Modern WisdomThe Problem With Millennials | Theo Watt & Eve Young
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
140 min read · 28,435 words- 0:00 – 15:00
I'm joined by Eve…
- CWChris Williamson
I'm joined by Eve and Theo from the Social Minds podcast. So, what are we going to talk about today?
- TWTheo Watt
Millennials.
- EYEve Young
Millennials.
- TWTheo Watt
Millennials. We have to. If you believe everything you've read, if you fall into that bracket, you are lazy, you're very narcissistic, you're probably not doing very well for money. You'll never be able to afford a house.
- EYEve Young
(laughs) Eat too much avocado toast.
- TWTheo Watt
Exactly. Being Millennials, we feel that Millennials are less defined by the situations around them, stuff like 9/11 and whatever. They're less defined by these situations and more defined by this boom of innovation that has happened between, say, 1982 to present day. You know, what defines a Millennial i- is the people who have lived through a vast speed of technological change.
- EYEve Young
All this media attention that Millennials are getting and the reputation that they've got just refers to the, the snowflake generation, which people assume is, like, teens and 20-somethings-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- EYEve Young
... when it's actually not.
- TWTheo Watt
Mm.
- EYEve Young
So when... I think the majority of the time, when people are saying, "Oh, Millennial, Millennial," they just mean young people-
- TWTheo Watt
Yeah.
- EYEve Young
... and they don't actually realize-
- TWTheo Watt
And that's probably-
- EYEve Young
... it stretches up to the age of 38.
- CWChris Williamson
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I'm joined by Eve and Theo from the Social Minds podcast here in my beautiful new studio. Welcome.
- EYEve Young
(laughs)
- TWTheo Watt
Hello. Hello.
- EYEve Young
Hi. You all right?
- TWTheo Watt
Good to have you-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TWTheo Watt
... back again. (laughs)
- EYEve Young
This is your studio.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, well, I mean, today, um, uh, it's an adopted studio for me-
- EYEve Young
Yeah.
- TWTheo Watt
Of course.
- CWChris Williamson
How are you? You good?
- EYEve Young
Good.
- TWTheo Watt
Yes. Yeah, really, really good. We've got you something, haven't we?
- EYEve Young
Got you a Soreen 'cause I know how much of a fan you are.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Mm-hmm. …
- CWChris Williamson
30. Some people never go through it, but the majority of people do tend to go through it. Dom said, um, when he was 23 and he was sober, going out, his friends would give him grief. When he's 26 and sober, his friends look at him with admiration.
- TWTheo Watt
Mm-hmm.
- EYEve Young
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Because there is this flipping of consciousness-
- TWTheo Watt
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... from the egocentric to the more mature.
- TWTheo Watt
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And there, there is a, a formative, the formative years, as they're referred to, the end of that, like, the final boss is a reduction in ego.
- TWTheo Watt
Right, right.
- CWChris Williamson
For mo- for most people, if you have a, a, a, I guess a healthy, uh, progression through it.
- TWTheo Watt
(laughs) I could see that, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, and what that means is that, and we, and the other thing as well, Millennial is such a, it's just such a buzzwordy term.
- TWTheo Watt
Yeah.
- EYEve Young
Oh, yeah.
- TWTheo Watt
Yes, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
It's the sort of thing that you can throw out.
- TWTheo Watt
Yeah.
- EYEve Young
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And now, it is Gen Z?
- TWTheo Watt
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, probably most people that read the news that, pick a typical person on the street in, uh, Manchester, and most people are gonna know what a Millennial is.
- TWTheo Watt
Yes.
- EYEve Young
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
They'll go, "Uh, yeah, like young, young people."
- TWTheo Watt
Yeah.
- EYEve Young
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You're like, "Right, okay." But if you said Gen Z, they'd be like-
- EYEve Young
What's that? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... "Is that a new computer game? Like, is that ..."
