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The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millenial

197 points by pwneth 9y ago

dforrestwilson 9y ago
I feel like I've seen all of these strata. My timeline goes like this: 1) Worked at a defense tech startup, learned some code, told the AI what to do. 2) Got MBA, worked at big Wall Street bank with millionaire boss. Met some management teams at massive companies, discovered they were just ordinary people for the most part. Completely disregarded AI/tech because we were Too Big to Fail. 3) For the kiddos, I gave up hectic job and took a decent job at what I thought was a scrappy tech-focused company, which was subsequently acquired by a bigger slower company. Now I work in effectively a front-line role, which has a high potential to eventually be automated away. I do some code but it's mostly easy lay-up stuff. The AI tells us what to look at, and other people control that. Meanwhile my wife is an IG/FB pro, mercilessly weaving the latest family related stories of success and tabulating the "like" coups. I suppose we're faking it til we make it (again). It's an odd feeling to have seen maybe all three important sides of the new economy. I'll feel more comfortable when we're back in the top or middle again.
- mfoy_ 9y ago
  I've never understood the instagram / facebook game that people seem to dedicate inordinate amounts of effort to... I mean, I guess it's just your typical one-upsmanship in a social network... but still. People try so hard to make it look like their lives are better than everyone else's... I don't understand. :(
  - damnfine 9y ago
    And you almost always make your actual life objectively worse in the process. I dated a media junkie, never any fun, always posing, aranging dishes, making 'moments' instead of actual enjoiable memories. She was an amazing person, but the near OCD levels of trying to make life look perfect to the outside just didnt work for me. The most amazing moments in her life, never documented, only a ghost shell online to paint a false memory.
  - hkmurakami 9y ago
    It's a reflection of our deep insecurities, at least for some of us. As I've resolved my internal conflicts, I've gone back and manually deleted my "high status" posts from IG/FB even if no one's going to be checking my 3 year old posts. It feels good to move past some of my past vain behavior.
  - raverbashing 9y ago
    I think you don't understand because you're missing the marketing dimension of it A lot of these "digital influencers" get endorsement deals, are paid to post for a brand or to test their products That's what (a lot of them) are looking for
  - DerfNet 9y ago
    I have acquaintances on Facebook that pose and cheese for the camera seemingly every day, and others who apparently schedule their posts as if they're marketing themselves as a lifestyle brand or something. Like, we get it, you like mountain biking and camping, but you didn't do that stuff on a Wednesday. I know where you work, and it's not the woods.
    - skybrian 9y ago
      I'd guess that's just when they got around to posting their pictures? Why so cynical?
  - 90s-socal-kid 9y ago
    Some people make decent money on IG, doing things they enjoy (their kids, exercise, etc.)
rayiner 9y ago
This is a very long article about something that has been known for a very long time: middle class existential angst.
- marktangotango 9y ago
  I really enjoyed Rao's writing on the Gervais Principal, but I've never read anything else by him that really clicked with me. This piece in particular is winding, meandering, and nonsensical.
- nimbix 9y ago
  Sounds like what a friend of mine likes to call "the pain of easy living".
  - jerf 9y ago
    We come from a billion+ years of organisms that have had to strive and fight for everything. Not necessarily all the time; there are brief times when resources are free and easy for some species (like, "a disease kills of 95% of your species and you're the only thing around that eats grass" or something; for the survivors it's suddenly a cornucopia), but they don't last this long, nor are they ever this easy. It's not hard to see why our genes haven't really prepared us for this wealth.
    - deleted 9y ago
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- mabub24 9y ago
  Yeah. I feel like he spends a lot of time trying to say it's not about the bourgeoisie when it pretty clearly is. People have been writing about this phenomenon and this particular way of looking at social status from the mid 19th century to today. It's the same with "late-stage capitalism". People have been saying capitalism has entered a particularly "ignorant" stage for decades. Just because API's are now involved (I guess?) doesn't mean it's a revolutionary insight.
l0b0 9y ago
Anything with "Exclusive" in the name also qualifies; your stock is "as much as people will buy * fudge factor." Are you sure you don't mean "Inclusive"? And suits. Any suit. Yes, even the $1000 one. It's wrapping paper for your personality.
yaway 9y ago
