a lot quicker if we formed a type of assembly line.
00:59:49This here is a run-out-the-plot situation, just like upstairs.
00:59:55This lack of guidance and support means that, when Ryan tries his best but still comes up short,
01:00:00he doesn't have the necessary skills or resilience to cope with the setback.
01:00:04I don't get it. I don't get what I did wrong.
01:00:08Not everything's a lesson, Ryan. Sometimes you just fail.
01:00:11For the first three seasons of The Office,
01:00:13smart, ambitious, thwarted Ryan inspires our empathy.
01:00:17He's a surrogate for anyone who's ever had their spirits crushed by corporate life.
01:00:21If I had to, I could clean out my desk in five seconds,
01:00:25and nobody would ever know I'd ever been here.
01:00:28And I'd forget too.
01:00:34I liked you better as the temp.
01:00:36Me too.
01:00:38When Ryan is granted a surprise promotion to Vice President,
01:00:41at first it feels like justice,
01:00:43a revenge fantasy for anyone who's felt underestimated or exploited.
01:00:47We're all very excited you're going to be joining us.
01:00:49It'll be nice to have another MBA around here.
01:00:51I'm excited too.
01:00:52But it doesn't take long for Ryan to become a textbook portrait of the worst possible boss.
01:00:58As his newfound success goes to his head,
01:01:00his once measured and justified belief in himself turns into outright egomania.
01:01:05People keep calling me a wonderkind.
01:01:07I don't even know what that means.
01:01:09I mean, I know what it means.
01:01:10It means very successful for your age.
01:01:12It quickly becomes clear that Ryan views his new role as something he deserves,
01:01:17regardless of whether he's actually earned it.
01:01:20And his idea of succeeding in this job has far less to do with his vision
01:01:24for the company than his own personal glory.
01:01:27Ryan sees himself as the next, you know, mega mogul type.
01:01:33And he sees this paper company as just one step towards becoming that.
01:01:38So he'll tear the company apart to raise revenue 1%.
01:01:43Because Ryan was in such a hurry to skip a few steps on his way to the top,
01:01:46he hasn't had time to build empathy or respect for the colleagues he's stepped over,
01:01:50or cultivate the people skills that are a key part of being a manager.
01:01:54This company is getting younger, faster, more efficient.
01:01:57You need to prepare yourself.
01:01:59After years of feeling disrespected or ridiculed as the temp,
01:02:02Ryan relishes wielding power over his former superiors.
01:02:06I need to give you a formal warning about your job performance.
01:02:09A formal warning?
01:02:11It's actually not a joke.
01:02:13I know how you spend your time here.
01:02:14And I know how little you care about your job.
01:02:16Without having any real grounding in the business he's now running,
01:02:19after all, he's never even made a sale,
01:02:22Ryan is in over his head.
01:02:24To cover for his many shortcomings,
01:02:26he resorts to chasing trends and spouting empty corporate buzzwords.
01:02:30Convergence.
01:02:31Viral marketing.
01:02:31We're going gorilla.
01:02:32We're taking it to the streets while keeping an eye on the street.
01:02:35Wall Street.
01:02:36And while his idea for a new company website is actually a pretty solid one,
01:02:40Ryan needlessly complicates his simple plan with unnecessary value ads,
01:02:45desperately attempting to make Dunder Mifflin into the kind of hip brand
01:02:49that would match his own inflated self-image.
01:02:51Instead of channeling any of that original creativity
01:02:54or intelligence we know he does possess,
01:02:56Ryan parrots some of the established business world's
01:02:59lamest efforts to reach the kids.
01:03:02You're chatting with your friends.
01:03:03You're talking about the latest music, about the election.
01:03:06All of it is happening in our virtual paper store.
01:03:10Ryan becomes a cliche in his personal life too,
01:03:13Hey Ryan.
01:03:14Hold on one sec.
01:03:15Falling prey to all the stereotypical hazards of success,
01:03:18engaging in increasingly obnoxious behavior.
01:03:21Hey Pam, it's great to see you.
01:03:22Developing a drug problem.
01:03:24Crazy!
01:03:26That's too much for me, man.
01:03:28I'm gonna head to the bathroom.
01:03:29You've already been several times.
01:03:30And finally, breaking the law to fake the appearance of a strong performance.
01:03:35So Ryan, to give the impression of sales, recorded them twice,
01:03:39which is what we refer to in the business as misleading the shareholders.
01:03:43Another good term is fraud.
01:03:46Soon enough, the evident pressures of the job,
01:03:48coupled with his inexperience, his lack of a support system,
01:03:52and his inability to conduct himself maturely, leads to an inevitable crash.
01:03:56It's the temp. Look!
01:03:58Oh my gosh.
