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One in a Millennial by Kate Kennedy Book Club
65 Plays6 months ago
For our first book discussion on Millennial Nostalgia, guest host Christy joins Carly to talk about One in a Millennial by Kate Kennedy. One in a Millennial is a memoir capturing the experiences of one person growing up through the ‘90s and ending with a successful podcasting career.
They compare their own experiences growing up on ‘90s TV and connecting to communities online and set up the questions for the rest of the season about connection, female characters, and how millennials were raised for a world that did not exist.
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Transcript
Millennials: Entitled or Balanced?
00:00:03
Speaker
The.
00:00:08
Speaker
Millennials aren't ripe with contradiction, and allegedly falling behind because we're these entitled, spoiled creatures. We were raised in preparation for a world that no longer exists, and are forever trying to navigate the terms. But when you think about the strength of being enthusiastic digital natives, paired with the beauty of many of our simpler, more unplugged upbringing, the contradictions start to look more like balance.
Introduction to Book Club Podcast
00:00:33
Speaker
Welcome to the book club podcast. I'm Carly and I am an elder millennial. And today I have co-host Christie. We are discussing One in a Millennial by Kate Kennedy.
Elder Millennial Experiences
00:00:45
Speaker
So Christie, are you a millennial?
00:00:48
Speaker
I am also an elder millennial. I was born in late 1980, so very close to the 1981 cutoff. I have an older sibling, I think, which pulled me a little back. And I was also slow to personally adopt a lot of millennial staples.
00:01:05
Speaker
For example, I didn't get on Facebook until it was basically a work requirement. But my family did have a computer with internet when I was in grade school. I used it more for a mind sweeper and lemonade stand and school papers on migratory birds more than I did IMing. But I would definitely pop into a chat room occasionally or engage in early internet searching. So that's where I am in my millennial cred.
Generational Tech Access
00:01:30
Speaker
What about you?
00:01:32
Speaker
Yes, I was born in 82 and I think that there is a big difference between millennials who grew up with computers in their bedroom versus computers in the house, right? So I wonder, this book doesn't get into that, but it does seem stark to me. I have a younger sister and she
00:01:51
Speaker
had a computer, she had a personal computer during high school. I didn't have a personal computer until I went to college. Same with a cell phone. And I'm wondering if there's some big distinctions there. So I remember being on message boards a lot for a certain fantasy book series I loved, but I wasn't talking with classmates or anything like Kate Kennedy talked about in the book.
Mixed Feelings on Kate Kennedy's Book
00:02:12
Speaker
What was your reaction to the book? Your first impression?
00:02:15
Speaker
So my immediate reaction to the book was mixed and I think even upon reflection it's still a little mixed. I am so impressed with her memory of all of these things that I haven't thought about in years and there'd be a quote
00:02:31
Speaker
a sly reference and all of a sudden the memories would come flooding back and I'm grateful for that. I also love her sense of humor. I enjoyed every pun that was super fun but some of her millennial tropes are a bit younger or maybe just not a part of my personal experience.
00:02:48
Speaker
I think the one that rang most true for me was Saved by the Bell. That was huge for me and my friends. I was less into the boy bands and the Spice Girls. That one wasn't at least my experience, but I had good friends who were into these. And I even distinctly remember a friend of mine asking which member of NSYNC I wanted to be my boyfriend. And I remember thinking, can I just say none of them? And feeling this pressure of
00:03:15
Speaker
I know I'm supposed to pick one, but I don't really want to pick one. And that's actually a very strong memory for me. So I know that that was part of the conversation that my friends and I were having. And the fact that I remember it so many years later is telling about how big that was. That's funny. Yeah, same for me. My biggest dissociation with boy band was my sister got dolls of the Backstreet Boys.
00:03:43
Speaker
And we had those instead of Ken dolls. I guess they were Ken dolls. They were like branded Ken dolls of the Backstreet Boys. And I think my favorite had nothing to do with the actual boy band, but with the like best Ken doll version. And that's the only reason I knew their names. I mean, I know the songs just because they were, you couldn't avoid them, but I didn't even listen to the pop station. I listened growing up to the rock station. So I was listening to like my parents' music growing up.
00:04:11
Speaker
But yeah, very similar. And she's very clear that she wasn't trying to represent a global millennial experience. It's called one in a millennial because she just wanted to be talking about her own life. So yeah, I agree with everything you said. But her jokes, I really enjoyed her jokes. I enjoyed...
00:04:32
Speaker
the ways that she could slide in these pop culture references. It reminded me of the feeling of wanting to be in on the joke when there was something that clearly was a joke or a reference that I didn't get and so it was a fun experience as a reader to feel like
00:04:48
Speaker
that same sort of little tension or anxiety about, oh, I don't get that joke or, oh, I don't know what that reference is to. And here's like a cool girl who's referencing it. And so it was funny to have that experience reading the book to remember what that felt like when someone else was kind of in on something and you felt like you weren't in on that particular thing, even though you'd been in on the last 10 jokes.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I want to come back to that and talk about just like adolescent experiences versus millennial experience, but maybe we can try and come back to that. So normally for the podcast, we'll do a summary and we've only read fiction so far. And this is our first nonfiction book for the book club podcast. So instead of a summary, I just want to talk a little bit about the themes that we picked up on when reading the book about what defines
00:05:42
Speaker
the millennial generation. So it's one in a millennial is a memoir and series of essays by Kate Kennedy. She is host of the podcast, Be There in Five. She writes about her experiences as a child in the nineties, pop culture influences and finding her way in the professional world. And I wanted to start the season with this book to give us a framework for talking about being a millennial and the events and culture that influenced our generation.
00:06:08
Speaker
So here are some of the points that we thought were the most defining of the millennial generation. First of all, we're called millennials because we came of age around the beginning of the millennium, born 1981 through 1996. We have higher levels of student debt, unemployment, poverty, and poverty than the preceding generations at the same life stage.
00:06:33
Speaker
We're the first generation to have active shooter drills in school. I think I was a sophomore in high school when Columbine happened, and we had an active shooter drill the next school year, I remember. Were you in high school when Columbine happened?
00:06:51
Speaker
I can't remember if it was my senior year or my freshman year of college. I know that's bad, but I remember the shock of it, but I didn't personally experience any school consequences of it. I never did an active shooter drill.
