Millennial authenticity embraced mainstream ambition instead of detached alienation

Evidence

Millennials, however, forged their own version of cool that was earnest, aspirational, and inclusive. In alignment with poptimism, authenticity no longer required detachment from mainstream norms; it thrived in openness about personal ambition. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 338

Categorization

• XREF: This flips the classic authenticity-as-anti-mainstream stance the reader tracks elsewhere; ties to theories that sincerity itself became the mode of cool. — connects to: Alienated identity developed over millennia, intensifying at the Enlightenment. — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 289
• SEED: Potential angle: the history of ‘selling out’ as a moral category ended not because nobody sells out but because ambition itself was revalued as authentic.