One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In

Kate Kennedy references a 2013 Time magazine article titled “The Me Me Me Generation” in the introduction. The piece was the magazine’s cover story at the time, and its subtitle asserted that “Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents” (10). Kennedy references the article to establish the ways in which millennials have been regarded by the dominant culture throughout the mid-late aughts. She argues that this article and its central claims went on to inspire journalists “throughout the next several years to position changes in the marketplace as millennials killing off entire industries” (10). Kennedy sets out to debunk these theories. Throughout the subsequent essays, she argues that millennials are not as self-involved and unmotivated as older generations have presented them to be. Time’s article therefore serves as an entry point to many of Kennedy’s overarching explorations of the millennial experience and identity.

The Teen Talk Barbie was a doll put out by Mattel in the early nineties. Kennedy references the doll in the essay “Limited To,” and uses it as an entry point to her examination of pop culture’s impact on young girls’ senses of self. The Teen Talk Barbie was Mattel’s “first talking doll in decades” and was programmed with 270 phrases (23).