Things for American twenty-somethings are looking grim, folks. When I look at myself and my friends, when I read news articles about so-called “millennials,” when I turn on the the television or pop open Netflix, there’s one glaring truth I can never avoid: My generation sucks. We’re constantly chastised for wanting it all but being too lazy, carefree (read: careless), entitled and fun-loving to work to get it. So we sit at jobs we hate, or in relationships that don’t add up, or with friends we resent because it’s way fucking easier than buckling down and making the situation better. We’re told this is who we are and we begrudge the generalization but, more often than not, it’s accurate. As I type this, I’m avoiding doing more important things that could get me another step closer to where I want to be. But I don’t dispute that there are people my age absolutely hustling, fighting to simply achieve. Some people astonish me with their drive and passion, the way they so clearly see how short this life will be and how much opportunity we have to make it something great. But the rest of us? At best, the most we can manage is something I warmly refer to as “the side hustle.” We live stale daily lives but do whatever we can to make time for our hobbies and passions, hoping one day we’ll turn them into something tangible. Still, that’s easily lost in the shuffle of everyday life and soon forgotten when the weather is warm and margaritas are five dollars until 7pm. Then, all is lost.
It’s bad enough so many of us balk at the notion of becoming self-starters, talk the talk but would rather lie in bed and switch from Instagram to Twitter back to Instagram again, seek and find so many others of our kind to commiserate with over a Lagunitas IPA or three, but we are only aided by the people and programs around us who perpetuate the madness we’ve become such experts at. That’s why, when I turn on the television to see a 25-year old Hannah Horvath being a generally terrible human being who can’t get her shit together, or an alternate-reality Aziz Ansari whose troublingly unlucky in love, or the thirty-somethings in the newer Netflix original series who actually appear to have their shit even less together than I do in my late twenties, or even Carrie and the gang, who are pushing forty and though they have real jobs and real apartments and real money with which to pay for really nice things, cannot lock down love or even some semblance of a totally grownup life, I get why we don’t get our fucking shit together. Because it’s okay to not have your shit together — TV says so! That is, until it’s too late and we’ve become the fictional characters we’ve relied upon for far too long. But for now, let’s take a quick look at a couple of them, in hopes of recognizing what they’re doing to us and vowing to not be a subject to their shitty examples of lives for another day of ours.
GIRLS. When I exited college and it became very clear to me that I would not immediately (or maybe ever) have a proper career in journalism, I thought it an opportunity to seek out Lena Dunham’s Hannah as a compatriot in my struggle. That was, of course, until I decided she was a disaster of a sociopath who maybe didn’t deserve love or success… like, ever. And fucking surprise! All of her friends were almost equally as terrible. As I sat in my twin bed at my parents home, I thought, “It’s not just me!,” and I watched the rest of that season from that very bed, feeling somehow better about myself. And as their lives went off in troubling tangents, I felt more and more that mine wasn’t so awful; that we were all in the same boat. Time went on and none of their lives really improved much, so why was I pushing for progress? The thing is, though, these people were not real and I shouldn’t have used them to console my worse-for-wear adult standing. In five seasons, they’d be gone, likely living as happily ever after as you can in Brooklyn because we all want to hope for the best… even for you, Hannah Horvath.
LOVE. Netflix’s newest binge series lets us follow one 30-something guy who has lost almost everything chase after one 30-something complete fuck-up until he inevitably lands her because that’s what happens, apparently. All the complete nonsense in between, it turns out, is par for course? Is this what I have to look forward to? Just about the only desirable situation either of these alleged grown-ups finds themselves in is that they know Birdie, the leading lady’s roommate, who is the absolute saving grace of their shams of lives. But even knowing this, I watched along as each of the main characters slowly but surely loses their shit and thought to myself, “Well, if they don’t have it together at this point, maybe I’m okay,” like some kind of completely delusional loser! At this point, I was contemplating writing this piece so I was obviously aware that what I was watching was not real and I should not use these people as the bar to which I hold myself, but still, I gave in. I still took comfort in the story of a young woman so far off her rocker it was hard to believe she was still living a somewhat functional life. And as I sat there, binge-watching with my friend, holding Budweiser tallboys in our hands and shouting, “Oh my god, that’s so you!,” at one another as we so closely related to every other scene, the madness continued.
These are just two of the latest and greatest depictions of what can only be described as “loser adults.” Sex and the City, Master of None, Friends, Happyish, New Girl, and even a favorite of mine, Happy Endings, all featured imperfect adult specimens who, though relatable, have had the ability to confuse school buses full of students of life into thinking that having it all isn’t for the lot of us. Carrie Bradshaw had a pretty cool job and a buttload of expensive shoes, but it took her six freaking seasons to figure love out and put on her big girl pants when it came to navigating both her personal and professional life. She was 37 by then. When Aziz’s Dev Shah discovers that what he’s spent his entire adult life seeking may not be all that, he makes a rash decision in hopes of finding what he needs somewhere else. But you can’t help but look on skeptically, as if everyone — even those involved — is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Chandler Bing was roughly 35 when he took a job as an unpaid intern after years of working a generic office job that gave him absolutely no fulfillment. Thom Payne, in the short-lived dark comedy Happyish, spent his younger years securing a well-paying job at a cool company, a hot wife, a cute (yet unbearably annoying) kid, and a house in the Catskills to get stoned at, but he was very truly old and miserable in spite of all of that. Nick Miller is the saddest among a loft of of sad sacks in New Girl — broke, confused, directionless — and those are some of his better qualities. And Dave in Happy Endings was left at the altar, hates his menial role at a nondescript job, and appears to have very little to live for but, dammit he tries, I guess…in a way. And he somehow comes off looking like a prince compared to his wayward, clueless, ape-like buddy, Max. Obviously, the list of these anti-role-models goes on (Togetherness, Scrubs, It’s Always Sunny…). Knowing all of this, maybe we continue to watch on with extreme caution and self-awareness, or maybe it’s time we get off of our complacent young professional asses and do whatever we can to rise up like phoenixes and remember that the hustle is in all of us, even if we are a little bit fucked up. 
Better Off Bare 