What I learned about being a millennial from 'Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X'

By Isha Aran  |  September 22, 2016 | 4:24pm
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Last night marked the premiere of one of America’s longest running and greatest reality competition shows, America’s Next Top Model Survivor. Over the course of 33 seasons, producers have tinkered with their formula for the “ultimate social experiment,” like that one time they divided the tribes up by race as a way of addressing a lack of diversity or just giving that one dude a million dollars because he was popular. But this season marks the ultimate battle: Millennials versus Gen X.

Yeah, imagine being stuck on an island with the most murderous generation of all time (18-32) and then being stuck on another part of the same island with the generation that loves complaining about them (33-52). While the players learn to “Outwit, outplay, and outlast” the competition, I was too busy learning what it truly meant to be a millennial. Thanks Jeff Probst’s cavernous dimples!

For example, the very first voice on the show (that didn’t belong to Probst) was that of Taylor, a former beekeeper and beer brewer, current snowboard instructor, and self-described Peter Pan type who will never grow up. Great. “My generation: it’s all about doing what you want to do,” he says, not giving a freak what anyone thinks.

Pro-gamer Mari (who actually seems dope) said,  “This is the best generation ever.” Nice dude. Let’s take it over to the Gen X-ers who didn’t have too much to say about themselves that wasn’t a direct hit at millennials!

Sunday, a youth pastor, noted that the millennials are, “a little more que será Será, if it takes me seven years to do school, who cares, my parents are paying for it!”

Paul, the oldest of the bunch had this to say: “In my generation, we didn’t always get a trophy if we didn’t win. Only the winners got trophies. You had to go through without an iPod, without an app for this an app for that. You actually had to walk to the store to get milk, it didn’t come in a drone.”

Really looking forward to my milk drone, but I hope the milk is almond and the drone is gluten free! Cece agreed with Paul, saying of millennials, “They don’t work for anything. Everything is handed to them.”

Of course there’s one young man who is reluctant to call himself a millennial because there’s just gotta be. Zeke, a 28-year-old asset manager who hates Twitter even though he’s on it (welcome to the dang club my dude). “I’m not dressed for the youth parade,” he said, sporting a mustache and a Hawaiian shirt. “I’m dressed for the singles mixer at the Miami retirement center. I am an 80-year-old man at heart,” he said, echoing the second most millennially sentiment, following our indignation at the lack of participation trophies. Here’s Zeke, btw:

While the millennials did win the immunity challenge by not taking as many shortcuts as the Gen X team did (I see what you did there CBS), so far, the millennials have been kind of disappointing. This isn’t necessarily because they represent me too well or because they seem to lack any self awareness (which makes for great television), but because so far on this dreary, stormy island, there have been zero 69 jokes and zero 420 jokes. At least there haven’t been any goddamn Harambe references.

I guess my thoughts on this season can be summed up by Michaela:

 
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