there are too many digressions and obscure inside-references in this essay, but this cuts to the heart of the matter: "[Premium mediocre] is an economic and cultural rearguard action by young people launched into life from the old middle class, but not quite equipped to stay there, and trying to engineer a face-saving soft landing…somewhere." i'm 24 and while i can see the humor and hyperbole in this article, its also a pretty astute description of the disenchantment many of my bicoastal "elite" friends from middle/upper-middle class families feel. timely too. one of my friends texted me this morning: "[my large corporate employer] laid off 90% of its sales force yesterday...survived another day in corporate America" the worst side effect for me is feeling like i am stupid and naive for trying to do things the "right" way - the meritocratic, socially conscious, altruistic way - when it seems like these are values that do not achieve the right outcomes anymore. should just shut up and get mine. overall i feel my generation, or at least my social strata, will mature to be colder, harder and more distant than our predecessors. all it will take to cement this transformation is another recession
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  I have a few good friends who lean hard towards the mission driven engineering side. They tend to find each other for continual inspiration and support. Find kindred spirits. It'll help you stay true to your way. All of us need this kind of community support from like minded peers.
- UnpossibleJim 9y ago
  Yeah. That's basically what happened to the kids of the 60's and the kids of the 80's. They started out anticorp and f-society, then ended up doing cocaine in the boardroom and smashing anything that they didn't own. It's a weird shift that seems to happen. =)
  - jameskegel 9y ago
    I feel this change- every time I get a raise, every time I make a $500 purchase on a whim, these are the things that my inner-teenager rages about, but why experience success if I can't enjoy it? When I was younger, I didn't understand the ways of the people above me because I didn't have the discipline to obtain the means that would allow me to make those choices. In essence, "you hate it because you ain't it".
JBReefer 9y ago
This is kind of meandering, and it loses the thread a bit in the end (it feels like he's getting to a point he's uncomfortable with ideologically), but it's extremely accurate. The bigger point about creating the future - that he seems to miss - is that it's a future _not everyone wants_, which drives a huge part of the "maga/bernie" divide he discusses. He is right though - the rate of downward mobility among my young, bourgeoisie 20-somethings friends in NYC is shocking. 90%+ of my friends don't save anything, but take elaborate vacations several times a year, or go to multiple, expensive festivals. I have no idea what most of them would do if they lost their jobs. One of my friends quit their job and instantly is poor. They spent 3 weeks in Europe a month ago. He really hits the nail on the head in exploring their motivations, in my opinion.
- flachsechs 9y ago
  > the rate of downward mobility among my young, bourgeoisie 20-somethings friends in NYC is shocking i dunno, i'd argue these people aren't downwardly mobile because they were never upper middle class to begin with (bourgeoisie). if you have no saved money and your family can't just straight up give you money to live if you lose your job, you're lower to lower middle at best. better luck next time, etc. and if the parents have the money but aren't willing -- then they are but a cleverly constructed socioeconomic facsimile of the upper classes, but aren't truly that thing. the upper classes will stop at nothing from ensuring their progeny maintains or outperforms their own status. to them, that's _the whole point_ of having money. by definition they will give their wealth to their offspring in times of need, barring exceptional circumstances like enabling alcoholism or something equally untoward. upper middle and upper class kids can fuck off to do a phd for 8 years, or traipse around europe, or attempt to launch a business and fail, with basically no consequence whatsoever. btw the 'classes' really are a [not quintile] system, like in economics. the interesting thing is the money is secondary, it's social status that really matters. and by this, i mean it is exceedingly unlikely for classes 4 and 5 to fall down, because their money is entrenched in the financial system. i.e. they own stuff and would literally have to work at liquidating and spending it all, in a sort of drawn out socioeconomic suicide. 1. lower class (poor people) 2. lower middle class 3. middle class 4. uppper middle class 5. upper class
neolefty 9y ago
In the article, I saw a subtext about what we view as valuable. While there were some good points (being above or below the API, for example), this whole article sounded like it was stuck in scarcity thinking. What if everyone has enough to live a comfortable life? Do we still need to keep score? Can we be happy if we're basically all okay, and we don't stand out as belonging to a superior social class? Personally, my children will probably be able to make a decent living. They won't be 1% rich, but they will likely have skills and coping abilities. What I want most for them is to help make the world better -- to do things in their professional and personal lives that help other people and move civilization forward. For my children to be happy with that, they probably need to measure their worth by how they help other people, rather than by the "quality" of what they consume or other social signals they emit.
scandox 9y ago