00:07:08
Speaker
I think those kind of came after, so I had just aged out of those institutions. I do remember a lot of nervousness in my high school about when The Matrix came out, all of a sudden people who were wearing black clothes all the time came under suspicion. And I remember thinking, this is very weird. And it was pre Columbine, but I do remember in high school
00:07:35
Speaker
a couple moments where it seemed like all of a sudden adults were very worried about things happening in a way that I hadn't remembered being a part of my experience beforehand. I think Columbine really, after that a lot of things changed, but I think there were things happening before that too, but I think it did change after that because that was
00:07:57
Speaker
so horrific and covered in such detail and really made so many people feel so scared and want to react to it. Yeah. Yeah. I remember my senior year, I had a morning period where I didn't have a class because I had met all the requirements. So I took a morning off. And one time I was coming in for the second period of class and there were law enforcement vehicles in all of the parking lots. And I was like, what is happening?
00:08:25
Speaker
I don't know why, I guess they didn't have a communication out to the students to let us know that this is happening, but it was an active shooter drill. And yeah, I remember being very upset that they would fill our school with law enforcement and freak us out in that way. And I can't imagine going through that in like elementary school, but I do know elementary schools do host those drills. Not a lot to say about that. There's not a lot about that in the book, but it is, it's part of what people consider millennials being damaged. It's part of what made us damaged.
00:08:55
Speaker
When I think of that, the zeitgeist around it, I think of things like Columbine, I think of things like 9-11, I think those as being big moments that affected people all across the nation in very similar ways, even though in some sense the impact was huger locally, it's still spread out nationally.
00:09:19
Speaker
Yeah, so some of the other defining attributes of millennials, the concept that if you find a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life. That feels very millennial to me. And the idea of you have the job and then you have the job after the job, right? That's something that I don't remember really being big until millennials start to enter the workforce.
00:09:42
Speaker
And I think there are real economic reasons for that. So you can talk about that too. Do you want to share some of the more, some of the more points?
00:09:52
Speaker
Yeah, some of the ones that I thought of that were at least echoed in her memoirs were I think the sort of raised awareness about environmentalism as something that we should be concerned about and that we do have sort of an obligation to be active about and knowledgeable about. I think this expectation of more education and the reality of knowing you're going to be in school until you're 22 or 26 or 28
00:10:18
Speaker
that was something that was very new and not parts of previous generations. I do think there's also this question of how conforming to be with traditional expectation. I know in the book Kate said often like she just wanted to be normal, she just wanted to be normal, but I think there was also this shifting sense of what normal was supposed to be and even though it was different it was also still like
00:10:44
Speaker
you need to conform to what we think normal is, even though normal isn't necessarily what normal was 10 years or 15 years ago. So those were the things that I noticed that seemed millennial and still trends that are going on past the millennials as well.
00:11:01
Speaker
Yeah. So my opening question for this book is about connection. I think the biggest defining point of millennials is we had internet become available during our adolescence. And so we remember how connections happened.
00:11:16
Speaker
between people before the internet and after the creation of social media and online spaces. And so the question is, what is genuine connection? Kate Kennedy and the book talking about her gratitude for being able to carve out
00:11:34
Speaker
her career by skipping the gatekeepers. She had a successful online business selling doormats. And then she launched this podcast and was able to build an audience with this little independent podcast and support herself that way. And so there's this, she has this big celebration of being able to create these online communities where she could connect to an audience and she didn't have to go through the gatekeepers because she felt that
00:12:01
Speaker
what she had to offer would never have met with traditional gatekeeper approval. And I agree that's something worth celebrating. On the other hand, when we talk about the broader trends of social media and online spaces, are we finding genuine connection? There's a new way to connect to people like a podcast host with an audience. She talks about having live events where she does get to meet her audience in person, but is there still this distance between her and her audience?
00:12:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think she definitely wants to be entertaining. She even says this a couple times in the book that she sees herself more as an observer in the Britney Spears circus lyrics, right? She's someone who wants to watch things, but she's also clearly someone who wants to be performing too.
00:12:51
Speaker
I really thought she was very clever to have been in an industry that actually helped her avoid some of the gatekeepers. So you think about the kinds of things that help her podcast be successful.
00:13:04
Speaker
She learned a lot of the things that an institution would have done for her in her work. And so part of what she's done, which I think is very millennial and very entrepreneurial, she got the skills she needed so that she didn't have to necessarily rely on an institution to provide her with people who would do those things for her. And then she was able to do it on her own. And I think that sort of seeing your occupation as
00:13:30
Speaker
I'm going to get some skills here and then I'm going to go do something else. I think that's a very kind of millennial and beyond attitude. And I think she really, even if she didn't plan to be a podcast host someday, she was very smart about thinking what kinds of jobs can I have where I have the skills of the people who would be the gatekeeper so I can just do that for myself.
00:13:53
Speaker
And I think that that cleverness and that entrepreneurialness and that thinking deeply about your interests and your abilities, all of that, I think was great. And it was fun to read her story about how she made all those things happen. Yeah. And connection. So when did we start using the phrase parasocial relationship?
00:14:13
Speaker
It seems like a very recent discussion topic, but I think it started with millennials just being on IMs and these public forums. Yeah, tell me what you mean by parasocial. When you think of that word, what's your definition or what are the key examples for that idea for you?
00:14:35
Speaker
So it's the feeling that you feel connected to someone who you've never really met or like you've interacted with through social media. So there's one influencer I follow on Instagram. I've messaged her many times over the years and she's very good about messaging back. And I love seeing her content, but we're not friends.
00:15:00
Speaker
Every day, I open up Instagram, and if I see something from her, I watch it. I'm excited to see it. Of course, I listen to hundreds of podcasts. And so this feeling of being part of a community because you listen to the same podcast. One of the main inspirations for starting this book club podcast for me was I was listening to podcasts about the show, The Walking Dead. And these podcasters started, they weren't planning to do it professionally. They started before the TV show started.
00:15:29
Speaker
And I binge through a bunch of their episodes and I listen to a sped up version of 10 years of their life. And I've been a dedicated listener ever since, even though I really don't like the show that much. And I've listened to them cover TV shows about The Walking Dead that I haven't even watched the original episode, but I like hearing them talk about it.
00:15:51
Speaker
And they have audience members who write in and call in regularly, and if it's someone they know who's been calling into the podcast for years, they're like, oh, it's so and so, and they're like happy to hear from them.
00:16:03
Speaker
And I was really attracted to the idea of having that kind of community, a community based on a love of something of entertainment, right? It wasn't a connection based on religion or politics or your alma mater. It was based on, you just love this piece of entertainment and building community and friendship around it. I was really attracted to that.
