Whine Down with Jana KramerThere's much more to being a millennial than being nostalgic for AOL away messages and knowing which Hogwarts house you belong to! Jana talks to Kate Kennedy about the life lessons learned from the generation of burned CDs and MapQuest.
Kate shares her observations on how millennials make their own way in the workforce, and we find out what being a millennial means as the generation grows older and starts their own families.
Wind Down with Janet Kramer and I'm Heeart Radio podcast.
This week's Thursday Therapy. We're going to take a different spin on it and we're going to talk all about millennial with Kate Kennedy. So she actually got started, she actually got to quit her job because she made this famous doormat, and then she then quit her job. Now is writing books, has podcasts all about pop culture and millennial things. So considering, wait, are we have a millennial?
What? Oreay?
I actually need to know? That was one of my questions. No, I think we're we're supposed to be, but I don't count as a what nineteen eighty three is a what? Oh we had no more millennials? So it says, yeah, what's the cutoff? Ninety six? Friend, Yeah, we're goa nineteen eighty one, eighty two, but just into eighty two. I don't feel like I am a millennial. Oh friend, you are. If you dance to Usher on Super Bowl, you're a millennial. Let's get Kate on. Okay, So take us back because when I was your bio, I was like, wait, what what? You started selling doormats at sea and you were doing what job?
Then I worked in like corporate market research and like TV ratings and stuff and with like marketing effectness for advertisers. It's a lot of buzzwords. But I, like a lot of millennials, wanted to monetize my hobbies, you know, follow my dream my dumb dreams, And I started a doormat company when I was nervous about like burning down my apartment. You know that episode of Friends or a Phoebe where Rachel burns down BB's apartment with a straight or a hair straightener. So I started putting turn off your curling iron and turn off your straighter on doormat. So it's like a welcome map, but instead it reminds you of stuff on your way out. And called you a remind doormat. And they kind of took off for like forgetful people like me, And so, yeah, I left my job and I've kind of been swinging from vines of self employment ever since.
You just I mean, at first of all, I love that because you're trying to almost like you're inventing yourself as you go. That's at least what I'm trying to do. Good. I feel like I'm talking to a soulmate when I read your bio. First of all, I'm a huge fan of alliteration, So Kate Kennedy really hits me, feels real good to me. But for the dummies over here, alliteration is what like the same letter like Roman Russell, exactly like Roman Russell. So that's called hush fan alliteration. I love Lily Lionne Lockhart, legend wild.
He's the middle. That's her good.
Anyways, it was funny because I was like reading your bio and I'm like, I actually feel like you're my soulmate. Like it's this like jack of all trades, like just kind of going with the flow, seeing where it takes you.
And I like that about you. How old are you? I'm thirty six. Hey, so you're younger on the millennial side. Then no, wait, you're not.
I'm like the exact median, So it's eighty.
It's like eight right here, I've got eighty one to ninety six, Techne ninety six. Yeah, a gen Z is ninety seven to twenty twelve. But I feel like that's the millennial way we create. We create, we curate, we do, and we pave yeah and then we just figure it out. Yeah, and we like they linked along the way.
Absolutely.
I think what's so cool about millennials is like we were the first to you know create and thus to define what it meant to like have an online PERSONAA. Like we came of age during the Information Age, the most seismic, you know, technological shift of the twentieth century, the Internet, so like we built our dreams in a world that no longer exists. So I think there's some people that like really rooted themselves in the traditions and some people that were like, well, now all these opportunities are out there, like let me see if I can shape shiftft and pivot and kind of maximize it. And I hate when people view it as like job hopping or whatever. It's like, why wouldn't we harness opportunities available to us? So yeah, I've just tried a lot of stuff, and podcasting and writing is what's stuck.
The one after millennials, So they're called gen zs. Would you rather be a gen Z millennial or Generation X, which is exes sixty five to eighty I married an X.