- EYEve Young
(laughs)
- 30:00 – 45:00
Mm-hmm. …
- TWTheo Watt
Kitcher, um, s- uh, status that he, that he did. Um, and it was that the, uh, after they broadcast this advert that, uh, you know, it was appealing to the gamer who stays up for 48 hours at a time-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TWTheo Watt
... and these people, you know, your, your agility, your endurance.The army actually found that their recruits doubled within a month, basically.
- EYEve Young
That really surprised me-
- TWTheo Watt
... within a month of releasing this campaign.
- EYEve Young
... because I absolutely-
- CWChris Williamson
Really?
- EYEve Young
... hated the campaign.
- TWTheo Watt
There was a massive backlash to this campaign. "Snowflakes, we want you to join the army."
- CWChris Williamson
But it's effective.
- TWTheo Watt
You know, "Come to the army. We, we need millennials." And it worked. (inhales) And-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, well, I mean, that's just-
- TWTheo Watt
... proved your theory.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's one of the circular mad things about advertising, right, like that you can do something that's inflammatory. So I, I have no idea. I would love for, to see Gillette in whenever their next earnings goes-
- EYEve Young
Yeah.
- TWTheo Watt
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... after they, after they did the, um, the most recent advert. Um, and it is going down that risky route of kind of a meta-cognizant look at what culture is.
- TWTheo Watt
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And the manipulation of culture by it, like, uh, culture for culture's sake almost-
- TWTheo Watt
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... looking at it with a pure bird's-eye view.
- TWTheo Watt
Mm. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a high-risk strategy, and like, that's evidently worked. But then you think, okay, so it's doubled recruits, but what's it done for the British army's standing in society as a whole long term?
- TWTheo Watt
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Is there potentially gonna be some downstream effects of this that are a little bit more negative-
- TWTheo Watt
Mm. Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that might not be so clever? And then the Gillette thing as well, I'm sure that sat around that boardroom table, someone said, and maybe half the room would have gone, "Yes, I love it. Men are gonna really connect with this on a deeper level." And it could have gone well, but it got ten-to-one ratio of dislikes to likes on-
- TWTheo Watt
Yeah.
- EYEve Young
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... YouTube. So now what does that say? And I, I don't ... Again, I don't know what that's translated to in terms of sales. But yeah, the manipulation of the meta-narrative about millennials is a dangerous game to play. Um, so what, what do you think is gonna happen as we move forward then with Gen Z, because that's ... Is that people after '96, '98?
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Mm-hmm. …
- EYEve Young
you said, like, we were failed, like, by our, our parents or by the people who created this technology. No one educated us on safe use of it. And now we're sort of getting to grips with it, teaching ourselves. And I like to think of it like a car, like the first car, like how long was it before they-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- EYEve Young
... got seat belts installed?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- EYEve Young
And like you wouldn't, you wouldn't do that-
- CWChris Williamson
You are tot-
- EYEve Young
... now, would you?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-mm.
- EYEve Young
You need to learn how to drive the car. You need to, you know, put your safety measures in. Like I know if I'm gonna feel shit about myself, I'm not gonna s- I'm not gonna follow people-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- EYEve Young
... who are posting things that are gonna-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- EYEve Young
... make me feel shit. You just have to curate your feeds and know how to use it and turn to it for positive things. And like it can be so helpful for like-
- TWTheo Watt
And I think young people do.
- EYEve Young
... productivity and, like you said, awareness about so many like causes. We just have to train ourselves to use it for good.
- TWTheo Watt
I think, I think young people, I think young people definitely do. I think it, you know, to answer your question in a way, that, that, that as well is, I think, a characteristic of Gen Z. It, it, it's funny. The irony of it has become a very millennial thing to say, "You kids, you know, you're, you're, you're addicted to social media. All you do is watch-"
- EYEve Young
(laughs)
- TWTheo Watt
"... you know, YouTubers and wrapping toys. And who wants to do that?"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TWTheo Watt
"You play with fidget spinners. What are you doing?"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TWTheo Watt
And that's, that in itself has almost become a kind of millennial trait, that we are just-
- EYEve Young
Mm.
