Disclaimer: I am not American. I am British. If you are of the view that I must, by definition, be some limp-wristed socialist limey who can’t possibly understand American economics, social history or politics, please stop reading. Venting at me will only get you blocked.

So the whole talia jane thing has caused a minor flurry of activity on social media among people who think that sort of thing matters. I am one of those people, but it’s always good to remember that the vast majority of people couldn’t care less.

I sent Talia some money, which she accepted. Since then I have read quite a lot of rebuttal, ranging from thought out articles to simple rudeness (in my view, there is never a good reason to call another human being pathetic — at least not in the sense that has been much used). Some of this has given me pause, but some of it has reconfirmed my initial motives. And crucially, most of it talks about millennials.

Firstly, what the fuck is a millennial anyway? I was alive at the turn of the century, but I doubt it includes me. My son was born in December 1999, which seems pretty definitively millennial, but I suspect he’s too young. It’s an amorphous and undefined blob that seems to be “a group of young people that contains anyone the speaker/writer doesn’t like”.

The principle objection seems to be to ‘entitled millennials’ demanding things that they have not earned. Well, I can deal with that easily from my perspective. I have been following Talia on twitter for a long time, although Twitter doesn’t seem to keep records on when. I have exchanged tweets, and she has made me laugh on many occasions, but I do not delude myself that we are friends. If it were a meatspace friendship I would undoubtedly have spent more on travel, etc., than I donated. Since we are not friends, a better analogy is that if it were an evening with a professional entertainer, again it would be more. The money I sent is good value, thanks.

More importantly, to me, is that I take exception to the tone used about millennials in general. Those of older generations who complain do so as if people born in the 90s did so in a vacuum. If (and I hold that ‘If’ since I don’t entirely accept the premise) that group do feel entitled to self-actualisation, to the cult of the self, who led them as a generation to believe that? There is a simple answer to that — we did. The children of the 90s are the children of people who were themselves teenagers and young adults in the period of consistent economic growth, rampant commercialism, cheap credit and the worship of the private over the public in all things.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher created an economic and social revolution in which we are all the most important thing in the world. There is no such thing as society, we were told. Are we really in a position to look at the generation born into the fruition of that philosophy and seem surprised if they believe it? We told this generation that it would be richer than we were, even though we were rich enough, and that they were the next masters of the universe. Talia’s moments of self-indulgence (which I don’t deny are there) are a product of that, and no worse than many I have heard elsewhere.

And to the many who point out that Talia has, on at least one occasion, owned a bottle of Bulleit, I would say you really need to understand better. I was once poor. Not “starving on the street” poor, but certainly “paycheck to paycheck” poor, and certainly “borrowing money from my grandparents to avoid bailiff” poor. I had a job that paid below a living wage, a recent separation and a young son. We’re going back a way here, so I didn’t have the opportunities to speak out that Talia has had, but I certainly recognise the anger.

While I was poor, I bought stuff. Sometimes, stuff I didn’t really need. Sometimes stuff that was probably considered ‘high end’. I certainly bought a stereo, and I bought more Strongbow than was good for me. I smoked heavily, and it was Marlboro rather than a discount brand. As I sat in my bedsit, thinking about the absolutely miserable job that I would be going to in the morning, these tiny things made me feel almost like perhaps life was OK. I am not going to judge someone on a low wage buying a bottle of bourbon. Nor am I going to judge them making cupcakes. If that’s the best you’ve got to throw, I think it’s pretty minor.

As for people who complain about her tweeting a lot… bar the carrier costs, isn’t that free? Are we seriously saying that the poor should not be allowed freedom of expression? Seriously… move on.

There is a general tone of “I worked hard, so should you”. I tend to agree. I work hard, and I have worked hard ever since the days I describe above. That doesn’t give me the right to judge someone else’s actions, or to assume that they don’t work hard. Talia doesn’t complain about working hard in her original letter. She just points out that the income paid by her job doesn’t enable a minimum standard of living without relying on a level of debt that is probably not sustainable. She also had no apparent intention of quitting the job, at least not that can be inferred from the letter. What I am saying is judge based on the actual evidence you have, not on assumptions about intent and context that you are making.

None of the rebuttals I have read seem to address the point. No-one seems to be saying “Hang on… why is it that life has become so hard that getting multiple jobs, sacrificing more and more of your personal time to someone else’s business, is the default expectation?”. No-one I have read has asked whether, just perhaps, the system is skewed against the young, or whether society has built the expectations of the young without considering how to meet them. I have been to San Francisco once for a day. In that time I saw more homeless people than I have seen in London in a year, perhaps longer. To me, that raises a question about whether the systems there are working, but I understand that I am not in a position to ask them, and certainly not to proffer solutions. All I can do is recognise that I have escaped the exact trap that Talia describes, and try and pay a bit of my good fortune on to someone who needs it.

I am confident that some will read this and assume I am trying to portray myself as a saint. I’m not. I wallow in self pity sometimes, I show off about my travel and career successes a bit too much, I buy shit I don’t need, I don’t do as much for good causes as I would like. Feel free to raid my Twitter feed for evidence of things that confirm that I just don’t get it: pro-European, feminist, probably a socialist, rubbish sense of humour in hashtag games. Whatever. None of that matters.