Yeah, X is like they don't have people coming at them from both sides, like Boom or State millennials and Gen Z kind of makes fun of how cringey we are. But gen X, I feel like kind of chills in the middle. So I feel like that's nice for their Like Moniker, I don't know. I love being a millennial. The whole point of the book is like it's not inherently cringey to have been born between eighty three and ninety six. Like people give us a hard time for skinny jeans and side parts and whatever the hell else we do talking about like our Harry Potter houses or something. But I think that we're really dynamic because when we came of age and yeah, i'd be a millennial.
I so I never identified Mila millennia.
I should talk for a living, talking for a living, Gate, you don't like being a millennial.
I just have never identified as one. I'm sorry. Did you watch a Super Bowl and in that way?
Yeah? But I think it's like I was doing different things during Usher than like Kate was well when she was listening. Not something I'm gonna comment on at Eastern Michigan University, like Usher means something different to me than it does to her.
I mean I was grinding in middle school.
Wow, Kate middle school. I feel like everyone that's true.
We did no I was the TUTSI roll. We rolled, We didn't grind this. This is the most forty year old moment.
I two rolled. I get it cut.
But I did see this is very sidebar and we're going to get to your book. I promised, and we're going off on tangents. But I saw this really funny TikTok where it was like, you know, you're a millennial or basically mom too. When it's like she's like, we we raised the roof. We like, we did see roll. We like, there's who who said that? Somebody said it did it? Was it?
You?
Probably? But I can't. I wish people could see what you do when you're doing to dell.
Their roof. We tootsy rolled, we like.
There was so many of them, and I mean I was I was crying, laughing, like because I'm like, that's a millennial.
That's just what we did.
But I don't know, I personally prefer I like being a millennial. I don't know if I love gen zs. They seem a little give to me without working hard enough. It's kind of my some of them that I've come across, not to stereotype all of them. I think it is hard though, like what you're saying, and like you're stuck in between because I know I quit teaching. I remember my dad had a real moment with me because he thought I had ruined my life because I wouldn't get summers off direct quote, and and because dad said I would never make it if I didn't go to college. So I'm a failure. I went to college, and what am I doing with that big question mark? But it is interesting because I felt like I remember the job hopping being the thing, right, like a little shaming about the job hopping, and it was like, explain these jumps in your resume, and do people even do resumes anymore?
I don't know. I don't did job iping too.
It's like, okay, you know, in prior generations, maybe you could have a job for twenty five years because you could get like a pension.
They were like benefits.
But now, you know, especially a lot of millennials graduating, like the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, like you know, after the you know, late two thousands, like stock market crash, and like a ton of people got laid off, a ton of people couldn't find a job when they entered the workforce. So it's kind of a funny rhetoric that, like, we need to be loyal to companies on principles, but on principle, but what if companies have never been loyal to you, Like, shouldn't you look out for your best interest and go from job to job where it suits you. I don't really think that that's a bad thing, but traditional values kind of label it as a bad thing.
Yeah, he was definitely not happy with me, thought I made the worst decision of my life. I remember, and now teaching. Can you imagine like my teacher friends, I'm just like, bless their souls.
It's a lot, Oh, I got a lot. Yeah. Absolutely. In your book, One in a Millennial, what you like?
What's the thing that listeners are going to take the most from reading your book?
I think it's a kind of sits the intersection of two experiences, the generational one being a millennial, but also the a gender one related to being a female and how like the pop culture and me that I loved made me a product of my time as a millennial. But I also think there's a theme throughout girlhood, throughout womanhood where your interests are kind of dismissed, minimize. You're told things are insignificant, or you're told you simply emotionally responding to things as you being dramatic, and I kind of wanted to honor and really I kind of call it like, you know, verbally man spreading on the pages, like all of the experiences I felt like I should shrink or not be proud of or the things I loved that you know, we're too mainstream to be sophisticated. I kind of just wanted to own and encourage people to like like what you like instead of, you know, caring about being liked.
But that's the problem though with our generation, though, is we're kind of based off of likes because of the social media that we came into.
Yeah, we're very like, very external validation driven and in social media just yeah, app compounds to the issue, and I think that's kind of part of it. Is Like, don't you feel like as you've gotten older, there's you more confidence in ownership and like who you are, but you at least I can only speak for myself. I spent my whole life so deeply concerned with how people perceived me, and now I just kind of want to hug myself, you know, and be like like your top forty music dress up like this.