01:03:59The temp.
01:04:00Is that the police?
01:04:02Yes.
01:04:03Ryan's meteoric rise and fall echo those of so many modern,
01:04:07alpha-bro CEOs who found sudden wealth and fame thanks to their innovations.
01:04:12Only to tarnish their brands through their own entitled attitudes,
01:04:16their poor treatment of employees, and their cringe-inducing antics.
01:04:22Like them, Ryan seems incapable of humility.
01:04:25After his downfall,
01:04:26Ryan continues to chase delusions of being a Silicon Valley-style disruptor.
01:04:31And tellingly, he doesn't seem to have any barometer for whether his ideas are even any good.
01:04:36Origami.
01:04:38It's the sushi of paper.
01:04:40This idea hasn't gripped me.
01:04:41What matters to Ryan is the appearance of achievement,
01:04:45the attention it brings him, and the image it creates.
01:04:48Just imagine that you're at Spring Break Daytona Beach.
01:04:50Here we go.
01:04:51Okay?
01:04:51Everyone's like,
01:04:52Hey dude, what's up with all the hotties in the Woof shirts?
01:04:55Or, uh, hey, what's up with that helicopter?
01:04:58It's Rye from Woof!
01:04:59The problem with having it, or the X Factor, or whatever it is you want to call it,
01:05:12is that it's impossible to put into words what you're bringing to the table.
01:05:18Although the Ryan of the first few seasons is studious and determined,
01:05:22after he gets fired from his prestige corporate job, something changes.
01:05:26Ryan seems to regress.
01:05:28He moves back in with his parents, he bleaches his hair,
01:05:31and he generally behaves like a jaded, rebellious teenager.
01:05:35Last night was crazy.
01:05:37Jojo?
01:05:39Yeah.
01:05:39He did a donut in the parking lot in front of a cop.
01:05:42But even as he stagnates in low-wage, menial jobs,
01:05:45Happy birthday to Sally in Lane 27.
01:05:48Ryan still wants other people to believe he leads an exciting life.
01:05:51He lies about taking exotic trips.
01:05:54I never went to Thailand.
01:05:55Really?
01:05:57I went to Fort Lauderdale.
01:06:00Was it nice?
01:06:02Yeah, it was amazing.
01:06:04He clings to his past glories.
01:06:06I was the youngest VP in company history.
01:06:08More recently, he worked in a bowling alley.
01:06:11And he behaves as though his career-ending disgrace was all just one crazy adventure.
01:06:15Even though it was an amazing ride, and I'll give you an example.
01:06:18Anyone see Survivor Season 6?
01:06:20Anyone know Joanna on that show?
01:06:22In New York City, I hooked up with a girl who looked exactly like that.
01:06:26Ryan's constant hunger for other people to think he's cool or interesting
01:06:30is a common plight for a generation that's been raised on social media,
01:06:34where the Instagrammed appearance of happiness is all that matters.
01:06:37Anne Helen Peterson describes this addiction as,
01:06:40a means of narrativizing our own lives, what we're telling ourselves our lives are like.
01:06:45And when we don't feel the satisfaction that we've been told
01:06:47we should receive from a good job that's fulfilling,
01:06:50balanced with a personal life that's equally so,
01:06:52the best way to convince yourself you're feeling it
01:06:54is to illustrate it for others.
01:06:56Ryan is hopelessly dependent on this performative storytelling.
01:07:08I cannot have my phone, I'm sorry.
01:07:13I want to be with my phone.
01:07:14And even when he's not on his phone,
01:07:16Ryan creates this outward narrative of himself through his clothes,
01:07:20his pretentious affectations,
01:07:24his professed hobbies,
01:07:26I've always found beauty in uncommon places.
01:07:29Homeless people. Graffiti.
01:07:31And his attempts at being politically woke.
01:07:33Hey, look, we can't fire someone because we don't like him.
01:07:36Why, this isn't the US government.
01:07:37What are you referencing?
01:07:40Everything. Everything.
01:07:42He feels it's crucial to be seen as provocative,
01:07:45to distance himself from his boring, normal co-workers.
01:07:48Oh, their breadsticks are like crack.
01:07:50I love when people say like crack who've obviously never done crack.
01:07:53Ryan's image-conscious posturing makes him widely hated.
01:07:57In the warehouse, we used code names for people we wanted to talk about.
01:08:00Ryan was douchebag.
01:08:02Hey, that's not a code name, that's just an insult.
01:08:04Plus everyone would know who you meant.
01:08:06Yeah.
01:08:06Moreover, it doesn't make Ryan himself happy.
01:08:09The gulf between the carefully filtered image Ryan presents to the world,
01:08:13and his reality that simply can't measure up contributes to the major problem
01:08:17Peterson's essay associates with millennials, burnout.