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah, I love the idea of finding connections through things that you're passionate about. And I think there's a way in which finding connections in entertainment feels, I don't want to say safe, maybe I want to say safer than some other venues, because it feels lighter. And it also feels like if those ties go away, they're less devastating to you, right?
00:16:59
Speaker
If one of the, if the influencer you follow all of a sudden was mean to you, or if all of a sudden one of the podcasters started to seem like someone, oh, I don't want to give my time and attention to this person. I think it's very easy for you to lose that connection because the thing you're connecting over isn't something deep.
00:17:22
Speaker
But I also wonder if over time the kinds of connections you can make over things that are more superficial or silly or light, I don't know if those can actually give you the deep connections that I think people want. Although I do think they can be like your introduction to a person where you might share other things that can lead to a deep connection. I definitely
00:17:46
Speaker
met people who liked the same music or movies that I liked and that's as far as the friendship goes and that's okay. But I also think sometime when you get to know someone and you do have deep connections, sometimes you realize it matters less that you don't share those superficial connections and that it's okay if this person that I have this deep connection with doesn't like my favorite band or
00:18:13
Speaker
doesn't like my favorite book series. And I think that's something that I at least had to grow into was this idea that, oh, if you don't like the same things as me, that doesn't mean we can't be connected. Because I think when you're younger, it seems like you have to like the same books, like the same music, and you have to like the same movies. But I think those can only get you so far with having
00:18:39
Speaker
deep, real, long-term, meaningful connection with people. But I think Kate Kennedy disagrees with me, and that's okay. I think that these have more meaning and should be more honored and more celebrated.
00:18:52
Speaker
It was fun to read someone who I think we disagree, but it was interesting for me to hear her make her case. What was your sense of what she's claiming about connection and did that resonate with kind of what you think about how connections are made? I'm really stuck on what is a deep connection? What is a genuine connection?
00:19:13
Speaker
And is it a product of meeting someone and forming a relationship at this right time of life, right? We talk a lot about it's really hard to make friends in your thirties. Now, is that because the time of life is so demanding that you have family and job and house and you just don't have the time to devote to building new friendships? Or is there a developmental stage when you're younger that makes it easier to bond with
00:19:42
Speaker
people who are not in your family or in your church or whatever. So that's a question that's coming up for me. And is there some, I don't think that there's anything, maybe I'm just, I just don't want to be doing the work of trying to find those deeper connections. You said something about it's okay if someone doesn't like the same band, but I really enjoy going to concerts and I don't like going alone. And so if I don't have someone that I can go with to a concert,
00:20:12
Speaker
It's really sad that I don't end up going to see my favorite musician if I don't have someone to go with. And does that mean that it's a shallow connection? I don't know. There's so much, there's so much we feel because of the art we consume. Art does evoke deep emotions and does connect us with something, right?
00:20:35
Speaker
oftentimes it feels divine. And so how is that not a deep connection to share that feeling with someone based on consuming a particular piece of art? So I think I would probably want to make distinctions between different kinds of art, which again, hate Kennedy, I think might shake her head at me. When I think of my favorite artist, the ones whose albums I want to listen to over and over again,
00:21:03
Speaker
I can see how somebody liking that same music could foster a deep connection because the kinds of things that the songwriters are talking about or the way in which things are expressed, I think those are very deep. I don't think that's the movie Spice World though. I think the movie Spice World is fun and definitely something to watch it as sleepover and definitely something to like
00:21:27
Speaker
giggle about, but I don't think the Spice World is going to get you more than, oh, maybe we have other things in common. I don't think Spice World can get you as much as you want. You can feel free to push back on that. Maybe I'm underestimating Spice World. It's been a while since I've seen it.
00:21:44
Speaker
Yeah, Spice World wasn't a big part of my life, but the Princess Bride was. And we watched the Princess Bride in my family when I was a kid. It was like one of the few VHS tapes that we owned, so we watched it over and over again. But no one I knew in high school or middle school knew what that was or enjoyed it. And then I got to college
00:22:10
Speaker
And there were a lot of people at my college who loved that movie and there was a feeling of acceptance and belonging. That was a big part of it was like, oh, these people enjoy. They enjoy this movie that I love so much and they enjoy the music. I love so much. So I don't know if it's the type.
00:22:29
Speaker
of artwork that it is, but it's that, oh, these are my people, that feeling of I'm with my people. And I don't know how to decide if that's superficial or not. Is that a superficial feeling of belonging or is it a real feeling of belonging?
00:22:47
Speaker
I think it's a real feeling. So I agree. It's a real feeling of connection when you find someone who likes something that you like. I just think you need more to sustain something that isn't also just like a superficial relationship. And I also love The Princess Bride. It's one of those movies where I'm pretty sure there was a point in time where I could have
00:23:08
Speaker
said every line along with every character just because I'd written it. I'd watched it so much and so many of the jokes and lines became part of the vocabulary of my friend group, right? And so I think that also, and maybe this is true in your family too, right? That the things in that movie become the shorthand for other things
00:23:30
Speaker
or connected to other things as well. Like ROUSs, frankly, I don't think they exist, right? That just brings so much to mind when you hear someone say that. I also think maybe The Princess Bride is a great example too because I think you have to have a certain kind of sense of humor to love that movie. I think you can appreciate it even if you don't
00:23:55
Speaker
love the humor in it, but I think it's so quirky that it almost seems like to love that movie is also to reflect something about what you think is funny in the world. And I think that is part of making deep connections with people. And I think humor is one of those things where it does feel deeper if you're laughing at the same thing as someone else.
00:24:18
Speaker
That's a great example. This season is about nostalgia, millennial nostalgia. And so I think a big piece of nostalgia is that you have an experience at a certain period of your life, right? I think of the movie Now and Then, which was a big part of growing up for me too. And I think there's a line and there's something about the friends that you had when you're 12 years old.
00:24:40
Speaker
First of all, the friends I had when I was 12 years old were not huge, like they're not people I still am in touch with and probably I can barely remember their name. That feels like a line of boomer nostalgia. That was a movie made by boomers, right?
00:24:57
Speaker
But it did penetrate our generation too, because it was a big deal among my friends and I, especially everyone had a crush on Devin Sawah. But how much of that is a millennial thing? How much of that is an adolescent thing? That's something that I think we'll be struck, that we'll be talking about throughout the season is, is this a millennial thing? How much of nostalgia is universal just based on your own age when you were introduced to a concept or an art or whatever?
