We'll be slayin' people hatin'
But it don't bother us
Cus it's lit up in this thing called
Millennial Love
Millennial Love. The name of a song by a YouTuber I don’t dare type the name of, and also a podcast from the former newspaper, now blog online newspaper, the Independent.
This podcast - my main focus herein - centres on - uh-huh - the dating scene for millennials. If you don’t know, a millennial is somewhat accepted to be someone who was born in the last twenty or so years of the 20th century, which, incredibly, just about includes me, although there’s significant debate about the range. And, really, it’s a jungle out there.
Fear not. Olivia Petter and Rachel Hosie - in no particular order, that I’ve discerned - are here to help. Lifestyle writers or somesuch for the aforementioned blog online newspaper, often with the help of, seriously, social media influencers (!), dating gurus, reality television stars and authors who drop by to impart more wisdom, Petter and Hosie have got, well, our backs.
Or do they? It doesn’t really feel that way from my point of view, and, dare I say it, it surely can’t from plenty of others’. You see, the awfully well-spoken, and well-educated, and well-Londoned pair of “long-term singletons” seem to have come up with a podcast that offers assistance to, well, them. Or anyone really, really like them. So not quite everyone born between 1980ish and the year 2000ish.
Young professionals living in London, this is for you. If you’re interested in the heterosexual flavour of dating, even more so. They dabble in bits and bobs of LGBT+ stuff, in a podcasting sense at least, but if it isn’t hetero-normative - and I’m not certain that it’s not - it’s certainly hetero-centric. And even with alarm bells ringing loudly.
In the most recent episode, the guest - none other than Spandau Ballet’s Martin Kemp’s son, pictured here - asked the learned twosome if they were on the current leading apps - tinder, bumble and the like - in search of boys, or girls, or both. Hosie, I think, answered pretty rapidly that it was just boys for her, as far as these apps were concerned. SBMKS explained that most women he knows are open to meeting both men and women.
That’s Spandau Ballet’s Martin Kemp’s son, pictured here, a millennial, asserted that most women he knows - probably millennials too, right? - are open to dating men and/or women. Shouldn’t this be explored? Does it sound likely? (I’ll answer that one: it does.) If it’s true, should the undeniably hetero-centric and possibly hetero-normative podcast diversify? Could it, though I admittedly didn’t catch Petter’s response to the query, benefit from a little more diversity in the presentership?
The Independent for a decade or so was my newspaper of choice (I still buy its prodigal son, the i, when I feel the need for a hard copy of something). If ever anyone asked me why, I’d say it was liberal, reasonably left-wing, the writing seemed compassionate, but, unlike how I perceived the Guardian to be, it didn’t assume I was loaded. I’m not sure to what extent Millennial Love is true to that template.
I’ve detected, to name but two disappointments, in an age of housing scarcity, as well as austerity, the regular stigmatisation of millennial men still living with their parents, and there seems to be no end of inclinations towards heterosexual traditions like men always initiating first kisses, which should be long-banished to the dustbin of history - for feminism’s sake and prudence in a climate of necessary male self-awareness.
The episode which touched on dating amongst the religious even left the following sweeping generalisation entirely unchallenged:
“…it’s a real problem with Christians that are, like, ‘no sex before marriage’. They prioritise getting married [whispers] because they want to have sex…”
So Millennial Love can be downright offensive too. Consequently, how many people download, realise they, despite being in the age range, are not catered for (much), turn off and never listen again? How many, despite being in the age range, hear something that makes them feel excluded from its little club? Because they’re poor? Uneducated? Don’t live in London? Perception is everything.
I’ll level with you: I’m not really a millennial. I’m sure not by what I imagine Petter and Hosie’s date range criteria would be, and certainly not in spirit. Plus, dating, and all of its supplementary activities, is not really for me. When Petter and Hosie refer to online dating as a status quo - in effect, dating - and then specify “offline dating”, I feel more alienated than ever, and it brings to mind the transition of Frank Lampard Jr to Frank Lampard, and his father’s from Frank Lampard to Frank Lampard Sr. Yeah, I’ve just used that reference.
So, really, this podcast isn’t for me - bitter old me, deliberately misidentifying Roman Kemp to amuse myself. I was far more a Loveline with Amber Rose kind of guy. That podcast truly covered all bases. Even with a slight hetero-normative bent, all incomes, orientations, explorations and backgrounds were catered for. And it was certainly still targeting millennials, and without a filter.
But it’s gone. So I’ll continue to listen to Millennial Love because I like to know about what’s going on with those who have the future of the planet in their hands, and that’s millennials. However, even from my alienated vantage point, it’s clear that Millennial Love could be important for so many people more than it’s currently catering for, and that it’s not is a crying shame.
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