With the failure of capitalism, millennials are capitalising on just that
By: Loren Smith
Tags: Millennials, Social Media, Capitalism, Authenticity, Podcast

With the failure of capitalism, millennials are capitalising on just that

Khachiyan (L) and Nekrasovahave (R) have turned their devil-may-care disaffection into a profitable art form. Image: @nobody_stop_me, via Twitter

It seems like very long ago that young men were aspiring ‘entrepreneurs’ and young women self-labelled as ‘girl bosses’. Yet it was only five years ago that people gabbled about creating Silicon Valley’s next ‘unicorn’ to break up the drudgery of shattered expectations in the office or the bar or the share house.

Gimlet — a podcast platform start up established in the peak of this mania, 2014, — went meta and created a show called Start Up, initially about itself. Its second season chronicled two precocious women in their mid twenties who were building ‘Dating Ring’, a Tinder alternative for the masses. By episode 10, a year into their journey, it was clear that they had failed. This should have been ominous to plucky millennials the world over.

Three years and two days later (otherwise known as Wednesday this week), my mum emailed me a link to a Washington Post article, prefacing it with “I know you know this already, but…” It revealed that more young people are begging their parents to fund down payments on properties than ever before; 26 per cent to be precise. My response: “Sure do…f* the big banks prior to 2008.”

This statistic is emblematic of the economic situation at large. With nothing but the consolidation of power of a few corporate behemoths to show for it, ‘innovation’ has become a dirty word — even politicians daren’t utter it anymore.

All this is to underscore that the entepreneurial salve that capitalism offered to young people, post-GFC, was largely yet another cover up. Case in point: Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In movement — in full throttle in 2013 — is now widely endorsed as a sham. Even former First Lady Michelle Obama publicly thinks so. “Sometimes that shit doesn’t work,” she said on her recent book tour.

So, what are young, overqualified and underpaid people to do? Enter: the anti-start up start ups. Frequently in the form of one or two man or woman entities, they have broken bank by shaming banks. Red Scare is a potent example. While podcasts’ heyday is well and truly over, this one managed to emerge and thrive through 2018 thanks to its excessive ‘fuck the man’ spirit. Its hosts, self-described ‘bohemian layabouts’ Anna Khachiyan and Dasha Nekrasova, were underemployed before they started the show. Now, they survive on Patreon donations and by selling tickets to their live shows, where they, with defiant vocal fry, jest about ‘retards’, ‘ crypto-fascists’, and their alcoholism. They offend with the abandon of people who have nothing to lose, because they had nothing to begin with. In turn, the disaffected, myself included, tune in to hear a version of their angsty inner monologues broadcast back to them.

In an ironic twist, Audrey Gelman, creator of formerly women’s-only co-working space The Wing, is a Red Scare fan, despite Khachiya and Nekrasova taunting her bougie, empty mantra-laden, third wave feminist tendencies. Because the podcast is daring, it’s cool. So ‘normies’ like Gelman have become fans, adding to the show’s reach and therefore bringing in more cash — precisely what its creators mock.

Another example of societal scorn cum cash is a recent prank by 24-year-old drag queen Alexis Stone, aka Elliot Joseph Rentz. After he was previously shamed for getting cheek fillers, he upped the ante by surgically transforming his face into a freakish, Jocelyn Wildenstein-like sideshow. At least that’s what he wanted his followers to think…until five months later, when he revealed it was a stunt. Though he denies it was a sinister ploy for attention, that’s what it got him — in near internet-breaking spades. I probably needn’t add that on the internet, attention converts to actual currency.

If ‘innovation’ was the buzzword of the early twenty teens, ‘authenticity’ is the late ones’, aimed at curbing the destructively performative nature of social media. And, in a world ruled by cold, hard corporations, what could be more authentic than admitting how much your life sucks — then profiting from it?