00:25:24
Speaker
But again, the real thing about millennials is we were the first generation to start forming connections with people we never met through our computers, right? So what does that say about connection? I remember actually my master's thesis was on this concept.
00:25:41
Speaker
of how great it was that people who may be physically separated can find each other and connect online. And does that online connection grow into in-person connection? And my thesis theory was that, yes, it would. But I think in the years since I wrote that, it's become clear that if that does happen, it may not be a good thing necessarily. And then it doesn't usually happen at all.
00:26:10
Speaker
I would like to talk about that a little bit of what is online connection and why does it matter? The example that we've talked about before about reacting to art, we were talking about being in the same space with someone reacting to this art. So what are your thoughts on connecting with someone through the internet? This might really out me as maybe not actually even an elder millennial in that I don't think I've
00:26:39
Speaker
really had the experience of having a deep online connection with someone that didn't also include some kind of in-person interactions as well. So I think that is something that can be special and that I don't understand, but I also want to push back a little on the idea that this could be something new in the human experience.
00:27:07
Speaker
I was, my son recently was reading the book Sarah Plain and Tall for school. And if you read that book, the main character is basically a mail-order bride, right? And you think people traveled across ocean based on letters to maybe marry people they'd never met before.
00:27:29
Speaker
I remember having several attempts at pen pals in grade school, right? Where your teacher's trying to help you make a connection with someone. So I think the scope definitely changed.
00:27:43
Speaker
The quantity definitely changed, but I do think there's just more human questions about how kind of physical and in similar physical spaces, relationships have to be very meaningful. And I'm not sure we have a good answer to that, but I do think the scope is much larger than some people might think for finding love or for finding friendship.
00:28:07
Speaker
But I think occasionally every once in a while being able to share a beer with that person in the same physical location, I think that helps. But I don't think it's necessary. But it seems hard to replicate some of that without having physical shared spaces together.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder how much of it is just when you're forming a friendship with someone, being able to ignore the noise around you. If you're messaging someone on Twitter, you're on the same app where you're also just getting all of this other information from other people. And so how is it harder to focus on just
00:28:48
Speaker
I would I definitely think it is to focus on just a conversation with one person because the way that the app is set up is that you're receiving your constantly receiving all this information from other people. I think that's true with dating app to like that. Like everyone that I see online talking about dating apps is talking about how horrible they are.
00:29:09
Speaker
I think that's part of it because you can be on a date with someone and your date goes to the bathroom for five minutes and you're on the app looking at the next person you want to contact. That's a quantity issue, but I think it leads to quality problems. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's a really good point. So you said you don't think anymore that the connections that you make online
00:29:35
Speaker
will be just as powerful or long-lasting as ones that do maybe organically arise in the real world of IRL as opposed to the online world, or have you changed your thinking on that? I think the effort to bridge the online connection to an IRL connection is a lot
00:29:59
Speaker
harder than I first thought, right? Because I was writing, this is 2008, 2009, Twitter was brand new. That was the focus of my thesis, was looking at how do political communities form on Twitter. And I was very excited because social media meant you could have a broader
00:30:23
Speaker
of what a political spectrum was, rather than the main four news outlets defining the political camps into just two, having two political camps. You could have a broader spectrum and you could have sub-communities. And at that time, people who were working on much more fancy research papers than I was, who were looking at Black Twitter in particular, and
00:30:52
Speaker
the way that the culture formed and communicated within the subset of Twitter as a whole. And I was looking at if someone feels isolated in their community because they have political views that are different from most of the people around them, then they could find
00:31:11
Speaker
people they agree with and then eventually does that I wanted to see does that lead to real-life political action does that lead to people going and talking to the representatives or going to rallies or whatever and even at that time I found that wasn't really happening as much as I wanted it to but I had hopes but I say that now and I think about the January 6th insurrection I don't know if that's a word that will upset people
00:31:40
Speaker
What I can say with confidence is that community formed online and built up and ended up acting in real life. My opinion, I don't think that was a good thing. I think that's related to a lot of misinformation online and people siloing themselves into communities where they shut out information that disagrees with their, what their, what can I say?
00:32:07
Speaker
They're not accepting the new information available. They have defined a culture, a subculture, and refused to question it. And that is the opposite of everything I hoped for having the information age, right? The point of the information age is that you can inform yourself by having these online communities that
00:32:29
Speaker
rather reinforce shutting out information that disagrees with a, I don't even know what to say, a premise about the world. That's not what I was expecting from social media. Yeah, the same kind of tools that let you find someone who loves the same piece of art or
00:32:48
Speaker
the same kind of piece of music. Those are the same places where people can also find other people who hate the same things that they hate. So the very tools that could bring people together through shared loves of certain things also can bring people together through their shared hate. And yeah, I think that's been sad to watch that in lots of ways.
00:33:14
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think it's the tool. What I've learned is it's the way humans interact with the tool is not what I expected. Okay, so I want to get back to the book. So one of the things that she talked about, Saved by the Bell you mentioned, and she has this sort of essay about Saved by the Bell, and it was really impactful for me. I remember watching the show.
00:33:34
Speaker
I don't remember the specifics of storylines in certain episodes, but she did bring up some memories of things, especially that Jesse, the feminist character, was ridiculed for being a feminist. And she ended up, her boyfriend was like the most like hyper-masculine literature on the show and how like she describes like some of their interactions.
Media's Influence on Feminism and Gender Roles
00:33:59
Speaker
And I found it very upsetting because
00:34:02
Speaker
I know I was absorbing that message. And it took me a couple of decades to really figure all that out. And I see that a lot with other millennials that I interact with of confronting those sort of anti-feminist ideas that were popular on TV and coming out very strongly in the opposite position. I do actually remember specific episodes of Saved by the Bell. I definitely remember the caffeine pills episode.
00:34:32
Speaker
I definitely remember one where I think Kelly couldn't go to prom because she didn't have the money for a prom dress. So that doesn't go with anyone else, right? But they stand outside the building and dance in their non-prom clothes.
