The buttoned-up post-World War II period gave way to the countercultural Free Love generation (arguably the original slackers, as they were the first to have middle class comfort to rebel against). Yoga gurus who traffic in anti-consumerist spirituality promote tea brands owned by Unilever.īut as anyone who has lived a few decades knows, youth culture swings like a pendulum. This is true even when the message is swathed in the language of counter-culture: Eco-conscious influencers see no issue in flying long-haul on free trips from brands.
The internet influencer is the apotheosis of all this striving, this modern set of values taken to its grotesque extreme: Nothing is sacred, art has been replaced by “content,” and everything is for sale. Whether we have side hustles, personal brands, gig economy jobs, or entrepreneurial leanings (I’ve had all four), to survive in the modern economy is to aspire to something much greater than what we are. I am not immune to this thoroughly aspirational mindset, and you probably aren’t either. Universal Pictures The cast of ‘Reality Bites,’ a celebration of slacker-dom.īut somewhere in the early 2000s, the slacker of popular culture lost ground to the striver. Nobody cool was trying to monetize their lifestyle back then, or rake in the brand endorsements. In the latter, Winona Ryder’s character, Leilana, chooses the disillusioned musician (Ethan Hawke) over the TV exec (Ben Stiller), and it’s presented as an excellent choice. But sometimes one might pine for a less aspirational time, when the cool kids were smoking weed, eating junk food, and… you know, just chillin’.īack in the 1990s, our heroes were slackers: the dudes and the clerks, the stick-it-to-the-man, stay-true-to-yourself burnouts we saw in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Slacker, and Reality Bites. Everyone is striving, so very hard.Īnd great for them, I guess.
Where once the social network was basically lunch and sunsets, it’s now a parade of strategically-crafted life updates, career achievements, and public vows to spend less time online (usually made by people who earn money from social media)-all framed with the carefully selected language of a press release. It’s hard to remember a time when scrolling through Instagram was anything but a thoroughly exhausting experience.
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