We are the Millennials, and we have more power then we know.
Together our generation — which is composed of people born between 1981 and 2000, according to the Pew Research Center — utilizes the technology and social media which we created to further the activist causes that we find favor with.
In 2008, that cause was electing Barack Obama as president. And now, almost four years later, we are being asked to do the same again.
But do we want to?
Alec Tyson, a Pew Research Center researcher, does not think so.
“Some early signs suggest that enthusiasm is not as high in this current election as it was in 2008,” Tyson said in an NPR interview.
There are likely many reasons for this shift in enthusiasm.
The War on Terror is not a defining issue this time around. And it has seemingly taken a back seat to the faltering economy, the lack of available jobs as another round of Millennials graduate college, and the U.S.’s involvement in civil wars around the world.
Another thing that might have a hand in just how pumped our generation gets about casting their votes: Obama is not the newest thing anymore.
News, social media and take-out Thai food is no further than our smartphones. And everyone is on an endless pursuit for the newest, the best, the most revolutionary thing.
In this world that we have created for ourselves, Obama may have lost his new car smell.
Add that to the fact that Obama’s job running the country has taken away from his potential for the face-to-face, grassroots-feeling campaigning that won him so much favor, and it’s a wonder that anyone is as enthused this time around.
This is not meant to call the Millennials, of which I myself am included, superficial or hyper-consumers.
On the contrary, because in the process of redefining communication, news, and most everything as previous generations have known it, we also managed to cut away some of the crap.
When you only have 140 characters to make a point, there’s little room for fancy footwork or euphemisms.
So in cutting away the crap, some of the Millennials have realized that Obama is yet to deliver on a lot of the promises that he signed with fist bumps.
More than the unfulfilled promises that are all too common in politics, though, this generation is actually faring the worst at the hands of the Obama administration.
According to the Pew Research Center, “Fully 37 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds are unemployed or out of the workforce, the highest share among this age group in three decades.”
Whether Obama is directly to blame for this great unemployed generation is a matter of personal opinion. But with less time and money at their disposal, will the Millennials be as gung-ho this go-around?
That is yet to be determined. But if the bumper stickers on hybrids and vintage road bikes are any indicator, it is not likely.