00:34:48
Speaker
There's a few others I remember. I also remember that it was originally something about Miss Bliss, Hailey, the girl that plays Hailey Mills, the teacher in the grade school before they go to high school. There's a whole other memories of that too. And I'm scared to go back and rewatch it because I'm sure I will see the same thing that
00:35:07
Speaker
Kate Kennedy sees. But when I started thinking back about Save by the Bell, what I tried to focus on was the fact that there's a feminist character at all, and that she's popular, and she's smart, and she's beautiful. And she also has a hot boyfriend, right? So I think
00:35:28
Speaker
Kate Kennedy is absolutely right that they're using her as a butt for jokes in a way that is very uncomfortable. And I'm sure I would be uncomfortable if I went back and watched it. But I also think Jesse
00:35:40
Speaker
Spano is different from I think of other characters, if you remember Daria, right? I also love Daria, but I don't think a lot of girls aspired to be Daria. I could see girls wanting to be like Jessie Spano, even though she got teased for being a feminist. She was still there as one of the cool, popular kids who the show writers were telling stories about.
00:36:09
Speaker
I don't want to necessarily say that was the best way that feminism could have been represented, but I can also imagine an alternate say by the bell that didn't have any feminism in it at all and I'm not sure that's better, but I agree. I think especially now that I'm older and now that I have a daughter and I think about what does she see and when she sees a character, what does she see when she hears dialogue, there's so much cringe in the media I consumed as a child that
00:36:38
Speaker
I laughed too, right? I thought it was funny. And I think some of those shows matured even within the timeline of the show, but I think others really didn't. And part of me, like, wants to praise Saved by the Bell for, I think they did do some things that were good, right? But I also think there's a lot you could still criticize in that show. In full disclosure, I even watched, I'm pretty sure I watched the college years Saved by the Bell, like, wow. So I think I have,
00:37:05
Speaker
a whole continuum back there in my mind somewhere. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if Jesse Spano was not a feminist at all, if that would be better or worse. Just speaking for myself, I remember being in grad school and learning about now. I hadn't known about that organization before grad school, but they had an event that I covered in my student journalism and
00:37:34
Speaker
hearing people talking about like, oh, girls didn't have good role models. Like there aren't enough women represented in media and so they don't have role models. And I was very confused by that because I had no problem looking at a male character and considering him my role model. Like, oh, I can be like him. And maybe that's my personality. Maybe I didn't have, I didn't have brothers growing up. So I really, I do think a lot about like,
00:37:59
Speaker
What if I had a brother and would my dad have treated me differently if he didn't have two daughters, if he had a son and a daughter, right? I really think about that a lot and wonder if that would have been different because I grew up thinking I could be whatever I wanted.
00:38:13
Speaker
women were equal now, so like, we're done. So the perception I had of feminism was, oh, these people are whining about a problem that's already been fixed, right? Similarly, I had the same thought about racism as a kid too, right? Because I was lucky to grow up in a very wonderful, multiracial city. I did not see a lot of examples of racism until I left and had to actually learn how to pay attention. So growing up as a kid, I was like,
00:38:43
Speaker
Why are these people complaining about this? It's all fixed now, right? And I was just oblivious. I think that actually benefited me in a lot of ways, and that's privilege, I'm sure. So I don't know if a lot of girls would have struggled if there were only male characters and none of them talked about feminism. I'm guessing, yes, probably plenty of girls would have.
00:39:06
Speaker
would have been detrimental to the way that they could view themselves. It didn't seem to affect me personally so I don't really know what to say about it. Yeah, I do think I share with you so many of the books I read had male protagonists or so many of the shows I watched had male protagonists and I don't remember personally having a problem
00:39:29
Speaker
thinking into that. But I do know that a lot of the boys I knew couldn't think themselves into girl characters, and I do know that a lot of my friends didn't
00:39:42
Speaker
have the ability to think themselves into boy characters so I agree. I don't know how that affected me personally but I remember noticing man there's a lot more boy protagonists than there are girl protagonists in the world but I also don't remember feeling like I couldn't read a book or watch a movie with a male protagonist and feel like that that was speaking to me too in some way. That might be a way in which we're similar but maybe different from a lot of people I'm not sure.
00:40:10
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's a good point. And now also, I remember going to that now event and hearing that boys do not like to read stories where a girl is protagonist and I had all the rage, like full of rage. And I was like, I am a feminist now. Like that just infuriated me so much.
00:40:28
Speaker
So maybe it was more an issue that the boys couldn't see strong female protagonists and like individualized women. I think that's still an issue. I do think it's real that some women, all of their interests that might sort of align with a sort of more feminine outlook
00:40:50
Speaker
could constantly feel like everything they were interested in was disparaged. I guess I was lucky to have interests that I feel like banned. Lots of things, some that were kind of gendered and some that weren't gendered, but I think for a child who sees all of their interests line up with a gender and for that to be disparaged over and over again
00:41:14
Speaker
I can't imagine how hard that would be to feel like everything that you thought was interesting and cool was something that people thought was silly or dumb or meaningless. And I think that would be a really hard way to grow up, feeling like none of your interests were ever validated as being interesting.
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah, no, that does that reminds me of the cool girl syndrome, which Yeah, that's a that's really interesting point because my interpretation of that was oh, I just have to be the cool girl, right? I always liked Star Wars, right? I was always a nerdy girl
00:41:52
Speaker
But that didn't make the boys into me, even though it seemed like on TV, especially TV, because I watched a ton of TV as a kid. If I just didn't nag and didn't insist on having fancy dates and was a cool girl like
00:42:08
Speaker
that I would be able to have a good life. And part of that good life was a husband. That was a big lie. So yeah, I mean, I think that's part of why the Saved by the Bell ethic wrecked me because thinking back through all those things that I subconscious, like now they were subconscious and now they're conscious and there's a painful reaction to that.
00:42:31
Speaker
Yeah, I think there is this tension between the media or entertainment that young girls want to consume and media and entertainment that might actually be good preparation for a young girl to
00:42:45
Speaker
to try to do different things in her life. And I think my solution is always, I guess you want, try to do both, right? But I understand that for some people, they're not actually interested in doing both. I remember at one point very confused about women who wouldn't read male authors, but be very critical of how men thought and how men reasoned about the world and the kind of decision they were making. And I always felt like whispering, you could read some of these books, right?
00:43:16
Speaker
They're telling you, right? Here's a group of people you're interested in who are creating things and telling you things about themselves. And maybe you don't want to consume that, but you're missing out on a source of knowledge, even if it's uncomfortable. So I'll default to classics here because I think that's a little bit safer. But I remember reading Joseph Conrad and being like, this makes me very uncomfortable as a woman, but also
00:43:44
Speaker
I think you need to know that Joseph Conrad's exist and that the characters in his novels like came from a real place. And I think that's good for me, even if it's uncomfortable. And I think, but that's hard too. You need to have time and space and security and lots of other things to explore things that make you uncomfortable too. And I don't know that there's a virtue to that, to like actively seeking out things that make him comfortable. I think, yeah.
