I hail from an era when a mouse was just a
small rodent, an apple was fruit, a Mac was a raincoat and a cursor was someone
who said ‘fuck’ a lot.
Hipsters I think were a brand of jeans.
The millennials are creating a new language
that I sometimes struggle to comprehend and some of them are really pissing me off.
The
word ‘millennial’ is not recognised by the spell-check function. A red
underscore appears under the word every time I write it.
Millennial.
Shit.
It
just did it again.
This is
annoying but unsurprising.
Much
of what the millennials do and say is contrived, abbreviated, incoherent or
disposable.
They
are relentless in their pursuit of Apps believing that this is the way to
instant fame and fortune.
It
probably is.
It is
really annoying that the word “App” has been accepted by my spell check
function.
A
young colleague of mine recently bought to my attention the fact that Airbnb
had created an Asian headquarters here in Singapore and that they were
recruiting for personnel. She showed me an advertisement for a role titled
“Regional Head of Trust & Safety” and commented that it would be impossible
to even get an interview for such a company.
I
assured her it would be easy.
She
expressed doubt so to prove my point I immediately write an application email
and sent it off. I used the words ‘awesome’ liberally in my letter and I was
asked to be available for a Skype interview with a guy in San Francisco within
fourty-eight hours.
The
email invitation I think had more ‘awesomes’ in it than my letter.
The
position description of the role that was forwarded to me was drivel and it was
very quickly apparent that I would never want to work for Airbnb. I thought the
interview would be amusing though and it certainly was.
My
interview was with an Indian American guy named Dwayne.
He was
a Bombay type of Indian rather than the red skin native type.
The
desire to scalp him though was powerful.
As I
suspected Dwayne was in his twenties and was a dweeb.
I knew
that he was going to ask me all sorts of strange millennial type interview
questions and I was prepared for the bizarre.
I have
been around the block a few times and have been on the other side of the desk
many times in my life.
I went
on the attack from the opening and started to interview Dwayne.
“Good evening to you Dwayne” I started with.
“How long have you been with Airbnb and
did you come from Google or Apple?”
He
looked alarmed.
“I have been here six months from Google” he stuttered.
“Nice one” I replied.
“That’s a very brave move – Google are a
dynamic and brilliant and awesome and enviable company so I can assume you
moved so you could be there to cash in on the inevitable float? You are
enjoying life there at Airbnb? Is it awesome?”
“It is awesome” he replied without answering
either of my questions
“Will the lawsuits ever end there in the
US do you think on the fact that your providers are disrupting the hotel
industry and are not paying tax?”
“I’m not sure,” confessed Dwayne.
“I think we have resolved things in New
York” he
added.
“No you haven’t actually Dwayne” I responded.
You don’t really think that the public
are swallowing the idea that Airbnb and Uber are actually altruistic and have
purposely created this ‘sharing economy’ concept do you Dwayne?”
He
looked quite panicked at the question and shuffled some papers at his desk.
“I’m not sure,” he repeated.
“I’m only new here”
“The new ads you have are a bit creepy
though you must admit though Dwayne aren’t they?” I persisted
He
didn’t say anything.
“I mean things like ‘go look through
their windows so you can share their views’ is a bit weird but ‘sleep in their
beds so that you may know their dreams’ is a shocker don’t you think?”
I got
nothing back.
I
could however begin to smell his fear.
“Perhaps I could ask you some questions
Peter” Dwayne
said in a trembling voice.
“Sure Dwayne. Fire away”
“What do you know about Airbnb and its
growth?”
“It is a phenomena” I unhesitatingly replied.
“I understand that like many Apps it was
conceived by a couple of Californian geeks who lucked out on a concept that has
been tried before but rumor has it that they succeeded by black hatting off
Craig’s List accommodation lists and then it all took off with the London
Olympics”
Black
hatting is an Internet geek thing that secretly mirrors another site and
bounces them to a host site.
“Do you think the black hatting is true
Dwayne?”
“I don’t know” he stuttered.
We
walked through a couple of mundane questions about my professional background before
Dwayne shuffled to a page with the silly questions that I knew he would
inevitably ask.
He
wasn’t very confident by this stage.
“If you were an animal what sort of
animal would you be?” he
enquired.
That
old chestnut.
