Bernie Sanders commissioned the Government Accountability Office to study the consequences of the high degree of indebtedness borne by Millennials; the GAO's report concludes that Millennials dreams are being "crushed" by debts -- primarily student loans -- which have limited their abilities to seek good employment, good housing, and to save for retirement. Read the rest

What is all the hubbub, bub? Gen X is doing just fine playing video games while it appears some Millennials are unable to keep up with the kids.

Vice:

Those who grew up playing games online know just how easy it is to blame poor performance on factors outside of your control. That person who's just absolutely wrecking you? They're obviously hacking. And now, as Millennials grow older they have yet another convenient excuse at their disposal: I'm just getting too old for this shit.

But it's the more likely scenario that's the hardest to accept: It's not that you're getting worse at video games, it's that everyone got a lot better. As a younger, bigger, and more-skilled generation has finally emerged to take your spot among the leaderboards, you cannot "git gud." In our slow march towards oblivion, we must choose: get owned, or go play something else.

I have been playing games for so long that I must 'invert-look' on all games or I am unable to control them. Perhaps this learned up-down response from the days of the Atari 2600 is what keeps my play 'trash.'

A video game is about having fun. If you have fun playing the video game you are doing it right. Read the rest

MBA programs are the origin node of a lot of ugly, exploitative business trends over recent decades (see this excellent documentary for more), and their star is in decline, with MBAs commanding a much lower wage premium after graduation, leading to declining enrollment in full-time MBA programs. Read the rest

Just in time for the holidays, Hasbro has released "Monopoly for Millennials", the game where you're encouraged to take a break from the rat race because "adulting is hard."

This should go over well.

Money doesn't always buy a great time, but experiences, whether they're good -- or weird -- last forever. The Monopoly for Millennials game celebrates just that. Instead of collecting as much cash as possible, players are challenged to rack up the most Experiences to win. Travel around the gameboard discovering and visiting cool places to eat, shop, and relax. Interact with other players via Chance and Community Chest cards, (which are super relatable). And players don't pay rent -- they visit one another, earning more Experience points. This board game is a great way to bring a fun and relaxed vibe to a party or casual get-together.

That's right - there's no rent to pay and no real estate to buy because, as it says on the front of the box, "Forget real estate. You can't afford to buy it anyway."

Experiences include a 3-day music festival, a friend's couch, a vegan bistro, bike share, and yoga studio. A hashtag and smiley face emoji are among the tokens. The person with the most student debt rolls first. Uncle Pennybags is wearing a participation ribbon.

Yikes.

The reaction has been less than appreciative.

Monopoly for Millennials [Walmart][Photos: Walmart/Hasbro] Read the rest

Writer and comedian Demi Adejuyigbe (The Good Place, The Late Late Show) explains how and why folks should vote in this cute PSA video.

Vote. It's not a test. It's ok to look at your phone, or bring a cheat sheet, or just leave stuff blank... After all, it's a free country... for now.

[Pssst... Register to vote.]

(Daring Fireball) Read the rest

The Chinese slang term jingfen means "spiritually Finnish." It was coined thanks to the popularity of an online comic called Finnish Nightmares. Liang Chenyu speculates why so many Chinese millennials identify with the comic. Read the rest

Like all minor league baseball teams, the Montgomery Biscuits, Double-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays, has a robust promotional schedule. There's Harry Potter Night, Christmas in July, and Star Wars night just to name a few. But Saturday night's promotion isn't going over well with a certain demographic. Read the rest

These chocolate bars are made with AVOCADO TOAST ?? pic.twitter.com/RlEvbA9A1y

— FOOD INSIDER (@InsiderFood) July 6, 2018

I'm pretty sure L.A.'s Compartés Chocolatier didn't stop to think if they should when they made their latest creation, the avocado toast chocolate bar ($9.95 each). In the video, you'll see to make this limited-edition bar that they literally throw avocado and toast into white chocolate.

Creamy white chocolate blended with premium California avocados and crunchy bits of caramelized toast create a crunchy, sweet unique chocolate sensation unlike anything you've ever tried before!

As much as I'd like to pooh-pooh this oddball mashup candy, I would totally try it. What can I say? I'm weak for weird sweets.

Read the rest

Fashion designer Virgil Abloh has been working on pieces for an upcoming IKEA collection. One of the first pieces to be unveiled is this pop-art rug that looks like an oversized shopping receipt.

Dezeen writes:

During IKEA's annual conference today, the brand revealed the first official photos for the upcoming Markerad collection, which has been in the works for over a year and is aimed at millennials...

The Markerad collection is due to hit stores in 2019. Other pieces in the range include slogan-covered rugs and Abloh's take on the IKEA Frakta bag.

In early May, HYPEBEAST shared this video of some of the other pieces in Abloh's collection for IKEA, including his slogan-covered rugs and that modified Frakta bag:

My first thoughts on the rug: I kind of love it but it's not long enough. IKEA receipts are like a mile long. Maybe it should've been a hallway runner instead.

image via Dezeen Read the rest

I'm not making this up: Crayola is making makeup.

