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The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

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Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#31

Post by flachsechs »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #29
flachsechs wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the rate of downward mobility among my young, bourgeoisie 20-somethings friends in NYC is shocking i dunno, i'd argue these people aren't downwardly mobile because they were never upper middle class to begin with (bourgeoisie). if you have no saved money and your family can't just straight up give you money to live if you lose your job, you're lower to lower middle at best. better luck next time, etc. and if the pa…

If you're going by quintiles your upper middle class is 60th-80th percentile. That's 66k-105k household income for their parents. Even if you gave a 40% bump for NYC that's still not the life style you're describing.

yeah maybe not quintiles then. but i think there are 5 distinct classes, and probably not another number.

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#32

Post by eropple »

jameskegel wrote: post #25
UnpossibleJim wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. That's basically what happened to the kids of the 60's and the kids of the 80's. They started out anticorp and f-society, then ended up doing cocaine in the boardroom and smashing anything that they didn't own. It's a weird shift that seems to happen. =)

I feel this change- every time I get a raise, every time I make a $500 purchase on a whim, these are the things that my inner-teenager rages about, but why experience success if I can't enjoy it? When I was younger, I didn't understand the ways of the people above me because I didn't have the discipline to obtain the means that would allow me to make those choices. In essence, "you hate it because you ain't it".

You hate it because you ain't it and have been conspired against by the entirety of society to never, ever, ever be it.

That's what you are eliding, and it should be out in the open. You got lucky. So did I. You may have worked hard for it. I certainly didn't. Hard work increases luck; it does not substitute for it.

It's a crapshoot, and the folks referred to in that article know it. Why not just shrug and go along, if the roulette wheel controlled it in the first place?

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#33

Post by flachsechs »

arethuza wrote: post #21
flachsechs wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the rate of downward mobility among my young, bourgeoisie 20-somethings friends in NYC is shocking i dunno, i'd argue these people aren't downwardly mobile because they were never upper middle class to begin with (bourgeoisie). if you have no saved money and your family can't just straight up give you money to live if you lose your job, you're lower to lower middle at best. better luck next time, etc. and if the pa…

"it's social status that really matters" - that sounds like the "traditional" UK class system where money isn't a strong factor in where you are in the class spectrum.

i'd say money has a larger impact than in the UK but it's still secondary.

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#34

Post by stumpf »

_mhyx wrote: post #11

This is kind of meandering, and it loses the thread a bit in the end (it feels like he's getting to a point he's uncomfortable with ideologically), but it's extremely accurate. The bigger point about creating the future - that he seems to miss - is that it's a future _not everyone wants_, which drives a huge part of the "maga/bernie" divide he discusses. He is right though - the rate of downward mobility among my you…

I can relate to this all too much. All my non-tech friends are struggling to get into tech someway, and my programmer friends sit comfortably in their premium mediocre. Interestingly enough, my non-tech friends seem to be the ambitious ones wanting to climb above that level. They are the ones who talk about reform and quasi communist ideas, while the developers sit quietly and comfortably at their computers, not giving class any thought. I am somewhere in between right now, piled with student debt wanting to get out, but wanting to spend those 3 weeks in Europe too.

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#36

Post by notyourwork »

arkh wrote: post #20
yaway wrote: post #7

there are too many digressions and obscure inside-references in this essay, but this cuts to the heart of the matter: "[Premium mediocre] is an economic and cultural rearguard action by young people launched into life from the old middle class, but not quite equipped to stay there, and trying to engineer a face-saving soft landing…somewhere." i'm 24 and while i can see the humor and hyperbole in this article, its als…

"overall i feel my generation, or at least my social strata, will mature to be colder, harder and more distant than our predecessors. all it will take to cement this transformation is another recession " I think you're wrong. I think the previous generation was colder and harder than us. Boomers exploited the silent generation. Boomers got children as a sacrifice to their never-ending hunger for more. They're the col…

> They're the cold, hard and calculating ones who fucked and are fucking over every other generation.

Can you elaborate on how so? I don't agree or disagree because I don't understand how you feel the boomer generation fucked over everyone else?

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#37

Post by pvarangot »

rayiner wrote: post #3

This is a very long article about something that has been known for a very long time: middle class existential angst.

The drama of having too much opportunities but not being sure of which one will make you a millionaire.

Millionaires are already there, the poor have no opportunities to entertain the part of the brain that makes us anxious about failure.

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#38

Post by flachsechs »

eropple wrote: post #32
jameskegel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this change- every time I get a raise, every time I make a $500 purchase on a whim, these are the things that my inner-teenager rages about, but why experience success if I can't enjoy it? When I was younger, I didn't understand the ways of the people above me because I didn't have the discipline to obtain the means that would allow me to make those choices. In essence, "you hate it because you ain't it".

You hate it because you ain't it and have been conspired against by the entirety of society to never, ever, ever be it . That's what you are eliding, and it should be out in the open. You got lucky . So did I. You may have worked hard for it. I certainly didn't. Hard work increases luck; it does not substitute for it. It's a crapshoot, and the folks referred to in that article know it. Why not just shrug and go along…

> Why not just shrug and go along, if the roulette wheel controlled it in the first place?

notice how buddhism and stoicism is all of a sudden so fascinating to everyone in the 'scene' ?

Re: The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

#40

Post by eropple »

flachsechs wrote: post #38
eropple wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hate it because you ain't it and have been conspired against by the entirety of society to never, ever, ever be it . That's what you are eliding, and it should be out in the open. You got lucky . So did I. You may have worked hard for it. I certainly didn't. Hard work increases luck; it does not substitute for it. It's a crapshoot, and the folks referred to in that article know it. Why not just shrug and go along…

> Why not just shrug and go along, if the roulette wheel controlled it in the first place? notice how buddhism and stoicism is all of a sudden so fascinating to everyone in the 'scene' ?

I am an Emojishrugcurian, personally, but that's a good pull, I hadn't thought of that.
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