The Millennial Canon Bracket: Round 2
As we continue the quest to determine which person, place, event, or even behavioral tic best encapsulates the millennial generation, only bangers (not to be confused with Miley Cyrus’s ‘Bangerz’) remainThe Millennial Canon Bracket: Round 2
As we continue the quest to determine which person, place, event, or even behavioral tic best encapsulates the millennial generation, only bangers (not to be confused with Miley Cyrus’s ‘Bangerz’) remain
Editor’s note: The second-round polls have closed. See the ultimate winner here! You can also check out the millennial cringe canon, all the submissions we received for the Millennial Canon Bracket, and Brian Phillips’s think piece on millennial contradiction.
Round 1 of The Ringer’s Millennial Canon Bracket is officially dunzo, and there are a couple of clear takeaways. First of all, when Hannah Horvath said she was a voice of a generation, she certainly mustn’t have been referring to millennials: In one of Monday’s biggest upsets, 13-seed Denver, Portland, or Austin took down Girls with a convincing 63 percent of the vote. Williamsburg (an 8-seed in the Cronut Region) also got destroyed by the bowl-food god Chipotle (25 percent to 75 percent), so maybe voters are trying to hammer home that millennialism is far less tied to Brooklyn and far more tied to greige efficiency and gentrification (which, for what it’s worth, is also kind of the story of Brooklyn!).
The second takeaway is that—not to pat ourselves on the back—we did a pretty good job seeding this sucker. There were a handful of upsets—shout-out 13-seed “adulting”; your insufferableness knows no bounds—but on the whole, higher seeds dusted the competition. That, of course, means that Round 2 should be stacked with the most millennial-y artifacts.
But also, looking into the numbers, I wouldn’t exactly expect similarly chalky results on Tuesday—there are still some Cinderellas lurking. The Office and LimeWire, both 7-seeds, turned in overwhelming performances in Round 1; the aforementioned Chipotle destroyed a neighborhood in Brooklyn and now looks to take down an entire president. (Just calling my shot: I think a 1-seed goes down in Round 2.) The matchups here are truly tremendous: “We Are Young” by fun. taking on student loan debt, kindred spirits if you think about it; emo versus “adulting,” a matchup that encapsulates the full scope of millennial-dom; original recipe Four Loko taking on the 2008 financial crisis, a case where the latter thing more or less caused the rise of the former; and never owning a home versus avocado toast!!!
But enough chatting. Let’s get to Round 2.
As a reminder, you can vote here on the website and on Instagram until 6 p.m. ET. —Andrew Gruttadaro
More Artifacts From the Millennial Canon
The Cringe Region
(1) Skinny jeans vs. (8) Myspace
Skinny jeans
We didn’t have “outfit formulas,” but we did have skinny jeans, a side part, and a going-out top. The millennial dedication to showing just a bit of ankle rivals only that of the Victorian era, and whether it’s to show off the socks with strips of bacon on them that prove you’re so much funkier than your consulting job or the perfect inch of flesh above a heeled bootie, skin-tight denim was the way to do it before Big Jeans came along. —Nora Princiotti
Myspace
I can’t be the only elder millennial who can trace that unshakable, deep-rooted feeling that maybe everyone is mad at me back to the fact that we spent our teens and early 20s actively ranking our top eight friends on the daily. Did your BFF drop you into the second row? Your crush has a new girl at no. 1? I’m breaking into a cold sweat just thinking about it. Fuck off, Tom. —Lindsay Jones
(5) BuzzFeed vs. (13) Denver, Portland, or Austin
BuzzFeed
Object of ridicule, envy, and millions of track-pad clicks, BuzzFeed was the shining example of the 2010s digital media bubble that burst long ago. The secret about the site was that its listicle factory subsidized an excellent news division (which, depressingly, the company shut down in 2023). Alas, Hamilton Slack is probably dead. Long live Hamilton Slack. —Alan Siegel
Denver, Portland, or Austin
“Keep _______ weird,” am I right?! At some point, though, if everything’s weird, then nothing is weird, and all you’re left with is way too many food trucks, a bunch of town house buildings that look like this, and a population seemingly composed entirely of contestants from The Bachelorette. —Gruttadaro
(6) Student loan debt vs. (3) “We Are Young” by fun.