“I would be a wombat Dwayne. The type
that eats roots and leaves.”
This
is an Australian joke that few Americans would understand.
“There is no acrimony in the wombat world
Dwayne” I
added.
“I see” he muttered and made some furious notes.
It was
obvious that he had no idea what a wombat was.
“If someone sitting next to you on a
plane persisted in using their cell phone well after the announcement to turn
it off because the plane was landing what would you do?” Dwayne asked me anxiously.
“I would immediately set them on fire” I retorted straight back.
Dwayne
looked visibly shocked and he again made some furious notes.
We
eventually got around to talking about the role on offer and when Dwayne asked
me what I thought the position would entail I suggested that it would be likely
rapidly leading teams that dealt with Airbnb people’s complaints about their
houses being used as crack dens and pop up brothels and trying to keep such
news out of the media.
When
he asked me why I would like to work for Airbnb I told him that I was most
attracted by not only being able to ride my skateboard to work but also being
allowed to ride it at work as well.
My
responses seemed to trigger yet another frenzy of note taking and I tried not
to giggle.
The
interview concluded not longer after that and within a couple of hours I
received my machine written rejection email.
I was
delighted.
A
gaggle of Dwayne-like millennials of the Singaporean version intruded into my
otherwise peaceful morning coffee today whilst I was sipping on my double shot
vanilla latte.
My
tranquility was interrupted by noisy and unpleasant diatribe.
At
first I thought the millennials were speaking a convoluted form of Singlish and
it was to a certain degree as there were a smattering of ‘la’s’ and ‘cans’ that
were interspersed.
The
millennials have however come up with their own more diabolical universal language.
“Dat”
is “that” and “doe” is “though” and there are a whole heap of silly acronyms
that they throw around like confetti.
BAE is
‘before anyone else’, FTW is ‘for the win’ and IRL is “in real life’.
BAE is
actually said ‘bae’ rather than spelled out as “B”, “A” “E” – and it is
actually a reference to one’s partner – as in boy or girl friend.
I
know.
For
fuck’s sake.
The
IRL is not particularly relevant for much of what the millennials do is digital
or on the Internet.
It is
their thing.
A
millennial is simply a young person.
Young
adults.
‘Adult
children’ is probably a more adequate and accurate description.
The
millennial define themselves as anyone born between they years 1980 and 2000
and they consider themselves the new ‘boom’ because of their instant connection
on digital media.
Millennials
believe they are ‘on fleek’ – which
in millennial speak – means they believe they are pretty much perfect. They
think they rule the world, which is quite possibly true and perhaps it is why
it is in such a despicable state, and to many pre-millennials like me – it is
quite a worry.
This
is the Twitter generation and they are without doubt twits.
The
millennial believes that anything that can’t be expressed in less than 140
characters is not worth reading.
They
even have an acronym for this.
TLDR
“Too
long didn’t read it”
There
goes books.
This
is one of the prime sources of my annoyance.
The
millennials are an abbreviated generation where ADHD seems to be embraced.
The
noisy millennials at the table adjacent to mine were actually hipsters.
Hipsters
are a sub class of millennials.
The hipster
subculture typically consists of white millennials living in urban area.
The subculture has been described as a "mutating, trans-Atlantic melting
pot of styles, tastes and behavior" and is broadly associated with indie and alternative music, a varied
non-mainstream fashion sensibility (including vintage and thrift store-bought
clothes), generally progressive political views, organic and artisanal foods,
and alternative lifestyles.
Hipsters are typically described as affluent
or middle-class young Bohemians who reside in gentrifying neighborhoods.
They were however born with proverbial silver
spoons and I would think they still have mummy dependencies.
Strangely, there seem to be many more male
millennials than females – so there is hope that they will last less than one
generation.
The
hipsters are the most irritating of all millennials that I have encountered.
The millennials seem to be a condescending and
disparaging bunch. There is a fine line between confidence and arrogance, which
the millennials like to tread.
I like confidence in people.
Arrogance - not so much.
The millennial term ‘thot’ refers to ‘that ho (whore) over there”. Many people and
things are ‘ratchet’ to the
millennials – which means they are not up to the millennial standard.
Nice.
Not.
Fuckers.
From my experience millennials are very fond
of body piercings and tattoos and they get greatly distraught when they are
disconnected from the Internet.
