MILLENNIAL APPROPRIATION

Ufrieda Ho translates for a 20-something

COFFEE dates got a whole lot more complicated and I blame millennials. Nothing’s straightforward for these lighties suddenly upon us. And with a global headcount estimated at 1.8 billion plus, they’re everywhere: in our workspaces, yoga classes, the microbrewery and their favourite hangout: Instagram.

Millennials average out at about 25 years old. Time magazine calls them the generation who could save us all, but also the spongers still living with their parents and the narcissists dubbed Generation Me.

So when you say “how about grabbing a coffee?” to the millennial in your life, she mumbles something vaguely like “hmmm, OK”. It’s muffled and nonchalant. It’s meh. You can’t hear her because her neck’s bowed in prayer-like deference to her iPhone 7 (in rose gold, of course). She’s nonchalant because enthusiasm she reserves for when she’s animated about a “narrative” or some “intersectional discourse” about something she agrees with “hundo p”.

You’ve learnt by now that this is not her absence of civility. You also know better than to generalise about a generation. Still, millennials seem to have their perception-of-others radar in off mode most of the time.

“Is the coffee Fairtrade?” she asks but she’s not waiting for an answer really because millennials can point out problems with vocal flourish, but they’re not so great with solutions or seeing the bigger picture.

You tell her to google it, and her fingers get to it, but she’s distracted by checking in with Facebook first. She scrolls, you look at the top of her head and you’re burning to mention how Nicholas Carr’s Pulitzer-finalist book The Shallows warns how bombardment of itty bitty information is changing our brains.

You want to tell her how he writes that quick-fire access to information off the internet stays just information, while the slow burn of reading and extended focus is part of the alchemy of making knowledge and wisdom.

But before you can get to that, your millennial is already piping up “selfie time, fam”, scooping you up in an embrace. So you squish into frame and against your better judgment you even do the duckface. And she posts it to Facebook.

By the time coffee arrives she’s checked five times for likes. She puts down her phone only long enough to check the peacock-tail artistry on her cappuccino foam. “It’s gorjusss; you ordered rice milk for me right? I wish I had said rice milk, I really think I want to go vegan, my friend Tilly’s vegan now,” she says in an almost single breath.

She also tells you that Tilly is trans. When you trip up on your pronoun for Tilly she schools you on how unacceptable this is. You tell her you care more about respecting someone’s choices than for tiptoeing around in PC high heels.

“Ah, what happened to your progressive tendencies? You just not woke to what matters. Actually it’s so middle of you to broadcast your consent for them to be who they want to be,” she charges. You process the words, you know it’s English, but it sounds like something else too — maybe this is throwing shade? Part accusation, part insult, but not really?

Before you can get in an appropriate response, she’s moved on. Now the millennial is positioning her cappuccino so it catches the light just right for an Instagram pic that she posts with a cluster of hashtags.

“Go like my post please,” she says. You think it’s the first time you’ve heard her say “please” your whole coffee date. You remember then that researchers label millennials “entitled” and “antiestablishment”. Not because they’re revolutionaries but because they don’t think they need anyone else because they’ve got Google. She takes a deep sip of the brew. “This coffee slays,” she declares and picks up her phone, checking for likes again.

You talk a little more, everything from Trump and #FeesMustFall to who’s bae in her life now. You finish your coffees. You pick up the bill, she says thank you. You’re impressed she remembered her manners.

“That was cool, we must do it again soon,” you say. “Ja, sure, let’s,” you think you hear her say, but you’re not sure — her head’s bowed again, praying to her digital gods.

It’s English, but it sounds like something else too — maybe this is throwing shade?