Tag: Millennial

Washington Wizards to Offer Sports Gambling Broadcasts. Will My Attention Span Allow It?

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ESPN – The future of sports-betting-infused game broadcasts will be on display Friday, when the Washington Wizards host the Milwaukee Bucks. NBC Sports Washington Plus will produce an alternate broadcast for the Bucks-Wizards game that will feature a free-to-play predictive contest with a $500 prize, along with real-time sports-betting data and statistics that will be displayed on-screen throughout the broadcast. 

The predictive contest, “Predict the Game,” will ask approximately 30 questions throughout the game, such as: “Will Wizards forward Trevor Ariza score 10 or more points in the first half?” In addition, odds, point spreads and over/unders will be shown on broadcast graphics.

Inject this into my veins.

The only problem I can see with this is I already spend 75% of my time watching a game looking at Twitter. I can literally be looking up stats about the game, chirping opposing fans, or just tweeting out videos like the one of the Bears mascot literally dying on the field.

But that speaks to a larger issue with people as a whole; massive fragmentation of attention. This is the one area where Millennials really *are* the worst, albeit with good intentions.

We all try and do as many things as possible at once. We are masters of multitasking. We grew up with video games that required you to sneak past 20 armed guards, snipe a moving target’s face off from half a mile away, then escape an enemy base, all while collecting the necessary pieces of intel and disabling communications for enemy reinforcements. So anytime someone’s mom tries to tell me that video games are bad for kids I tell them to KICK ROCKS. Video games are the REASON I am able to focus on so many different objectives and deliverables all at once.

However, the downside of that is with my attention being pulled in so many directions I simply cannot sit down and do just one thing anymore. I can’t even tell you the last time I sat down and watched an entire game without picking up my phone or laptop. I guess high school? But even then you were IM-ing your buddies. It’s honestly like I graduated to better drugs because while in hindsight AIM wasn’t that great, I *still* get a rush of dopamine to the brain when I see this:

So am I excited for a gambling focused broadcast? Hell yes, in fact I’ve said for years that NFL games need to have alternative broadcasts featuring just a couple of guys f-bombing the coaches for bad decisions in between play-by-play. It would be like watching a game with your buddies, provide a little levity to sporting events that are already too serious at times, and ratchet up the entertainment value all at the same time. Would you rather watch that or Dan Fouts trying to remember where he left his keys?

2018 World Series vs 2013, An Excerpt from “Washed: Memoirs of a Millennial”

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When the Red Sox last made the World Series in 2013, Papa Giorgio and I were liquored up every night and hungover every morning. Our third roommate, god bless his heart, was a bartender right outside of Fenway so we would show up, throw down a $20 and just drink until the cows came home.

Now? I’m on the doorstep of 30 and guzzling coffees at night just to stay awake for the game. And I’m pretty jazzed to head up north for a little wine tasting at a vineyard tomorrow afternoon  I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but I have become Will Ferrell in Old School.

#WellActuallyPrettyNiceLittleSaturday

Genius and Condescending Marketing Has Millennials Everywhere Fired Up to Vote

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AOL – A campaign that aims to get millennials to register to vote turned heads by enlisting the help of actors posing as elderly, white Trump supporters. The ad, titled “They’re doing fine, are you?” was created as part of the Knock the Vote movement, started by ACRONYM, an organization that claims to be “the largest digital program focused on electing Democrats to state legislative seats across the country.”

In the cheeky one-minute PSA, a group of elderly white actors purported to be Trump supporters urges “young people” not to get out and vote on Election Day for a plethora of outrageous reasons.

This is A+ stuff. Whether you’re into politics or not, this video cuts right to the core. Don’t vote? Fuck you, I’ll vote twice. Well, not really since thats frowned upon, but you get the point. Tell me not to do something and the first thing I want to do is exactly that because I’m a golden retriever at heart.

It doesn’t matter how great of a marketing campaign any voting PSA creates though because none will ever top the GOAT.

Millennials Are Now Blamed for Ruining the U.S. Economy and I Say “Good”

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Yahoo – It’s that time of year, when students prepare to head back to the classroom. For many taking the next step in higher education, the question is increasingly, “Is it worth it?” Millions of millennials have already put off settling down because of the rising costs of servicing college debts to the detriment of economic growth. Student loans are now the second-largest category of household debt in America, topping $1.4 trillion and trailing only mortgages at $9 trillion..“You do stand to see longer-term negative effects on people who can’t pay off their student loans. It hurts their credit rating, it impacts the entire half of their economic life,” Powell said in March. “As this goes on and as student loans continue to grow and become larger and larger, then it absolutely could hold back growth.”

I’m like a junkie getting his fix when the latest “millennials ruined ___” story pops up. I need it like I need air. Baby boomers take every opportunity they can get to label millennials as lazy, entitled, poor tippers, unhealthy, delusional, they blame them for killing Applebees, Office Parks, as well as ruining fine institutions like Sears. In some sick twist of irony, we’re also apparently ruining college enrollment rates.

And now millennials are tasked with ruining the United States Economy.

Good.

Millennials get blamed for everything and when we respond with “we’re broke” we get slapped with articles saying the reason we can’t afford to buy a house is because we lack discipline and eat too much avocado toast.

So now the hens have come home to roost. Hey I’m not asking for a handout. My dumbass 17-year-old self signed that life altering contract filled with soul sucking student loan debts. Thats on me. Whether that should be allowed as an option for a teenager who just got their drivers license, yet still can’t buy a pack of smokes is a different question altogether.

But when millennials complain about anything we get told we need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, ignoring the fact that the generation before us literally killed social security and luxuries like “retirement” for their kids. Millennials basically just get the speech from The Departed.

Which is all fine, but when all of us 20 somethings with college degrees that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, just refuse to spend money on things like houses and cars and weddings because we literally cannot afford it; then the economy takes a hit. Then I laugh. Not because it solves anything, but because I’m a spiteful prick.

You want to see what corruption looks like? Look no further:

“From 2007 through 2017, the CPI rose by 21 percent. Over that same period, college tuition costs jumped 63 percent, school housing surged 51 percent and the price of textbooks by 88 percent.”

Textbook prices increased 88 PERCENT. How the fuck is that even possible? Ask anyone who ever went to college for anything other than law or medicine how many times they used their textbook. Almost never. Buying textbooks was the biggest scam going and I graduated years ago and now I’m learning that prices have only continued to rise?? Do yourself a favor kids;

  1. Go to state school and save your money, or better yet just punt on college and work a $30,000/year job and live like a debt-free king.
  2. If you insist on going to college and buying textbooks, don’t be a sheep. Just get the previous year’s edition on Amazon for probably 75% less than what the university is trying to sell you.

Other tidbits from this story;

“Korn Ferry puts the average starting salary for a 2018 college graduate at $50,390”

$50K out of the gates? Maybe the title of all these articles should just be focused on Communications and Journalism majors bringing down the economy because I can tell you I did not touch that salary level in my first job. Not even close.

“[Average starting salaries] up 2.8 percent from 2017, the just-released July Consumer Price Index report shows the inflation rate rose 2.9 percent over the last 12 months. Does the phrase “treading water” come to mind?”

So the minimal increases in salary that millennials are starting to earn immediately gets dwarfed by rising housing costs and inflation rates? Its definitely the avocado toast thats holding kids back goddamnit.