- TWTheo Watt
... you know, going back-
- EYEve Young
Yeah, we're already bashing the-
- TWTheo Watt
... we are already just as bad as Gen X.
- EYEve Young
... the, the ones younger than us.
- CWChris Williamson
I get it. Well, I mean, uh, y- uh, to go on to what you said about the, um, about the car analogy, it's perfectly correct. And what really that should be given for people who were the patient zero avatars-
- TWTheo Watt
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... for the advent of all of these technologies, where the technology came before the best practices for healthy use did, and before the legislation did-
- 1:00:00 – 1:06:41
Mm. …
- CWChris Williamson
What I particularly like about Joe Rogan, the reason I think he's a good podcaster is he just puts his stuff out. Like, he's effective at what he does. The reason that he's the best podcaster in the world is because he asks the question that you would've asked if you'd had half an hour to prep for that one section.
- TWTheo Watt
Mm.
- EYEve Young
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And then he asks it straight away, o- uh, by riding the crest of now at all times and constantly asks the best questions. But one of the other reasons that I think he's so good is the fact that he just doesn't care what people think. He doesn't check the comments on YouTube, he doesn't really respond to stuff like that. But f- one of the few times... Alex Jones was one of them and Jack Dorsey was another one, he got so much backlash because people wanted him to go after Jack Dorsey about why, uh, people are getting banned. "Why is Milo Yiannopoulos bo- banned? Why's Sargon of Akkad banned?"
- TWTheo Watt
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"Why are you deplatforming these people? There appears to be a left-leaning bias," and all this sort of stuff.So I was like, "Right, fuck it. Like, we're gonna have Jack back on again." Then Jack brought his, uh, head of the safety team-
- TWTheo Watt
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... which is basically the woman that presses the ban button.
- TWTheo Watt
Sort of.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, and he brought in, uh, Tim Pool, who is like the, the Ben Shapiro or he's like the Horace Greevy of cutting people down in fast debates, incr- like a, like a scalpel precision, uh, how he's able to deploy this stuff. And he came fully armed, like study after study after example after example after example. And during the conversation, sometimes with this, especially when you see Silicon Valley in there, you wanna like, yeah, stick it to the man, like fuck the machine.
- TWTheo Watt
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And part of me wanted that, that kind of cathartic pleasure that you get from seeing someone who's successful just get smashed all over by someone who's witty.
- TWTheo Watt
Mm, mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like there's something that I enjoy about that. Um, weird.
- TWTheo Watt
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
But, but what ended up happening was a very, um, Tim continued to be militant throughout. Like his parting words were, "I still don't like you guys. I still don't believe that what you're doing is for the greater good, and I still hope that Twitter goes down, but thank you for your time in coming on." That was essentially what he said. But throughout the whole conversation, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, and, uh, the woman who's name I can't pronounce so I'm not gonna try, who was his head of the safety team, they basically said, "We don't understand what this technology really needs and we are learning as we go the same way that you guys are."
- TWTheo Watt
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
"Can we have a little bit of compassion back?" Um, and there's some things that seem like there's maybe some double standards that are maybe a little bit more critical, but this degree of compassion overall, I think for people that have had to deal with high degree of s- technological change, lot of financial ups and downs, um, and, uh, the advent of social media, you also, I can't say that I want that for us whilst not also allowing the executives and the people who are in the marketing departments to also be given the same-
- EYEve Young
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... amount of freedom.
- TWTheo Watt
Yeah.
- EYEve Young
Yeah.
- TWTheo Watt
Yeah.
- EYEve Young
And I think like-
- CWChris Williamson
Definitely.
- EYEve Young
... it's, it's harder to, um, forgive some more than others. But I, yeah, like I said, I'm a really big fan of what Twitter's doing because they'll admit that they're not perfect and the whole time they're just being transparent.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TWTheo Watt
Mm.
- EYEve Young
They're just, they are really trying to be like open and honest and inclusive with their users. And yeah, they'll, they'll get things wrong, but they, I, I believe, have better intentions than-
- CWChris Williamson
Who goes-
Episode duration: 1:06:40
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