Early millennial cool was defined by claiming privilege openly rather than disguising it.

Evidence

Yet despite millennials being “the most racially diverse generation in American history,” the broader cultural narrative initially positioned white creators as its vanguard. An early architect of millennial cool was Ezra Koenig, who founded Vampire Weekend in 2006 with three fellow Columbia University students. The band rode the poptimist wave to find a sound grounded in genre-blending, polished aesthetics, and impeccable commercial instincts—perhaps the very sound of neoliberalism. “We were all massive Strokes fans,” he admitted, but as the rock revival grew stale, Koenig and his friends searched for a “new kind of guitar identity and rhythmic drum identity.” Koenig belonged to a post-Neptunes culture, where kids of all backgrounds danced to the same Top 40 hits. … Vampire Weekend eventually settled on an Upper West Side songbook that broke with downtown New York’s gritty, detached aesthetic. Lyrically, Vampire Weekend explored class anxiety without touching traditional class politics. Unlike the anti-wealth fury of Pulp’s anthem “Common People,” Vampire Weekend protagonists seemed to fantasize about rich girlfriends whisking them away to family estates. They reveled in the thrill of privilege: Louis Vuitton, Benetton, Oxford commas, Washington Heights, bleeding madras, and Cape Cod. Rostam Batmanglij’s Wes Anderson–esque keyboards created an imagined utopia where “world music” reflected the customs of a singular, fictional nation-state. While artists like Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, and Talking Heads had all faced backlash for previously dabbling in African music tropes, Vampire Weekend dove in headfirst. … As a vanguard for millennials, Vampire Weekend pioneered the “mask of no mask.” They never pretended to be anything other than Columbia kids. Kris Chen, their A&R rep at XL Recordings, described this transparency as key to their appeal: “They didn’t give a shit about being cool. We all know that’s the ultimate in being cool.” The strategy paid off. Their buzz on MP3 blogs secured them a Spin cover story before they even released an album. Vampire Weekend’s self-titled debut sold half a million copies and received widespread acclaim. Their 2010 follow-up, Contra, debuted at number one on the Billboard charts. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 340

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the ‘mask of no mask’ strategy as a core mechanism of early millennial culture.
• ADDENDUM: Vampire Weekend’s transformation of status markers into aesthetic content illustrates the class-signaling dynamics thematized in the immodesty article.