Student loan debt
“Do what you love,” they said, “and you'll never work a day in your life.” And they were right. You’re unemployable. But at least you also have $180,000 in debt that you took on when you were too young to know what “applying for a mortgage” meant! And let’s be honest. Living with four roommates at the age of 37 is a small price to pay for a degree in sustainable microbrewery design that you’ll treasure till the day you die. —Brian Phillips
“We Are Young” by fun.
There’s perhaps nothing more millennial than going hoarse yelling “WE ARE YOUNG,” never once considering that soon the tenses will change and the “are” will become “were.” (The only thing that may top it is putting a fucking period at the end of your band name.) Honestly, the only one who really set the world on fire was fun.’s lead guitarist, Jack Antonoff, who would go on to burn popular music to the ground as a producer. —Gruttadaro
(7) The Office vs. (2) Harry Potter fandom
The Office
“Wow,” I thought circa 2007, “we’re living through an era when people feel trapped in dead-end jobs, towns, and relationships; when we’re losing faith in the American dream but still clinging fiercely to our own individual dreams; when we’re realizing that all we have is one another, a situation that’s both incredibly annoying and profoundly beautiful.
“But surely,” I said to myself, “surely no single image will ever perfectly capture this new millennial zeitgeist!” Then Kevin dropped the chili. —Phillips
Harry Potter fandom
If you’re a millennial, you’ve probably, at some point, tried to speak in Parseltongue, figured out which house you’d be in, or cast an Accio spell to summon the Harry Potter books your parents hid because you were throwing temper tantrums about being a Muggle. But maybe it was millennials’ capacity for delusion that was the real magic all along—getting us through wars, pandemics, budding dictatorships, and J.K. Rowling being a TERF. Thanks, Harry! —Helena Hunt
The Away Message Region
(1) AOL Instant Messenger vs. (9) Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2
AOL Instant Messenger
When I die and arrive at the pearly gates, I know what sound I’ll hear: that squeaky opening door that announced one of your “buddies” logging onto AIM. There was no greater feeling of hope, anticipation, or opportunity to wow your crush—xXsoccer_guy_sk8rXx—with the new abbreviation you’d learned after seeing them at school but before logging onto AIM on the family desktop to start chatting. “Wuz up,” I’d write, and wait with bated breath for a sign that they also wanted to chat with me. Of course, if things go south for me in the afterlife—I also know what sound I’ll hear. —Jodi Walker
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2
Venice Beach, Love Park, the Hangar—what better settings for a quick game of Trick Attack? Just make sure to hit those manuals—might we suggest Rodney Mullen?—and throw in a few specials for that ever-satisfying “dun!” sound. The only thing that sounds better is the game’s soundtrack, a perfect blend of punk and hip-hop that scored countless playing sessions after school with your buddies. —Aric Jenkins
(5) Emo vs. (13) “Adulting”
Emo
D.C. hardcore bands in the ’80s hated being called it. Teens in the ’90s with swoop bangs and Hot Topic band tees embraced it. The journey to acceptance was paved with tears, 7-inch singles, and voicemails from an ex, but we’re still not sure anyone can define what emo actually is. (Though we certainly took a stab at it back in 2022.) Perhaps it’s best to paraphrase the Potter Stewart doctrine when determining whether something is or isn’t emo: We know it when we scene it. —Justin Sayles
“Adulting”
Every generation bastardizes the English language somehow. It is our God-given right. But holy hell, did millennials do a number on it: Thanks to us, any noun can now be a verb if you want it badly enough. Did you know that Panera’s new slogan is “It Just Meals Good”? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, MAN?! —Gruttadaro
(6) Quoting Anchorman vs. (3) The Motorola Razr
Quoting Anchorman
One might say the Anchorman hype escalated quickly. This aughts comedy had so many iconic lines that it became part of our vernacular. Overnight, it seemed like everybody could recite its script from memory. Do people still recognize Anchorman quotes in the wild today? Sixty percent of the time, it works every time. —Miles Surrey
The Motorola Razr
I got my first phone at 16, around the same time I got my driver’s license. It was a flip phone: silver clamshell, a stunner, the Samsung SGH-X427. It was made of adamantium and meteors. Key features included Java downloadable applications, liquid crystal display, 40-chord polyphonic ringtones. The one I picked was “Bird.” It sounded like a bird. And I loved that phone every day … until I saw a commercial for the all-new Motorola Razr. At that moment, my old cell became decrepit, a dino phone, bones. The future had arrived. —Tyler Parker