There's a lazy optimism to this that I don't like. Educated, non-technical people, 30 and younger are struggling to find meaningful, well paid employment. That is a recipe for massive social change occurring rapidly. I'm 40 and a programmer, but I have a lot of non-technical friends in their 20s and 30s. Most of the smart ones are, at this point - intellectually - communists. Contrary to the general view, most of these people are not flaky. They're able. I honestly think the distraction of the internet is the only thing preventing them from lining me up against a wall.
- nmeofthestate 9y ago
  Well, the internet is key to this social movement(?). Like the internet created a space for cannibal wannabees to get together, it's created a space for much larger groups to get together and hone a story about how things are not set up in their interests. It's very seductive - I have a Gen X brother who kinda pretends to be an honorary Millenial because things haven't gone great with his employment/finances (he never saved, got a pension, quit fairly lucrative work to live at home).
  - scandox 9y ago
    Personally I think it's a mistake to view young people as acting in bad faith or having inherent group characteristics (lazy, entitled etc)...I think they do have group characteristics that stem from a fairly rational response to their downward social mobility. I can't comment on your brother's situation except to say that if things didn't work out well for him, it's natural for him to align with a group that he feels are in the same case. You say it's "seductive" which implies that basically he's taking an easy route out of hard work. That may be true for him, but it is unlikely to be more true of a cross section of any generational group.
    - nmeofthestate 9y ago
      > Personally I think it's a mistake to view young people as acting in bad faith or having inherent group characteristics I agree - it's sad that sweeping generalisations (boomers bad, white people bad, men bad etc) have become such a mainstream part of culture.
mwcampbell 9y ago
Spare a thought for the people who end up "below the API", as he puts it. Life can be terrible for them. What can we do to make it more bearable, or spare people from ending up there in the first place?
- Chardok 9y ago
  We can begin with leveling the starting point for all. Transportation, healthcare, education, internet and cell phone access - all of these are necessary for being successful, yet we put the responsibility on the individual for acquiring these things. When you can free a person from worrying about how they are going to pay for their medical bills, or if they will be able to afford fixing that check engine light on their car, they will have the freedom to make better choices for themselves. They can better negotiate where they want to work, since they aren't tied to their employer's health plan. They won't have to take that awful job just because its close enough to walk or pays enough to afford their car repairs. It ends up being a trap - you need a job for healthcare - so you need a car to get you there, you need internet and a cell phone to do interviews, you need to be educated to be hired - which all drain your income from the job in the first place, in which you have to swing from job to job as a means of life support to continue. IMO, this leads to the "premium mediocrity" the article describes, where it provides a brief means of escape from this trap.
jancsika 9y ago
> When I tell them I made a bit of money investing, they think stocks, not blockchains. I’m not even going to try explaining bitcoin to them. They don’t need the aggravation. So many questions: 1) Why would any human think blockchains and not stocks when you talk about investing? 2) Humans shouldn't be investing in Bitcoin unless they have money that is 100% disposable (which, judging by the tone of your blog, you don't). 3) You should try explaining Bitcoin to your parents. Trying to explain something will help reveal whether you actually know what you're talking about or not. I'm going to guess that you don't understand how a blockchain fundamentally works. I am guessing this because you're using "blockchain" as an example of something grokked by people on the younger side of the digital divide but not by the older side. If you think the grokking of blockchains is so widespread that you can use it as a shorthand for the digital divide, then I seriously doubt you grok blockchains. 4) Are you seriously investing in Bitcoin, or was that just poetic license? Edit: clarification and typo
- pjc50 9y ago
  The author hints that they bought in early to bitcoin and have made some money that way, although obviously they don't go into detail. Perhaps they do not quite believe the gains themselves, and certainly can't work out how to explain it. The author is slightly too old to be a true Millenial.
- klenwell 9y ago
  > Why would any human think blockchains and not stocks when you talk about investing? Good question. What I've seen enough millenials to slightly alarm me is that they don't think stocks or blockchains but multi-level marketing schemes. Are they more susceptible to being drawn into these than any other cohort? I'd guess probably not (I remember seeing Amway jugs in my parents' garage as a kid), but with social media it just feels that way. Anyway, between college debt among white collar millenials with decent jobs and crappy service-sector jobs among the rest, I suspect the real problem is they just don't have anything to invest.
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    The current Secretary of Education is married into the family that built Amway. And her brother is currently trying to privatize the army. Interesting times.