00:44:14
Speaker
I don't want to criticize anyone who doesn't want to do that, right? Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. But I think you know yourself best and what you can handle. Absolutely. Yeah. You have to trust yourself. But I also think you might miss out on something that would help you understand the world better if you're not willing to ever make yourself uncomfortable because most of the world actually isn't like you.
00:44:44
Speaker
most of the world is filled with people who are really different from you and they think differently from you and they have different values and beliefs and enjoy different things and there's like a beauty to that multiculturalism but there's also a lot that you're gonna not understand if you don't go out there and expose yourself to things that aren't
00:45:07
Speaker
are less comfortable or less familiar. Especially, I think Kate made this point a lot of times, is if you come from a very homogenous place,
00:45:17
Speaker
it's even harder to understand things outside of that homogenous space. Yes. And so the online world has the potential to allow us to be homogenous, but also to seek out things that make us uncomfortable at the same time. But it takes the effort in the individual to go find either one of those things. I do remember how nice it was when
00:45:44
Speaker
there was a girly character who felt powerful represented in media. And I'm thinking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the series when it first came out, and thinking about things like Legally Blonde, right? I think a lot of those shows or movies were powerful because it was so rare to see a woman who had somehow managed to both be a little bit girly and a little bit feminine, but also kind of powerful in her own way. And I think
00:46:13
Speaker
I don't think I'm imagining this, but I think there are more of those characters the closer you get to the present and you have to look harder for those characters the further back you go. And I think that is a good thing that it's easier to find those in the world. And they felt much more special and rare and few and far between, I think, when we were growing up.
00:46:38
Speaker
No, I completely agree. And I love the Princess Bride, both the movie and the book, but I remember reading the book and being like, I wish that there was a better story for Buttercup in the book because I had seen the movie first. I'd had the movie memorized before I found the book in a bookstore. And then I remember Buttercup in the book. I just was so disappointed. I'm excited to revisit that this season because that's all I remember is, Oh, they, she could have been more.
00:47:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think as an adult watching her in the fire pit just stand to the side and scream. It's very uncomfortable, right?
00:47:17
Speaker
Why aren't you helping him, right? And I know that's the way the character was written. No shade on the actor, but it is strange to see a woman who, you know, could have been more. And yet she's treated like she's so little. She's just something that is motivating the action, not someone who participating in it. Although I think the moments where she does are very powerful in the film, right? Where
00:47:47
Speaker
She refuses to say that she's going to be married to Humberdink, right? This is probably a sensitive topic, but you know when she's about to commit suicide because she is in despair, right? There's sort of flavors of classical Greek women in there. This is so unjust and the only way for me to get away from this injustice is to kill myself. There's a powerfulness there that she gets in some moment.
00:48:17
Speaker
but it's not consistent throughout the movie. Or I have read the book, but it's been a while and I don't remember her character in the book being any more than what it was in the movie. And if anything, I think the actress helped make her more through how. Yeah. I just, I remember her coming when she confronts Humperdink and is like, you never sent the letters. And it didn't connect with me.
00:48:42
Speaker
until now that like she has a certainty like she sees his face she knows by looking at his face that he's lying and she's confident in that knowledge there's no way to prove it there's no external data to present and have it judged by an audience but she knows it and she she's certain in that and that that is a real strength
00:49:07
Speaker
And it's a real feminine type of strength too, I think, to just, to knowing yourself, even though you can't prove it to anyone else. Okay. So talking about books, do you have any comments or questions about the books you're reading this season or anything that you want to talk about that's not in this season's reading list? I wanted, I know I get to be the one to talk about A Wrinkle in Time a little bit later, which I'm excited about.
00:49:37
Speaker
I think I told you I want to make a pitch for why I think it's a great millennial young adult novel, even though it was written in I think 1964. So it's not millennial in the sense of its creation, but I think Meg is such a great character for a young millennial woman to read about because she is in this space where the past that is able to prepare her is not
00:50:07
Speaker
adequate for her future. So she's one of these people who's existing in a liminal kind of space, but she's smart and she's aware of her surroundings. And I think she, she loves her brother and she is loyal to her friends. And so she can show us that you can be a loving, caring person. You can care about a boyfriend. You can care about a brother. You can care about your family and you can still be like,
00:50:36
Speaker
brave and strong and adventurous, right? She is so willing to be adventurous and I think those are all good things that I think millennial women are even better at than maybe past generations and I think Meg is a great example of someone who goes on her own terms and I also love a quote that I think might
00:51:01
Speaker
be helpful for millennial women is that Meg's anger is a source of power for her. I think a lot of times women aren't supposed to be angry, women aren't supposed to be shrill, right? And
00:51:15
Speaker
I remember you'll need all your anger now, little Meg. She needs her anger in order to be powerful and to be active, but she can't just be angry in any way. She can't just be angry and inactive. She has to use that anger in a way that helped her accomplish her goal and to save the people around her that she loves.
00:51:40
Speaker
She's a great heroine for our time and hopefully even extending into the future. So I don't know, do you have a book in your list that you think is like the most millennial? They're all great books. I love them all. But are there any that you think are particularly embodying the zeitgeist that you see Kate Kennedy talking about or that you are particularly interested in exploring?
00:52:05
Speaker
Just your description of A Wrinkle of Time is so great to talk about most of the books that were chosen, which was not a very scientific way to choose the books. I emailed a bunch of people I wanted on the podcast and I said, which one do you resonate with or has a special place in your heart? And most of them are fantasy. And I think that's really interesting. In A Wrinkle of Time, we have a character, the way you describe her is exactly like the way I think about the very basic fantasy structure of
00:52:34
Speaker
someone who has to confront a huge quest and it changes the world in a way, whether that world is the act of the whole world or just like
00:52:47
Speaker
the internal world, but there's that the hero's journey of you think you're an ordinary person and then you're chosen for this quest and you have to go do it and accomplish it and change the world or save the world. And I think it's interesting that maybe it's just my circle and millennials, but we just resonate with these fantasy stories. But it does seem connected to the idea of
00:53:10
Speaker
The opening quote that you're brought up in a world and then the world changes and you have to change with it. So I want to continue to explore that. And we can't talk about millennials without talking about Harry Potter. I know that's a very sensitive topic. It's very controversial to talk about Harry Potter.
