Dear Tell All: I came across the Instagram account of a friend’s child and now check it on a daily basis. It’s like a gruesome car crash — I can’t stop looking.
My son was an acquaintance of this girl at Memorial High, and my wife and I casually know her and her parents. They’re kind, generous people who also happen to be affluent, thanks to a strong work ethic. They put their daughter through an expensive private university on the West Coast and just financed her elite graduate school education. And now she repays them on Instagram by smugly attacking the rich while calling for revolution with the radical clichés du jour.
The extremist, half-baked, impractical politics are hard enough to bear, with predictable sneers at (all) white men, (all) capitalist principles and (all) United States history, including the supposedly irredeemable Constitution. But in classic millennial fashion, this girl also mixes in vain selfies that flaunt her toned and tattooed body and her oh-so-perfect artisanal food choices.
How does a sworn enemy of capitalism afford such expensive tastes and (one assumes) a pricey gym membership? How does a revolutionary have time to tear down the entire system when fixated on her image in the mirror? The contradictions don’t seem to trouble her in the slightest.
I’ve never seen such mixed-up priorities. Am I justified in being freaked out about the millennial generation?
Gen X-hausted
Dear Gen X-hausted: I won’t get into whether you’re justified in being freaked out about the millennial generation. A more important priority is that you stop being freaked out, for your own mental health.
You’ve become so addicted to creeping on this Instagram account that you’ve lost all perspective. Let me provide it for you.
This girl is talking to her peers on social media, not the older generation. She’s testing out ideas and personas and trying to figure out who she is. Were you never in your early 20s? Did you never make a questionable statement or brag about your brand-new lifestyle choices? You’re simply describing normal behavior for someone that age.
Let’s say that, in a worst-case scenario, this callow girl grows up to be an obnoxious middle-aged woman. So what? As you admit, you barely know her. It’s time to look away from her Instagram account on focus on what really matters in your life. I hate to tell you, Gen X-hausted, but your priorities sound more mixed up than hers.
Do you have a question about life or love in Madison?
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