![]() ![]() The result is an economy where it’s more possible than ever to be your own boss, and a lot less possible to buy your own home. In a marked shift from the generations before, millennials needed to optimize ourselves to be the very best workers possible.” Petersen argues that we’re obsessed with self-optimization because-post-financial crisis, saddled with student debt, with little hope of a pension-we simply have to be: “We couldn’t just show up with a diploma and expect to get and keep a job that would allow us to retire at 55. That neoliberal sensibility-emphasizing the importance of markets above the intervention of the state, and typified by the attitude that the tide of growth and globalization will lift all boats-has also given rise to the thoroughly modern affliction that we now call “millennial burnout.” A coinage by Anne Helen Petersen in her memorable piece for BuzzFeed, the idea is that all this self-optimization in the digital age is taking a toll, and leaving us with multiple afflictions, including “errand paralysis.” “Neoliberalism has hollowed out so many ways of stable income that it’s not surprising that the influencer economy has risen up in this really precarious economic climate for millennials.” “You can see why that happens in terms of the shrinking of middle class industries and the economy,” says Laurence Scott, author of Picnic Comma Lightning: In Search of a New Reality, an exploration of the nature of reality in the digital age, and a lecturer at NYU’s London campus. This existence is perfectly aligned with what Will Storr, in his 2017 book Selfie: How the West became self-obsessed, described as the defining person of our age, the neoliberal self: “an extroverted, slim, beautiful, individualistic, optimistic, hard-working, socially aware yet high-self-esteeming global citizen with entrepreneurial guile and a selfie camera.” And while the generation most associated with this archetype-millennials-gets flack for their entitlement and unwillingness to work toward a typical middle class life, there are plenty of reasons millennials have so thoroughly embraced and innovated upon this neoliberal ideal. ![]() Work is life, and getting paid to live your best life is the ultimate aspiration. Forget paying your dues, or working your way up-in fact, forget jobs. The neoliberal selfįor the internet influencer, everything from their morning sun salutation to their coffee enema ( really) is a potential money-making opportunity. ![]() And, in a modern aspirational marketplace so saturated that fake influencers are now posting advertising-like content that nobody even paid them for, there are signs that our individualist culture of achievement and brand alignment has jumped the shark. If the cycle of history is any guide, once our culture of striving flames out, it may well be time for the slacker to rise again. ![]()
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