Millennial Adults

What happens when the veil of childhood falls away, and we leave the boundaries of high school lockers and family dinners? Commence adulthood. I’ve talked to a lot of people about a show like Madmen and as it appears on a wider demographically encompassing channel such as AMC, older people tend to watch it. A lot of Midd students watch it, and a lot of them watch it with their parents. Madmen is the kind of show that, similar to Glee, or maybe even Twilight, bridges the gap between generations. But the trajectory is in reverse. Now it is millennials aspiring for a more mature lifestyle, and a yearning to immerse themselves into an adult lifestyle. There is an aesthetic glamour that certainly appeals to this aspiration in Madmen, but can also be found in Damages as Ellen Parsons poses as the young hotshot lawyer to be. Continuing on a millennial media familiar trope, we see a murder plot take hold in the first episode, though how it will reveal itself we don’t know. While neither FX or AMC are channels I would associate with millennial television, millennials continue to return to their programming as a source of entertainment while also engaging in a kind of futuristic imagination. Perhaps it is the simple fact of how we will see ourselves in a few years, protégées to Glenn Close ( someone close to our parents’ generation). As Strauss and Howe argued, we oftentimes think of ourselves with the ability to change the future, and that we possess the skills to do so.

While these shows do not explicitly showcase technology in the forefront, the technologies we use to watch them, unlike our parents who may watch it on TV, represent our mastery of technology.  We make the program millennial in this way because we control how we watch it, not to mention the engagement with the programs outside of the TV show such as discussion forums and site participation. But more importantly, is the previous generations inclusion of millennials into this adult world. It’s informative in the sense that it seems to “prepare us” for what is to come, while also giving us the option to take our millennial stand by “changing the future” of what we see operating in front of us.

 

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