Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

by Anne Helen Petersen

As Currid-Halkett points out, this practice transcends actual income levels—adjunct professors with PhDs barely making ends meet often consume and broadcast the same aspirational class materials as Ivy-League-educated lawyers. It obscures the sort of economic stability a degree can actually provide, but provides a different sort of class salve: It’s okay if you’re hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, will never buy a home, and are terrified of what a medical catastrophe could bring, so long as you can still blend in with higher incomes in a social setting. In a profile of Michael Barbaro, the host of The Daily—the massively popular New York Times podcast, and a perfect example of aspirational consumption—producer Jenna Weiss-Berman pinpoints the show’s appeal: “You listen to The Daily and you’re better equipped to speak at a dinner party,” she explained. “And that’s all you really want.” We love to think that our cultural and leisure tastes are, to some extent, “natural”—I sign up for this triathlon, I watch this show, I download this podcast because I like it!—but every choice is muddled by our understanding of what it says about us, and the conversations from which we’ll be excluded if we opt out. It’s okay to skip one TV show, or franchise, or trend, but opt out entirely and you’ll be out of the loop the next time you hang out with your similarly class-aspirational friends. It’s not enough just to hang out, after all: There has to be a purpose. The popularity of th...