An author who scapegoated millennials as the villain of her recent novel has issued a mea culpa to the generation.
Jo Piazza, author of The Knockoff, has seen the error of her ways.
“Every generation contains top-notch thinkers and doers and creators while simultaneously housing dullards, dimwits and jerks. It’s absurd to ascribe personality traits to an entire generation, but with the label of millennial that is exactly what we have done,” Piazza wrote.
It’s a revolutionary thought, but millennials are individuals, rather than the Uber-driving, college debt-accumulating stereotype of cranky seniors.
“Some of the most hard-working people I know fall into the so-called millennial category,” Piazza wrote.
Usually, that “some of my best friends are X” line doesn’t work. Her public apology is a rare, but welcome, change from the typical articles in the media on millennials. The think pieces and stereotypes swirling around millennials have become so absurd that millennials have created an app to replace “millennials” with “snake people” in news articles.
It’s risky to generalize what has now become America’s largest generation. It’s a veritable tradition of humanity to berate its youngest and thrust all social problems onto their shoulders. In one sense, millennials are getting hazed by their American elders until the next generation takes their place.
If anything, parsing out the nuances of millennials would be a more interesting approach. Piazza finds that by profiling a young millennial who founded a “female empowerment network for high school girls” and another who was “one of the hardest-working individuals I know.”
There’s another political angle that shows millennials setting the stage for future party change as they flee the Republican Party.
Demonizing millennials “was an easy way to capitalize on our society’s generalization of an entire generation. It was too easy and I’m sorry,” Piazza wrote.
At least one non-millennial gets it.