pjc50 9y ago
I have a very strong feeling that this article is covering the same ground as "traditional" sociology and philosophy, but without using any of the same vocabulary. The bits about performative lifestyles sound very much like Baudrillard, although I'm not quite qualified to say.
jp57 9y ago
I'm having a hard time distinguishing "premium mediocre" from "bourgeois" as the term is applied to tastes and preferences. As with so many other neologisms, I think this concept is already amply covered in English's huge vocabulary.
- wnissen 9y ago
  Bourgeois is mediocre in taste but requires a certain level of resources. Premium mediocre adds two components: striving but failing to achieve that level of resources, and awareness that one is aspiring to it.
- WhoIsSatoshi 9y ago
  premium mediocre has the aspiration for money, but none of the money. Bourgeoisie had the aspiration for taste and finer disposition, but they actually have the money. The money is the difference, Premium Mediocre have none.
  - ZenoArrow 9y ago
    Yes, that's what this premium mediocre concept seems to boil down to, something pretending to be more expensive than it actually is. What irks me is that mediocre implies a lack of distinguishable quality, but this is separate from how much something costs. To use the avocado toast example given in the article, if the avocado toast is healthy and genuinely tasty, is it still mediocre? Are all cheap products like bread by nature 'mediocre'? I don't think so. This is where I see that the term falls down, it conflates price and quality where this relationship is not necessarily direct.
  - rhino369 9y ago
    So premium mediocre is chipotle and bourgeoisie is the latin fusion place that charges 25 bucks for entrees?
gt_ 9y ago
'Capitalist realism' humiliates all of these assumptions, except the author's pride. He does that on his own. PDF: https://libcom.org/files/Capitalist%20Realism_%20Is%20There%20No%20Alternat%20-%20Mark%20Fisher.pdf https://libcom.org/files/Capitalist%20Realism_%20Is%20There%...
- madstatistician 9y ago
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Animats 9y ago
Premium mediocre is food that Instagrams better than it tastes. That's brilliant. Olive Garden and Starbucks are the pioneers in this. There's a whole market sector of fake upscale. Now we have a name for it.
bhewes 9y ago
Fascinating this is a POV I have not seen before and it reads rather positively. This should be a book in the vain of 'Bobos in Paradise'.
fooza 9y ago
Maybe I didn't understand the term but saying the whole country of France is premium medicore is illinformed to say the least. Theb saying Switzerland is the premium coubtry is just meaningless. Is it because of the nazi gold? Did I not get the joke?
mindslight 9y ago
I initially liked the term, but the more I read the more I kind of tuned out of it. I feel like defining the category by reading into the culture of the demand side is a bit lacking. What the term and initial examples conjured for me, was the category of generally boring bland things that have been dressed up in marketing as being exceptional or interesting, and are then held out by their patrons as similar. For food, Chipotle is in the dead center of that group - great when you're driving through Oklahoma in a box truck, adequate when you're hungover and hangry somewhere you don't know the decent haunts, but ultimately every meal there stems from a failure to do the legwork of finding something good. Amazon should also not escape mention for being in this category. For a long time I had trouble understanding why everybody would talk about Amazon's prices being so good, but eventually I realized that the idea of shopping around online hadn't really occurred to them - they are comparing to Targmart! I think a lot of what fuels these ventures is something like the sixth tier hipsters, lording their "find" over the seventh tier ones (A 0th tier hipster is the actual trend creator, most don't get followed. The standard "first tier" hipsters are actually the first followers. The second tier ones follow the first tier ones once the trend has caught in a little. And so on). The "premium mediocre" is ultimately safe, as anything challenging has been optimized out, but is dressed up to look new like any fashion, and is thus adopted by the portion of the masses seeking superficial change.
jondubois 9y ago
It's a nice read. Some statements are hyperbole but overall I can say that it lines up with my own beliefs. >> To proclaim loudly that you think it’s mostly luck is, ironically enough, the best way to make sure you are excluded from the lottery. I've had the exact same thought before; it's almost as though rich people conspire together (at least subconsciously) to make sure that no critic of capitalism joins their ranks. It makes sense though; if top capitalists like Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet started preaching about the evils of capitalism, it would pose an existential threat to the system... Top capitalists are the popes and priests of the economic order so they need to be devout.
abrowne 9y ago
> Premium mediocre is Starbucks’ [...] original pumpkin spice lattes featuring a staggering absence of pumpkin That's like complaining that your grapefruit juice doesn't have any grape.
punchclockhero 9y ago
The whole idea of 'LARPing your way into good jobs' is really on point. The article pretty much expressed my own thoughts after experiencing this kind of serendipitous event.

