You’re probably familiar with Humans of New York, the blog featuring portraits of New Yorkers along with their often heartbreaking stories.
Inspired by HONY, real-life millennials Connor Toole and Alec MacDonald launched a satire version, “Millennials Of New York,” a little over a year ago, posting photos of real millennials alongside fictional, satirical quotes that feed into Baby Boomers’ rants about the youths and their selfies and their Snapchats and their emojis. As another real-life millennial (who, as BUST’s digital editorial director, gets to see plenty of millennial-hating comments on social media), I relate. Or, as we millennials say, #same. (If you were born before 1981, you probably don’t get that. Don’t worry.)
We’ve brought you a selection of eight photos from Millennials of New York, the book; photo credit goes to Alec MacDonald. Full disclosure: I know some of the millennials in these photos (including Kim Hoyos, who took some of the photos featured in the book; she’s “Ellen” in the below photo), and they all inspire me to try to improve my selfie game and Klout score every day.
Enjoy!
“If I had a reality TV show about my life, it would probably be called Keeping Up with the Accomplishments of People I Know on Facebook.” — Kayla, on a journey of self-discovery
“I’m a journalist.” — Peter, phone owner
“While I was a student at NYU, I was more pretentious than James Franco wearing a beret while reading a French newspaper and discussing the merits of acupuncture. But after a lot of soul-searching and some really humbling postcollegiate life experiences, now I’m only as pretentious as Shia LaBeouf explaining tae kwon do.” — Joaquin, part-time playwright, full-time babysitter
“Whenever I need to last longer during sex, I just think about how few Twitter followers I have.” — Samuel, sommelier
“If I could live in any decade, it would definitely be the ’60s. It was just such an amazing time to be alive. Who’s the most popular band in the world right now? One Direction? I’d rather grow up listening to visionaries like the Beatles instead of some crappy boy band from England with weird haircuts. Plus, think of all of the iconic stuff to come out of the era. There was Woodstock, flower power, the Rolling Stones, skinny ties, stylish secretaries, MLK, the assassination of MLK, the assassination of JFK, the assassination of RFK, the Vietnam War, the Kent State shootings, the Cuban Missile Crisis, rampant sexism, legalized racism, the constant threat of nuclear annihilation, and the Beach Boys! How can you forget the Beach Boys? I guess I was just born too late.” — Taylor, old soul
“I don’t like to talk about it, because it’s really such an unrealistic life goal to even think of having. But, okay, I’ll tell you. My dream is that maybe, with enough hard work, dedication, and the loving support of my family and friends, I can one day be a meme.” — Mitzy, dog
“I’d never been to New York before I relocated here for my job. It took me a while to get settled in, but once I did, I decided to set aside a weekend to do all of the things tourists do when they visit the city. It was great. I paid the full price of admission at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, felt genuinely compassionate for a homeless person on the subway, and had one of the best meals of my life at the Applebee’s in Times Square before going to Canal Street and following a guy wearing a Bluetooth earpiece down a dark alley for a ‘100% real Rolex,’ only to find myself playing Russian roulette with a Ukrainian guy named Ivan, whose organless corpse I later had to help dump out of a boat, 400 feet from Ellis Island. I’d never seen the Statue of Liberty so up close!” — Ellen, production assistant
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