Millennials. Are we ok?

Millennials may not have been dealt the best hand when it comes to the ladder of what made adulthood and growing up so much more appealing and desirable in retrospect. Hell, the job market is questionable at best, frustrating at worst.

We’re taking the jobs that barely feed us and then also starve our souls.

Our degrees? A fever dream that once held significant promise.

Our dreams? Hopefully still intact. I’m certainly holding onto mine with all my might. The fact that this piece is even being read or digested by my audience is a testament of that.

One thing they can’t take away from us is our pop culture and its influence on us till this day. We really were spoiled with some of the best cartoons and TV shows; witnesses to some of the most incredible cinematographic shifts and transitions.

Which brought me down the liminal path of memory lane. My dad and I always had a huge love and appreciation for movies and I distinctly remember how fascinated and awestruck he was by the crispness of the animation quality in Disney’s Tangled when it first came out.

My dad is unfortunately no longer with us, but this memory remains relatively vivid. He has influenced my appreciation and love for animation. We’ve seen plenty of really quirky and interesting animated projects; Dreamworks was Disney’s next best contender bringing us Shrek, Shark Tale, and Ice Age…we loved it.

Let’s also not forget how big of a chokehold Cartoon Network and Warner Brothers had on us, kids of the 90s and early 2000s.

Tangled left an imprint in that it caught the attention of someone who, granted, was the father of the target demographic, so it was only natural that tween media was bound to cross paths…

There’s a scene in the movie when Maximus, Flynn Rider’s sidekick, is sniffing the grass in search of something or someone. This scene is most notably not relevant to most viewers of the film, but to me, it holds a special significance because this was the exact scene that made my dad pause and say, “Wow! Animation has really upped its game since the 90s!”

In the scene, there’s a zoom on Maximus, the horse, as he feverishly sniffs out the surrounding area for clues. The image is very crisp and lifelike. Even if you’re not an enthusiast, you have to give credit where credit is due. There is no significance to the plot in this scene, but it bears significance on how media was perceived and how it shaped an ongoing worldview with its immaculate attention to detail and perception.

It recently sparked a question, why do so many of us feel as if we’ve been left on pause in an animated dream film? Everything is still relatively perfect and colorful, but we’re not the same. Intrinsically we are, but we aren’t entirely looking at the world through the same lens of childlike wonder, are we? When we stare at ourselves back in the mirror, we also do not see the same face, do we? Why do we think, collectively, that time is infinite and that its passage won’t also alter the way we are, inside and out?

Which brings to the inspiration behind this particular piece: Michelle Trachtenberg.

I bet that’s a name you haven’t thought about in a while, but she has been introduced to us in varying stages. Perhaps older, edgier millennials will remember her from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Others gush over her from her days on Gossip Girl as Serena van der Woodsen’s nemesis, Georgina Sparks. She was in a Candie's Kohl's campaign alongside Hilary Duff and Ciara.

She is the voice behind this iconic soundbite:

“Tell Jesus…the bitch is back!”

You may also recognize her from that time when she played a high school student, obsessed with physics, and in pursuit of finding the perfect formula, who then falls in love with the sport of ice skating; i.e. the iconic Ice Princess movie alongside Kim Cattrall (yes, THE Kim Cattrall). That movie and its soundtrack had my tween heart at bay.

Now that we’ve unraveled the core memories of our adolescent past, it’s time to get to the root. Recently, Michelle Trachtenberg has been getting a lot of…comments on her recent photograph. The people that are posting these comments are seemingly upset over the fact that Michelle Trachtenberg, the very same one that brought us all of those movies and shows, has aged and thereby changed the way she used to look.

But she didn’t, though.

As tough as it is to accept, it happens to all of us and we may not even be aware of it because we’re not in the public eye. Our faces are not known beyond the confines of social media…unless you are pursuing the role of a public figure or are aiming to get there by virtue of becoming a social media influencer, then you are safe from that type of criticism.

Can we even call it criticism when it’s far from being constructive and is by default subjective?

Michelle didn’t think that this would be worth any commentary as she says, “Did y’all lose a calendar and not realize I’m not 14. I’m 38. This is just my face.”

Fans have feigned concerns and sparked quite the hate train making side by side comparisons of her at age 18-21 to now. It’s absurd, but in the world of social media where many can mask their imperfections through filters, blurring out the inconsistencies, photoshop and fine tuning, it’s easy to get lost in what is fabricated or what is the truth.

In my opinion, these comparisons and comments can be a direct projection of bursting our own bubbles in accepting the fact that we have grown, but we’ve also aged. The perils of every day, regardless of what we’re going through or experiencing, will be visible through our faces. Our hair is inevitably going to get thinner. We will get wrinkles and worry lines in our foreheads. We will look a lot older than we have had during our prime time.

Let’s embrace it and stop trying to look as young as we can be. It’s important that we look our best because that’ll reflect in the way we feel about ourselves, boosting our confidence and feeling more extroverted. We can still like the same things. We can still dress the same (i’m talking to the retrospective Tumblr girl circa 2014…we’re bringing it back). We can still find enjoyment and fulfillment in retrospective pop culture, but let’s not forget…time stops for no one and being able to age is a beautiful gift.

Take it from someone who buried too many loved ones too young and far too soon.