"Generation YAYA": lack of meaning, narcissism and thirst for fame

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Why the millennial generation coming into force is doomed to fail.

This article will force you to reconsider your views on youth at the turn of the 2000s. They are now between 10 and 20 years old and we can easily identify them visually. Back in 2013, the American (!) Journalist Joel Stein wrote an article in TIME that rocked the publishing environment. Considering that foreign-language publications do not come to us for various reasons, we are making a complete republishing of the article "Millennials: the YAYA generation" ("Millennials: Me, Me, Me Generation") by Joel Stein in his native Russian. Take a fresh look at things that young people are used to.

Time magazine published an ambiguous article by journalist Joel Stein, which is a slap in the face for all modern young people - the YAYA generation, or, as it is also called, millennials (note russtu.ru: from the word "millennium" - a millennium; in this context, at the turn millennium from 01.01.2000). We publish it without abbreviations.

The industrial revolution made the individual stronger - he had the opportunity to move to the city, do business and create his own organization. The information revolution has only aggravated the emancipation processes by providing a person with the technologies with which he can challenge large organizations: bloggers against newspapers, YouTube directors against Hollywood studios, indie developers and hackers against industries and corporations, lone terrorists against entire states …

Generation I gave birth to Generation YAYA, whose technologies of selfishness have only become more powerful. Whereas in the 1950s the typical middle-class American family hung wedding, school and possibly army photos on their walls, today they are surrounded by 85 photographs of themselves and their pets.

Millennials grew up in an era of augmented self. They record every step (FitBit), location (Foursquare) and genetic data (23 and Me). At the same time, in comparison with previous generations, they show much less civic activity and almost do not take part in political life.

In addition to narcissism, one of their key qualities is "moron". If you want to sell a mid-level management seminar, dedicate it to how to deal with young employees who write direct letters to the CEO and merge with a project they find boring.

Despite their confidence in their future, young people stretch the life stage between adolescence and adulthood. The idea of a teenager originated in the 1920s; in 1910, only a small percentage of children went to secondary school. Most of their social interactions took place with adult members of their own families or in the workplace.

Today, mobile phones allow kids to socialize on an hourly basis - according to Pew, they send about 88 messages a day and live under the constant influence of their friends.

Constantly looking for a dose of dopamine (“Someone liked my Facebook post!”) Reduces creativity. According to Torrance tests, youth creativity grew from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Then it fell - and collapsed sharply in 1998. Since 2000, a similar decline has been observed in terms of empathy, which is necessary to be interested in other people and points of view. This is likely due to an increase in narcissism and a lack of face-to-face communication.

What they are really good at is the ability to transform themselves into brands with huge “friends” and “followers” tails. “On Facebook, people inflate themselves like balloons,” says Keith Kemble, professor of psychology at the University of Georgia.

In 1979, Christopher Latch wrote in his Culture of Narcissism: "The media feeds narcissistic dreams of fame, encouraging ordinary people to identify with the stars and hate the 'herd', thereby making the banality of everyday existence increasingly unbearable."

Self-actualization of millennials is more a continuation of a certain cultural and historical trend, rather than a revolution against the background of past generations. They are not a new species, but rather just mutants. Their arrogant insolence is not so much a defensive reaction as a technology of adaptation to their habitat - a world of abundance.

Despite their cockiness and confidence, millennials delay making big life decisions as they choose from a vast array of career options, many of which didn't exist a decade ago. What kind of idiot would climb the career ladder in a company if he had to change about 7 jobs before he was 26? For the same reasons, young people today marry much later. For example, the average age of marriage for an American woman rose from 20 in 1967 to 26 in 2011.

“MTV has always been a parent-free territory,” says MTV President Stephen Friedman, who now includes parents on nearly every show he does. - One of our studies has shown that modern youth delegates their superego to their parents. Even when it comes to the simplest solution, our audience turns to mom and dad for advice."

In 2012, an ad for the Google Chrome browser showed a female student discussing all the little things in her life with her father. “Parents won't understand is an outdated cliché. The parents of most of my friends are active on social networks, they fumble and like all sorts of things with them,”says Jessica Brillhart, director of Google's Creative Lab, author of the aforementioned ad.

Companies, meanwhile, are beginning to adjust not only to the habits of young people, but also to their expectations regarding the work environment. A quarter of DreamWorks' 2,200 employees are under 30. Dan Sutherwhite, 23 years in charge of Interpersonal Relations at DreamWorks, says the oil pyramid will help companies not only pay their employees, but also self-actualize them.

During working hours, a DreamWorks employee has the opportunity to attend a master class in photography, sculpture, painting, cinematography and karate. After one of the employees insisted that karate was not the same as jiu-jitsu, the company added a jiu-jitsu class.

Psychologists agree on one thing: millennials are cute … “I am surprised by all this positive. The internet has always been 50% positive, 50% negative. But today the ratio is 90 to 10 in favor of the positive,”says Shane Smith, CEO of VICE.

They tend to accept differences.and not only for gays, women or minorities, but for everyone. “All these 'we are against them' are gone. Maybe that's why today's generation doesn't rebel,”says 17-year-old Tavi Jevinson, who runs fashion magazine Rookie in her free time from school.

Tom Brokaw, author of the greatest of generations, believes that the life caution of these people is a reasonable response to their world … “They are challenging the familiar and looking for new ways to resolve issues. This is how this individual is born, who writes applications and creates a new economy."

Millennials are persistent and optimistic. Pragmatic idealists, they use the system; they are more thinkers, life hackers than dreamers. They have no leaders, which is why Tahrir Square and Occupy Wall Street were less likely to succeed than any revolution in the past.

For the most part, they need constant approval and post their photos from the fitting rooms in the store. They are terribly afraid of missing something and make abbreviations out of everything. They are obsessed with celebrities, but they don't idealize them.

They don't go to church because they don't want to identify with big institutions. A third of people under the age of 30 - the highest percentage in history - are not religious.

New experiences are more important to them than material things. They are calm, reserved and not very passionate. They are informed but inactive. They are for business. They love their phones, but they hate talking on them. They stick confidently in front of the cameras, and the modern infant has more portraits than the French king of the 17th century.

Yes, I have evidence that millennials are lazy and narcissistic. However, the greatness of a generation is not determined by the data, but by how this generation deals with the challenges that come upon it. (End of the authored text)

And finally … Think about it! Look at the profiles of users of social networks, who have about 300 (!) Photos in the photo album "Little Me" under the conditional name. Read the twitter of a person who writes in the same way as photographs on Instagram: it is empty, no meaning, no ideas. And you will understand that the problem raised in the article is more relevant than ever.

Our opinion in one phrase: "EGOCENTRISM, NARCISSISM, OBSESSION OF GLORY and LACK OF PERCEPTION OF HARMONY, as a NORM of human development - this is a clinical stage of degradation of people (called" generation-YAYA ") as a form of life" Homo Sapiens "on Earth. And this, only the opinion of our studio, in which everyone in the family has children of this generation's age …