Jessica Bennett, who teaches journalism at New York University and is a middle-aged millennial, recently found herself at the same bar as one of her students. She had gone there because it’s in her neighborhood and it serves only natural wine, “better for old-person hangovers,” she explains. The student was there because she’d seen the bar on TikTok. “There we were, at the same place, both of us wondering what exactly that said about each of us — did it make her cool and me lame, or the other way around?” Jessica says. Indeed, because of her age, the question of her coolness has been on Jessica’s mind a lot lately. She has begun to realize — or perhaps panic about — just how much of her professional identity has been built on coolness. “Why should age come with a permanent loss of cultural cachet, if you haven’t entirely given up? Of course I don’t want to lose my cool,” Jessica says. “I know too much about what happens to people’s relevance as they age, the ways our culture continues to valorize youth (especially for women).” So Jessica has decided to work on being cool, like a job. “Cool used to come effortlessly; now it requires attention. I think of it less like clinging and more like maintaining — like a good skin care routine.” #geriatricmillennial #genzvsmillennials #nytopinion
