I woke up the other day and before I could even open my eyes properly, I was faced with the impossible.
It hit me as a stood butt-naked in front of my grubby bathroom mirror. It wasnât the sight of my fried, slept-in hair standing on end, or the dark yellow of my years-old retainer. Instead, it was a cursed collection of sleep lines running the length of my left cheek, kind of like the patterns you get on your arse cheeks after sitting on a deck chair too long.
They werenât exactly wrinkles, but they werenât not wrinkles. Iâd describe them as faint whispers politely reminding me that Iâm on the post-COVID side of twenty-five. I was more fascinated than bothered by them because, despite having a workable understanding of human biology, I didnât think pillow creases would be a part of my mortal journey, at least not during this decade.
They disappeared after a long hot shower, my skin bouncing back like a freshly steamed pair of pants. But the writing was on the wall.
They were a harbinger of a different kind of premature ageing, the kind that is far more visible and canât be remedied by Juvederm.
The internet kind.
Earlier this month, The Atlantic published a piece about a thing called the âMillennial Pauseâ.
Coined by the writer Kate Lindsay, it refers to the half-second pause millennials take between pressing record and speaking in front-facing videos. The phenomenon was first observed back in November on TikTok by cultural critic @nisipisa, who expressed her obsession âwith the fact that not even Taylor âTheâ Swift is immune to the inevitable millennial obligatory pause before you start talking in a TikTok to make sure itâs actually recordingâ with the glee of a creaseless Gen Z.
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There is no denying that the pause is real. Itâs true that Instagram and TikTok lag slightly when you go to record yourself using the front camera â but unlike Gen Z, Millennials are supposedly less likely to edit it out.
Since the article, hundreds of half-baked think pieces have been sharted out across the internet, with the majority of the analysis coming from Millennial journalists, bloggers and podcasters â presumably in an effort to distance themselves from this cheugy-type behaviour.
This leads me to another Millennial affliction Iâve observed in my many years as an internet addict who fries their brain by being online 24/7. And thatâs our propensity to dissect (and sensationalise) internet trends.
If the Millennial Internet is a festival, I am a groupie with a decade-long backstage pass. I have reported from every stage â Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Tumblr, Reddit, Habbo Hotel. And like every good side-of-stage girlie, Iâve seen the bands come and go. Some acts were too ahead of their time (Vine) and others held on, refusing to acknowledge their set had gone over (Facebook).
And so in keeping with my heritage, tonightâs newsletter will be an erratic exploration of where Australiaâs Millennial Internet ended and whether weâre still young enough to sit at the kidâs table (TikTok) without making fools of ourselves (using a trending sound incorrectly).
Letâs go.
My first professional foray into the internet was on June 29, 2015.
I was a media student interning at Fox FM in Melbourne. Iâd been assigned to the Creative Department â the one that came up with ideas for sponsored brand integration. I spent most days listening in on meetings, eating Nandoâs and writing the occasional advertorial for Mount Buller or Smiths Chips.
But on this particular day, I was assigned a task that would irrevocably alter the course of my non-existent career. My quasi-boss asked me to make a Vine-style video for Facebook. The opportunity to have my face blasted across the feeds of hundreds of thousands of Hughesy fans was too good to refuse. And so I went across the road to The Old Paper Shop Deli, bought an enormous slice of Snickers chocolate cake and got to work.
I came up with a ârelatableâ video about being on a diet (feels prophetic), refusing cake and then eventually caving and smearing it into every available hole.
The results were seismic. It received a level of engagement I could only dream of. At the time, Facebook was aggressively prioritising video content, resulting in this six-second spoof being served to almost everyone Iâd ever known. My favourite comment was from a woman who tagged her friend and asked her if I was the âchickâ they âalmost got into a punch on with on Chapel Street?â. The answer was yes.
I made a few more six seconds clips, but none hit like the first â rendering me hooked.
A few months later a job as a writer for PEDESTRIAN.TV came up. At the time, no one was doing it like Pedestrian. They were the first website to cater to modern Australian Millennials by blending narrative-lead news with irreverent humour. This was pre-Beetoota â when niche pop culture satire was in its infancy. Their small stable of writers all had an inimitable tone â the kind you canât teach. I was obsessed and needed to get that job.
I attached the above vine to my application and got the job, probably on the provision that I made more of them, which I did. Here lies another belter, titled âwhen you accidentally double tap your exâs pic from 32 weeks agoâ:
itâs giving cracked buzzfeed
I do believe that when the aliens look back at this millennium, they will see 2015 as the beginning of the future. Like Jesus, thereâs a BV (Before Video) and an AV (After Video).
In BV, there was still some meaningful separation between photo and video â YouTube was for clips and Instagram was for piccies and the occasional skit. I would credit Facebook for bridging the gap and becoming the first social media platform to combine both and blast us into the modern day. Throw a mysterious, inconsistent algorithm in the mix and you have the internet prototype Gen Z has come to expect.
If I had to compare TikTok to any of its social media predecessors, it would be Facebook in 2015. It was a gold rush era for creators â if you posted highly-relatable content regularly, youâd grow an audience. The same is true for current-day TikTok in that consistency is the cornerstone for clicks (or scrolls).
And like TikTok, this era of the internet was dominated by the cult of personality.
Kurt Coleman was being Perf Like Kurt⢠and inadvertently writing a guidebook on how to be your most obnoxious, narcissistic and iconic self.
Culture Machine was a nascent Hype House, âcreating contentâ before content creation was a job. They danced, did skits and looked hot.
Christian Hull was trumping the â10 things hairdressers sayâ niche and Alan Tsibulya was being effortlessly funny, imitating the Skinny Me Tea-style influencers who dominated that era. In Melbourne, Elliot Loney was bridging the gap between Vine and Facebook with his cooked tennis impersonations.
But perhaps the most modern influencer and personality was JadĂŠ Tuncdoruk. Iâm pretty sure she invented the concept of a âfinstaâ by creating two equally popular accounts â one for her slay pics, and the other for her self-deprecating, low-fi, selfie-style videos:
It is a humbling experience, to realise your generation is no longer captaining the internet. For the longest time, I considered myself a dual citizen, as though my birth year (1995) was a passport to both generations.
But the ruse is up â I am a millennial, for better or worse.
Like the pillow-creased face, I logically knew this time would come. Thankfully, a whole new raft of internet queenies and boybosses are slaying just as hard.
Some highlights:
Do you remember when St Kevins got dragged for (allegedly) being one of Melbourneâs most toxic boysâ schools? Well, itâs easy to forget that upon witnessing @baddiecuzyoucouldnever. His videos are simple Heaven. I am half-convinced they gave him a full scholarship just to bring some slay and rewrite the schoolâs narrative:
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Overseas, I am obsessed with @mitsy270. She is a 21-year-old TikTokker/fashion student who makes these completely cracked, hyper-specific character videos. My favourite is Anime Girl:
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I consider her the ultimate Gen Z internet genius because she also does GRWM (thatâs Get Ready For Me for the Gen X subscribers) videos that are similarly fascinating:
And finally, the most exciting development Iâve witnessed during my brief glimpses into Gen Z internet: the use of incomprehensible sounds. These canât be explained, but they are perfect. Absolute brain brilliance.
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And thatâs that.
May we sleep well â creased or otherwise â content in the knowledge that we have a new generation to wedgie.
So good
wow this is good