197 points by pwneth 9y ago

I feel like I've seen all of these strata. My timeline goes like this: 1) Worked at a defense tech startup, learned some code, told the AI what to do. 2) Got MBA, worked at big Wall Street bank with millionaire boss. Met some management teams at massive companies, discovered they were just ordinary people for the most part. Completely disregarded AI/tech because we were Too Big to Fail. 3) For the kiddos, I gave up hectic job and took a decent job at what I thought was a scrappy tech-focused company, which was subsequently acquired by a bigger slower company. Now I work in effectively a front-line role, which has a high potential to eventually be automated away. I do some code but it's mostly easy lay-up stuff. The AI tells us what to look at, and other people control that. Meanwhile my wife is an IG/FB pro, mercilessly weaving the latest family related stories of success and tabulating the "like" coups. I suppose we're faking it til we make it (again). It's an odd feeling to have seen maybe all three important sides of the new economy. I'll feel more comfortable when we're back in the top or middle again.

mfoy_ 9y ago
I've never understood the instagram / facebook game that people seem to dedicate inordinate amounts of effort to... I mean, I guess it's just your typical one-upsmanship in a social network... but still. People try so hard to make it look like their lives are better than everyone else's... I don't understand. :(
- damnfine 9y ago
  And you almost always make your actual life objectively worse in the process. I dated a media junkie, never any fun, always posing, aranging dishes, making 'moments' instead of actual enjoiable memories. She was an amazing person, but the near OCD levels of trying to make life look perfect to the outside just didnt work for me. The most amazing moments in her life, never documented, only a ghost shell online to paint a false memory.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  It's a reflection of our deep insecurities, at least for some of us. As I've resolved my internal conflicts, I've gone back and manually deleted my "high status" posts from IG/FB even if no one's going to be checking my 3 year old posts. It feels good to move past some of my past vain behavior.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  I think you don't understand because you're missing the marketing dimension of it A lot of these "digital influencers" get endorsement deals, are paid to post for a brand or to test their products That's what (a lot of them) are looking for
- DerfNet 9y ago
  I have acquaintances on Facebook that pose and cheese for the camera seemingly every day, and others who apparently schedule their posts as if they're marketing themselves as a lifestyle brand or something. Like, we get it, you like mountain biking and camping, but you didn't do that stuff on a Wednesday. I know where you work, and it's not the woods.
  - skybrian 9y ago
    I'd guess that's just when they got around to posting their pictures? Why so cynical?
- 90s-socal-kid 9y ago
  Some people make decent money on IG, doing things they enjoy (their kids, exercise, etc.)

rayiner 9y ago

This is a very long article about something that has been known for a very long time: middle class existential angst.

marktangotango 9y ago
I really enjoyed Rao's writing on the Gervais Principal, but I've never read anything else by him that really clicked with me. This piece in particular is winding, meandering, and nonsensical.
nimbix 9y ago
Sounds like what a friend of mine likes to call "the pain of easy living".
- jerf 9y ago
  We come from a billion+ years of organisms that have had to strive and fight for everything. Not necessarily all the time; there are brief times when resources are free and easy for some species (like, "a disease kills of 95% of your species and you're the only thing around that eats grass" or something; for the survivors it's suddenly a cornucopia), but they don't last this long, nor are they ever this easy. It's not hard to see why our genes haven't really prepared us for this wealth.
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mabub24 9y ago
Yeah. I feel like he spends a lot of time trying to say it's not about the bourgeoisie when it pretty clearly is. People have been writing about this phenomenon and this particular way of looking at social status from the mid 19th century to today. It's the same with "late-stage capitalism". People have been saying capitalism has entered a particularly "ignorant" stage for decades. Just because API's are now involved (I guess?) doesn't mean it's a revolutionary insight.

l0b0 9y ago

Anything with "Exclusive" in the name also qualifies; your stock is "as much as people will buy * fudge factor." Are you sure you don't mean "Inclusive"? And suits. Any suit. Yes, even the $1000 one. It's wrapping paper for your personality.

