Mythical Millennial #20: The crisp, refreshing taste of ignorance

I usually don’t wake up in the morning and instantly feel a sense of unbridled, feral outrage. However, Kendall Jenner’s recent Pepsi campaign has brazenly slapped us all in the face with their mockery of ‘wokeness’, so I find myself sitting in front of my screen, red-faced.

The video invokes an iconic photo from the Black Lives Matter movement — of protester Ieshia Evans being arrested in front of armed police in Baton Rouge. The message? Offer a cop a Pepsi cos’ peaceful resistance is lit, fam!

This isn’t the first time a brand has ridden on the coat-tails of political movements for commercial sales and it won’t be the last. (Hello Nike Pro Hijabs, Vogue’s so-called ‘Diversity’ cover, and heck,Coke’s 1971 Vietnam War advert). Insincere ‘woke’ campaigns are a natural product of the current times. However, there’s something particularly awful about co-opting a movement that has beenborn out of national pain.

This ad is beyond offensive — and it probably knows it is. No PR disaster can bring down brands of this magnitude, so you might as well do something that’ll get people talkin’. I weep.

Speaking of weeping, Google recently released their latest report on Generation Z (the one after millennials, apparently). The title? ‘It’s Lit: A Guide to What Teens Think is Cool’. Insert that Steve Buscemi GIF everyone uses here.

Moving swiftly on, the consumer trends and marketing team Think with Google surveyed around 1,000 US teens (13–17 year olds) who were asked to rank 122 brands in terms of coolness. I dunno guys. I feel like if you have to read a report to ascertain what young people think is ~cool~, you might be missing a trick. Especially since Google itself is sitting pretty at the no. 3 spot of ‘coolest brands’. Huh. Would ya look at that.

The funniest part of this whole thing is how Vice, the publication whose whole schtick is being the embodiment of cool, found itself in the lonely, least-cool, least-brand-awareness corner of the big coolness graph Google generated for the report (page 10, for reference). Questionable, yes. But has it been funny reading incredulous reactions of Vice writers on Twitter? Absolutely.

Reminiscent of the triumphant ‘I Wanna Get Better’. Man it’s good to have Jack Antonoff back.
Don’t Take the Money by Bleachers

So, some news. I’ve been commissioned to write for an actual, real life book

! I’ll be contributing a personal essay to Rife: Twenty Stories from Britain’s Youth, the latest project fromThe Good Immigrant editor, Nikesh Shukla. Fun fact: The Good Immigrant was endorsed by none other than J.K. Rowling. No big deal.

The book is still in its crowd-funding stage and needs your support. You can pledge to get your copy using this link — doing so will help amplify twenty brave, young and important voices so we’d appreciate any contribution!

I’m on cloud nine, guys. I can’t believe this is happening! (Sorry for the shameless plug. I danced in my living room for two days straight so I’m just about calming down now.)

See you in two weeks, lovely peeps.
B x

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Originally published on Mythical Millennial.