Today in my daily depressing trawl through the internet (though, now I suppose it's more like what the algorithm force-feeds me), I saw a video of an American sorority who had a kitchy 2010s theme for their O-Week party. Girls dressed in their interpretation of the 2010s - denim three-quarter jeans and a long top - held up their moustache-adorned index fingers above their lips, and danced energetically to Gangnam Style. Behind them was an enormous "Keep Calm and..." sign printed onto a mint and coral chevron background. All of this was mildly alarming. I wasn't completely convinced by the outfits - one girl was wearing chunky white grandpa sneakers (no thank you, sweet summer child, millenials would never), yet the attention to detail was definitely accurate but concerning. 2014 was only a few years ago, and no-one can convince me otherwise. I'm not ready for infinity scarves, peplum tops, and bandage dresses to be packaged up into a packet at Spotlight as a retro party costume.
This unkind reminder of the disappearing decades was compounded later in the day when the internet deemed Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' Home as the 'worst song of all time'. The voters have short memories, or more likely had not yet been born, when Crazy Frog burst onto Video Hits and assaulted us with his aviator helmet, micro penis, and the most annoying song you'd ever heard (one that the completely deranged could download as a ringtone). The demonising of the "stomp clap hey" era of music is just another attack on millenial culture by our nihilist Gen Z rivals. That genre of music sold itself as anti-establishment, yet was so catchy it was snapped up by enterprising advertising executives to sell everything from cars to Big Ms. It was overplayed and as a result is now being dismissed as hipster nonsense, and worse - 'millenial cringe'.
Actually we all made fun of hipsters too at the time, and we lived in the capital city for hipsters. but what I wouldn't give to see a vintage bearded Melbourne hipster with no socks and loafers, skinny pants just a bit too short around the ankle, wearing an SLR camera as a fashion accessory. I actually saw this for real once in a copy of MX (RIP, iykyk), and he told the interviewer that the camera didn't actually work.
'Millenial cringe' is a statement that, no matter how many times I hear it, cuts me deep. Once upon a time, we were the cool young generation - Josh Thomas with his cutesy, awkward antics on Talking About Your Generation alongside his Gen X and Boomer counterparts. Raised on Neopets, we taught our parents how to navigate between windows on their computers, and we snapped photos of our food as early adopters of Instagram (#brunch #adulting). Somehow we blinked and to paraphrase Grandpa Simpson - It happened to us.
At a recent work party, many drinks were consumed, and staff had a chance to let loose and have a dance in our kitchen garden. My Gen Z colleague stood on the side, watching the dagginess unfold with her arms crossed and almost a look of pain upon her face. While my Gen X colleagues were having fun, she was dying of secondhand embarrassment. When she asked what my song of choice was on nights out and I replied with the anthem Mr Brightside (and let it be said on the public record that I expect my wake to be exactly this), her reaction was, and I quote, "Cringe". Likewise too was winged eyeliner, for some mysterious reason.
But when I watched my Gen X colleagues drunkenly attempting the Dirty Dancing lift, egged on by laughter and cheering, and then back at my mortified young friend, I realised that perhaps Millenials are the last generation to really have fun. Gen Z, who have grown up with their image carefully curated, haunted by the fear of going viral for the wrong reasons, have lost the freedom to truly live.
While I depart to dance to Mr Brightside with my arms in the air (yeah, that's cringe too apparently), my thoughts turn back to my favourite writer and appreciator of youth. So much so, that he penned a novel entirely dedicated to the dark depths one would go to to retain his youth and beauty. "Ah," writes Oscar Wilde. "Realise your youth while you have it... Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you. Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing."
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