yaway 9y ago

there are too many digressions and obscure inside-references in this essay, but this cuts to the heart of the matter: "[Premium mediocre] is an economic and cultural rearguard action by young people launched into life from the old middle class, but not quite equipped to stay there, and trying to engineer a face-saving soft landing…somewhere." i'm 24 and while i can see the humor and hyperbole in this article, its also a pretty astute description of the disenchantment many of my bicoastal "elite" friends from middle/upper-middle class families feel. timely too. one of my friends texted me this morning: "[my large corporate employer] laid off 90% of its sales force yesterday...survived another day in corporate America" the worst side effect for me is feeling like i am stupid and naive for trying to do things the "right" way - the meritocratic, socially conscious, altruistic way - when it seems like these are values that do not achieve the right outcomes anymore. should just shut up and get mine. overall i feel my generation, or at least my social strata, will mature to be colder, harder and more distant than our predecessors. all it will take to cement this transformation is another recession

hkmurakami 9y ago
I have a few good friends who lean hard towards the mission driven engineering side. They tend to find each other for continual inspiration and support. Find kindred spirits. It'll help you stay true to your way. All of us need this kind of community support from like minded peers.
UnpossibleJim 9y ago
Yeah. That's basically what happened to the kids of the 60's and the kids of the 80's. They started out anticorp and f-society, then ended up doing cocaine in the boardroom and smashing anything that they didn't own. It's a weird shift that seems to happen. =)
- jameskegel 9y ago
  I feel this change- every time I get a raise, every time I make a $500 purchase on a whim, these are the things that my inner-teenager rages about, but why experience success if I can't enjoy it? When I was younger, I didn't understand the ways of the people above me because I didn't have the discipline to obtain the means that would allow me to make those choices. In essence, "you hate it because you ain't it".

JBReefer 9y ago

This is kind of meandering, and it loses the thread a bit in the end (it feels like he's getting to a point he's uncomfortable with ideologically), but it's extremely accurate. The bigger point about creating the future - that he seems to miss - is that it's a future _not everyone wants_, which drives a huge part of the "maga/bernie" divide he discusses. He is right though - the rate of downward mobility among my young, bourgeoisie 20-somethings friends in NYC is shocking. 90%+ of my friends don't save anything, but take elaborate vacations several times a year, or go to multiple, expensive festivals. I have no idea what most of them would do if they lost their jobs. One of my friends quit their job and instantly is poor. They spent 3 weeks in Europe a month ago. He really hits the nail on the head in exploring their motivations, in my opinion.

flachsechs 9y ago
> the rate of downward mobility among my young, bourgeoisie 20-somethings friends in NYC is shocking i dunno, i'd argue these people aren't downwardly mobile because they were never upper middle class to begin with (bourgeoisie). if you have no saved money and your family can't just straight up give you money to live if you lose your job, you're lower to lower middle at best. better luck next time, etc. and if the parents have the money but aren't willing -- then they are but a cleverly constructed socioeconomic facsimile of the upper classes, but aren't truly that thing. the upper classes will stop at nothing from ensuring their progeny maintains or outperforms their own status. to them, that's _the whole point_ of having money. by definition they will give their wealth to their offspring in times of need, barring exceptional circumstances like enabling alcoholism or something equally untoward. upper middle and upper class kids can fuck off to do a phd for 8 years, or traipse around europe, or attempt to launch a business and fail, with basically no consequence whatsoever. btw the 'classes' really are a [not quintile] system, like in economics. the interesting thing is the money is secondary, it's social status that really matters. and by this, i mean it is exceedingly unlikely for classes 4 and 5 to fall down, because their money is entrenched in the financial system. i.e. they own stuff and would literally have to work at liquidating and spending it all, in a sort of drawn out socioeconomic suicide. 1. lower class (poor people) 2. lower middle class 3. middle class 4. uppper middle class 5. upper class

neolefty 9y ago

In the article, I saw a subtext about what we view as valuable. While there were some good points (being above or below the API, for example), this whole article sounded like it was stuck in scarcity thinking. What if everyone has enough to live a comfortable life? Do we still need to keep score? Can we be happy if we're basically all okay, and we don't stand out as belonging to a superior social class? Personally, my children will probably be able to make a decent living. They won't be 1% rich, but they will likely have skills and coping abilities. What I want most for them is to help make the world better -- to do things in their professional and personal lives that help other people and move civilization forward. For my children to be happy with that, they probably need to measure their worth by how they help other people, rather than by the "quality" of what they consume or other social signals they emit.

