The Proposal

My second experiment will be an audio/video essay highlighting the way that the media/news/internet often negatively portrays millennials, along with the effects that this negative reputation has had on me and others in my generation. Nowadays, it appears that the media’s portrayal of the millennial generation has become saturated with pessimistic, harmful remarks about the millennial lifestyle and work ethic. Millennials are so quick to be labeled as the “lazy,” “entitled,” “annoying” generation, usually by people older than them in the form of journalistic articles or mindless posts on social media. I feel that millennials get such a bad rap not because they are all “the worst” but because the handful who are entitled, lazy, etc. speak out the most, have easy outlets to be heard (e.g. social media) and have their wrongdoings vocalized.

My audio/video essay will shed light on the overwhelming majority of comments made about millennials that are negative and dismissing. When these sorts of things are stereotypically said and publicized about a generation as a whole, the words can run deep and can prove to have detrimental effects on those being spoken about. I want to overlay audio clips from myself and interviews with my friends/other millennials to reveal just how being constantly told that you are a part of the “worst” generation can feel and can affect self-confidence. I want to speak my mind (in the loose style of an open letter or TedTalk) to prove these negative headlines about millennials wrong, while also discovering if other millennials take these internet comments to heart or rather use them as motivation to be better.

The ideal audience for this project would be two-fold. First, I would hope that this piece would reach other millennials so that they can relate to and find comfort in the experiences of me and others in their generation. Next, I would hope that this piece would reach the members of older generations that so frequently perpetuate demeaning millennial stereotypes and mock millennials, so that they may learn to be more mindful of the effects of their generalizations. I think that this video would be eye-opening to view, to see just how few positive representations of millennials there are in media.

 

Genre Analysis & Research

• Usually, video essays are the concise, free-form equivalent of any sort of written text. That is why I plan to have my spoken text overlayed on top of the video, so the video still loosely takes the form of a open letter in defense of millennials. The average length of an audio/video essay is around 4-6 minutes, but really the format and structure is very flexible depending on the content and intention of the video (“How to do a Video Essay”). One convention of audio/video essays is that they most often incorporate the voiceover of the creator over a series of still images, animations, or video clips (“How to do a Video Essay”). Most of these essays “involve some sort of cultural criticism, and many of the most popular within the genre focus on film” (“What is a Video Essay?”). Also, the voiceovers included should only be used to enhance the visuals on the screen (“What is a Video Essay?”).The spoken word of a video essay is meant to emphasize the argument that the visuals are telling — still, there might be things that you don’t need to say because you allow the images to say them for you (“What is a Video Essay?”). Frequently, audio/video essays are published on YouTube or other video streaming platforms.

• Researching further into the content of my audio/video essay, I decided to look into the most frequent myths perpetuated online about millennials. By doing a simple Google search of the words “millennials are…” I was able to make note of the top search results about the generation. Mostly all of the top search results were negative adjectives describing millennials, and they included words such as “soft,” “broke,” and “screwed.” This shows that the main conversation about millennials taking place in our society portrays the generation in a stereotypical, negative way. I also scrolled through tons of news articles published recently which feature the word “millennial” in their headline. While a select few popular articles made more positive claims about the generation, most of the articles bashed millennials for “ruining” some aspect of society or “failing” at some minute, very niche task such as “going on the same vacations over and over because they are too lazy to research other destinations” or “only using ‘Instagram Bible pages’ instead of actually going to church.” Further, members of the Gen-X and Baby Boomer generations are also starting to call millennials “whiny” on the Internet because of the way that many have begun to vocalize their dissatisfaction with the aforementioned negative stereotypes and try to push back.

• One example of a content model is the TedTalk “It’s About Time We Stop Shaming Millennials” given by Lindsey Pollack. I want to use this speech for inspiration because it really dives into the damaging way that older generations treat the younger generation, causing millennials to be bitter towards older generations and extra self-conscious in the workplace. Another content model I will use is the Forbes article titled “Enough With the Millennial Bashing” by Richie Norton. This article actively debunks the most common stereotypes about millennials with both statistics and personal experiences, which I hope to combine into my project as well. Some genre models for my project are videos by WIRED posted on YouTube. In these videos, celebrities go through and either debunk or confirm the top Google searches about them. I want to use this format to defend millennials against their stereotypes, while always being more creative and artistic in my video essay.

• To grow my understanding needed for this project, I first want to research more about why all millennials are often grouped together under a negative umbrella. Is it the Internet, the rise of social media, or media like TV/movies/music that are to “blame” for the creation and spread of these stereotypes. Essentially, why does society love to hate millennials? Secondly, I need to learn a little more about Windows Movie Maker, so that I can use that software to make my video essay as aesthetically appealing and strong as possible .