(10) “Hey ho” music vs. (2) T9 texting
“Hey ho” music
Marcus Mumford pretended he was some kind of Appalachian guitar hero, and we millennials imagined we were shouting those folksy “hey hos” in some log cabin in West Virginia instead of our cinder block–walled dorm rooms. We had no shame about our sepia-toned fantasies, and the Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men, Mumford & Sons, et al. let us live our homesteading, flower-crown-wearing daydreams out loud. —Hunt
T9 texting
Let’s say, hypothetically, that you have noticed that those of a certain age are not particularly adept at typing on their phones. Imagine if instead of a bubbly miniature QWERTY keyboard, our elders were forced to contend with a 12-key riddle in which buttons had to be smashed repeatedly to get to the right word. It was, perhaps, the millennial generation’s first true shibboleth—texting was for the kids, duh. Those raised in the sacred, lo-fi hellfire of T9 tended to be so adept that it was no longer necessary to glance at the keys—a zippy shortcut for some and a questionable mid-driving pastime for those busting out their shiny new driver’s licenses. (I am still not over BLAIRE and—seriously!—BLAIRF placing ahead of CLAIRE in the T9 prediction rotation.) —Claire McNear
The TRL Region
(1) “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers vs. (8) MGMT
“Mr. Brightside” by the Killers
Gaudy and powdered and lush, a force of nature. A fake, kitschy sort of nature, built inside a casino, where the trees are huge and dramatic and beautiful, made of plastic and covered in sequins of various neons. A Hitchcock studio lot sort of nature, a forest floor made of gold metallic fringe, picnicking on the back of an afterfiring Eldorado. —Parker
MGMT
Travis Kelce gets it. (Even if he doesn’t quite get the spelling.) So does Emerald Fennell. (Even if she doesn’t quite get the timeline right.) MGMT may not have the aloof coolness of the Strokes or the other circa-2000 bands that emerged from New York’s Lower East Side, but their brand of whimsical Williamsburg rock became the rallying cry for a subset of a generation that gravitated toward keyboards, neon, and Hype Machine remixes. It doesn’t matter that they never made another album as big as their first or that said album has at most three or four good songs. In fact, the latter point just makes them the perfect fit for the iPod era. —Sayles
(5) The Old Kanye vs. (4) Superbad
The Old Kanye
Kanye’s last truly great moment came in 2016, with an album where he worried about a model’s bleached asshole ruining his T-shirt. Perhaps there were signs all along that we’d end up where we did. At least we’ll always have those sunglasses and that Friday when Yeezus leaked. —Sayles
Superbad
How many T-shirts pulled over long-sleeve henleys is too many? In 2007, there was no upper limit. Incredibly, Superbad is one of the only comedies of its era that remains watchable—doubtless helped by enduring stars like Seth Rogen, Emma Stone, and Bill Hader, but heavily seasoned with the twee anxiety of ur-millenial Michael Cera. Gen Beta will doubtless find many horrible ways to mock their parents therein. —McNear
(6) Britney Spears vs. (3) The sound of the iPod wheel
Britney Spears
“ … Baby One More Time.” “Oops! … I Did it Again.” Albino python. Crossroads. “Toxic.” “Piece of Me.” Justin, Kevin, and Christina. Shaved head. Leave Britney alone. #FreeBritney. “Womanizer.” Vegas residency. Conservatorship. I’ll stop there, but I could keep going. If some or all of those words or phrases don’t instantly summon sounds or images in your mind, you might not be a millennial. “Iconic” is an overused adjective, but in Britney’s case, it applies perfectly. —Ben Lindbergh
The sound of the iPod wheel
Before the iPod was wholly 2000-and-late, holding one felt like the future: sleek, simple, probably stocked with Dido tunes. And at the center of it all was that scroll wheel. So infinite, man! A perfect circle under your thumb, a whole sonic universe in the palm of your hand! Click-click-click-click, it went, part alien communication and part metronome on the Metro. It was the sound of music; it was a glorious time. —Katie Baker
(7) LimeWire vs. (2) Sexy vampires
LimeWire
