Peak Millennial Narcissism Reached

“I Hate Myself Because I Don’t Work For BuzzFeed,” writes an anonymous young journalist at rival Website The Awl, on the unbelievably self-absorbed young people in new media who make the cat videos run on time. Certainly the first three words of her headline are true:

Part (just PART) of the reason I feel this way is because media culture is just so f***ed up and horrible. It’s so status-obsessed that I literally don’t know what to do. It’s making me hate myself. If you’re not part of the main media Twitter clique (the people who get custom-made twitter avatars from @darth—that clique) then what’s the point of even being part of the media? It’s just so hard to shake the desire to be these people (both BuzzFeed people and famous Internet people). Like if you can’t be Mallory Ortberg, Lindsey Adler, Gabby Dunn, or Amber Gordon (or like dozens of other super popular people) then what’s the point in even doing this? This business (a boy’s club, still) is hard enough for a woman but it’s even harder when you’re not social and not good at networking. Yet that seems to be the only skill that matters here—that and producing as many pageviews as possible regardless of ethics or quality. I hate myself for being some second-rate content regurgitator and listicle-producer but what else can I do?

I just… I hate this—my life. I hate living where I do (where literally every other media person lives, take a guess). I hate the media’s culture. I hate the media in general. I didn’t used to but working in it for the last few years has taught me to. I mean this business is so f***ed up and I don’t understand how anyone could say otherwise… unless they work at BuzzFeed where literally everything is perfect and the industry is in great shape because you get free s***, never get fired, traffic is always going up, and the money never ends. But at the same time, I majored in this (journalism) and basically became obsessed with this to the point where I don’t know how to do anything else, and I’d certainly NEVER want to work in advertising or PR where it’s probably even worse. I don’t even know what else I’m interested in though. I just know that I devoted my life to a craft I hate and to a business that’s corrupt, insane, insensitive, sexist, and demeaning (unless you work for…).

As Sonny Bunch of the Washington Free Beacon tweets, “Not to go all Tyler Durden on her, but you are more than your GD job. And if you feel like you aren’t? Seek some help. Seriously.”

Exactly. Might want to get step back and obtain a little distance, young distaff Internet zek. Because you sound exactly like the gang that William Shatner reads the riot act to here, crossed with Jan Brady in full “Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!” mode:

I have no idea if the above piece is real or satire. But in either case, learning how to communicate with a minimum of f-bombs would seem like a great starting place for a young journalist to undertake a concerted attempt at self-improvement.

Warning: the road ahead will be long and difficult, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

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Related: “And don’t forget the self-described “bacon-eating vegan” who was left shocked and tearful upon discovering that her degrees in “social justice studies” and ‘gender studies’ have zero value in the job market. ‘My degrees mean NOTHING,’ tweeted she. ‘I don’t even know how to process the reality that is my life now.”’