Yep, in a partnership with young adult retail brand ASOS, Crayola now has a line of 58 vegan and cruelty-free beauty products, which includes "face crayons," mascara, highlighters, and eyeshadow palettes. Shades, such as Tumbleweed and Dandelion, match the names of actual Crayola crayons.

Elle notes the collection is "gender fluid," citing a press release about the line from ASOS. They also note that both men and women are shown wearing the product in the campaign's photos.

And no, you can't just use real crayons as makeup. They're not "designed, tested, or approved" for that purpose, according to the crayon giant's website.

(Mashable) Read the rest

Brian David Gilbert is the anxiety-laden voice of a generation in Shingle Jingle, the most upbeat song ever written about suffering from shingles outbreaks. Read the rest

A couple in Syracuse, New York have a 30-year-old son, Michael Rotondo, who is an unwanted guest in their house. He doesn't pay rent or any house expenses, he doesn't help out with the house chores, and he won't respond to five written requests from his parents to please move the fuck out already. They've even offered to help him out as he gets his new start, but he won't budge. So, at their wits' end, the parents are suing the boy.

According to Mashable:

The Rotondo parents say they've given their son Michael five notices over the past few months telling him to leave. They also told him that they'll help him if he does vacate.

However, the son is saying he legally wasn't given enough notice.

The neighbors in the area are siding with the parents. News 8 says resident Lashea Wright stated, "It's time. He's 30. And not paying rent. You need to be independent."

They will all go to court later this month, about seven weeks before Mikey's 31st birthday.

Image: Martin Taras. - DVD "Super Clásicos Infantiles"., Public Domain, Link

Correction: In an earlier version of this story I quoted Michael as saying, "Under this legal reasoning, my parents probably should have sued me when I was a kid." It was not Michael who said that, but Mashable in a bit of humor that I missed. Read the rest

Many parents were apparently too lazy to teach millennials how to do even the most basic DIY projects like how to use a tape measure, so Home Depot has released a series of videos based on popular millennial search terms. Read the rest

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that millennials have learned how to get free TV with a simple antenna, for a one-time cost of about $20. Us old-schoolers have known of this ancient wisdom since, well, forever but have neglected to pass down to the young'uns.

But the crazy thing is that it's not just young folks, the Journal consulted an industry group who estimate about a third of all Americans don't realize that local channels are free:

Let’s hear a round of applause for TV antennas, often called “rabbit ears,” a technology invented roughly seven decades ago, long before there was even a cord to be cut, which had been consigned to the technology trash can along with cassette tapes and VCRs.

The antenna is mounting a quiet comeback, propelled by a generation that never knew life before cable television, and who primarily watch Netflix , Hulu and HBO via the internet. Antenna sales in the U.S. are projected to rise 7% in 2017 to nearly 8 million units, according to the Consumer Technology Association, a trade group.

There is typically no need to climb on a rooftop. While some indoor antennas still look like old-fashioned rabbit ears, many modern antennas are thin sheets that can be hidden behind a flat TV or hung like a picture frame.

And, these modern ones are paintable... (?!)

Of course, if the commercials are getting to you, there's always this alternative:

Thanks, Laura!

Rabbit ear image via Amazon, smashed TV gif via Giphy Read the rest

The European Broadcasters' Union polled 500,000 18-25 year olds on the question, "Would you actively participate in a large scale uprising against the generation in power if it happened in the next days or months?" 53% answered yes. Read the rest

Freddy deBoer writes that he's been telling the same joke for years about Silicon Valley's only product, which might be universalized as "At last, a way to verb with nouns on the internet!" But the social-media techopoly is stable, now, and so the venture capitalists have moved on to the three terrible trends that will now occupy their interest.

First is infecting everything with DRM so it's controlled by the manufacturer and limited to their ecosystem. Second is charging rent for being in it and using algorithms to maximize it. Third is marketing workaholic poverty to the young as a way of life.

We Love Doers So Much We Want to Give Them a Hellish Existence of Endless Precarity

The basic idea here is that 40 years of stagnant wages, the decline of unions, the death of middle class blue collar jobs, the demise of pensions, and a general slide of the American working world into a PTSD-inducing horror show of limitless vulnerability has been too easy on workers. I’m sorry, Doers, or whatever the fuck. The true beauty of these ads is that they are all predicated on mythologizing the very workers who their service is intended to immisserate. Sorry about your medical debt; here’s a photo of a model who we paid in “exposure” over ad copy written by an intern who we paid in college credit that cost $3,000 a credit hour. Enjoy. The purpose of these companies is to take whatever tiny sense of social responsibility businesses might still feel to give people stable jobs and destroy it, replacing whatever remains of the permanent, salaried, benefit-enjoying workforce with an army of desperate freelancers who will never go to bed feeling secure in their financial future for their entire lives.

Most people think of millennials as minimalists, of sorts: either the hip sort or the poor sort. The New Yorker imagines: what would a millennial hoarder look like?

One quip really hit home for me: "A browser just for episode recaps of shows he never watches." I'm not sure if I've ever seen a single episode of ███████ ███ but I can quote chapter and verse from many—a simulation of experience mediated by the psychotic phemonema of the Internet, where work is not quite play and play not quite work, and even talking about it the way I am now turns out to be a nerdy joke about the pretentious way we talked about the Internet future in the 1990s. Read the rest