ThotSheAte

See? Fresh and clean

So you know those news stories about how Millennials don’t buy enough breakfast cereal or paperback books or homes or whatever the hell that Boomers are complaining that “kids these days” don’t spend money on?  And y’all are like “LOL, no cash my pal”?  

I think there’s something more insidious going on.  You see, they thought they had you.  Forget the Saturday morning cartoons of my childhood, they had Disney Channel and Nickelodeon feeding you ads all day long.  Your generation got advertising in your schools.  Your parents took you to prosperity doctrine spewing MegaChurches (it’s Mega so it’s gotta impress the kids, right?).  

They thought you were going to be their generation of super-consumers.  

You are generations distant from the great depression, and the 1979 energy crisis.  Boomers want to pretend that the 2008 housing bubble wouldn’t affect the little kids.  And plus, we had grown past the era of Yankee thrift and hippie DIY frugality.  Right?  And there was no mopey Kurt Cobain glamorizing thrift-store flannel shirts.  You guys were going to out-consume the Boomer generation.  They were sure of it.

Those think pieces?  They’re Boomer disappointment that you have found value in something other than your place as a mindless consumer.

And yeah, I’m not going to pretend that y’all have more cash than you do.  It was fucking idiotic to think they were going to raise a consumer generation without having to pay them the money they would need to buy even life’s necessities.  And I could write a book about how my generation was complicit in destroying the old values around work and loyalty that left your generation screwed.  Really, I’m genuinely sorry for the mistakes we made.

If you like to play The Last of Us, then try Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

If you like to play Beyond: Two Souls, then try The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

If you like to play Call of Duty: Black Ops (Zombies), then try World War Z by Max Brooks

If you like playing Grand Theft Auto, then try American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

If you like playing Sid Meier’s Civilization, then try A Game Of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

If you like playing Final Fantasy, try playing Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa

If you like playing Mass Effect, then try Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

If you like playing Alice: Madness Returns, then try Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis

If you like playing Halo, then try Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein

If you like playing Portal, then try House Of Stairs by William Sleator

If you like playing Mario Kart, then try The Lovely Reckless by Kami Garcia 

If you like playing Dark Souls, then try Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

If you like playing Life Is Strange, then try We Are Okay by Nina Lacour

If you like playing Stardew Valley, then try How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

If you like playing Fable, then try Young Elites by Marie Lu

If you like playing Borderlands, then try Velocity by Chris Wooding

If you like playing Dishonored, then try Airman by Eoin Colfer

If you like playing The Oregon Trail, then try Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee

If you like playing the Elder Scrolls series, then try The Naming by Alison Croggon

If you like playing Red Dead Redemption, then try Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman

If you like playing Bioshock, then try  Dark Life by Kat Falls

If you like playing Fallout, then try Razorland by Ann Aguirre 

If you like playing Assasin’s Creed, then try The Way of Shadows Night by Brent Weeks

If you like playing Dragonage, then try Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

If you like playing The Legend of Zelda, then try Graceling by Kristin Cashore

If you like playing Until Dawn, then try Ten by Gretchen McNeil

If you like playing Sonic, then try Maximum Ride by James Patterson

If you like playing Overwatch, then try Bluescreen by Dan Wells

If you like playing Uncharted, then try Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

If you like playing Pokemon, then try Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them by JK Rowling, and Newt Scamander

1)This is actually a good way to get people into reading.