whiny millenial brat responds to radar's "call to arms"

Kidding, kidding!

Alex Pareene makes some valid points, chief among them that this is more of the same old bashing bullshit that we lashed out against when it was directed at us by Boomers (which I acknowledged in my original post).

Also that the parents of many Millenials aren't Boomers, but early Xers. So the problem of Millenials being "silly, vain, shallow, and self-important after one too many 'you're just sooooo special!' notes in our collective lunchbox" (as a LJ friend of mine so brilliantly put it) can't be laid at the feet of the Boomers alone. Possibly we overcompensated, after an adolescenece and young adulthood spent feeling like the unwanted redheaded stepchildren of America.

Millennials are the first generation whose every dumb mistake is archived forever on computer networks.
I will totally give him that. I've often thanked the universe that most of my dumb youth was behind me by the time the internet became an everyday reality, and was long gone by the time social networking and YouTube became common.

But then he loses me when he slams grunge. Only someone who didn't have to grow up surrounded by talentless hair-metal bands like Poison and Ratt would fail to acknowledge the debt we all owe to grunge. As my brother David put it: I never cared for the music, but I'm glad the movement existed, because it single-handedly made hair-metal irrelevant. All those fuckers woke up unemployed the day after "Smells Like Teen Spirit" landed in the #1 Billboard slot. (Of course, they all eventually found a second life in reality teevee, which is another crime that Generation X will no doubt one day have to pay for. But my original point is still valid!)

Generation X invented the very concept of selling out.
Dude, come on. We did not. I bet artists have been arguing about "selling out" since cavemen painted on rocks. That shit is universal.

In 1997, the Times looked at Mentos and Hanson and called us "edgeless." They dragged out Generation X rep Douglas Coupland to call us all uncool for liking the Spice Girls. We were little kids! Sorry I wasn't an edgy 12-year-old, Doug!
True, and again: acknowledged. The youngest Millenial is only 6, I think it's a little early to pass a sweeping judgement on all 80 million of them.

During the elections you guys represented the "youth vote"; we got stiff old Baby Boomers.
Well, who were we going to vote into office, someone of our generation? Somone who would have been, max, 31 in 1992? Besides, I don't regret campaigning for Bill Clinton. That horny old skirt-chaser gave us 8 freakin' years of peace and prosperity. If I had it to do all over again, I would.

Plus, it's cute how he thinks today's politicians are any different. You can wrap Obama up in the glittery rainbow of "Change!"--and keep in mind I support him myself--but in the end, he's not going to be radically different. The more things change, the more they don't, Alex. You should read A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

People keep calling us the first generation that will do worse than its parents.
Are you fucking kidding me? Generation X has been hearing this since I graduated to a sippy cup.