00:53:29
Speaker
But the Harry Potter series is credited with teaching millennials to love books. I always loved books. I was always going to be a book lover, but Harry Potter is given credit for bringing so many millennials as kids, as teenagers to the bookstore and excited about reading. So I didn't feel right leaving it off this list, but I want to explore why
00:53:57
Speaker
Why Harry Potter? Does Harry Potter help us millennials process all of these events that we talked about earlier? The rise in school shootings, 9-11. We didn't talk about it, but the economic crash in 2008 that happened right as we were starting our careers, which we can, maybe we can say is the reason why so many of us are late to get married, have kids, own a house. So I just want to,
00:54:27
Speaker
tease out, did these stories prepare us to deal with these life experiences or not? Yeah. I do think if Mary Potter hadn't been on the list, I would have been really surprised because one of the things that I think was really special about that book, even though this wasn't my experience of it, is the books grew up with the readers.
00:54:51
Speaker
I don't know of another sort of entertainment medium that is like that. And I see how powerful that could be. And I also, it's kind of amazing that kids were so excited to read the next part of a story and to remember that
00:55:08
Speaker
they can be grabbed in that way, right? And that parents can support them in that way. And I never, there's nothing else like it in terms of the kind of the cultural phenomenon as it was unrolling.
00:55:24
Speaker
and the way that it changed as its audience changed. Maybe there are other examples out there and I just don't know of them but I always thought that was something that was so powerful about the series and I think it's why it was so beloved is because when Harry was older and the kids who were reading Harry were older they needed a different story to be as engaged as they were and
00:55:48
Speaker
they were given that over and over again. They were given just a little bit more than they had been before. If all of the Harry Potter books were just like the first Harry Potter book, I think it wouldn't have been as powerful, right? But if the whole series had been like the last Harry Potter book, you would have never gotten that enthusiasm. I don't think that the Harry Potter phenomenon managed to generate. So I think I was glad that one was on the list because that one seems like you could make a really strong case for that as
00:56:18
Speaker
One of the big millennial fiction book out there. Yeah. Now I'm wondering if millennials can get, can claim credit for making fandom like not cool, but at least acceptable, you know, because there were Trekkies who are older than millennials, but they were considered not acceptable. It was ridiculed and then making nerd cool.
00:56:45
Speaker
seems to be part of the millennial journey and making fandom mainstream is part of the millennial journey as well.
Nerd Culture Goes Mainstream
00:56:54
Speaker
I do think fandom definitely changed with the way media changed. Although I was hoping that sometimes like Kate Kennedy would have something that was a little bit of nerd fodder in there and it's just not there. And that just must like not be what she is, which is fine. She should be who she is.
00:57:15
Speaker
It was definitely funny because a lot of the things that I think of as having huge fandoms are, in a sense, less mainstream than the things that she's talking about. But that also just might be my idiosyncratic perspective. Yeah. Is there a book that you're particularly excited to read this season?
00:57:36
Speaker
No, I love them all. The hardest thing for me in planning a season is not reading all the books. The hardest thing is to trim down the list to something manageable. I have not read The Rats of Nim. I know that's not the full title of the book. I did watch the movie a lot as a kid, but I haven't read it and I haven't read the book. So I'm excited about that. Can I give a shout out to that book for something that as an adult, I appreciate that I did not appreciate as a kid.
00:58:06
Speaker
And that is just that the protagonist in that book is a mom. And I don't remember thinking about that when I was a little girl, but as a mom, rewatching that movie with my kids, it was really nice to see a mom who was like an adventurous protagonist who was
00:58:28
Speaker
like caring and clever and also there was still a possibility for romance in her life after the death of her husband, right? It's actually so interesting that that character in that movie I think are so popular and I can't think of another example of something like that so I wanted to give you a shout out for that one as well because I think that was fun and surprising and maybe not an angle that people have thought about as much with regards to that story.
00:58:58
Speaker
Yeah, no, we will definitely be talking about that. One of the few characters that we'll be talking about who is not an adolescent, right? So that really stands out as well. For genre themes, I think what we'll discuss going forward is how do the characters in our books seek and find genuine connection? Will the books counteract the anti-feminist views of the TV we used to watch? That's the question I have.
00:59:25
Speaker
But after talking with you, I also want to think about what do these female characters communicate to the men in the audience too? I could tend to think about the men's perspective a little bit more. And sources of joy. So she does talk a lot about sources of joy and like just
00:59:44
Speaker
enjoying what liking what you like and not being not feeling ashamed of what you like it or because there was so much growing up of like what girls like is not respected right we still see that a little bit that if teenage girls like something i think i'm thinking of taylor's twist that if teenage girls like it then
01:00:03
Speaker
It's not real art or it's not valuable art or it's not important to culture. And I think that's true of young adult fiction. It's true of fantasy novels, or it has been in the past. It's true for self published books and romance, which are, have predominantly female audiences. And again, one of the things that I really wanted to address starting the podcast was looking at these self published books.
01:00:31
Speaker
with millennial nostalgia, we don't really have a self-published book that I could find. So we're not having that this season, but it's something I want to keep front of mind for the Book Club podcast is we do discuss indie authors because there's no denying that there's a huge audience for it. And I think that's enough of a reason to consider those books.
01:00:54
Speaker
Yeah, I'd add to your list, I think also poetry is a great example of something that when Kate Kennedy talks about how she loved poetry and she wanted to be a poet, part of me wants to just say, do more of that, right? But she felt like poetry was looked on as something like girlish or silly or not important.
01:01:18
Speaker
I think poetry is another space where we see that. I think also like children's books and children's literature, even more what they're seen as unserious or unworthy of attention. But I think the people who love these things understand why people are misunderstanding them. They're not realizing the potential that's there and the art that's there and the thought that's there and that some of those things can be really powerful.
01:01:46
Speaker
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the poems because she does have poems introducing some of the sections. And I'll just say I really enjoyed them. I don't usually enjoy poetry. I was like, Oh God, these poems are gonna be in this book. I rolled my eyes because I think there's a lot of lazy poetry out in the world. But I really enjoyed her poems. I thought they were not lazy at all.
