The “we” generation: California millennials migrate en mass to communes
In a recent poll, an alarming number of California millennials report that their 5-year plan is: “Fuck it, let’s start a permaculture commune.” Experts struggle to explain the phenomenon, as thousands of millennials ditch their jobs and apartments to build self-composting toilets, retrofit old school buses, and play badly-tuned banjos in their communes’ “chill hammock area.”
“We didn’t want to be the ‘Me’ generation anymore,” explains 24-year old caucasian male, Skyler Tumbleweed who recently quit his sales job to join the Santa Cruz-based commune Phishes Against the Stream. Tumbleweed was working long hours, with worsening spinal column disintegration and chronic bloody eye spasms — all so he could afford Ikea’s sleek GROINSWAAN ÖGLAK dish set, drink a few cold IPAs on the weekend, and find a girlfriend who is both “beautiful and kind.”
“One day I thought: instead of spending 50 hours a week scrolling through spreadsheets in a state of existential distress all so I can get the beers and minimalist dishware I want — why don’t I homebrew my own IPAs with a few pals, make my own pottery, and have some extra time to learn Bon Iver covers on the acoustic guitar. Ultimately this will lead to a more spiritually satisfying sexual relationship,” says Tumbleweed.
Stanford Business School researchers hypothesize that the communal living movement, in part, is an unintended consequence of the just-be-your-kooky-self-and-eat-free-sushi startup culture that has swept Silicon Valley offices and beyond.
Last month, for example, all 43 employees of the startup Box Box resigned and founded “Out of the Box” — a commune based out of a series of interconnected house boats in Marin County.
“What did Box Box think was going to happen?” said former employee Coco Willowby, who went from User Behavioral Manipulation Lead to Hummus-Making Facilitator at the commune. “Our office was a trendy warehouse full of furry beanbags and minigolf puts. Every two hours a man on a unicycle delivered us cookies.”
Box Box founder, Richard Shivers, is unable to explain the mass resignation. “I’m at a loss for why anyone would leave Box Box. We always told our employees that personal fulfillment comes first, and that we don’t stand for boring haircuts. Because big ideas come from two places: the unleashing of human creativity, and miniature succulent desk plants.”
The former employees of Box Box argue they are taking the company’s message to its natural conclusion. “Now we spend more time fulfilling ourselves and each other, creatively and sustainably, and less time convincing people they need to buy a Box Box, which they absolutely don’t. Deep down, I think we knew that all along.”
Operating a farm stand and bakery, the 43 members of the Out of the Box community now only need to earn $200,000 collectively, as opposed to individually, in order to survive in the Bay Area.
Troubled by the trend, Silicon Valley executives and investors are currently raising funds to support a counter-revolution. They’re giving out large grants to industrious millennials willing to live alone in spacious, under-furnished apartments. The strategy is to reward these bright individuals with cool hoodies, while gradually breaking their idealism with low doses of anxiety hormones and free beer.
“The idea is to maintain a constant low level of anxiety in their systems, so they’ll be optimally productive at the office, and then retreat to watch netflix in their isolated apartments full of old take-out containers that they’re too emotionally exhausted to do anything about,” comments investor Maximillion Spatt.
Investors hope this approach will prevent others from “thinking too outside of the Box Box,” describes Spatt. “These stubborn young idealists are walking away from the opportunity of a lifetime to work for the greatest power on the planet.”
Spatt explains that Facebook, Google, and Amazon are in the process of merging into a single corporate juggernaut, more powerful than any political body on earth: Fooglazon.
“The business model is to distract people by selling them drone-delivered cupcakes and apps that allow you to 3D print your own pet, while we gradually centralize all wealth on earth into our own hands without anyone noticing,” explains Spatt.
Out of the Box member Willowby isn’t worried. “Fooglazon can and will do all of that. But when it all comes crashing down, we’ll still be here on our interconnected houseboats, enjoying our home-grown baby bok choy.”
