Saturday, September 27, 2014

Bret Easton Ellis: Generation Wuss



"My generation was raised by Baby Boomers in a kind of complete fantasy world at the height of the Empire: Boomers were the most privileged and the best educated children of The Great Generation, enjoying the economic boom of post-World War II American society. My generation realized that like most fantasies it was a somewhat dissatisfying lie and so we rebelled with irony and negativity and attitude or conveniently just checked-out because we had the luxury to do so. Our reality compared to Millennial reality wasn’t one of economic hardship. We had the luxury to be depressed and ironic and cool. Anxiety and neediness are the defining aspects of Generation Wuss and when you don’t have the cushion of rising through the world economically then what do you rely on? Well, your social media presence: maintaining it, keeping the brand in play, striving to be liked, to be liked, to be liked. And this creates its own kind of ceaseless anxiety. This is why if anyone has a snarky opinion of Generation Wuss then that person is labeled by them as a “douche”—case closed. No negativity—we just want to be admired. This is problematic because it limits discourse: if we all just like everything—the Millennial dream—then what are we going to be talking about? How great everything is? How often you’ve pressed the like button on Facebook? The Millennial site Buzzfeed has said they are no longer going to run anything negative—well, if this keeps spreading, then what’s going to happen to culture? What’s going to happen to conversation and discourse? If there doesn’t seem to be an economic way of elevating yourself then the currency of popularity is just the norm now and so this is why you want to have thousands and thousands of people liking you on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumbler—and you try desperately to be liked. The only way to elevate yourself in society is through your brand, your profile, your social media presence. A friend of mine—also a member of Generation Wuss—remarked that Millennials are more curators than artists, a generation of “aestheticists…any young artist who goes on Tumbler doesn’t want to create actual art—they either want to steal the art or they want to BE the art.”" (read the whole thing)

5 comments:

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The OK Corral

Get it?

Never mind.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I can't seem to work up enough courage to tweet that.

Too much sensitivity going on out there.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I didn't read the whole thing.

I did skim it, however, which was against my better judgment.

He lost me at "Generation Wuss."

Some ideas are too patently preposterous to be taken seriously.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

(1) You know what?

Anybody who is proud to call someone a "wuss" lacks standing to proclaim judgment on manliness.

If you think someone's a pussy, and you see some purpose in calling him a pussy, then just fucking do it, coward.

(2) You know what else? One of the innumerable things TOP did that annoyed me was criticizing others by calling them "lame."

Same thing as in (1), above. You see, she can't call someone a faggot because her one son's a homosexual and the other one's a softie.

Why she thinks it's okay to criticize someone by calling them a cripple is one of those things that got me to thinking that I'd been overestimating her for far too long.

Methadras said...

Label me as a douche then because this generation is more or less lost.