01:08:21The Ryan of later seasons stops trying to make anything real of himself,
01:08:25and even seems incapable of focusing long enough to do a day's work.
01:08:29So to make things simpler for D'Angelo, I just, without lying,
01:08:32strongly implied that I'm Kelly's supervisor.
01:08:34D'Angelo, Ryan is not my boss, okay?
01:08:37Frankly, he hasn't had a real job here in years.
01:08:39Other than with his phone, the most meaningful relationship Ryan has
01:08:43is with Kelly Kapoor.
01:08:44We belong, we belong, we belong together, Ryan.
01:08:52And their laughably toxic relationship is a worst-case scenario
01:08:55of the millennial romance.
01:08:57I'd rather she be alone than with somebody.
01:09:01Is that love?
01:09:02They're dating in an age where the internet provides limitless choices
01:09:06for partners, which enables young people to postpone commitment
01:09:09indefinitely.
01:09:10Ryan, do you know when you would want to get married?
01:09:13Actually, I don't see ever getting married.
01:09:15Oh.
01:09:16They're both in love with an idea of love,
01:09:19which largely seems informed by the drama of reality TV.
01:09:22Six months ago, Karen Filippelli sent me an email,
01:09:25asked me out.
01:09:25I said no because I was committed to our relationship.
01:09:28Well, I hope you're still committed because I'm pregnant.
01:09:33Ryan may make grand gestures straight out of a romantic comedy.
01:09:36We're running off into the sunset.
01:09:37I finally mastered commitment.
01:09:39But he's only interested in how Kelly fits into his narrative.
01:09:43It's not about how he actually feels.
01:09:45He doesn't even seem to know how he really feels about her.
01:09:49Right here, right now,
01:09:51all I can think about is spending the rest of my life with her.
01:09:56Again, that could change.
01:09:58The third cause we're given for Ryan's awfulness is his upbringing.
01:10:02Occasional clues about Ryan's home life imply he's been coddled.
01:10:05My mom would say the best stuff though.
01:10:08You can…
01:10:11You can do it, Ryan.
01:10:12And you know that I'm capable of this.
01:10:14You're the only one who can do it, sweetie.
01:10:17And although he exudes arrogance, it's clear from how flustered
01:10:20Ryan gets at the first sign of criticism that he's been sheltered from it for most of his life.
01:10:25What did you think of the presentation?
01:10:26I thought it was great, sweetie.
01:10:28I would just fix that one part.
01:10:31Oh, fix means you hate it!
01:10:32I knew it!
01:10:33This fragility echoes the millennial reputation for being the generation of participation medals,
01:10:38the result of well-intentioned, self-esteem-focused parenting that unfortunately didn't prepare
01:10:44kids to deal with setbacks.
01:10:45I played a full-on in New York.
01:10:47I played at high stakes for keeps.
01:10:50Made it to the top.
01:10:51But look what it cost.
01:10:53Can I tell you what else I learned?
01:10:54Millennials have become a familiar scapegoat, the villains of the modern office,
01:10:59even though most don't deserve it anywhere as much as Ryan.
01:11:02But the tragedy of Ryan Howard also illustrates how the workplace itself
01:11:06has failed a generation of employees who now, more than ever, need generous expert guidance.
01:11:12We now have a responsibility to make up the shortfall
01:11:16and to help this amazing, idealistic, fantastic generation build their confidence,
01:11:21learn patience, learn the social skills, find a better balance between life and technology.
01:11:27Viewed from this perspective,
01:11:28perhaps Ryan is less a villain than a victim of circumstance.
01:11:32An unsympathetic victim, but a victim nonetheless.
01:11:35I'm betting on myself.
01:11:36It's a bad bet.
01:11:38Maybe Ryan could have found the fulfillment he was searching for
01:11:41if he'd only looked up from his phone and learned to find simple joy in the day-to-day,
01:11:45or spent more time building the kind of trusting relationships with his coworkers
01:11:49that would allow him to show more of his true self.
01:11:52One speck of white remains in waters cold and kelly green.
01:11:57But when he describes himself as a child, lost on a light front.
01:12:04Ah, Ryan can never know.
01:12:06Maybe everything would have turned out differently if Ryan had had a mentor
01:12:10who properly nurtured his ambition.
01:12:12Instead, he ended up at Dunder Mifflin.
01:12:15And while Ryan didn't become the success that he wanted,
01:12:18he did become a leader in one respect.
01:12:20His story can serve as a cautionary tale for other young workers,
01:12:24and for every office, on how to handle the next generation of Ryans
01:12:28that will inevitably come along.
01:12:31That's the take.
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