MillenniAls showed us just how little we know ABout them
THEY CARVED BLUE WHALES ON THEIR ARMS AND VIED FOR SPOTS IN AN ONLINE SUICIDE CHALLENGE
The Blue Whale Challenge was baffling in a way few other things have been. Amid a government crackdown, a new hashtag began trending, #CuratorFindMe. Why were so many Indian children desperate to sign up for a game that offered no perks, threatened to hurt their family if they tried to opt out, and demanded strange things of a player… leading up to suicide? Things got even murkier as people began to cry ‘Blue Whale’ for a series of unrelated deaths. By August, the union ministry of electronics and information technology was demanding that internet companies remove links to the game. The Supreme Court (SC) asked the government to ban the game (they couldn’t, since it had no official presence). None of the cases have yet been officially linked to the game; it remains a convenient smokescreen for India’s high incidence of student depression and mental health issues.
THEY TURNED #AVOCADOTOAST INTO AN INEXPLICABLY POPULAR CATCHPHRASE, FOOD FAD AND EVENTUALLY, SLUR
Adults will remember 2017 as the year Western millennials ruined breakfast for everyone. Two bland ingredients, avocado and toast, combined to create a dish so insipid and so pretty, it inspired more than five lakh Instagram posts. There’s not much more to it than its two titular ingredients (though hipsters have been known to add olive oil, Himalayan salt, lemon zest, hemp seeds or the also-trending turmeric and microgreens). But it’s been on health-blog recipe sections, in celebrity social-media feeds, on restaurant menus with a 400 per cent markup — and became a catchphrase for privileged youngsters with more money than good sense.
THEY COMBINED RELATIONSHIPS AND VIRTUAL GAMING WITH APPS FOR EVERYTHING FROM HOOKING UP TO THREESOMES
Tinder, with its swipe rights and super likes, is so last year. On Truly Madly, interests and preferences beget matches. So if someone liked the TV show Rick And Morty, the world was their oyster. It also let users play virtual games against a potential partner – a good way to start conversations. On the more discreet Hinge, people only looked at matches connected via a mutual friend. And on Frivil, users were ranked based on their attractiveness, raising their popularity score and giving them access to a super game every night. None of this made relationships easier, if new relationship terms are anything to go by. Users could still Bench or Stash someone (keep them on hold while they browsed for better options), Breadcrumb or cushion them with non-committal text messages to keep them buttered up or simply Ghost or disappear when things got dull or uncomfortable. To top it all, it was even possible for the Ghosted to come back (a move called Haunting).