There are a number of reasons to read Kert Andersen’s latest piece in Time Magazine. The entire piece is really insightful but the quote below in particular grabbed my attention for it’s relevance as well as, I think, it’s accuracy.

“The so-called millennials, on the other hand, have come of age during a period defined by the digital revolution, 9/11, financial bubbles bursting, a possible depression and the election — possibly their election — of an African-American President: the makings, frankly, of a healthier, more useful generational creation myth than assassinations, antiwar protests and countercultural bacchanalia (which, by the way, enabled the risk-taking, party-hearty, quasi-utopian paradigm of the past quarter-century). In other words, the kids are all right.”

Understanding the effects of the period in which millennials are coming of age is the key to understanding how to market to them (or I should say us) in a political sense.
More after the jump…

The digital revolution ensures that young people have access to an abundance of information, there is no unknown so long as google provides an opportunity for exploration. Granted, studies indicate that individuals who get their information online tend to gravitate to sources that will reaffirm their political leanings. Still, manipulative campaign ads or platforms are less effective simply because the information that debunks them is incredibly accessible.

I’ll also agree with his second point and add that the election of a President Obama helps to transform the way that young people not only see ourselves but our abilities. Talk about affirmation in the notion that anything is possible… in 2008 the country was successful in defying reason and history to elect an African American President. We can now refuse to compromise what “we know” because we’ve proven that what we know, or assume to know, is susceptible to change.