scandox 9y ago

There's a lazy optimism to this that I don't like. Educated, non-technical people, 30 and younger are struggling to find meaningful, well paid employment. That is a recipe for massive social change occurring rapidly. I'm 40 and a programmer, but I have a lot of non-technical friends in their 20s and 30s. Most of the smart ones are, at this point - intellectually - communists. Contrary to the general view, most of these people are not flaky. They're able. I honestly think the distraction of the internet is the only thing preventing them from lining me up against a wall.

nmeofthestate 9y ago
Well, the internet is key to this social movement(?). Like the internet created a space for cannibal wannabees to get together, it's created a space for much larger groups to get together and hone a story about how things are not set up in their interests. It's very seductive - I have a Gen X brother who kinda pretends to be an honorary Millenial because things haven't gone great with his employment/finances (he never saved, got a pension, quit fairly lucrative work to live at home).
- scandox 9y ago
  Personally I think it's a mistake to view young people as acting in bad faith or having inherent group characteristics (lazy, entitled etc)...I think they do have group characteristics that stem from a fairly rational response to their downward social mobility. I can't comment on your brother's situation except to say that if things didn't work out well for him, it's natural for him to align with a group that he feels are in the same case. You say it's "seductive" which implies that basically he's taking an easy route out of hard work. That may be true for him, but it is unlikely to be more true of a cross section of any generational group.
  - nmeofthestate 9y ago
    > Personally I think it's a mistake to view young people as acting in bad faith or having inherent group characteristics I agree - it's sad that sweeping generalisations (boomers bad, white people bad, men bad etc) have become such a mainstream part of culture.

mwcampbell 9y ago

Spare a thought for the people who end up "below the API", as he puts it. Life can be terrible for them. What can we do to make it more bearable, or spare people from ending up there in the first place?

Chardok 9y ago
We can begin with leveling the starting point for all. Transportation, healthcare, education, internet and cell phone access - all of these are necessary for being successful, yet we put the responsibility on the individual for acquiring these things. When you can free a person from worrying about how they are going to pay for their medical bills, or if they will be able to afford fixing that check engine light on their car, they will have the freedom to make better choices for themselves. They can better negotiate where they want to work, since they aren't tied to their employer's health plan. They won't have to take that awful job just because its close enough to walk or pays enough to afford their car repairs. It ends up being a trap - you need a job for healthcare - so you need a car to get you there, you need internet and a cell phone to do interviews, you need to be educated to be hired - which all drain your income from the job in the first place, in which you have to swing from job to job as a means of life support to continue. IMO, this leads to the "premium mediocrity" the article describes, where it provides a brief means of escape from this trap.

jancsika 9y ago

> When I tell them I made a bit of money investing, they think stocks, not blockchains. I’m not even going to try explaining bitcoin to them. They don’t need the aggravation. So many questions: 1) Why would any human think blockchains and not stocks when you talk about investing? 2) Humans shouldn't be investing in Bitcoin unless they have money that is 100% disposable (which, judging by the tone of your blog, you don't). 3) You should try explaining Bitcoin to your parents. Trying to explain something will help reveal whether you actually know what you're talking about or not. I'm going to guess that you don't understand how a blockchain fundamentally works. I am guessing this because you're using "blockchain" as an example of something grokked by people on the younger side of the digital divide but not by the older side. If you think the grokking of blockchains is so widespread that you can use it as a shorthand for the digital divide, then I seriously doubt you grok blockchains. 4) Are you seriously investing in Bitcoin, or was that just poetic license? Edit: clarification and typo

pjc50 9y ago
The author hints that they bought in early to bitcoin and have made some money that way, although obviously they don't go into detail. Perhaps they do not quite believe the gains themselves, and certainly can't work out how to explain it. The author is slightly too old to be a true Millenial.
klenwell 9y ago
> Why would any human think blockchains and not stocks when you talk about investing? Good question. What I've seen enough millenials to slightly alarm me is that they don't think stocks or blockchains but multi-level marketing schemes. Are they more susceptible to being drawn into these than any other cohort? I'd guess probably not (I remember seeing Amway jugs in my parents' garage as a kid), but with social media it just feels that way. Anyway, between college debt among white collar millenials with decent jobs and crappy service-sector jobs among the rest, I suspect the real problem is they just don't have anything to invest.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  The current Secretary of Education is married into the family that built Amway. And her brother is currently trying to privatize the army. Interesting times.

pjc50 9y ago

I have a very strong feeling that this article is covering the same ground as "traditional" sociology and philosophy, but without using any of the same vocabulary. The bits about performative lifestyles sound very much like Baudrillard, although I'm not quite qualified to say.

