Reality Bites: The Solidarity Of Laid Off Twentysomethings
Posted by meredith on 03-30-2009
A recent piece on Slate.com compiled a selection of emails from twentysomethings who responded to the question of how they were dealing with the economic downturn. The answers were well-crafted testimonials that not only articulated the situation from Gen Y's unique perspective, but also demonstrated one of the most common coping strategies I've seen being embraced by friends: writing about and sharing these experiences in an online forum. From the Slate article:
If I were a touch more paranoid, I would think there has been a conspiracy to systematically entrap me and my fellow graduates into an endless cycle of debt. Student loans, buying necessities on credit because the student loan payments bludgeoned my bank account, racking up greater credit card debt than student loan debt, credit scores, having children, taking out another round of loans to pay for their education, wondering if retirement is possible when Social Security is a joke.
This is just one of the many quotes in the article (apparently only a small selection of the total sent in. According to the note at the end of the piece this will be the first in a series) riffing on the idea that the timing of this crisis and millennials' unique position as neophytes to the real world makes us the butt of some joke played by the universe. And while the unemployed are not exactly laughing with the cosmos, there does seem to be a certain gallows humor at play here. One I've seen echoed in the countless personal blogs that have been started like this one or this one, in more organized efforts like "The Unemployed Olympics" put together by the twentysomething "staffers" behind the blog Pink Slips Are The New Black, and even on Twitter feeds with links to articles like this one from TIME asking whether it's more stressful to stay at a job than to be let go.
There's something in the senselessness of it all, that has not only removed the stigma of unemployment, but has almost made it a badge to bear with ironic pride. Call it what you will — group therapy, collective navel gazing — there's a tangible solidarity in the recession-spawned online movement among the young and recently laid off. And while it may not relieve fears of uncertainty about the future, it certainly does seem to make it easier to bear for the time being.
Note: The shirt pictured was designed and is being sold by ASSME
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Categorized under: Collegians
April 1st, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I think they need to take the issue of college finance more seriously. It really is broken: students shouldn't be coming out of school with staggering amounts of debt. The problem is that 1) tuition is not at as sustainable level – there is undoubtedly a tuition bubble that can, and will pop (and I will not feel one bit sorry for the overpriced professors and administrators that lose their job because of this, or the contractors building new buildings that didn't need to be built). 2) The way student loans are structured makes it easy for schools to continue raising prices – it's very difficult to get out of a student loan, even if you declare bankruptcy, and if you did get out of it, the government would still pay it – ie, the real value of an education is being hidden by the fact that the money gets paid back no matter what the cost is.