The Great Millennial Smackdown

Aaron Clarey brilliantly uncovers a core problem of my Millennial generation through the lens of corporate business strategy.

A Valueless (Though Highly Profitable) Generation

Millennials are the largest generation alive today.  They are also in that “sweet spot” of being young enough to still be “hippish,” BUT also old enough to make money to spend (well…ok, let’s be honest, BORROW money to spend).  They are  the largest consumer group in the US and the western world both by numbers and dollar volume amount.  They should be the most targeted group of consumers by corporations around the world, and they are.  But for all their youth, numbers, and purchasing power, they have one tragic and horrific flaw.

They are truly valueless.

We are the generation highest in numbers, richest in youth (and all of its benefits), in the most prosperous and abundant times in history, yet have become more complacent than driven to make the most of it all.

In general I believe we are getting our acts together as a generation, but it may not come soon enough. If there is going to be any salvaging of our generation, it will be from the minority of Millennials who aren’t fuck-ups and who can finally open their eyes to the lies we were brought up with, and learn the lessons we were never taught.

You don’t need to rely on anecdotal evidence that Millennials are useless, simply look at how corporations are conducting business to squeeze the most money out of a valueless generation:

How Do You Sell to Nobody’s?

This presents a problem to corporations.  How do you sell to the largest consumer group that has no values?  How do you sell to a generation that has no definition?  On what grounds do you promote and propagate your wares to a generation who’s only defining characteristics are living at home, demanding bailouts, worthless college degrees, tattoos, and soy?  And the answer is very clear.

Politics.

In every generation before the millennials, it was pretty clear what grounds marketers and corporations would advertise their products based on.  Strength, excellence, beauty, achievement, wealth, successful, fashion, and ease.  Your product would make you more beautiful.  More sexy.  More intelligent.  More manly/feminine.  The products would IMPROVE you as a person (or at least sell you on those grounds).  But the millennials have no traditional core values that used to drive humanity.  They do not care about excellence, they care about acceptance.  They do not care about beauty or physique, they care about fat acceptance.  They do not champion toil and overcoming hardship, but hand-me-outs and BGI.  And they do not value beauty.  They merely value the lowest common denominator.  And the reason they value the lowest common denominator is because the only value they’ve ever been given has been leftist politics.  Politics of envy. Politics of laziness.  Politics of parasitism.  Politics of sloth.

You can’t even say it’s politics as much as it is really just a rationalization to excuse not having to work for a living. And since they’ve been given nothing else in life. all they celebrate is their politics.  It is the only thing of “value” they have.  It is their only religion.

Uselessness can only be bred in a world that is already full of value, and to stop creating value creates a useless world. Instead of blaming the world for being poor and going political to change the minimum wage or go steal money from higher classes, accept the truth that your income level is a direct representation of the value you create in the world.

Take that fact deeply personal and carry the pain with you until you do something to change your circumstances. Even when all feels lost, if you can at least become conscious of your uselessness and then try to change that, you will have already put yourself into a top percentile of Millennials for the mere exertion of effort.

Before you joke about the low barrier to entry into the “top percentile of Millennials” (while mostly easy to become), do not forget that it’s the Millennials you don’t hear about who are absolutely motivated at making the most of life, business, and family that will be the saving grace of this generation.

Underestimate most of us so you don’t bother the rest of us.

While Clarey’s post focuses on the problems, anybody with a thinking mind and the eyes to see what is going on in our world can find solutions. Remember Millennials, unlike the older generations, you have the youth, energy, and time to solve these problems and make something of yourself doing it. You don’t do it for the approval of the old farts (that will never come), but do it because you have been left with a world begging for competence and open for the taking.

But the rest of us will pay the price for failing to bring up the millennials properly. We will pay more in taxes (whether we bail them out of student loans or they die with a balance). We will pay the price in terms of socialism as they follow the thorough indoctrination and programming they were brainwashed to have. They will continue to value politics over human interaction, experience, and love. And yes, until most of us die, you can expect Nike to use Colin Kapernick to hate on America, Target to continue their hatred of white straight males, colleges and universities to be money scamming operations of Marxism, James Bond to become a black female, and Starbucks to insist we have a conversation about race. Every facet and corner of your life will be infected and infiltrated with leftist politics because that’s all the largest American generation has. And I’d like to say you didn’t bring it upon yourselves, but you did.