# On Millennial Snot  ## Metadata - Author: [[Dudley Newright]] - Full Title: On Millennial Snot - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Summary: The term "Millennial Snot" describes the juvenile and condescending way many modern liberals communicate, often using trendy slang and snarky remarks. This speech style reflects a mix of superiority and resentment, undermining serious discourse. As younger generations start to mock this way of speaking, it's clear that this trend may be fading. - URL: https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/on-millennial-snot - Source File: web-only ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > A lot of this boils down to an inability to age with grace. Millennials are now moving into their 40s and growing old and frumpy is especially difficult for them because the cultural distance between millennials and their parents was wider than any generational divide since the 60s. Millennials grew up with the internet and access to digital communities their clueless parents didn’t know about. They took pride in being “in the know” in a way that their parents were not, and as millennials grew up, this need for knowingness extended beyond fashion and into politics. On top of this, they are the first generation to grow up alongside social media and selfies. A new digital panopticon constantly gazes upon them, and forces them to compare themselves with ever younger, fresher faces. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jcreyfpqyqzrm3wteddm0ecd)) > Meanwhile, millennials got shafted by a number of economic trends outside their control (9/11, the 2007-2008 financial crisis, a pandemic and an ongoing housing shortage – this rundown will be familiar to anyone who’s read an article about the generation), which hamstrung their ability to achieve traditional life milestones like marriage and procreation on time. How does one cope with the economic stasis or even downward mobility that results? They know that they’re supposed to be growing up and taking on responsibility, but they can’t, so many seem to live in a perpetual adolescence. They literally [look younger](https://www.vogue.com/article/why-do-millennials-seem-younger-than-they-are) than previous generations, with neotenous faces and fashions like pink hair and piercings that their elders were more likely to shelve as they transitioned into adulthood. Elder millennials (now in their 40s) don’t just listen to but identify with and parasocially “stan” teen pop stars. Maybe writing like a sassy teenager is just another expression of this desire to stay young at all costs. Maybe because worshiping an increasingly distant youth is less painful than facing the reality that you’re middle aged and still treading water. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jcrezvmz6s5z8z04zf3y0c4w)) > The obsession with data is a pretext for the reality of the liberal position, which is that any grievance expressed in terms that lie outside the current window of acceptable liberal discourse is simply not valid – it’s false consciousness, it’s mis/disinformation, it’s problematic, it’s stochastic terror. Political difference is a matter of some people being *incorrect* – If you only possessed the right knowledge, saw the right charts, the right facts, you’d change your mind. Political conflict, to the modern liberal, is not about struggle for finite resources, insoluble moral differences, or fundamental divergences in our conception of what America ought to be. It’s only a failure of half the country – a bunch of dumb hicks – to know what’s good for them. The grand liberal challenge has been recast as an effort not to improve the material conditions of the unwashed masses “clinging to their guns and religion,” but to enlighten them so hard that they rewire their minds. Compromise is now impossible, because only one position is correct. And when reality does not comport with the liberal worldview, when data fails to tell the story liberals want to tell, when the chuds stubbornly refuse to get with the program, the only tactic that remains is policing group boundaries via shame and ridicule of the outgroup. If I can’t persuade you to agree, I’ll publically humiliate you until you learn your lesson. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jcrf8cahyf364zwk5bpa74d7)) > The nihilistic 90s were coming to a close, and the world seemed ready for a newsman who’d openly express how stupid everything is. The Daily Show’s original host Craig Kilbourne satirized the format of the news, skewering public figures regardless of political orientation. Stewart took a more partisan approach, and after George W. Bush came to power – and especially after 9/11 – intuited that a portion of America longed to be told that everything sucked and the world was falling apart because of the stupid people in power and their dumb redneck supporters. So the show became about validating the superior intelligence of the liberal PMC. More than any other figure, Stewart shaped the liberal attitude toward conservative voters as contemptible, hapless rubes who deserve relentless mockery. His Daily Show run normalized bitchy snark as the default mode of liberal discourse. Watching Stewart get big “clapter” for this stuff every weeknight trained a whole generation to “dunk” as praxis. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jcrfaz4kmcsyw6pw3bjmy660)) > [ >  > ](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5f878e71-66d6-498f-9470-2a3cb097d388_605x616.png) > It’s juvenile and snotty like Bart Simpson, while also impressed by its own knowingness like Lisa. It’s lazily quippy, like Sorkin or Whedon dialogue, bolting a facsimile of wit onto otherwise unimpressive, self-flattering platitudes. It’s an establishment shill who thinks she’s a rebel. It’s the teacher’s pet who thinks she’s the class clown. It is the voice of a person whose morality can be reduced to whether or not something is a “good look.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jcrffm7hq8xwjzbm76crppgk))