Build Notes: The 1989ers
Tonight I'm gonna dance, for all that we've been through.
Let’s say for a moment that you and I had been born in 1904.
We’re looking pretty good for 116 years old!
The experience of this pandemic wouldn’t be new to us. We would have vivid memories of the Spanish Flu, as well as outbreaks of polio and tuberculosis. World War I happened in our teenage years. The Great Depression started in our mid-20s. And World War II arrived when we were in our late 30s.
By the end of that war, people born in 1904 were 41 years old. They had already endured many lifetimes’ worth of grief, hardship, and displacement. They were now in positions of authority in business and government. They attempted to bring a lasting peace to the world. In some places, and for some people, there was an era of stability and prosperity.
Now let’s catch up with the people born in 1989, which was roughly the peak birth year of the so-called Millennial generation in the US.
Taylor Swift was born in 1989 and made an album about it. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was also born in 1989.
This group lived through 9/11 at age 12. The Second Iraq War happened at age 14. The global financial crisis of 2008 showed up during college. And now, all of this.
In 2030, the 1989ers will be 41 years old. And by 2030, the US will attain a demographic milestone - for the first time, no one racial group will make up an absolute majority of the population. This leadership cohort will be the best educated, and the most diverse in terms of race and gender, in American history.
We haven’t met many of these young leaders. Right now they are still rising through the organizations in which they currently work or practice. Some of them, as with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez before her 2018 election, might still be tending bar.
The coming rise of this group is no excuse for the rest of us to sit around, waiting for them to fix everything. But if you have a 1989er in your life, it won’t hurt to go ahead and thank them in advance, for saving the world.
Update: The Irish/Native American Alliance
This past spring, I reported on a donation of $2 million that the Irish people made to the Navajo and Hopi Nations in support of their fight against COVID. The gift was in return for support that poor Choctaw people had provided to the Irish during the potato famine in the 1840s.
Now, the Irish national men’s lacrosse team have given up their spot in the World Games in the summer of 2022 so that the Iroquois Nationals, whose people invented the game, can compete in their place:
In gratitude, the Iroquois Nationals have temporarily changed the colors of their logo to the Irish national colors, and tweeted a message in Gaelic:
That’s 175 years of solidarity. Together as one, indeed.
Checking In With The 1989ers
So what’s happening these days with that save-the-world crowd, anyway?
Daniel Radcliffe (born 23 Jul 1989), who played Harry Potter in the epic film series, reports that he’s been passing the time in quarantine by building massive Lego sets (video is 2 minutes):
Victoria Azarenka (born 31 Jul 1989), Belarusian tennis player, just advanced to the semifinals of the US Open after defeating Elise Mertens 6-1, 6-0 last evening.
This is extremely niche content for about 2-3 people in this audience, but professional baseball player Freddie Freeman (whose 31st birthday is this Saturday) hit the first grand slam of his career last week, after playing pro ball for 10 years (video is 1 minute):
And Finally…
I’m a train nerd. I think trains are good, and we should build more of them. In Germany, they’ve had a flying suspended train in the town of Wuppertal since 1901. This vintage film of the train’s early days, just restored and released by New York’s Museum of Modern Art, is amazing. (Video is 2 minutes.)
Stay fly this week, dear friends.
- Michael
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