It seems that everywhere you turn there is a new headline along the lines of “Tinder Has Ruined Romance”, “Hookup Culture Has Replaced True Love”, or “Millennials: All They Want To Do Is Fuck and Run Because Love is Too Scary”.

Yes offense to mainstream media, but I definitely do not feel like those titles are an accurate representation of myself as a millennial.
Sure, I am what you would call a millennial female. So although I am *stereotypically* more likely to be into playing games and ghosting on dudes, not committing to anything more than a brief Tinder chat or a one-night-stand, I’m definitely not like that at all.

So what am I really, truly, into? I’m into trying to fucking get my shit sorted enough to be able to afford a house/apartment in this ridiculous and frightening real estate circle-jerk. I’m into trying to ensure that I am “yes” enough about who I am in order to secure my perch in a world full of “no”. I want to own my own place so that I can do harmless artistic shit to it, like sharpie-ing a surf mural on my toilet walls, or own a dog, if I want. All I want is real-life security and freedom. And is it that much of a stretch to assume that due to such an uncertain world, I would like to have a person that I can refer to as my best friend, my partner in crime, or a dick that I can collapse on after a hard day’s worrying about the current economic climate?

I’m sick of the media trying to stereotype our entire generation as a pack of flippant infants with an attention span no longer than a 60 second YouTube clip. I’m sick of being considered a lazy piece of shit that doesn’t know what love is, just because of the year in which I happened to be born.
Those of us born in the 80s and 90s are an incredibly soulful bunch of people who (perhaps due to an alarmingly high exposure to rave piano and MDMA) understand that a heavy piano and bass riff coupled with an intense eye lock is enough to make you fall in love/connection with another human. We don’t need to be defined as the Tinder generation of flaky one-night-standers. We are all complex people with legit feelings and desire to connect with others, for we are the butt end of the Peace/Love/Unity/Respect generation who know that a 4am cuddle and chat about the fabric of space-time is worth more to our soul than a ten-minute bourbon-soaked fuck in an unfamiliar room with “Darren from Kwinana”. Fuck you, media. We refuse to play the dystopian sex-hungry/love-starved robots which you so desperately wish to cast us as.

Love (to everybody!),

Akika