Wise girls live your life.
Yeah, wear what you want. I wonder this, do you feel like? This?
Is something I wonder often.
So Janna and I both have three kids and they're all basically the same ages, and our girls lead the charge.
They are eight years old now, and.
I wonder do you feel like our dog will ever feel what we have felt? Because I actually resonate with what you're saying. I think it was like almost like dream but dream private because exactly it was a very like it was a man a man's man's world. I mean it was just I mean that's just culture, right, that's fact, not opinion. So it's interesting because I wonder, then, do you think our daughters?
Do you have kids?
Kate?
Yeah, oh you do? What do you have?
I just had a baby in August? So I have a five month six month old son.
Noll. Okay, congratulations the three of us for even talking publicly while being recorded in postpartum, all three of us. And then yeah, I am just sweating all the time right now, not ever since I gave birth, and I never stopped.
It's okay, I was just telling her.
I was like, I stink like the smellingness because I'm six Sorry, jeez, I'm three months postpartum.
I can't talk.
Yeah, and I'm eight months and still sweating. So and then I decided to wear like an actual sweater suit today to try to be festive. So do you feel like then our kids grow up even knowing that like it. It feels refreshing to me that they may never like our girls specifically, may never feel that way because we've really taken the narrative in a different direction. I think every like generation has their own pluses and minuses. Like I think one great thing about growing up now it's like, yeah, you have the con of social media at a formative age, but you have the plus of mental health being an open conversation. I think what's unique about being a millennial is, like, you know, we had all the social media came out of nowhere like halfway through our adolescence, and we weren't talking about mental health. So the harsh level of comparison paired with like, you know, me not understanding the difference between butterflies and like an anxiety disorder, like that didn't work in our favor. So I have hope for younger people that there's a more more transparency around like how you're internalizing the things young girls go through and hopefully more working through it than avoiding it than feeling ashamed. But I also like researched a lot for this book about that age you're talking about eight, And I thought, and I think the themes of girlhood like kind of transcend generations. I read this book called The Confidence Code for Girls, and it talks about how from ages nine to fourteen, girls confidence like nose dives and young boys rises.
And I think that tween age is so interesting. And I came back a book I came across a quote that like stopped me in my tracks. It was if life was one long grade school, girls would rule the world because girls are like so disproportionately amazingly confident, and then these things like in society kind of break down that confidence as they go through puberty. And I think there's still a big message there, like for myself as a parent too, in terms of thinking like keeping that that kind of confidence of girlhood alive and not making them feel like they need to age out of certain hobbies or interests or I don't know, you know that age when all of a sudden, you're not looking at the world and where you're like staring into a mirror. You're like in dressing rooms, you're so you're aware of boys and all these things. I wrote a lot about that time period in Girlhood because I think that's something everybody and relate to. Things really do change. But I love that wistful age of yeah, seven eight, when you're like on a fact finding mission about the world that you don't have access to yet and.
I'm so unafraid.
Yeah, And the quote that I always go back to is who were you before the world told you any different?
You know?
So it's like, yeah, And that's where it's I'm very mindful of, like trying to be careful the words that I say, especially because I'm like, I don't want to be the reason why, you know, my kids feel a certain way, because I'm the one telling them things. Right. So, when I was getting on Jolly the other day for not she just leaves gobs of toothpaste in the sink, and I'm like, for the love of God, animals, please wash. But I'm like, you know, and I'm like, but I have to watch it too. Because I'm like, god, what, like what are you thinking? You know, like that's what I want to say, because it's just it's I don't understand how they they're just so messy, but I'm really their fear at her age, right, So I was afraid all the time to leave a mess because it was so catas strophic. On the other side of things, anything that was just childlike or innocent would just became catastrophic and I should know better and very like shaming mm hmm.
And so it's very I I do the same thing.
Do you remember that, oh, very early, probably like six six, Yeah, very interesting. But it is like how do you then like you don't want to go opposite, like, oh, just leave the leave the mess.