It is their reason for existence.
They have the attention spans of laboratory
rats except when it comes to messaging each other – as long as the text isn’t
too long. They are detrimental to people who work out in the gym too much and
refer to such people as ‘too swole’.
They also often refer to themselves in the first person, they confuse their
participles and their conversations are littered with some very irritating
jargon.
I know most of this because I was eavesdropping
on the group at Starbucks.
I was translating much of what I heard on
Google.
All four of the hipsters were conversing with
each other whilst playing with their mobile phones.
They occasionally squealed, took a lot of
selfies and then squealed some more.
I was completely unsurprised when one of them
took out a selfie stick and group photographs were taken.
Like much of the millennial jargon the word
‘selfies’ is also not being recognised by the spellcheck function on my Mac. My
pages are full of jagged and most unattractive red underscored words.
It is a terrible thing.
I overheard one little fellow attired in
bright yellow pants, a luminescent green shirt and a polka dotted bow tie announce
to his other little friends, “Like I’m going
to make things happening today. Boom”
The little friends responded with their own
acknowledging “booms”
I gave a small ‘boom’ and a chuckle myself which caused the hipsters to turn and
gawk at me.
I have been living on the Island long enough
to master the long-blank-look and with ease I stared them down.
Millennials tend to use the word ‘like’ a lot in their conversations.
I don’t like it.
When I lit up a cigarette in and blew smoke
in their general direction one of the hipsters turned to me and asked me if I
knew that I was seated at a non-smoking table.
I took a deep drag before I affirmed that I
did then we did the staring thing again.
Trite I know.
I was a bit grumpy.
“Will
you put that cigarette out compadre?” yellow
pants squealed at me.
“Cannot
la” I replied in perfect Singlish.
“Boom” I added for hipster emphasis.
“I will
tell the manager” one of his companions squeaked.
“I will give
a fuck” I retorted.
There was another stare off before the
millennials as one started playing with their devices.
I suspect that at least one of the hipsters
took my photo on their little devices whilst I was ashing my cigarette and I
will likely appear on ‘Stomp’ before the day is out.
Stomp is a
Singaporean Web site where locals and any resident or visitor to Singapore can
electronically dob. They take photos of things that aggrieve them with their
mobile phones and they post these pictures on the Stomp Web page. The
Singaporeans love it.
They really do.
I have been
Stomped several times in my years of living on the Island and I don’t mind a
bit.
I have been
Stomped for threatening to set a young Singaporean man on fire on the train
when he refused to give up his seat to a pregnant woman and also for jay
walking across the street on which I live.
Dobbing is an Australian
term that means to tattle or to squeal. Dobbing is to tell the Authorities and
to inform the masses of someone else's wrong doings.
The act of dobbing
is not well regarded amongst the Australian community.
To be regarded as
a dobber is somewhat derogatory.
It is a bit
sneaky.
We have all done
it though.
In Australian
households it usually starts at home as children and particularly amongst
siblings.
My sister Jane was
a dobber.
"Muuuuuum",
she would
often wail.
"Peter
pulled the head off my barbie".
Or when she would
witness me stealing cigarettes from the packet my father may have left on the
kitchen bench.
"I'm going
to tell Dad on you"
And then she
would.
Tell Dad on me.
The Singaporean
equivalent of dobbing is Stomping.
The word 'stomp'
is a derivation of the word 'stamp'.
Its origins are
Germanic. To 'stampfen' means "to stomp'.
To me it
conjures up unpleasant images of German Nazis kicking poor Jewish people during
the holocaust or skinhead gangs brutally laying their boots into some poor
immigrant in horrible acts of violence.
An excellent
Australian film called 'Romper Stomper' was made in 1992 and was about a group
of Neo-Nazi skinheads who terrorized immigrant Vietnamese in suburban
Melbourne. The film was low budget and featured a very young actor named
Russell Crowe. He starred in his role as 'Hando' the skinhead gang leader.
Tragically he has
not made a decent film since.
When I finished my
cup of coffee I realized that the hipsters weren’t going anywhere anytime soon
so my peaceful tranquility was over.
I stood up and
walked past their table and I couldn’t resist lunging a little and growling in
an animalistic and semi threatening way.
They predictably
squealed in unison.
“Boom”
I chuckled as I walked away.