One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In

“I think a lot of us now look back and cringe about many of the things we did to fit in, forgetting we grew up during a time when it seemed like avoiding being unique at all costs was the right thing to do. Though to be clear, it cost me a lot; I’m pretty sure I had my net worth tied up in a New York & Company credit card at one point, and I definitely spent a month’s hostess earnings on a North Face Denali as an ‘investment piece.’ But I blame spending K–12 learning about things like SOHCAHTOA instead of personal finances!”

Kate Kennedy uses both first-person singular and first-person plural pronouns to contextualize her musings on the millennial experience. She allows her narration this malleability to incorporate both her personal experiences and the collective experiences of her contemporaries. Furthermore, she uses witty anecdotes to ground her discussion in the millennial era.

“This has been my experience in life trying to navigate my feminine interests. Early on, I owned my truth and proudly chatted about the hyperfeminine things I liked, before I understood their labeling as superficial, only to be silenced when I was told they aren’t things a woman should like in order to be taken seriously. You’ll later read how this has impacted me well into my thirties, where I now feel the need to order a pumpkin spice latte (PSL) incognito, so I don’t appear too ‘basic’ upon drinking a cozy fall treat.”

Kennedy uses the Teen Talk Barbie as an entry point to her discussion on femininity and coming of age during the nineties and aughts, speaking to The Influence of Media and Culture on Women’s Identities. She argues that toys like the Mattel doll taught her to both love and be ashamed of particular trends. She is identifying the lasting psychological impacts of these dynamics in this passage, and thus creating links between the various essays in her collection.

“There was a more casual ‘crack an egg on your head’ version that would end on a less bleak note, dare I say a euphoric one, I still think about often: ‘Tight squeeze, cool breeze, now you’ve got the shiveries.’ I have shiveries thinking about the kindness and safety in sisterhood I found in the close friends willing to do a round of egg-cracking shivers while sitting crisscross applesauce at a school assembly or a Girl Scout meeting. I hate sleeping on the floor but love sitting on the floor, and if I can get my hair played with or my back scratched in the process, I’ll hang on to your friendship tighter than if you had a second fridge.”

Kennedy’s vivid descriptions of her and her friends’ childhood games reify her girlhood connections. She is using specific examples from her childhood to invite the reader into her personal experience and to illustrate the ways in which her early female friendships taught her to rely on women’s support and encouragement.