The other day I worked on a movie set with a bunch of 18 to 20-somethings, most of whom were models. The day left me fervently hoping that what I saw was not representative of the youngest Millennials and oldest Gen Zers as a whole.
After briefly attempting to be social at the beginning of the day, I soon realized I had nothing in common with them. They were almost all late to work without so much as an apology, they never said thank you to anyone, and they all seemed to live under the notion that they should have everything they want, both professionally and personally, with little to no effort. So I drifted out of the conversation, becoming an observer rather than a participant, and went from bored to both fascinated and repelled.
After a conversation about whether STDs could be caught from kissing (the general consensus they arrived at was yes, and possibly also by sharing a water bottle), and one of them attempting and failing to start a conversation about how unfair it was that professionally-shot naked photos of him had leaked onto the internet by a gossip rag and how it was a violation of privacy, the conversation drifted to the college cheating scandal that's recently been in the news. How sad, they said, speaking of one of the actresses who lied and bribed her children's way into a top university, that "this poor woman" was being punished for something "she did out of love." They fully supported the actions of the parents who cheated their children into colleges, lamenting how unfair it is that society would try to punish the parents for such a selfless action (and marveling over how a TV star could have $500,000--must be her rich husband, they decided, who actually had the money. Eighty-five IMDB credits, including several multi-season hit shows, couldn't possible earn her much money). Resisting the urge to defend the ability of the actress in question to make her own bribery-worthy money, I couldn't help speaking up about how there are countless students who work hard, who study, who take college seriously and work to get in, and these parents took those students' spots away. While I understand the motivation behind an action a parent does to benefit their child, that in no way excuses it. There are students who put in the work and earned it, I said, and those are the students who should get the spots, not the ones whose parents have a ton of money to cheat.
"Oh, come on," one of the models said. "She shouldn't go to jail. She did it out of love. Listen. I had a teacher in high school who came around and would whisper the answers to us on tests. I mean, he helped me. He really helped. me. I mean, not intellectually, but he helped me graduate on time."
This statement was met with murmurs of approval from the others, and then the guy with the leaked naked photos suddenly shoved his phone in front of anyone.
"See! Look! Look at these photos! I mean, really!" he said wide-eyed, scrolling through, making sure everyone saw all of them. "I'm naked! And they just put them out!"
"Wait, I don't understand," one girl said. "What were the photos for? Were they for yourself?"
"NO! They were never supposed to get out. But they DID!" he said, mouth open in awe, passing his phone to her so she could get a better look at the privacy-invading naked pics.
"Oh," the girl replied, as if that explanation cleared things up.
A scene being shot on set that day seemed to go right along with their view on how wanting
something should be all it takes to get something. The scene featured a horrible dancer, in his 20s, auditioning for a show. Though the character was awful at dancing, when he didn't get the part, he went on a rant about how "if you don't recognize my talent, you don't deserve to have me." The show seemed to think this was a sympathetic point of view, because everyone applauds the statement. Yep. Never mind hard work. Never mind talent. Never mind earning something and succeeding at it. Just want it. That means you deserve it and anyone who doesn't agree and actually has standards deserves a public smack-down.
In the van on the way home, I couldn't help but eavesdrop on a conversation between naked-pic guy and another model:
"This guy I'm seeing hasn't texted me in hours. I mean, he texted me this morning, and I never replied, but I want him to send me a text like, 'Hey, I haven't heard from you all day; I'm worried.' You know? I mean, he should be worried that he hasn't heard from me. He should care that I haven't texted him back. So I'm not going to be the one to text first,” the guy declared indignantly.
"Hmm. Yeah," the girl said.
"Hey, do I have bags under my eyes in this photo?" the guy asked, abruptly changing gears.
"No... I think only if you look really close," the girl replied, studying his phone.
"So yeah, he hasn't texted me all day since his last text," the guy pouted.
"But he knows you're here, right? He knows you do this?"
"What--work?"
"Yeah."
"No, we don't talk about that kind of stuff."
"Oh, ok. ....Wait. You don't talk about what kind of stuff?"
"Work stuff."
"Why not?"
"I don't know."
"What does he think you do all day?"
"I don't know. But he's really sweet. Like, he texts me in the morning."
"And you're dating?"
"Yeah."
"Oh. Okay."
"I can't believe he hasn't texted me!"
"I think maybe you should text him like, 'Hey, I've been work--“
"Do you want to work out together at the gym? I mean, we won't actually work out, because I'm sure you'd be like 'Oh, I can't keep up with him,' but we can hang out together there."
"Do you think you can get an STD from using sweaty exercise equipment?"
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