Advice columns for millennials are scattered across the internet, and the Los Angeles Times offers yet another one that demands a generation-wide pledge.
In a light-hearted piece, Chris Erskine chided millennials to accept a to-do list of responsibilities for adulthood.
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“The Millennial Pledge” includes gems such as “I will show up on time” and “Just once, I will try driving without texting.”
It’s a perfectly condescending list and fits with most news coverage that’s ripe for parody. As shocking as it might be, millennials probably aren’t any dumber or more helpless than previous generations. The rising costs of college and a lagging economy don’t help millennials in terms of debt and employment, but young people tend to become reliable workers, regardless of when they were born.
It’s not all confirmation bias for baby boomers who picture millennials as entitled or lazy, however. A few suggestions, such as “I will save 10 percent of everything I earn” and “I will not run up my credit cards” are good bits of advice for millennials to heed, as well as older Americans. If anything, millennials are better about saving than older cohorts.
Erskine has faced parody and criticism for the millennial pledge, mostly of the “old man yells at cloud” variety. These sorts of articles tend to pull traffic, for older generations to criticize youth as much as youth to react against the condescension.
A proper millennial pledge would be not to let a meme or hashtag go to waste.
