In previous posts I spent some time detailing the often-intense criticism Baby Boomers get for all of their alleged misdeeds – effing up the environment, the global economy, the higher education system, etc. But these days Boomers love to crack back on their kids – the Millennials. In Boomer lore these whippersnappers are lazy, narcissistic and whiny. Their motto is “come late, leave early and don’t work too hard while you’re here.” If Boomers could speak in one voice, it would probably come out something like this: ‘We don’t suck; you suck!”
About a year ago, 20-something New York City resident and aspiring filmmaker Stephen Parkhurst had heard just about enough of all that. He decided to strike back with his cohort’s most powerful weapon: sarcasm. The result was a three-minute film called “Millennials: We Suck and We’re Sorry.”
As return fire goes, it’s a direct hit. Parkhurst’s actors apologize for a long list of alleged Millennial transgressions, including living in their parents’ basements after graduating into a historic economic recession – brought on by the Boomer-generated housing crisis – and having so many of their friends killed in “two quagmire wars” started by a certain Boomer president who shall remain nameless. At one point, one of his characters says, “Man, it would be crazy if there was a generation that recklessly awful.” Ironic, knowing grin. Boo yah!
Watch the video if you haven’t done so already. Then gird up and watch this one, a response from someone named David Cravit, a Canadian author and public speaker who writes books with titles like “The New Old: How the Boomers Are Changing Everything…Again.” A Boomer, Mr. Cravit feigns praise for Parkhurst’s video before launching into what any person with two working brain cells will recognize as a lecture. Although only two minutes longer that “We Suck and We’re Sorry,” Cravit’s response feels like it goes on for hours. You can almost see the stick up his wazoo from here.
Cravit offers Millennials three ideas for how they can better handle the lemons Boomers have handed their generation. Numero uno is that “irony doesn’t cut it.” Which is ironic unto itself in that that his preachy, “I know more than you do” lecturing is just the type of thing that makes Millennials do the one thing Boomers seem to hate the most: roll their eyes and ignore everything you just said. Nice work, sir.
– Rich Ehisen