jp57 9y ago

I'm having a hard time distinguishing "premium mediocre" from "bourgeois" as the term is applied to tastes and preferences. As with so many other neologisms, I think this concept is already amply covered in English's huge vocabulary.

wnissen 9y ago
Bourgeois is mediocre in taste but requires a certain level of resources. Premium mediocre adds two components: striving but failing to achieve that level of resources, and awareness that one is aspiring to it.
WhoIsSatoshi 9y ago
premium mediocre has the aspiration for money, but none of the money. Bourgeoisie had the aspiration for taste and finer disposition, but they actually have the money. The money is the difference, Premium Mediocre have none.
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  Yes, that's what this premium mediocre concept seems to boil down to, something pretending to be more expensive than it actually is. What irks me is that mediocre implies a lack of distinguishable quality, but this is separate from how much something costs. To use the avocado toast example given in the article, if the avocado toast is healthy and genuinely tasty, is it still mediocre? Are all cheap products like bread by nature 'mediocre'? I don't think so. This is where I see that the term falls down, it conflates price and quality where this relationship is not necessarily direct.
- rhino369 9y ago
  So premium mediocre is chipotle and bourgeoisie is the latin fusion place that charges 25 bucks for entrees?

gt_ 9y ago

'Capitalist realism' humiliates all of these assumptions, except the author's pride. He does that on his own. PDF: https://libcom.org/files/Capitalist%20Realism_%20Is%20There%20No%20Alternat%20-%20Mark%20Fisher.pdf https://libcom.org/files/Capitalist%20Realism_%20Is%20There%...

madstatistician 9y ago
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Animats 9y ago

Premium mediocre is food that Instagrams better than it tastes. That's brilliant. Olive Garden and Starbucks are the pioneers in this. There's a whole market sector of fake upscale. Now we have a name for it.

bhewes 9y ago

Fascinating this is a POV I have not seen before and it reads rather positively. This should be a book in the vain of 'Bobos in Paradise'.

fooza 9y ago

Maybe I didn't understand the term but saying the whole country of France is premium medicore is illinformed to say the least. Theb saying Switzerland is the premium coubtry is just meaningless. Is it because of the nazi gold? Did I not get the joke?

mindslight 9y ago

I initially liked the term, but the more I read the more I kind of tuned out of it. I feel like defining the category by reading into the culture of the demand side is a bit lacking. What the term and initial examples conjured for me, was the category of generally boring bland things that have been dressed up in marketing as being exceptional or interesting, and are then held out by their patrons as similar. For food, Chipotle is in the dead center of that group - great when you're driving through Oklahoma in a box truck, adequate when you're hungover and hangry somewhere you don't know the decent haunts, but ultimately every meal there stems from a failure to do the legwork of finding something good. Amazon should also not escape mention for being in this category. For a long time I had trouble understanding why everybody would talk about Amazon's prices being so good, but eventually I realized that the idea of shopping around online hadn't really occurred to them - they are comparing to Targmart! I think a lot of what fuels these ventures is something like the sixth tier hipsters, lording their "find" over the seventh tier ones (A 0th tier hipster is the actual trend creator, most don't get followed. The standard "first tier" hipsters are actually the first followers. The second tier ones follow the first tier ones once the trend has caught in a little. And so on). The "premium mediocre" is ultimately safe, as anything challenging has been optimized out, but is dressed up to look new like any fashion, and is thus adopted by the portion of the masses seeking superficial change.

jondubois 9y ago

It's a nice read. Some statements are hyperbole but overall I can say that it lines up with my own beliefs. >> To proclaim loudly that you think it’s mostly luck is, ironically enough, the best way to make sure you are excluded from the lottery. I've had the exact same thought before; it's almost as though rich people conspire together (at least subconsciously) to make sure that no critic of capitalism joins their ranks. It makes sense though; if top capitalists like Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet started preaching about the evils of capitalism, it would pose an existential threat to the system... Top capitalists are the popes and priests of the economic order so they need to be devout.

abrowne 9y ago

> Premium mediocre is Starbucks’ [...] original pumpkin spice lattes featuring a staggering absence of pumpkin That's like complaining that your grapefruit juice doesn't have any grape.

punchclockhero 9y ago

The whole idea of 'LARPing your way into good jobs' is really on point. The article pretty much expressed my own thoughts after experiencing this kind of serendipitous event.