I know, I know. Then you're just they're not. I don't know. So that's just like that's hard.
I feel like we're all I think our age essentially, especially when it comes to parenting, feels like we're like bowling without bumpers and we're just trying to like keep it like if we hit any pins, it's a win. It's kind of how I feel right now, because you know, like there's just so much coming at us, so much coming at them. We're parenting. We have nobody to lean into that's ever parented with the amount of information that comes at us or technology, so we are essentially like the We're the ones everyone will look to to start to ask, but we know nothing and everything at the same time.
Totally when I had when I became a mom, everyone told me about mother's instinct, which I do have like in some cases, but I feel like my desire to look for the right answer will like override my instinct, and like my instinct is to google it.
That's it.
Yeah, it's like over analyzing everything because we just because our scar tissue gets.
In the way.
But let us not forget. We had map Quest, okay, and I love the lime wire. We had LimeWire and all the things, you know, because map Quest got me so busted. One time, my best friend and I printed out directions to Michigan State and left them on the desk and her mom found them and then asked what we were doing that night, and We're like totally going to Becky's and she was like, that's interesting, what's this paper copy?
Early lessons of never having a paper trail and I got in trouble for printing out the lyrics to Shaggy's it Isn't Me and I laughed thinking about my mom seeing in the printer tray like shorty calm butt naked like banging on the bathroom floor. You remember that song? I don't know I rented.
I think I wanted to memorize it. Why were you printing nick ka, This is a question memori know. We never she wanted to memorize it.
Did you guys use AOL instant messenger?
Yeah, that's how I talked to him, like the high school boyfriends, and the away message mattered, Oh it did. It was like when we broke right, I'm done away message.
That's so something that would be, that's like, that's you. Mine was like I'm the best day ever.
B RB.
Some people use them to share like how busy they were, like you know, school, feball church, hit the cell. And then some people you like, would put up vague emo quotes like my hopes are so high that your kids might kill me, So won't you kill me? So well die happy? You remember like dashboard, which is so extreme, But I did that. I would like be passive aggressive about my feelings toward boys via away message Kate hot girl move was going idle and being like, I'm so busy.
I'm great out on your buddy list.
That's what I can't wait to teach Jolie. It's like they like, you don't need to do all that, Like it's just don't be available, you know, because that's when they want you if you're two And just like I wish I just enjoyed high school. I was always up on my high school sweetheart and worrying about making sure he was okay. And I'm like, I should just been with my girlfriends. Well we learned it later. Yeah, we'll pass away later. Yeah, okay. Kate, so you have a book once in a millennial you also have a podcast be there in five?
Is that correct?
Which I just enjoy feels very millennialist, a millennial ish. What is what's your like dream of all dreams? If you could like unapologetically no filter, what does Kate want to do next?
WWKD?
You know what's so crazy? And this isn't even like a promotional shtick. Is like writing that one and Emilia was my dream and like I'm kind of a random person, non celebrity podcaster who had trouble getting through a lot of gatekeepers to like get my work out there, and being able to write a book about like things, all things girlish and frivolous and pop culture related is just like such a moment of pride for me. And it's been really really cool. Like to your point about LimeWire, like the cover is a burned CD. I mean it's just so I love being able to share the experiences I've learned from my listeners over the years. And I mean, I'm sure you guys can relate. Podcasting is a great gig. It's a really cool job, and I hope to be able to do it for a while. But with internet careers, you never know. So what's next for me is sustainability of what I have when I get to the church.
Said amen, And Kate, where can our listeners find you?
You can find me at my podcast be there in five wherever podcasts are, and my Instagram is at Kate Kennedy and yeah by one on a one know wherever books are sold. Or the audiobook Nine Months Pregnant, That was a journey.
I love it.
So we're a little out of breath then, because I would I was, I was doing mine when I was like, still nauseous, and I was.
Like and then he like that wanted to like you. It's tough.
Well, thank you Kate so much for coming on mine down. We appreciate, We appreciate you, and everyone go download her podcast and then get her book, One in a Millennial. Thank you guys, Thanks girl, Appreciate you, k Kye.
I Love Kate
