Periodically one of the news magazines feels it necessary to roll out another “what’s wrong with these damn lazy kids?” feature and this week, Time targets “twixters” – young people who “will not, or cannot, settle down.”
The Time article has a conservative condescension to it (I know I know, big surprise) that’s even more cynical than the twixters they’re writing about. It admits that “Young people know that their material life will not be better than their parents,” but implicitly berates them for not sucking it up and conforming like everyone else.
“They’re well aware of the fact that they will not work for the same company for the rest of their life,” says Bill Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, a think tank based in Washington. “They don’t think long-term about health care or Social Security. They’re concerned about their careers and immediate gratification.”
Maybe they saw one or both of their parents laid-off and experienced first hand how things really works.
“My problem is I’m really overstimulated by everything,” Galantha says. “I feel there’s too much information out there at all times. There are too many doors, too many people, too much competition.”
And just how many “twixters” are comfortable and well-adjusted with this? Did you interview them?
Marketers have picked up on the fact that twixters on their personal voyages of discovery tend to buy lots of stuff along the way.
Again with the condescension. Sometimes buying lots of stuff is a great way to keep yourself from thinking about how shitty things are.
The situation is analogous to their promiscuous job-hopping behavior—like Goldilocks, they want to find the one that’s just right-but it can give them a cynical, promiscuous vibe too. Arnett is worried that if anything, twixters are too romantic. I’m 47—they looked at it much more practically. I think a lot of people are going to end up being disappointed with the person that’s snoring next to them by the time they’ve been married for a few years and they realize it doesn’t work that way.”
And he’s accusing twixters of being “too cynical?” How about the fact that many of these twixters grew up in broken homes because their parents couldn’t keep their marriages together. Maybe they want something more “romantic” because they don’t want to end up with someone they hate. Maybe twixters realize that relationships are the one thing they can control when much of their life it out of their control.
If twixters are ever going to grow up, they need the means to do it—and they will have to want to. There are joys and satisfactions that come with assuming adult responsibility, though you won’t see them on MTV’s Real World.
Adult responsibility as defined by who? Do all twixters watch The Real World? Do all social scientists now sleep with a copy of Bowling Alone under their pillow?
