Millennials, Can We Please Just Leave Gen-Z Alone?
We don’t control the culture anymore, and that’s okay
In my first year out of university, I lived in a student neighborhood. It wasn’t intentional — in fact, I didn’t know enough about the city to know which neighborhoods were for students.
It worked out, because I still felt like a university student. I was freshly 23, fairly broke, even with my new grownup job, and I lived in a shared apartment with two strangers and no air conditioning to save money. What is more student life than that?
Over that first year, friends and I checked out student bars in the neighborhood, motivated by a search for cheap drink specials and a convenient walk home. There was one club in particular that we visited often. The clientele were mainly first and second year undergraduate students, but the place had good music and no cover, so we went there often, dancing amidst the sea of 19- and 20-year-olds to blow off steam. I felt like my friends and I blended in fairly well. After all, 23 really isn’t that much older, I thought.
It felt true. That was, until one night when a mysterious song started blaring over the speakers. At first, I thought it must have been played by mistake. It wasn’t a fun, danceable pop song or a 2000’s throw back or one of about six Drake songs…