01:02:08
Speaker
And I loved that they were so clearly her, right? The same voice you were reading in the chapter was the voice you were reading in the poem. And I actually think I wish she would honor her love of poetry more. I don't think she'll ever hear our podcast Carly, but I guess if there was something I'd want to say to her, I'd say like, I hope you honor that part of yourself that loves that thing and that you feel free to work on that thing. And
01:02:33
Speaker
especially if her journey to motherhood goes the way she hopes and that you would hope for her. Sometimes a poem's all you have time to read when you have all these other things going on in your life. I think that's an example of, and I think people know that about themselves. You remember the things in yourself that you felt attracted to and that you might have abandoned. And I think one of the most powerful things you can do as you get older is to let yourself
Admiring Kate Kennedy's Journey
01:03:03
Speaker
be taken back into those interests and to give yourself the space and time to pursue them if that's really something that was core to you that you felt like you pushed away or hid for a long time. So I hope more poetry for Kate Kennedy in the future and whatever way that happens. Do you have any hopes for Kate Kennedy?
01:03:26
Speaker
I think she's doing great. I don't know that she needs my hope. I really admire her just like the life that she has made for herself and I admire her writing about it and sharing that with us. We do not have the same taste so I'm not expecting a parasocial relationship with Kate Kennedy. I did listen to her podcast years and years ago and then I stopped because it just wasn't doing it for me and no shade at all. You know, you like what you like and sometimes you just like what you like and
01:03:54
Speaker
There's no personal animosity about that. I have hope for me that I can have more of a podcasting impact that's more like hers, you know? I did want to mention I did talk to some Gen Z kids of friends and talk to them because I was really curious reading some of the essays about being a preteen and a teen. Like how much of this is millennial and how much of this is just
01:04:21
Speaker
that stage of life. And one thing I thought was really interesting was my friend, kid, who's talking about that kids or age are nostalgic for old movies. I don't know that we would consider them old movies, but movies about people who didn't have cell phones was one thing that stood out, that like they weren't being hounded all the time by their parents and they had freedom to go
01:04:45
Speaker
move about the world and go to the mall and do stuff without being hounded. I thought that was interesting and a level of self-awareness that was really cool. Even though most of the kids she knows have smartphones, they still recognize the value of not being attached to a phone. And then she talked about dating because I was really
01:05:08
Speaker
Fascinated by Kate Kennedy talking about all of these sort of machinations, all of this thought put into how to write the right IM message to seem attractive and alluring to the boy she had a crush on.
01:05:21
Speaker
And I was like, how does that play out nowadays? And that is extremely popular. And so, and you keep up streaks on Snapchat. So if you message a group text or you message one person, you Snapchat keeps score that you message every single day. And so I can definitely see that being used in the group chat, especially of sending some enigmatic photo to keep up the streak. People will just send a picture of their shoe or something. So I can imagine you can get creative with that of like.
01:05:50
Speaker
how do I present myself in this group chat that the boy like will notice me? But there's not as much of an expectation of heterosexuality. There's a lot more homosexual relationships and that even some of the teasing has reversed that the homophobes are the ones getting teased, not the homosexuals. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Yeah, that is something that I think reading a lot of the books that you've selected for this season
01:06:19
Speaker
It does strike me that by going, there's just going to be less characters that I think are representing those trends in the books, right? And that's even something, I have a friend who is a young adult author and she was telling me that if you don't have a character with kind of
01:06:41
Speaker
more modern sexual attitude, you're just not going to get your book published. So she's talking about how the publication industry has really changed and people are hungry for those characters and publishers want to publish those characters that are less traditional. But I think with the books you selected that actually
01:07:02
Speaker
a pretty traditional cast of characters in that way and I'm sure your guests will have really interesting things to say about that but it's all of those books I think that you picked are
01:07:15
Speaker
before that starts to become more socially acceptable and more popular. It might be interesting to think about how dated some of these portrayals, not just of a girl or a boy, but also the possibilities of romance theme in 2024, as opposed to 1964, 1981.
01:07:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's something I would love to explore on a future season. So if anyone listening has recommendations for stories about queer people, disabled people, any specific race, I mean, I'm a white heterosexual woman. And if you have a recommendation for me to understand a different
01:08:04
Speaker
kind of life experience, please, please send them in because I definitely want to explore some of that. Any other final thoughts? No, I guess the one thing that Kate Kennedy said that I kept on returning to was she talked about how there were other things
01:08:22
Speaker
in the spaces that she was watching that aren't the things we talked about. And I think she mentioned Golden Girls. She mentioned designing women. She had a couple other examples too. And I was struck by this tension between whether or not something is influencing us or whether or not we are attracted to something because of who we are. And the tension that I felt all throughout her book is
01:08:50
Speaker
There are a lot of things in the world that she grew up in that are sending her the wrong message or a narrow message. There is also a moment where she chooses to watch that movie 30 times.
01:09:08
Speaker
It's an uncomfortable place to say, maybe I do want to consume things that I know are not good for me.
Media Influence vs. Personal Choice
01:09:15
Speaker
But I also think one of the things about growing up and being an adult is realizing that you're not just the result of
01:09:24
Speaker
the things that were pushed at you. You're also picking things that you allow to push you. And so that was something that, I don't think that was the purpose of her book, but that I found myself thinking a lot through that book. And one of the quotes I was reminded of as I was thinking about that is a Joan Didion quote from Slouching Towards Bethlehem that I really love. And I'll just read part of it.
01:09:46
Speaker
for readers who aren't familiar with her or the work, but she says, I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind door at 4am of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, and who is going to make amends.
01:10:08
Speaker
And I try to do this with myself to remember 14-year-old Christy and 22-year-old Christy and 35-year-old Christy. And I try to remain on nodding terms with them, but also be glad that I'm not them anymore. And part of reading Kate Kennedy's book just made me glad that I'm not.
01:10:30
Speaker
them anymore, but I'm not sorry I was them, but I don't want to be them my whole life. That was something I thought about a lot. I really like that. Listeners, what did you think of One in a Millennial? Have you listened to Kate Kennedy's podcast, Be There in Five? What do you think about the millennial generation?
01:10:49
Speaker
Let us know by recording a voice memo and emailing it to openingquestion at gmail.com. You can also comment on our sub stack at bookclubsubstack.com. We will read your responses and play your voice memos on a feedback episode at the end of the season. Another question for you, have you looked at?
01:11:08
Speaker
really looked at the red of an apple recently. Our next book discussion will be on The Giver by Lois Lowry. Read with us. We'll release that episode in about a month, and you can get your copy by using the affiliate link in our show. The Book Club Podcast is produced by me, Carly Jackson. Music and audio editing by Alex Marcus. Special thanks to my guest, Kristi Lynn Horpidal. Thanks for listening.