SHOUT PEACE

The Oread Hotel, ostentatiously built atop “Mount Oread” next to the campus of the University of Kansas, opened in January.  Its location on the top of the largest hill in town (that would be “Mount Oread”), and thereby it’s immediate status as the tallest thing in any direction for miles (some townsfolk non-jokingly call it a “sky scraper”) is controversial.  Some people in the community aren’t entirely sure that they’re pleased that wealthy developers erecting a private, for-profit business are able to so drastically change their city’s skyline without community consultation.  Others think it looks like a giant medieval prison.  Still others think it adds “class” to a neighborhood characterized by cheap, rundown housing and nicknamed the “student ghetto”.

The controversy has only escalated since the appearance of a vandal’s ominous message on it’s highest wall: SHOUT PEACE.  Just read the comments section on the local newspaper’s story: The Oread hotel falls victim to vandals.

In a town/city of Lawrence’s size, it’s kind of a “round up the usual suspects” sort of situation. But what I love/hate about this little scenario is how a little bit of optimistic, anti-violence graffiti has rocked the whole community, creating contention, divisions, and sad head shaking about what the world is coming to.

Yes, what must the world be coming to when an activist shouts peace from the rooftops? Vandals! Anarchy! Graffiti! Urban crime!

Now that I reside in New York, my view on the situation is rather different than what I imagine it would have been had I never left Kansas. Really, my only reaction is delight. Wealthy business owners and a “high class” establishment for elites have been angered, an anonymous townsperson spontaneously took back a public-facing wall, and a message of SHOUT PEACE was spread.

Hilarious. And awesome. Typical Kansas.

Millennial Hate

Every generation seems inclined to feel superior to the previous one. Everyone looks back with nostalgia to the mythical “good old days” because “young people these days” fucked everything up. Of course, we forget that the “good old days” were the days when we were children, and didn’t have any responsibilities. Or that, if we are members of older generations, and if we think the world is fucked up, it’s probably us that did it, seeing as how we’ve been around longer and helped shape the present. Let alone acknowledging that it was our sexual activity that brought about the younger generation we despise so much.

No, it’s so much easier to blame “the kids these days” than accept responsibility for our own fucked up world, and our own difficulty adjusting to its changes. I suppose that’s why magazines and newspapers are wont to publish the occasional hit piece on young generations. In the 80s and 90s they trashed “Generation X”. Well, now they’ve moved on to whining about “millennials” (aka Gen Y).

Here’s a typical youth hit job, grâce à l’Australie: Gen Y too lazy and unfocused to hire – bosses

Here’s some more:

10 surefire ways to rein in millennials

Study Confirms: Millennials Are Apathetic

College students today: overconfident or just assured?

Our Sketchy Future: Millennials

Survey Shows Teens, Young Adults Believe They Are Healthy Despite Bad Habits

Your kids: Dumb, difficult and dispensable

The rise of the Moralistic Therapeutic Deists

Leadership wake-up: The Millennials are coming

The Wall Street Journal piece that really got these stereotypes rolling: The ‘Trophy Kids’ Go to Work

You think the titles are bad? Take a look at the language in the articles. Lotta nasty words. Though I dimly remember similar nastiness as Gen X hit the workforce. So maybe this is simply cyclical. But in the workplace, hatin on and avoiding millennials is something else: ageist, aka discrimination. Just sayin.

So, HALLELUJAH, can you imagine the relief when I read the summary of Pew’s recent study: The Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change.

Millennials are into social justice! The environment! Ending racism! They’re open minded! Diverse! Highly educated! Less fundamentalist! My god, what am I going to do with all the time I previously spent hating myself for the year of my birth?

Are you a millennial? Regardless that this generation is defined as those born between 1980 and 2001, perhaps you are a millennial at heart. Find out with this helpful quiz! Put together by the Pew Research Center, for some reason.

PS. Per ush, the articles all focus on middle class and affluent millennials. It’s as though the writers believe that all millennials had “helicopter parents”, loads of extracurricular activities, and went to college. Really, these experiences were only common among middle class and affluent families, and working class and poor millennials probably don’t feel very connected with the media portrayal of “their” generation.