Now. It is, of course, illegal, and reprehensible, and—did I mention—illegal to pirate music and other vaunted art forms using the World Wide Web. But there was a time—particularly if you were, say, 12 and short on babysitting gigs, much less credit cards—when it was strangely tricky to procure the entertainment your preteen lizard brain demanded. Enter a parade of shady peer-to-peer platforms, of which Kazaa and LimeWire were the most hallowed among the generation whose cultural awakening came at their hands. Also, though: Sometimes you got the film or show or song you wanted, and sometimes you got a virus, or something completely different and mislabeled, or something so preposterously wrong that it’s hard to imagine that its creation and P2P placement were not malicious. I can neither confirm nor deny that I unknowingly watched a copy of There Will Be Blood in which all the scenes were out of order. —McNear
Sexy vampires
Stories about bloodsucking creatures have existed in culture for centuries. But millennials knew something important about vampires that differentiated our many contributions to the canon: that they are sexy and we should make them kiss. —Princiotti
The Cronut Region
(1) The Obama “Hope” poster vs. (9) Chipotle
The Obama “Hope” poster
The face that launched a thousand (million?) wannabe graphic designers. You see this poster and think it’s the last time you ever felt optimistic about anything. It was a time of innocence, a time of Facebook without your parents on it, early mixtape-era Drake, and Tom Brady being thwarted by the Giants. Ahhh, those were the days. —Jenkins
Chipotle
For decades, fast food meant a greasy, artery-clogging meal on the go. Then fast-casual chains like Chipotle burst onto the scene and made us all consider a different food delivery system: eating meals from a bowl. Now, we have our pick of the Cavas, Prets, Nayas, Dig Inns, and Honeygrows of the world—but let us not forget about the Mexican-inspired eatery that converted so many of us to Bowl Culture, even if it occasionally led to gastrointestinal armageddon. —Surrey
(5) Original recipe Four Loko vs. (4) The 2008 financial crisis
Original recipe Four Loko
One of the greatest losses of any young millennial’s life. Loss of an entire evening’s worth of ABV inside one single can, loss of cases and cases of pure Four Loko when the FDA ruined our good old-fashioned fun, and, well, mostly the loss of so, so, so many memories to the siren call of “energy beer” that tasted like the spectral whisper of a watermelon. I once hosted a Four Loko party in college that resulted in a stickiness so intense that a friend simply lifted an entire kitchen tile clean off the floor with the sole of his shoe. How do you know you’re in the good old days before you’ve already left them? Easy. It’s the final faint taste of Blue Razz right before your mind goes black. —Walker
The 2008 financial crisis
Most millennials were teens or in their early 20s, just trying to watch The Hills in peace, when the global financial crisis greeted us with a sneering “Welcome to the real world, pal.” So many abandoned half-built cul-de-sacs! Such Sad Guys on Trading Floors! From Bernie Madoff to ZIRP, from The Big Short to Margin Call, the Great Recession left its mark on a generation like some formative ex. We’ll always have our parents’ basement. —Baker
(6) Mean Girls vs. (3) Bacon
Mean Girls
“That’s so fetch,” “You go, Glen Coco,” “On Wednesdays we wear pink.” Need I say more? Mean Girls is so, so quotable that you might even think its plethora of memorable lines are played out, but they’re played out for a reason! Tina Fey’s pen at the peak of its powers is what turned the Plastics and Co. into Clueless for the T9 generation. —Julianna Ress
Bacon
Every generation has its trendy foods (and alcohol), and millennials claimed bacon like no generation had claimed a food before. (It was the quiche of the 2010s.) Bacon was a fashion statement on Urban Outfitters T-shirts and a novel delight in places you least expected. It’s not that it was healthy, or photogenic, or even cool; it’s just that it inspired paroxysms of enthusiasm, a trademark of millennials if there ever was one. —Hunt
(7) Never owning a home vs. (2) Avocado toast
Never owning a home
Is it spending too much money on avocado toast or a collapsing economy and an exponentially expanding wealth gap that’s wiping out the middle class? Who’s to say?! Either way, splitting rent with one to three roommates well into your 30s is both a necessary lifestyle choice and the epicenter of endless generational discourse. —Ress
Avocado toast
I wouldn’t exactly say that millennials identify avocado toast as an essential artifact of our generation—it’s more an association proliferated by boomers who don’t know ball. At this point we should all be capable of acknowledging that there are myriad other, more legitimate reasons why so many of us are forever renters drowning in debt. That said, I’ve never seen an old person eat avocado toast. I don’t even think my mom knows what an avocado is. —Gruttadaro
