Millennial cool substituted earnest aspiration for the old detached cool

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. … Growing up near Inglewood, California, Tyler navigated his own liminal racial identity from a young age: He was “too white for the Black kids, too Black for the white kids.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 338

Categorization

• XREF: Directly feeds the reader’s task of tracing Marx’s generational-period structure and the shift toward earnestness as a stage toward omnivore taste. — connects to: Founder status within a decade displaced stable employment as the cool option — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 182