I haven’t finished reading this, and I’ve never heard of The Outline, but I have this to say: SO MUCH of how we relate to the world is through the stories we tell ourselves, and the symbols we carry around in our brains. The patriotic Minuteman, leaving his plow and grabbing his flintlock rifle to fight the British; the misdirected millennial; Jesus with a ray of sunshine shining down on him from a cloud; and on and on. We simplify. Our stories are filled with cartoon characters. (Even my stories.)

https://theoutline.com/post/3840/frugalwoods-frugality-millennials

«So the Frugalwoods appear to be doing pretty well for themselves. And if their story carries a whiff of déjà vu, that’s probably it slots neatly into a classist myth that millions of adults in this country still believe: the story of the American Millennial.

It goes like this. The 2008 recession may have cratered the wages and employment prospects for people just entering the job market, but according to the myth of the American Millennial, the real problem young people have today is themselves. Nearly a decade after the crash, the mainstream media still seems hell-bent on portraying people born between 1982 and 2004 as a bunch of decadent and “fun-employed” narcissists who piss their parents’ money away on matcha green tea lattes, spend too much time Instagramming their pets, and are thus responsible for the economic rut they’re stuck in.»