 

Sketch

To complete this project, first I will have to write a rough sketch of the open letter-esque voiceover that I want to add on top of the visuals. I will also have to conduct some short interviews with other millennials where I record (with their permission) how they have been affected by negative millennial stereotypes. Then, I will have to compile all of these audio clips into one, short and succinct voiceover for the video.

As for the visuals of my video essay, I want to first screen record making the google search about “millennials are…” to show what I saw when I first typed those words into my computer. I also want a lot of my visuals to consist of the screen recordings of me browsing through the top news articles featuring the word “millennials,” emphasizing the headlines, the content of the articles, and some comments made by other readers (which usually are either older people who support these negative claims or are millennials fighting back against these negative claims. I also may choose to include news clips from TV news broadcasts where they are covering stories about millennials. Overall, I want the visuals of this project to show the most common ways that millennials are represented in news and online, while the audio/spoken word of this project will show the effects of these claims being publicized and spread so frequently.

To compose this audio/video essay, I will use Windows Movie Maker software. My sample may be a rough draft of how I would want the final video to look, because I still do need to learn more of the features of the software.

 

-Snippet from the beginnings of my voice-over script:

"Millennials.

 

Though there is no exact definition, anyone between the ages of 18 and 35 can label themselves a millennial. But with that label comes a lot…. A lot of negativity.

 

Look for yourself. When you do a simple Google search of the most frequent inquiries about millennials, these are the top results…

 

*read them off and give a SHORT few words-1 sentence explanation*

 

Now these assumptions and adjectives used to describe millennials might be something that we could all laugh at, if the greater part of society didn’t actually believe that they were the truth. I’ve often heard other millennials say that our generation sucks. That they’re embarrassed to be a part of the generation of handouts and participation trophies. That they’re not proud of our generation’s obsession with selfies and avocado toast. I get it. As a millennial myself, sometimes I definitely hate my generation.

 

But that’s only because for the past 19 years of my life, I’ve been constantly told by the majority media, internet trolls, and even that one curmudgeonly uncle at Thanksgiving-- that we millennials are the absolute worst at doing life.

 

And that’s why I want to reclaim the label ‘millennial.’ To debunk some of the stereotypes. To show that these assumptions can hurt, but also that we are not defined by their negativity."

 

Sample

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflection

I feel as though I have learned a lot after completing experiment #2. Truthfully, I discovered that I don’t love this experiment as much as I do the first one. While I enjoyed getting to dabble in the world of video editing, the process of finding, cutting, and layering clips felt very tedious — and with my “perfectionist” mindset, I don’t think I would ever be fully happy with the final product of this experiment. I also ran into the challenge of feeling like a video essay did not contain enough actual “writing.” Even though I began typing out a script for my voice over, I still found myself wanting to be working on a project that was more writing heavy and provided me the opportunity to translate my feeling into written words. Spoken words just didn’t have the same effect for me.

I also felt like there was not as clear of a direction and motivation behind this project. What I originally planned to be a mostly interview style video essay about other millennials’ experiences turned more into a TedTalk style video essay of me wanting to tell my side of the story. I couldn’t quite narrow down the intended audience of this piece, and I also ran into trouble trying to decide on the actual visuals and images of my piece. It felt strange to turn this project into just an audio essay, without images, yet I couldn’t quite imagine what exact images should play on the screen under the voiceover, because I still wanted the visuals to be impactful and add something to my spoken words.

On the content side of things, I really enjoyed getting to research negative media portrayals of millennials. I always knew millennials had a bad internet reputation, but I was actually shocked to see just how many articles, news videos, social media comments, etc. are published everyday bashing the generation. I now feel even more motivated to do my part in reversing those stereotypes, which is why experiment #1, my millennial hub website, is calling out to me once again.

​

References:

Johnson, K. H. (2018, June 26). Enough With The Millennial Bashing. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinhjohnson/2018/06/19/enough-with-the-millennial-bashing/#57cfd9aca3d0

​

It's About Time We Stop Shaming Millennials | Lindsey Pollak | TEDxStLouisWomen. (2016, November 15). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaCQ-giZOxg

​

How to do a Video Essay: The Video Essay Process. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://ecu.au.libguides.com/video-essay/how-to-do-a-video-essay

 

What is a Video Essay? (2018, February 16). Retrieved from https://openingclass.com/2018/02/16/what-is-a-video-essay/