The Messy Millennial Woman has become a default trope in entertainment. 

The Messy Millennial Woman has become a default trope in entertainment. From Fleabag to I May Destroy You to I Hate Suzie, it’s become the norm for Millennial women main characters to have “a complicated love life and a dysfunctional relationship with her family…often an unreliable employee and sometimes an unreliable friend…Unhappiness, low self-esteem and a tendency to self-sabotage radiates from her” somewhat sloppy endeavors. Of course, she’s also charismatic in a “wow your life is such a mess, but I’m going to keep watching” type of way. The roots of the trope can be traced back to Hannah Horvath in Girls, but continue as strong as ever in newer characters like Ava from Hacks. Once again, the trope has been brought to life in Everything I Know About Love, Dolly Alderton’s TV adaption of her hit 2018 memoir, where the pilot opens up with 24-year-old Maggie, who finds herself jaded by a man, her friends, and life in general on a Friday night. Maggie and other MMW usually get the short end of the stick, and end up journeying through plots full of heartbreak, embarrassment, comedic failures, and other missteps that make them pretty “unhinged.” Of course, even critics of the MMW have to admit: “A couple of decades ago, the proudly flawed heroine was not a fixture of mainstream culture – now she rules the zeitgeist.” (The Guardian)