Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Last night’s season finale of Survivor was notable not only for one of the more unsatisfying winners in recent memory (Michelle was good and very likeable, but how did she do more to win than Aubry?) and not only for Sia bum-rushing Jeff Probst from the audience in order to present Tai with a $50,000 prize for just being a good guy. It also featured a preview for next season, the show’s 33rd, which has divided the 20 competitors along generational lines. That’s right, this fall, the Millennial vs. Gen X battle won’t just be fought on your Twitter timeline.
Millennials vs. Gen X is consistent with the ways that Survivor has been branding its non-all-stars seasons. This year, tribes were divided between Brains, Brawn, and Beauty. Season 30 separated competitors along class lines, with White Collar, Blue Collar, and No Collar tribes. It’s a quick shortcut to creating story right from the break, and it sets up clear rooting interests for the audience. Millennials vs. Gen X might seem a tired concept if you spend any time on the internet, but it’s as decent a hook as any.
It’s just too bad Survivor doesn’t seem to know what Millennials and Gen X-ers are.
“It’s hard work, it’s not how fast I can type it on Google and find the answer,” says Gen X-er and Tim McGraw character Chris. This is a good start. Millennials do love their Google searches, after all. Not Gen X-ers, though. Chris apparently plans to use his set of 1986 Encyclopedia Brittanica to help him start a fire.
Taylor is a Millennial with piercing blue eyes and a cheerful disdain for career planning. “I’m a free man,” he says. “I don’t like to be caged.” See, here’s where the wheels start to fall off. Does Survivor think Millennial is synonymous with hippie? Because thus far, the divide between Chris and Taylor appears to be a blue-collar/no-collar thing, and that was three seasons ago.
Mari plays video games online for a living. …Okay, that’s pretty Millennial.
“I don’t feel like Millennial people are quite as driven,” Gen X-er Sunday chirps Midwesternly. And SERIOUSLY WHAT?! Two things: 1) Think of the most frighteningly, off-puttingly ambitious person you have ever met in your life. Almost certainly you are thinking of a Millennial. In the time it took for you to read this article, a Millennial just jumped ahead of you at your job. Also 2) this coming from the representative of a generation for whom the designation “slacker” was invented. This isn’t the Greatest Generation! The only war they lived through was the Late Night War. The first one.
It only gets more muddled from there. Zeke is the Millennial who resents being tethered to his phone and thinks Twitter is the worst. Gen X David bemoans the old reliable “participation medal” boogeyman with one breath, then talks about how much he would have appreciated a participation medal (or 12) with the next.
You know, maybe Survivor is on to something here. Maybe instead of bringing together Millennial and Gen X stereotypes to do battle, they have instead gathered 20 representatives of their generations to come together and bridge the divide. Like a kind of Truth and Reconciliation Panel where Generation X apologizes for Kevin Smith and Millennials atone for vloggers. Maybe the winner emerges as a kind of Übermensch, combining the strengths of both generations, having sloughed off the weaknesses.
Or maybe we’re in for a lot of haphazardly deployed cracks about Snapchat.
@AndyHerren “Survivors: READY!” [half the players too busy Snapchatting to respond]
— Joe Reid (@joereid) May 19, 2016
